Can Such Things Be?, by Ambrose Bierce—A Project Gutenberg eBook (2025)

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Title: Can Such Things Be?

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Release Date: August 14, 2019 [eBook #4366]
[This file was first posted on January 17, 2002]
[Most recently updated: March 29, 2022]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

Produced by: DavidPrice, email [emailprotected] from the 1918 Boni and Liveright edition

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAN SUCH THINGS BE? ***

BY
AMBROSE BIERCE

BONI & LIVERIGHT
NEW YORK 1918

Copyright, 1909, by
The Neale Publishing Company

CONTENTS

p. 13THEDEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER

I

For by death is wrought greater change than hathbeen shown. Whereas in general the spirit that removedcometh back upon occasion, and is sometimes seen of those inflesh (appearing in the form of the body it bore) yet it hathhappened that the veritable body without the spirit hathwalked. And it is attested of those encountering who havelived to speak thereon that a lich so raised up hath no naturalaffection, nor remembrance thereof, but only hate. Also, itis known that some spirits which in life were benign become bydeath evil altogether.—Hali.

One dark night in midsummer a manwaking from a dreamless sleep in a forest lifted his head fromthe earth, and staring a few moments into the blackness, said:“Catherine Larue.” He said nothing more; noreason was known to him why he should have said so much.

The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, butwhere he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead. One whopractices sleeping in the woods with nothing under him but thedry leaves and the damp earth, and nothing over him but thebranches from which the leaves have fallen and the sky from whichthe earth has fallen, cannot hope for great longevity, andFrayser had already attained the age of thirty-two. Thereare persons in this world, millions of persons, and far and awaythe best persons, who regard that as a very advanced age.They are the children. To those who view the voyage of lifefrom the port of departure the bark that has accomplished anyconsiderable distance appears already in close approach to thefarther shore. However, it is not certain that HalpinFrayser came to his death by exposure.

He had been all day in the hills west of the Napa Valley,looking for doves and such small game as was in season.Late in the afternoon it had come on to be cloudy, and he hadlost his bearings; and although he had only to go alwaysdownhill—everywhere the way to safety when one islost—the absence of trails had so impeded him that he wasovertaken by night while still in the forest. Unable in thedarkness to penetrate the thickets of manzanita and otherundergrowth, utterly bewildered and overcome with fatigue, he hadlain down near the root of a large madroño and fallen intoa dreamless sleep. It was hours later, in the very middleof the night, that one of God’s mysterious messengers,gliding ahead of the incalculable host of his companions sweepingwestward with the dawn line, pronounced the awakening word in theear of the sleeper, who sat upright and spoke, he knew not why, aname, he knew not whose.

Halpin Frayser was not much of a philosopher, nor ascientist. The circumstance that, waking from a deep sleepat night in the midst of a forest, he had spoken aloud a namethat he had not in memory and hardly had in mind did not arousean enlightened curiosity to investigate the phenomenon. Hethought it odd, and with a little perfunctory shiver, as if indeference to a seasonal presumption that the night was chill, helay down again and went to sleep. But his sleep was nolonger dreamless.

He thought he was walking along a dusty road that showed whitein the gathering darkness of a summer night. Whence andwhither it led, and why he traveled it, he did not know, thoughall seemed simple and natural, as is the way in dreams; for inthe Land Beyond the Bed surprises cease from troubling and thejudgment is at rest. Soon he came to a parting of the ways;leading from the highway was a road less traveled, having theappearance, indeed, of having been long abandoned, because, hethought, it led to something evil; yet he turned into it withouthesitation, impelled by some imperious necessity.

As he pressed forward he became conscious that his way washaunted by invisible existences whom he could not definitelyfigure to his mind. From among the trees on either side hecaught broken and incoherent whispers in a strange tongue whichyet he partly understood. They seemed to him fragmentaryutterances of a monstrous conspiracy against his body andsoul.

It was now long after nightfall, yet the interminable forestthrough which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having nopoint of diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing casta shadow. A shallow pool in the guttered depression of anold wheel rut, as from a recent rain, met his eye with a crimsongleam. He stooped and plunged his hand into it. Itstained his fingers; it was blood! Blood, he then observed,was about him everywhere. The weeds growing rankly by theroadside showed it in blots and splashes on their big, broadleaves. Patches of dry dust between the wheelways werepitted and spattered as with a red rain. Defiling thetrunks of the trees were broad maculations of crimson, and blooddripped like dew from their foliage.

All this he observed with a terror which seemed notincompatible with the fulfillment of a natural expectation.It seemed to him that it was all in expiation of some crimewhich, though conscious of his guilt, he could not rightlyremember. To the menaces and mysteries of his surroundingsthe consciousness was an added horror. Vainly he sought bytracing life backward in memory, to reproduce the moment of hissin; scenes and incidents came crowding tumultuously into hismind, one picture effacing another, or commingling with it inconfusion and obscurity, but nowhere could he catch a glimpse ofwhat he sought. The failure augmented his terror; he feltas one who has murdered in the dark, not knowing whom norwhy. So frightful was the situation—the mysteriouslight burned with so silent and awful a menace; the noxiousplants, the trees that by common consent are invested with amelancholy or baleful character, so openly in his sight conspiredagainst his peace; from overhead and all about came so audibleand startling whispers and the sighs of creatures so obviouslynot of earth—that he could endure it no longer, and with agreat effort to break some malign spell that bound his facultiesto silence and inaction, he shouted with the full strength of hislungs! His voice broken, it seemed, into an infinitemultitude of unfamiliar sounds, went babbling and stammering awayinto the distant reaches of the forest, died into silence, andall was as before. But he had made a beginning atresistance and was encouraged. He said:

“I will not submit unheard. There may be powersthat are not malignant traveling this accursed road. Ishall leave them a record and an appeal. I shall relate mywrongs, the persecutions that I endure—I, a helplessmortal, a penitent, an unoffending poet!” HalpinFrayser was a poet only as he was a penitent: in his dream.

Taking from his clothing a small red-leather pocketbook,one-half of which was leaved for memoranda, he discovered that hewas without a pencil. He broke a twig from a bush, dippedit into a pool of blood and wrote rapidly. He had hardlytouched the paper with the point of his twig when a low, wildpeal of laughter broke out at a measureless distance away, andgrowing ever louder, seemed approaching ever nearer; a soulless,heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of the loon, solitary bythe lakeside at midnight; a laugh which culminated in anunearthly shout close at hand, then died away by slow gradations,as if the accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over theverge of the world whence it had come. But the man feltthat this was not so—that it was near by and had notmoved.

A strange sensation began slowly to take possession of hisbody and his mind. He could not have said which, if any, ofhis senses was affected; he felt it rather as aconsciousness—a mysterious mental assurance of someoverpowering presence—some supernatural malevolencedifferent in kind from the invisible existences that swarmedabout him, and superior to them in power. He knew that ithad uttered that hideous laugh. And now it seemed to beapproaching him; from what direction he did not know—darednot conjecture. All his former fears were forgotten ormerged in the gigantic terror that now held him in thrall.Apart from that, he had but one thought: to complete his writtenappeal to the benign powers who, traversing the haunted wood,might some time rescue him if he should be denied the blessing ofannihilation. He wrote with terrible rapidity, the twig inhis fingers rilling blood without renewal; but in the middle of asentence his hands denied their service to his will, his armsfell to his sides, the book to the earth; and powerless to moveor cry out, he found himself staring into the sharply drawn faceand blank, dead eyes of his own mother, standing white and silentin the garments of the grave!

p.21II

In his youth Halpin Frayser hadlived with his parents in Nashville, Tennessee. TheFraysers were well-to-do, having a good position in such societyas had survived the wreck wrought by civil war. Theirchildren had the social and educational opportunities of theirtime and place, and had responded to good associations andinstruction with agreeable manners and cultivated minds.Halpin being the youngest and not over robust was perhaps atrifle “spoiled.” He had the doubledisadvantage of a mother’s assiduity and a father’sneglect. Frayser père was what no Southern man ofmeans is not—a politician. His country, or rather hissection and State, made demands upon his time and attention soexacting that to those of his family he was compelled to turn anear partly deafened by the thunder of the political captains andthe shouting, his own included.

Young Halpin was of a dreamy, indolent and rather romanticturn, somewhat more addicted to literature than law, theprofession to which he was bred. Among those of hisrelations who professed the modern faith of heredity it was wellunderstood that in him the character of the late Myron Bayne, amaternal great-grandfather, had revisited the glimpses of themoon—by which orb Bayne had in his lifetime beensufficiently affected to be a poet of no small Colonialdistinction. If not specially observed, it was observablethat while a Frayser who was not the proud possessor of asumptuous copy of the ancestral “poetical works”(printed at the family expense, and long ago withdrawn from aninhospitable market) was a rare Frayser indeed, there was anillogical indisposition to honor the great deceased in the personof his spiritual successor. Halpin was pretty generallydeprecated as an intellectual black sheep who was likely at anymoment to disgrace the flock by bleating in meter. TheTennessee Fraysers were a practical folk—not practical inthe popular sense of devotion to sordid pursuits, but having arobust contempt for any qualities unfitting a man for thewholesome vocation of politics.

In justice to young Halpin it should be said that while in himwere pretty faithfully reproduced most of the mental and moralcharacteristics ascribed by history and family tradition to thefamous Colonial bard, his succession to the gift and facultydivine was purely inferential. Not only had he never beenknown to court the muse, but in truth he could not have writtencorrectly a line of verse to save himself from the Killer of theWise. Still, there was no knowing when the dormant facultymight wake and smite the lyre.

In the meantime the young man was rather a loose fish,anyhow. Between him and his mother was the most perfectsympathy, for secretly the lady was herself a devout disciple ofthe late and great Myron Bayne, though with the tact so generallyand justly admired in her sex (despite the hardy calumniators whoinsist that it is essentially the same thing as cunning) she hadalways taken care to conceal her weakness from all eyes but thoseof him who shared it. Their common guilt in respect of thatwas an added tie between them. If in Halpin’s youthhis mother had “spoiled” him, he had assuredly donehis part toward being spoiled. As he grew to such manhoodas is attainable by a Southerner who does not care which wayelections go the attachment between him and his beautifulmother—whom from early childhood he had calledKaty—became yearly stronger and more tender. In thesetwo romantic natures was manifest in a signal way that neglectedphenomenon, the dominance of the sexual element in all therelations of life, strengthening, softening, and beautifying eventhose of consanguinity. The two were nearly inseparable,and by strangers observing their manner were not infrequentlymistaken for lovers.

Entering his mother’s boudoir one day Halpin Frayserkissed her upon the forehead, toyed for a moment with a lock ofher dark hair which had escaped from its confining pins, andsaid, with an obvious effort at calmness:

“Would you greatly mind, Katy, if I were called away toCalifornia for a few weeks?”

It was hardly needful for Katy to answer with her lips aquestion to which her telltale cheeks had made instantreply. Evidently she would greatly mind; and the tears,too, sprang into her large brown eyes as corroborativetestimony.

“Ah, my son,” she said, looking up into his facewith infinite tenderness, “I should have known that thiswas coming. Did I not lie awake a half of the night weepingbecause, during the other half, Grandfather Bayne had come to mein a dream, and standing by his portrait—young, too, andhandsome as that—pointed to yours on the same wall?And when I looked it seemed that I could not see the features;you had been painted with a face cloth, such as we put upon thedead. Your father has laughed at me, but you and I, dear,know that such things are not for nothing. And I saw belowthe edge of the cloth the marks of hands on yourthroat—forgive me, but we have not been used to keep suchthings from each other. Perhaps you have anotherinterpretation. Perhaps it does not mean that you will goto California. Or maybe you will take me withyou?”

It must be confessed that this ingenious interpretation of thedream in the light of newly discovered evidence did not whollycommend itself to the son’s more logical mind; he had, forthe moment at least, a conviction that it foreshadowed a moresimple and immediate, if less tragic, disaster than a visit tothe Pacific Coast. It was Halpin Frayser’s impressionthat he was to be garroted on his native heath.

“Are there not medicinal springs in California?”Mrs. Frayser resumed before he had time to give her the truereading of the dream—“places where one recovers fromrheumatism and neuralgia? Look—my fingers feel sostiff; and I am almost sure they have been giving me great painwhile I slept.”

She held out her hands for his inspection. Whatdiagnosis of her case the young man may have thought it best toconceal with a smile the historian is unable to state, but forhimself he feels bound to say that fingers looking less stiff,and showing fewer evidences of even insensible pain, have seldombeen submitted for medical inspection by even the fairest patientdesiring a prescription of unfamiliar scenes.

The outcome of it was that of these two odd persons havingequally odd notions of duty, the one went to California, as theinterest of his client required, and the other remained at homein compliance with a wish that her husband was scarcely consciousof entertaining.

While in San Francisco Halpin Frayser was walking one darknight along the water front of the city, when, with a suddennessthat surprised and disconcerted him, he became a sailor. Hewas in fact “shanghaied” aboard a gallant, gallantship, and sailed for a far countree. Nor did hismisfortunes end with the voyage; for the ship was cast ashore onan island of the South Pacific, and it was six years afterwardwhen the survivors were taken off by a venturesome tradingschooner and brought back to San Francisco.

Though poor in purse, Frayser was no less proud in spirit thanhe had been in the years that seemed ages and ages ago. Hewould accept no assistance from strangers, and it was whileliving with a fellow survivor near the town of St. Helena,awaiting news and remittances from home, that he had gone gunningand dreaming.

p.28III

The apparition confronting thedreamer in the haunted wood—the thing so like, yet sounlike his mother—was horrible! It stirred no lovenor longing in his heart; it came unattended with pleasantmemories of a golden past—inspired no sentiment of anykind; all the finer emotions were swallowed up in fear. Hetried to turn and run from before it, but his legs were as lead;he was unable to lift his feet from the ground. His armshung helpless at his sides; of his eyes only he retained control,and these he dared not remove from the lusterless orbs of theapparition, which he knew was not a soul without a body, but thatmost dreadful of all existences infesting that hauntedwood—a body without a soul! In its blank stare wasneither love, nor pity, nor intelligence—nothing to whichto address an appeal for mercy. “An appeal will notlie,” he thought, with an absurd reversion to professionalslang, making the situation more horrible, as the fire of a cigarmight light up a tomb.

For a time, which seemed so long that the world grew gray withage and sin, and the haunted forest, having fulfilled its purposein this monstrous culmination of its terrors, vanished out of hisconsciousness with all its sights and sounds, the apparitionstood within a pace, regarding him with the mindless malevolenceof a wild brute; then thrust its hands forward and sprang uponhim with appalling ferocity! The act released his physicalenergies without unfettering his will; his mind was stillspellbound, but his powerful body and agile limbs, endowed with ablind, insensate life of their own, resisted stoutly andwell. For an instant he seemed to see this unnaturalcontest between a dead intelligence and a breathing mechanismonly as a spectator—such fancies are in dreams; then heregained his identity almost as if by a leap forward into hisbody, and the straining automaton had a directing will as alertand fierce as that of its hideous antagonist.

But what mortal can cope with a creature of his dream?The imagination creating the enemy is already vanquished; thecombat’s result is the combat’s cause. Despitehis struggles—despite his strength and activity, whichseemed wasted in a void, he felt the cold fingers close upon histhroat. Borne backward to the earth, he saw above him thedead and drawn face within a hand’s breadth of his own, andthen all was black. A sound as of the beating of distantdrums—a murmur of swarming voices, a sharp, far cry signingall to silence, and Halpin Frayser dreamed that he was dead.

p.31IV

A warm, clear night had beenfollowed by a morning of drenching fog. At about the middleof the afternoon of the preceding day a little whiff of lightvapor—a mere thickening of the atmosphere, the ghost of acloud—had been observed clinging to the western side ofMount St. Helena, away up along the barren altitudes near thesummit. It was so thin, so diaphanous, so like a fancy madevisible, that one would have said: “Look quickly! in amoment it will be gone.”

In a moment it was visibly larger and denser. While withone edge it clung to the mountain, with the other it reachedfarther and farther out into the air above the lowerslopes. At the same time it extended itself to north andsouth, joining small patches of mist that appeared to come out ofthe mountainside on exactly the same level, with an intelligentdesign to be absorbed. And so it grew and grew until thesummit was shut out of view from the valley, and over the valleyitself was an ever-extending canopy, opaque and gray. AtCalistoga, which lies near the head of the valley and the foot ofthe mountain, there were a starless night and a sunlessmorning. The fog, sinking into the valley, had reachedsouthward, swallowing up ranch after ranch, until it had blottedout the town of St. Helena, nine miles away. The dust inthe road was laid; trees were adrip with moisture; birds satsilent in their coverts; the morning light was wan and ghastly,with neither color nor fire.

Two men left the town of St. Helena at the first glimmer ofdawn, and walked along the road northward up the valley towardCalistoga. They carried guns on their shoulders, yet no onehaving knowledge of such matters could have mistaken them forhunters of bird or beast. They were a deputy sheriff fromNapa and a detective from San Francisco—Holker andJaralson, respectively. Their business was man-hunting.

“How far is it?” inquired Holker, as they strodealong, their feet stirring white the dust beneath the dampsurface of the road.

“The White Church? Only a half milefarther,” the other answered. “By theway,” he added, “it is neither white nor a church; itis an abandoned schoolhouse, gray with age and neglect.Religious services were once held in it—when it was white,and there is a graveyard that would delight a poet. Can youguess why I sent for you, and told you to come heeled?”

“Oh, I never have bothered you about things of thatkind. I’ve always found you communicative when thetime came. But if I may hazard a guess, you want me to helpyou arrest one of the corpses in the graveyard.”

“You remember Branscom?” said Jaralson, treatinghis companion’s wit with the inattention that itdeserved.

“The chap who cut his wife’s throat? Iought; I wasted a week’s work on him and had my expensesfor my trouble. There is a reward of five hundred dollars,but none of us ever got a sight of him. You don’tmean to say—”

“Yes, I do. He has been under the noses of youfellows all the time. He comes by night to the oldgraveyard at the White Church.”

“The devil! That’s where they buried hiswife.”

“Well, you fellows might have had sense enough tosuspect that he would return to her grave some time.”

“The very last place that anyone would have expected himto return to.”

“But you had exhausted all the other places.Learning your failure at them, I ‘laid for him’there.”

“And you found him?”

“Damn it! he found me. The rascal got thedrop on me—regularly held me up and made me travel.It’s God’s mercy that he didn’t go throughme. Oh, he’s a good one, and I fancy the half of thatreward is enough for me if you’re needy.”

Holker laughed good humoredly, and explained that hiscreditors were never more importunate.

“I wanted merely to show you the ground, and arrange aplan with you,” the detective explained. “Ithought it as well for us to be heeled, even indaylight.”

“The man must be insane,” said the deputysheriff. “The reward is for his capture andconviction. If he’s mad he won’t beconvicted.”

Mr. Holker was so profoundly affected by that possible failureof justice that he involuntarily stopped in the middle of theroad, then resumed his walk with abated zeal.

“Well, he looks it,” assented Jaralson.“I’m bound to admit that a more unshaven, unshorn,unkempt, and uneverything wretch I never saw outside the ancientand honorable order of tramps. But I’ve gone in forhim, and can’t make up my mind to let go.There’s glory in it for us, anyhow. Not another soulknows that he is this side of the Mountains of theMoon.”

“All right,” Holker said; “we will go andview the ground,” and he added, in the words of a oncefavorite inscription for tombstones: “‘where you mustshortly lie’—I mean, if old Branscom ever gets tiredof you and your impertinent intrusion. By the way, I heardthe other day that ‘Branscom’ was not his realname.”

“What is?”

“I can’t recall it. I had lost all interestin the wretch, and it did not fix itself in mymemory—something like Pardee. The woman whose throathe had the bad taste to cut was a widow when he met her.She had come to California to look up some relatives—thereare persons who will do that sometimes. But you know allthat.”

“Naturally.”

“But not knowing the right name, by what happyinspiration did you find the right grave? The man who toldme what the name was said it had been cut on theheadboard.”

“I don’t know the right grave.”Jaralson was apparently a trifle reluctant to admit his ignoranceof so important a point of his plan. “I have beenwatching about the place generally. A part of our work thismorning will be to identify that grave. Here is the WhiteChurch.”

For a long distance the road had been bordered by fields onboth sides, but now on the left there was a forest of oaks,madroños, and gigantic spruces whose lower parts onlycould be seen, dim and ghostly in the fog. The undergrowthwas, in places, thick, but nowhere impenetrable. For somemoments Holker saw nothing of the building, but as they turnedinto the woods it revealed itself in faint gray outline throughthe fog, looking huge and far away. A few steps more, andit was within an arm’s length, distinct, dark withmoisture, and insignificant in size. It had the usualcountry-schoolhouse form—belonged to the packing-box orderof architecture; had an underpinning of stones, a moss-grownroof, and blank window spaces, whence both glass and sash hadlong departed. It was ruined, but not a ruin—atypical Californian substitute for what are known toguide-bookers abroad as “monuments of thepast.” With scarcely a glance at this uninterestingstructure Jaralson moved on into the dripping undergrowthbeyond.

“I will show you where he held me up,” hesaid. “This is the graveyard.”

Here and there among the bushes were small inclosurescontaining graves, sometimes no more than one. They wererecognized as graves by the discolored stones or rotting boardsat head and foot, leaning at all angles, some prostrate; by theruined picket fences surrounding them; or, infrequently, by themound itself showing its gravel through the fallen leaves.In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestigesof some poor mortal—who, leaving “a large circle ofsorrowing friends,” had been left by them inturn—except a depression in the earth, more lasting thanthat in the spirits of the mourners. The paths, if anypaths had been, were long obliterated; trees of a considerablesize had been permitted to grow up from the graves and thrustaside with root or branch the inclosing fences. Over allwas that air of abandonment and decay which seems nowhere so fitand significant as in a village of the forgotten dead.

As the two men, Jaralson leading, pushed their way through thegrowth of young trees, that enterprising man suddenly stopped andbrought up his shotgun to the height of his breast, uttered a lownote of warning, and stood motionless, his eyes fixed uponsomething ahead. As well as he could, obstructed by brush,his companion, though seeing nothing, imitated the posture and sostood, prepared for what might ensue. A moment laterJaralson moved cautiously forward, the other following.

Under the branches of an enormous spruce lay the dead body ofa man. Standing silent above it they noted such particularsas first strike the attention—the face, the attitude, theclothing; whatever most promptly and plainly answers the unspokenquestion of a sympathetic curiosity.

The body lay upon its back, the legs wide apart. One armwas thrust upward, the other outward; but the latter was bentacutely, and the hand was near the throat. Both hands weretightly clenched. The whole attitude was that of desperatebut ineffectual resistance to—what?

Near by lay a shotgun and a game bag through the meshes ofwhich was seen the plumage of shot birds. All about wereevidences of a furious struggle; small sprouts of poison-oak werebent and denuded of leaf and bark; dead and rotting leaves hadbeen pushed into heaps and ridges on both sides of the legs bythe action of other feet than theirs; alongside the hips wereunmistakable impressions of human knees.

The nature of the struggle was made clear by a glance at thedead man’s throat and face. While breast and handswere white, those were purple—almost black. Theshoulders lay upon a low mound, and the head was turned back atan angle otherwise impossible, the expanded eyes staring blanklybackward in a direction opposite to that of the feet. Fromthe froth filling the open mouth the tongue protruded, black andswollen. The throat showed horrible contusions; not merefinger-marks, but bruises and lacerations wrought by two stronghands that must have buried themselves in the yielding flesh,maintaining their terrible grasp until long after death.Breast, throat, face, were wet; the clothing was saturated; dropsof water, condensed from the fog, studded the hair andmustache.

All this the two men observed without speaking—almost ata glance. Then Holker said:

“Poor devil! he had a rough deal.”

Jaralson was making a vigilant circumspection of the forest,his shotgun held in both hands and at full cock, his finger uponthe trigger.

“The work of a maniac,” he said, withoutwithdrawing his eyes from the inclosing wood. “It wasdone by Branscom—Pardee.”

Something half hidden by the disturbed leaves on the earthcaught Holker’s attention. It was a red-leatherpocketbook. He picked it up and opened it. Itcontained leaves of white paper for memoranda, and upon the firstleaf was the name “Halpin Frayser.” Written inred on several succeeding leaves—scrawled as if in hasteand barely legible—were the following lines, which Holkerread aloud, while his companion continued scanning the dim grayconfines of their narrow world and hearing matter of apprehensionin the drip of water from every burdened branch:

“Enthralled by some mysterious spell, Istood
In the lit gloom of an enchanted wood.
The cypress there and myrtle twined their boughs,
Significant, in baleful brotherhood.

“The brooding willow whispered to the yew;
Beneath, the deadly nightshade and the rue,
With immortelles self-woven into strange
Funereal shapes, and horrid nettles grew.

“No song of bird nor any drone of bees,
Nor light leaf lifted by the wholesome breeze:
The air was stagnant all, and Silence was
A living thing that breathed among the trees.

“Conspiring spirits whispered in the gloom,
Half-heard, the stilly secrets of the tomb.
With blood the trees were all adrip; the leaves
Shone in the witch-light with a ruddy bloom.

“I cried aloud!—the spell, unbroken still,
Rested upon my spirit and my will.
Unsouled, unhearted, hopeless and forlorn,
I strove with monstrous presages of ill!

“At last the viewless—”

Holker ceased reading; there was no more to read. Themanuscript broke off in the middle of a line.

“That sounds like Bayne,” said Jaralson, who wassomething of a scholar in his way. He had abated hisvigilance and stood looking down at the body.

“Who’s Bayne?” Holker asked ratherincuriously.

“Myron Bayne, a chap who flourished in the early yearsof the nation—more than a century ago. Wrote mightydismal stuff; I have his collected works. That poem is notamong them, but it must have been omitted by mistake.”

“It is cold,” said Holker; “let us leavehere; we must have up the coroner from Napa.”

Jaralson said nothing, but made a movement incompliance. Passing the end of the slight elevation ofearth upon which the dead man’s head and shoulders lay, hisfoot struck some hard substance under the rotting forest leaves,and he took the trouble to kick it into view. It was afallen headboard, and painted on it were the hardly decipherablewords, “Catharine Larue.”

“Larue, Larue!” exclaimed Holker, with suddenanimation. “Why, that is the real name ofBranscom—not Pardee. And—bless my soul! how itall comes to me—the murdered woman’s name had beenFrayser!”

“There is some rascally mystery here,” saidDetective Jaralson. “I hate anything of thatkind.”

There came to them out of the fog—seemingly from a greatdistance—the sound of a laugh, a low, deliberate, soullesslaugh, which had no more of joy than that of a hyenanight-prowling in the desert; a laugh that rose by slowgradation, louder and louder, clearer, more distinct andterrible, until it seemed barely outside the narrow circle oftheir vision; a laugh so unnatural, so unhuman, so devilish, thatit filled those hardy man-hunters with a sense of dreadunspeakable! They did not move their weapons nor think ofthem; the menace of that horrible sound was not of the kind to bemet with arms. As it had grown out of silence, so now itdied away; from a culminating shout which had seemed almost intheir ears, it drew itself away into the distance, until itsfailing notes, joyless and mechanical to the last, sank tosilence at a measureless remove.

p. 44THESECRET OF MACARGER’S GULCH

Northwestwardly from Indian Hill,about nine miles as the crow flies, is Macarger’sGulch. It is not much of a gulch—a mere depressionbetween two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. Fromits mouth up to its head—for gulches, like rivers, have ananatomy of their own—the distance does not exceed twomiles, and the width at bottom is at only one place more than adozen yards; for most of the distance on either side of thelittle brook which drains it in winter, and goes dry in the earlyspring, there is no level ground at all; the steep slopes of thehills, covered with an almost impenetrable growth of manzanitaand chemisal, are parted by nothing but the width of the watercourse. No one but an occasional enterprising hunter of thevicinity ever goes into Macarger’s Gulch, and five milesaway it is unknown, even by name. Within that distance inany direction are far more conspicuous topographical featureswithout names, and one might try in vain to ascertain by localinquiry the origin of the name of this one.

About midway between the head and the mouth ofMacarger’s Gulch, the hill on the right as you ascend iscloven by another gulch, a short dry one, and at the junction ofthe two is a level space of two or three acres, and there a fewyears ago stood an old board house containing one smallroom. How the component parts of the house, few and simpleas they were, had been assembled at that almost inaccessiblepoint is a problem in the solution of which there would begreater satisfaction than advantage. Possibly the creek bedis a reformed road. It is certain that the gulch was at onetime pretty thoroughly prospected by miners, who must have hadsome means of getting in with at least pack animals carryingtools and supplies; their profits, apparently, were not such aswould have justified any considerable outlay to connectMacarger’s Gulch with any center of civilization enjoyingthe distinction of a sawmill. The house, however, wasthere, most of it. It lacked a door and a window frame, andthe chimney of mud and stones had fallen into an unlovely heap,overgrown with rank weeds. Such humble furniture as theremay once have been and much of the lower weatherboarding, hadserved as fuel in the camp fires of hunters; as had also,probably, the curbing of an old well, which at the time I writeof existed in the form of a rather wide but not very deepdepression near by.

One afternoon in the summer of 1874, I passed upMacarger’s Gulch from the narrow valley into which itopens, by following the dry bed of the brook. I wasquail-shooting and had made a bag of about a dozen birds by thetime I had reached the house described, of whose existence I wasuntil then unaware. After rather carelessly inspecting theruin I resumed my sport, and having fairly good success prolongedit until near sunset, when it occurred to me that I was a longway from any human habitation—too far to reach one bynightfall. But in my game bag was food, and the old housewould afford shelter, if shelter were needed on a warm anddewless night in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where onemay sleep in comfort on the pine needles, without covering.I am fond of solitude and love the night, so my resolution to“camp out” was soon taken, and by the time that itwas dark I had made my bed of boughs and grasses in a corner ofthe room and was roasting a quail at a fire that I had kindled onthe hearth. The smoke escaped out of the ruined chimney,the light illuminated the room with a kindly glow, and as I atemy simple meal of plain bird and drank the remains of a bottle ofred wine which had served me all the afternoon in place of thewater, which the region did not supply, I experienced a sense ofcomfort which better fare and accommodations do not alwaysgive.

Nevertheless, there was something lacking. I had a senseof comfort, but not of security. I detected myself staringmore frequently at the open doorway and blank window than I couldfind warrant for doing. Outside these apertures all wasblack, and I was unable to repress a certain feeling ofapprehension as my fancy pictured the outer world and filled itwith unfriendly entities, natural and supernatural—chiefamong which, in their respective classes, were the grizzly bear,which I knew was occasionally still seen in that region, and theghost, which I had reason to think was not. Unfortunately,our feelings do not always respect the law of probabilities, andto me that evening, the possible and the impossible were equallydisquieting.

Everyone who has had experience in the matter must haveobserved that one confronts the actual and imaginary perils ofthe night with far less apprehension in the open air than in ahouse with an open doorway. I felt this now as I lay on myleafy couch in a corner of the room next to the chimney andpermitted my fire to die out. So strong became my sense ofthe presence of something malign and menacing in the place, thatI found myself almost unable to withdraw my eyes from theopening, as in the deepening darkness it became more and moreindistinct. And when the last little flame flickered andwent out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid at my side andactually turned the muzzle in the direction of the now invisibleentrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock thepiece, my breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. Butlater I laid down the weapon with a sense of shame andmortification. What did I fear, and why?—I, to whomthe night had been

amore familiar face
Than that of man—

I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from whichnone of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darknessand silence only a more alluring interest and charm! I wasunable to comprehend my folly, and losing in the conjecture thething conjectured of, I fell asleep. And then Idreamed.

I was in a great city in a foreign land—a city whosepeople were of my own race, with minor differences of speech andcostume; yet precisely what these were I could not say; my senseof them was indistinct. The city was dominated by a greatcastle upon an overlooking height whose name I knew, but couldnot speak. I walked through many streets, some broad andstraight with high, modern buildings, some narrow, gloomy, andtortuous, between the gables of quaint old houses whoseoverhanging stories, elaborately ornamented with carvings in woodand stone, almost met above my head.

I sought someone whom I had never seen, yet knew that I shouldrecognize when found. My quest was not aimless andfortuitous; it had a definite method. I turned from onestreet into another without hesitation and threaded a maze ofintricate passages, devoid of the fear of losing my way.

Presently I stopped before a low door in a plain stone housewhich might have been the dwelling of an artisan of the bettersort, and without announcing myself, entered. The room,rather sparely furnished, and lighted by a single window withsmall diamond-shaped panes, had but two occupants; a man and awoman. They took no notice of my intrusion, a circumstancewhich, in the manner of dreams, appeared entirely natural.They were not conversing; they sat apart, unoccupied andsullen.

The woman was young and rather stout, with fine large eyes anda certain grave beauty; my memory of her expression isexceedingly vivid, but in dreams one does not observe the detailsof faces. About her shoulders was a plaid shawl. Theman was older, dark, with an evil face made more forbidding by along scar extending from near the left temple diagonally downwardinto the black mustache; though in my dreams it seemed rather tohaunt the face as a thing apart—I can express it nootherwise—than to belong to it. The moment that Ifound the man and woman I knew them to be husband and wife.

What followed, I remember indistinctly; all was confused andinconsistent—made so, I think, by gleams ofconsciousness. It was as if two pictures, the scene of mydream, and my actual surroundings, had been blended, oneoverlying the other, until the former, gradually fading,disappeared, and I was broad awake in the deserted cabin,entirely and tranquilly conscious of my situation.

My foolish fear was gone, and opening my eyes I saw that myfire, not altogether burned out, had revived by the falling of astick and was again lighting the room. I had probably sleptonly a few minutes, but my commonplace dream had somehow sostrongly impressed me that I was no longer drowsy; and after alittle while I rose, pushed the embers of my fire together, andlighting my pipe proceeded in a rather ludicrously methodical wayto meditate upon my vision.

It would have puzzled me then to say in what respect it wasworth attention. In the first moment of serious thoughtthat I gave to the matter I recognized the city of my dream asEdinburgh, where I had never been; so if the dream was a memoryit was a memory of pictures and description. Therecognition somehow deeply impressed me; it was as if somethingin my mind insisted rebelliously against will and reason on theimportance of all this. And that faculty, whatever it was,asserted also a control of my speech. “Surely,”I said aloud, quite involuntarily, “the MacGregors musthave come here from Edinburgh.”

At the moment, neither the substance of this remark nor thefact of my making it, surprised me in the least; it seemedentirely natural that I should know the name of my dreamfolk andsomething of their history. But the absurdity of it allsoon dawned upon me: I laughed aloud, knocked the ashes from mypipe and again stretched myself upon my bed of boughs and grass,where I lay staring absently into my failing fire, with nofurther thought of either my dream or my surroundings.Suddenly the single remaining flame crouched for a moment, then,springing upward, lifted itself clear of its embers and expiredin air. The darkness was absolute.

At that instant—almost, it seemed, before the gleam ofthe blaze had faded from my eyes—there was a dull, deadsound, as of some heavy body falling upon the floor, which shookbeneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitting posture andgroped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some wild beasthad leaped in through the open window. While the flimsystructure was still shaking from the impact I heard the sound ofblows, the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then—itseemed to come from almost within reach of my hand, the sharpshrieking of a woman in mortal agony. So horrible a cry Ihad never heard nor conceived; it utterly unnerved me; I wasconscious for a moment of nothing but my own terror!Fortunately my hand now found the weapon of which it was insearch, and the familiar touch somewhat restored me. Ileaped to my feet, straining my eyes to pierce thedarkness. The violent sounds had ceased, but more terriblethan these, I heard, at what seemed long intervals, the faintintermittent gasping of some living, dying thing!

As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the coals inthe fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window,looking blacker than the black of the walls. Next, thedistinction between wall and floor became discernible, and atlast I was sensible to the form and full expanse of the floorfrom end to end and side to side. Nothing was visible andthe silence was unbroken.

With a hand that shook a little, the other still grasping mygun, I restored my fire and made a critical examination of theplace. There was nowhere any sign that the cabin had beenentered. My own tracks were visible in the dust coveringthe floor, but there were no others. I relit my pipe,provided fresh fuel by ripping a thin board or two from theinside of the house—I did not care to go into the darknessout of doors—and passed the rest of the night smoking andthinking, and feeding my fire; not for added years of life wouldI have permitted that little flame to expire again.

Some years afterward I met in Sacramento a man named Morgan,to whom I had a note of introduction from a friend in SanFrancisco. Dining with him one evening at his home Iobserved various “trophies” upon the wall, indicatingthat he was fond of shooting. It turned out that he was,and in relating some of his feats he mentioned having been in theregion of my adventure.

“Mr. Morgan,” I asked abruptly, “do you knowa place up there called Macarger’s Gulch?”

“I have good reason to,” he replied; “it wasI who gave to the newspapers, last year, the accounts of thefinding of the skeleton there.”

I had not heard of it; the accounts had been published, itappeared, while I was absent in the East.

“By the way,” said Morgan, “the name of thegulch is a corruption; it should have been called‘MacGregor’s.’ My dear,” he added,speaking to his wife, “Mr. Elderson has upset hiswine.”

That was hardly accurate—I had simply dropped it, glassand all.

“There was an old shanty once in the gulch,”Morgan resumed when the ruin wrought by my awkwardness had beenrepaired, “but just previously to my visit it had beenblown down, or rather blown away, for its débriswas scattered all about, the very floor being parted, plank fromplank. Between two of the sleepers still in position I andmy companion observed the remnant of a plaid shawl, and examiningit found that it was wrapped about the shoulders of the body of awoman, of which but little remained besides the bones, partlycovered with fragments of clothing, and brown dry skin. Butwe will spare Mrs. Morgan,” he added with a smile.The lady had indeed exhibited signs of disgust rather thansympathy.

“It is necessary to say, however,” he went on,“that the skull was fractured in several places, as byblows of some blunt instrument; and that instrumentitself—a pick-handle, still stained with blood—layunder the boards near by.”

Mr. Morgan turned to his wife. “Pardon me, mydear,” he said with affected solemnity, “formentioning these disagreeable particulars, the natural thoughregrettable incidents of a conjugal quarrel—resulting,doubtless, from the luckless wife’sinsubordination.”

“I ought to be able to overlook it,” the ladyreplied with composure; “you have so many times asked me toin those very words.”

I thought he seemed rather glad to go on with his story.

“From these and other circumstances,” he said,“the coroner’s jury found that the deceased, JanetMacGregor, came to her death from blows inflicted by some personto the jury unknown; but it was added that the evidence pointedstrongly to her husband, Thomas MacGregor, as the guiltyperson. But Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor heardof. It was learned that the couple came from Edinburgh, butnot—my dear, do you not observe that Mr. Elderson’sboneplate has water in it?”

I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl.

“In a little cupboard I found a photograph of MacGregor,but it did not lead to his capture.”

“Will you let me see it?” I said.

The picture showed a dark man with an evil face made moreforbidding by a long scar extending from near the templediagonally downward into the black mustache.

“By the way, Mr. Elderson,” said my affable host,“may I know why you asked about ‘Macarger’sGulch’?”

“I lost a mule near there once,” I replied,“and the mischance has—has quite—upsetme.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanicalintonation of an interpreter translating, “the loss of Mr.Elderson’s mule has peppered his coffee.”

p. 58ONESUMMER NIGHT

The fact that Henry Armstrong wasburied did not seem to him to prove that he was dead: he hadalways been a hard man to convince. That he really wasburied, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit.His posture—flat upon his back, with his hands crossed uponhis stomach and tied with something that he easily broke withoutprofitably altering the situation—the strict confinement ofhis entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, madea body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted itwithout cavil.

But dead—no; he was only very, very ill. He had,withal, the invalid’s apathy and did not greatly concernhimself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted tohim. No philosopher was he—just a plain, commonplaceperson gifted, for the time being, with a pathologicalindifference: the organ that he feared consequences with wastorpid. So, with no particular apprehension for hisimmediate future, he fell asleep and all was peace with HenryArmstrong.

But something was going on overhead. It was a darksummer night, shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightningsilently firing a cloud lying low in the west and portending astorm. These brief, stammering illuminations brought outwith ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of thecemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a nightin which any credible witness was likely to be straying about acemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the graveof Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure.

Two of them were young students from a medical college a fewmiles away; the third was a gigantic negro known as Jess.For many years Jess had been employed about the cemetery as aman-of-all-work and it was his favorite pleasantry that he knew“every soul in the place.” From the nature ofwhat he was now doing it was inferable that the place was not sopopulous as its register may have shown it to be.

Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from thepublic road, were a horse and a light wagon, waiting.

The work of excavation was not difficult: the earth with whichthe grave had been loosely filled a few hours before offeredlittle resistance and was soon thrown out. Removal of thecasket from its box was less easy, but it was taken out, for itwas a perquisite of Jess, who carefully unscrewed the cover andlaid it aside, exposing the body in black trousers and whiteshirt. At that instant the air sprang to flame, a crackingshock of thunder shook the stunned world and Henry Armstrongtranquilly sat up. With inarticulate cries the men fled interror, each in a different direction. For nothing on earthcould two of them have been persuaded to return. But Jesswas of another breed.

In the gray of the morning the two students, pallid andhaggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure stillbeating tumultuously in their blood, met at the medicalcollege.

“You saw it?” cried one.

“God! yes—what are we to do?”

They went around to the rear of the building, where they saw ahorse, attached to a light wagon, hitched to a gatepost near thedoor of the dissecting-room. Mechanically they entered theroom. On a bench in the obscurity sat the negro Jess.He rose, grinning, all eyes and teeth.

“I’m waiting for my pay,” he said.

Stretched naked on a long table lay the body of HenryArmstrong, the head defiled with blood and clay from a blow witha spade.

p. 62THEMOONLIT ROAD

I
STATEMENT OF JOEL HETMAN, JR.

I am the most unfortunate ofmen. Rich, respected, fairly well educated and of soundhealth—with many other advantages usually valued by thosehaving them and coveted by those who have them not—Isometimes think that I should be less unhappy if they had beendenied me, for then the contrast between my outer and my innerlife would not be continually demanding a painfulattention. In the stress of privation and the need ofeffort I might sometimes forget the somber secret ever bafflingthe conjecture that it compels.

I am the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman. The onewas a well-to-do country gentleman, the other a beautiful andaccomplished woman to whom he was passionately attached with whatI now know to have been a jealous and exacting devotion.The family home was a few miles from Nashville, Tennessee, alarge, irregularly built dwelling of no particular order ofarchitecture, a little way off the road, in a park of trees andshrubbery.

At the time of which I write I was nineteen years old, astudent at Yale. One day I received a telegram from myfather of such urgency that in compliance with its unexplaineddemand I left at once for home. At the railway station inNashville a distant relative awaited me to apprise me of thereason for my recall: my mother had been barbarouslymurdered—why and by whom none could conjecture, but thecircumstances were these: My father had gone to Nashville,intending to return the next afternoon. Something preventedhis accomplishing the business in hand, so he returned on thesame night, arriving just before the dawn. In his testimonybefore the coroner he explained that having no latchkey and notcaring to disturb the sleeping servants, he had, with no clearlydefined intention, gone round to the rear of the house. Ashe turned an angle of the building, he heard a sound as of a doorgently closed, and saw in the darkness, indistinctly, the figureof a man, which instantly disappeared among the trees of thelawn. A hasty pursuit and brief search of the grounds inthe belief that the trespasser was some one secretly visiting aservant proving fruitless, he entered at the unlocked door andmounted the stairs to my mother’s chamber. Its doorwas open, and stepping into black darkness he fell headlong oversome heavy object on the floor. I may spare myself thedetails; it was my poor mother, dead of strangulation by humanhands!

Nothing had been taken from the house, the servants had heardno sound, and excepting those terrible finger-marks upon the deadwoman’s throat—dear God! that I might forgetthem!—no trace of the assassin was ever found.

I gave up my studies and remained with my father, who,naturally, was greatly changed. Always of a sedate,taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection thatnothing could hold his attention, yet anything—a footfall,the sudden closing of a door—aroused in him a fitfulinterest; one might have called it an apprehension. At anysmall surprise of the senses he would start visibly and sometimesturn pale, then relapse into a melancholy apathy deeper thanbefore. I suppose he was what is called a “nervouswreck.” As to me, I was younger then thannow—there is much in that. Youth is Gilead, in whichis balm for every wound. Ah, that I might again dwell inthat enchanted land! Unacquainted with grief, I knew nothow to appraise my bereavement; I could not rightly estimate thestrength of the stroke.

One night, a few months after the dreadful event, my fatherand I walked home from the city. The full moon was aboutthree hours above the eastern horizon; the entire countryside hadthe solemn stillness of a summer night; our footfalls and theceaseless song of the katydids were the only sound aloof.Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the road, which, inthe short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As weapproached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow,and in which no light shone, my father suddenly stopped andclutched my arm, saying, hardly above his breath:

“God! God! what is that?”

“I hear nothing,” I replied.

“But see—see!” he said, pointing along theroad, directly ahead.

I said: “Nothing is there. Come, father, let us goin—you are ill.”

He had released my arm and was standing rigid and motionlessin the center of the illuminated roadway, staring like one bereftof sense. His face in the moonlight showed a pallor andfixity inexpressibly distressing. I pulled gently at hissleeve, but he had forgotten my existence. Presently hebegan to retire backward, step by step, never for an instantremoving his eyes from what he saw, or thought he saw. Iturned half round to follow, but stood irresolute. I do notrecall any feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was itsphysical manifestation. It seemed as if an icy wind hadtouched my face and enfolded my body from head to foot; I couldfeel the stir of it in my hair.

At that moment my attention was drawn to a light that suddenlystreamed from an upper window of the house: one of the servants,awakened by what mysterious premonition of evil who can say, andin obedience to an impulse that she was never able to name, hadlit a lamp. When I turned to look for my father he wasgone, and in all the years that have passed no whisper of hisfate has come across the borderland of conjecture from the realmof the unknown.

p. 67II
STATEMENT OF CASPAR GRATTAN

To-day I am said to live; to-morrow, here in this room, willlie a senseless shape of clay that all too long was I. Ifanyone lift the cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing itwill be in gratification of a mere morbid curiosity. Some,doubtless, will go further and inquire, “Who washe?” In this writing I supply the only answer that Iam able to make—Caspar Grattan. Surely, that shouldbe enough. The name has served my small need for more thantwenty years of a life of unknown length. True, I gave itto myself, but lacking another I had the right. In thisworld one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when itdoes not establish identity. Some, though, are known bynumbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions.

One day, for illustration, I was passing along a street of acity, far from here, when I met two men in uniform, one of whom,half pausing and looking curiously into my face, said to hiscompanion, “That man looks like 767.” Somethingin the number seemed familiar and horrible. Moved by anuncontrollable impulse, I sprang into a side street and ran untilI fell exhausted in a country lane.

I have never forgotten that number, and always it comes tomemory attended by gibbering obscenity, peals of joylesslaughter, the clang of iron doors. So I say a name, even ifself-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register ofthe potter’s field I shall soon have both. Whatwealth!

Of him who shall find this paper I must beg a littleconsideration. It is not the history of my life; theknowledge to write that is denied me. This is only a recordof broken and apparently unrelated memories, some of them asdistinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, othersremote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams withinterspaces blank and black—witch-fires glowing still andred in a great desolation.

Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn for a last looklandward over the course by which I came. There are twentyyears of footprints fairly distinct, the impressions of bleedingfeet. They lead through poverty and pain, devious andunsure, as of one staggering beneath a burden—

Remote, unfriended,melancholy, slow.

Ah, the poet’s prophecy of Me—how admirable, howdreadfully admirable!

Backward beyond the beginning of this viadolorosa—this epic of suffering with episodes ofsin—I see nothing clearly; it comes out of a cloud. Iknow that it spans only twenty years, yet I am an old man.

One does not remember one’s birth—one has to betold. But with me it was different; life came to mefull-handed and dowered me with all my faculties andpowers. Of a previous existence I know no more than others,for all have stammering intimations that may be memories and maybe dreams. I know only that my first consciousness was ofmaturity in body and mind—a consciousness accepted withoutsurprise or conjecture. I merely found myself walking in aforest, half-clad, footsore, unutterably weary and hungry.Seeing a farmhouse, I approached and asked for food, which wasgiven me by one who inquired my name. I did not know, yetknew that all had names. Greatly embarrassed, I retreated,and night coming on, lay down in the forest and slept.

The next day I entered a large town which I shall notname. Nor shall I recount further incidents of the lifethat is now to end—a life of wandering, always andeverywhere haunted by an overmastering sense of crime inpunishment of wrong and of terror in punishment of crime.Let me see if I can reduce it to narrative.

I seem once to have lived near a great city, a prosperousplanter, married to a woman whom I loved and distrusted. Wehad, it sometimes seems, one child, a youth of brilliant partsand promise. He is at all times a vague figure, neverclearly drawn, frequently altogether out of the picture.

One luckless evening it occurred to me to test my wife’sfidelity in a vulgar, commonplace way familiar to everyone whohas acquaintance with the literature of fact and fiction. Iwent to the city, telling my wife that I should be absent untilthe following afternoon. But I returned before daybreak andwent to the rear of the house, purposing to enter by a door withwhich I had secretly so tampered that it would seem to lock, yetnot actually fasten. As I approached it, I heard it gentlyopen and close, and saw a man steal away into the darkness.With murder in my heart, I sprang after him, but he had vanishedwithout even the bad luck of identification. Sometimes nowI cannot even persuade myself that it was a human being.

Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and bestial with all theelemental passions of insulted manhood, I entered the house andsprang up the stairs to the door of my wife’schamber. It was closed, but having tampered with its lockalso, I easily entered and despite the black darkness soon stoodby the side of her bed. My groping hands told me thatalthough disarranged it was unoccupied.

“She is below,” I thought, “and terrified bymy entrance has evaded me in the darkness of the hall.”

With the purpose of seeking her I turned to leave the room,but took a wrong direction—the right one! My footstruck her, cowering in a corner of the room. Instantly myhands were at her throat, stifling a shriek, my knees were uponher struggling body; and there in the darkness, without a word ofaccusation or reproach, I strangled her till she died!

There ends the dream. I have related it in the pasttense, but the present would be the fitter form, for again andagain the somber tragedy reenacts itself in myconsciousness—over and over I lay the plan, I suffer theconfirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is blank; andafterward the rains beat against the grimy window-panes, or thesnows fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalidstreets where my life lies in poverty and mean employment.If there is ever sunshine I do not recall it; if there are birdsthey do not sing.

There is another dream, another vision of the night. Istand among the shadows in a moonlit road. I am aware ofanother presence, but whose I cannot rightly determine. Inthe shadow of a great dwelling I catch the gleam of whitegarments; then the figure of a woman confronts me in theroad—my murdered wife! There is death in the face;there are marks upon the throat. The eyes are fixed on minewith an infinite gravity which is not reproach, nor hate, normenace, nor anything less terrible than recognition. Beforethis awful apparition I retreat in terror—a terror that isupon me as I write. I can no longer rightly shape thewords. See! they—

Now I am calm, but truly there is no more to tell: theincident ends where it began—in darkness and in doubt.

Yes, I am again in control of myself: “the captain of mysoul.” But that is not respite; it is another stageand phase of expiation. My penance, constant in degree, ismutable in kind: one of its variants is tranquillity. Afterall, it is only a life-sentence. “To Hell forlife”—that is a foolish penalty: the culprit choosesthe duration of his punishment. To-day my term expires.

To each and all, the peace that was not mine.

p. 74III
STATEMENT OF THE LATE JULIA HETMAN,
THROUGH THE MEDIUM BAYROLLES

I had retired early and fallen almost immediately into apeaceful sleep, from which I awoke with that indefinable sense ofperil which is, I think, a common experience in that other,earlier life. Of its unmeaning character, too, I wasentirely persuaded, yet that did not banish it. My husband,Joel Hetman, was away from home; the servants slept in anotherpart of the house. But these were familiar conditions; theyhad never before distressed me. Nevertheless, the strangeterror grew so insupportable that conquering my reluctance tomove I sat up and lit the lamp at my bedside. Contrary tomy expectation this gave me no relief; the light seemed rather anadded danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under thedoor, disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurkoutside. You that are still in the flesh, subject tohorrors of the imagination, think what a monstrous fear that mustbe which seeks in darkness security from malevolent existences ofthe night. That is to spring to close quarters with anunseen enemy—the strategy of despair!

Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed-clothing about my headand lay trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful topray. In this pitiable state I must have lain for what youcall hours—with us there are no hours, there is notime.

At last it came—a soft, irregular sound of footfalls onthe stairs! They were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as ofsomething that did not see its way; to my disordered reason allthe more terrifying for that, as the approach of some blind andmindless malevolence to which is no appeal. I even thoughtthat I must have left the hall lamp burning and the groping ofthis creature proved it a monster of the night. This wasfoolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, butwhat would you have? Fear has no brains; it is anidiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardlycounsel that it whispers are unrelated. We know this well,we who have passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk in eternaldusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even toourselves and one another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places;yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb, and as fearfulof them as they of us. Sometimes the disability is removed,the law suspended: by the deathless power of love or hate webreak the spell—we are seen by those whom we would warn,console, or punish. What form we seem to them to bear weknow not; we know only that we terrify even those whom we mostwish to comfort, and from whom we most crave tenderness andsympathy.

Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent digression by what wasonce a woman. You who consult us in this imperfectway—you do not understand. You ask foolish questionsabout things unknown and things forbidden. Much that weknow and could impart in our speech is meaningless inyours. We must communicate with you through a stammeringintelligence in that small fraction of our language that youyourselves can speak. You think that we are of anotherworld. No, we have knowledge of no world but yours, thoughfor us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no music, no laughter, nosong of birds, nor any companionship. O God! what a thingit is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world,a prey to apprehension and despair!

No, I did not die of fright: the Thing turned and wentaway. I heard it go down the stairs, hurriedly, I thought,as if itself in sudden fear. Then I rose to call forhelp. Hardly had my shaking hand found the doorknobwhen—merciful heaven!—I heard it returning. Itsfootfalls as it remounted the stairs were rapid, heavy and loud;they shook the house. I fled to an angle of the wall andcrouched upon the floor. I tried to pray. I tried tocall the name of my dear husband. Then I heard the doorthrown open. There was an interval of unconsciousness, andwhen I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon mythroat—felt my arms feebly beating against something thatbore me backward—felt my tongue thrusting itself frombetween my teeth! And then I passed into this life.

No, I have no knowledge of what it was. The sum of whatwe knew at death is the measure of what we know afterward of allthat went before. Of this existence we know many things,but no new light falls upon any page of that; in memory iswritten all of it that we can read. Here are no heights oftruth overlooking the confused landscape of that dubitabledomain. We still dwell in the Valley of the Shadow, lurk inits desolate places, peering from brambles and thickets at itsmad, malign inhabitants. How should we have new knowledgeof that fading past?

What I am about to relate happened on a night. We knowwhen it is night, for then you retire to your houses and we canventure from our places of concealment to move unafraid about ourold homes, to look in at the windows, even to enter and gaze uponyour faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near thedwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to what I am, as wedo while any that we love or hate remain. Vainly I hadsought some method of manifestation, some way to make mycontinued existence and my great love and poignant pityunderstood by my husband and son. Always if they slept theywould wake, or if in my desperation I dared approach them whenthey were awake, would turn toward me the terrible eyes of theliving, frightening me by the glances that I sought from thepurpose that I held.

On this night I had searched for them without success, fearingto find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about themoonlit lawn. For, although the sun is lost to us forever,the moon, full-orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimesit shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises andsets, as in that other life.

I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silence alongthe road, aimless and sorrowing. Suddenly I heard the voiceof my poor husband in exclamations of astonishment, with that ofmy son in reassurance and dissuasion; and there by the shadow ofa group of trees they stood—near, so near! Theirfaces were toward me, the eyes of the elder man fixed uponmine. He saw me—at last, at last, he saw me! Inthe consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream.The death-spell was broken: Love had conquered Law! Madwith exultation I shouted—I must have shouted,“He sees, he sees: he will understand!” Then,controlling myself, I moved forward, smiling and consciouslybeautiful, to offer myself to his arms, to comfort him withendearments, and, with my son’s hand in mine, to speakwords that should restore the broken bonds between the living andthe dead.

Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, his eyes were asthose of a hunted animal. He backed away from me, as Iadvanced, and at last turned and fled into thewood—whither, it is not given to me to know.

To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been ableto impart a sense of my presence. Soon he, too, must passto this Life Invisible and be lost to me forever.

p. 81ADIAGNOSIS OF DEATH

“I am not so superstitious as some of yourphysicians—men of science, as you are pleased to becalled,” said Hawver, replying to an accusation that hadnot been made. “Some of you—only a few, Iconfess—believe in the immortality of the soul, and inapparitions which you have not the honesty to call ghosts.I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimesseen where they are not, but have been—where they havelived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left theirimpress on everything about them. I know, indeed, thatone’s environment may be so affected by one’spersonality as to yield, long afterward, an image of one’sself to the eyes of another. Doubtless the impressingpersonality has to be the right kind of personality as theperceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes—mine, forexample.”

“Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying sensations tothe wrong kind of brain,” said Dr. Frayley, smiling.

“Thank you; one likes to have an expectation gratified;that is about the reply that I supposed you would have thecivility to make.”

“Pardon me. But you say that you know. Thatis a good deal to say, don’t you think? Perhaps youwill not mind the trouble of saying how you learned.”

“You will call it an hallucination,” Hawver said,“but that does not matter.” And he told thestory.

“Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hotweather term in the town of Meridian. The relative at whosehouse I had intended to stay was ill, so I sought otherquarters. After some difficulty I succeeded in renting avacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor ofthe name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no oneknew where, not even his agent. He had built the househimself and had lived in it with an old servant for about tenyears. His practice, never very extensive, had after a fewyears been given up entirely. Not only so, but he hadwithdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become arecluse. I was told by the village doctor, about the onlyperson with whom he held any relations, that during hisretirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study, theresult of which he had expounded in a book that did not commenditself to the approval of his professional brethren, who, indeed,considered him not entirely sane. I have not seen the bookand cannot now recall the title of it, but I am told that itexpounded a rather startling theory. He held that it waspossible in the case of many a person in good health to forecasthis death with precision, several months in advance of theevent. The limit, I think, was eighteen months. Therewere local tales of his having exerted his powers of prognosis,or perhaps you would say diagnosis; and it was said that in everyinstance the person whose friends he had warned had died suddenlyat the appointed time, and from no assignable cause. Allthis, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell; Ithought it might amuse a physician.

“The house was furnished, just as he had lived init. It was a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neithera recluse nor a student, and I think it gave something of itscharacter to me—perhaps some of its former occupant’scharacter; for always I felt in it a certain melancholy that wasnot in my natural disposition, nor, I think, due toloneliness. I had no servants that slept in the house, butI have always been, as you know, rather fond of my own society,being much addicted to reading, though little to study.Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejection and a sense ofimpending evil; this was especially so in Dr. Mannering’sstudy, although that room was the lightest and most airy in thehouse. The doctor’s life-size portrait in oil hung inthat room, and seemed completely to dominate it. There wasnothing unusual in the picture; the man was evidently rather goodlooking, about fifty years old, with iron-gray hair, asmooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes. Something in thepicture always drew and held my attention. The man’sappearance became familiar to me, and rather‘haunted’ me.

“One evening I was passing through this room to mybedroom, with a lamp—there is no gas in Meridian. Istopped as usual before the portrait, which seemed in thelamplight to have a new expression, not easily named, butdistinctly uncanny. It interested but did not disturbme. I moved the lamp from one side to the other andobserved the effects of the altered light. While so engagedI felt an impulse to turn round. As I did so I saw a manmoving across the room directly toward me! As soon as hecame near enough for the lamplight to illuminate the face I sawthat it was Dr. Mannering himself; it was as if the portrait werewalking!

“‘I beg your pardon,’ I said, somewhatcoldly, ‘but if you knocked I did not hear.’

“He passed me, within an arm’s length, lifted hisright forefinger, as in warning, and without a word went on outof the room, though I observed his exit no more than I hadobserved his entrance.

“Of course, I need not tell you that this was what youwill call an hallucination and I call an apparition. Thatroom had only two doors, of which one was locked; the other ledinto a bedroom, from which there was no exit. My feeling onrealizing this is not an important part of the incident.

“Doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace‘ghost story’—one constructed on the regularlines laid down by the old masters of the art. If that wereso I should not have related it, even if it were true. Theman was not dead; I met him to-day in Union street. Hepassed me in a crowd.”

Hawver had finished his story and both men were silent.Dr. Frayley absently drummed on the table with his fingers.

“Did he say anything to-day?” heasked—“anything from which you inferred that he wasnot dead?”

Hawver stared and did not reply.

“Perhaps,” continued Frayley, “he made asign, a gesture—lifted a finger, as in warning.It’s a trick he had—a habit when saying somethingserious—announcing the result of a diagnosis, forexample.”

“Yes, he did—just as his apparition haddone. But, good God! did you ever know him?”

Hawver was apparently growing nervous.

“I knew him. I have read his book, as will everyphysician some day. It is one of the most striking andimportant of the century’s contributions to medicalscience. Yes, I knew him; I attended him in an illnessthree years ago. He died.”

Hawver sprang from his chair, manifestly disturbed. Hestrode forward and back across the room; then approached hisfriend, and in a voice not altogether steady, said:“Doctor, have you anything to say to me—as aphysician?”

“No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man I everknew. As a friend I advise you to go to your room.You play the violin like an angel. Play it; play somethinglight and lively. Get this cursed bad business off yourmind.”

The next day Hawver was found dead in his room, the violin athis neck, the bow upon the strings, his music open before him atChopin’s funeral march.

p.88MOXON’S MASTER

“Are you serious?—doyou really believe that a machine thinks?”

I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon thecoals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with thefire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by abrighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing inhim a growing habit of delay in answering even the most trivialof commonplace questions. His air, however, was that ofpreoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said thathe had “something on his mind.”

Presently he said:

“What is a ‘machine’? The word hasbeen variously defined. Here is one definition from apopular dictionary: ‘Any instrument or organization bywhich power is applied and made effective, or a desired effectproduced.’ Well, then, is not a man a machine?And you will admit that he thinks—or thinks hethinks.”

“If you do not wish to answer my question,” Isaid, rather testily, “why not say so?—all that yousay is mere evasion. You know well enough that when I say‘machine’ I do not mean a man, but something that manhas made and controls.”

“When it does not control him,” he said, risingabruptly and looking out of a window, whence nothing was visiblein the blackness of a stormy night. A moment later heturned about and with a smile said: “I beg your pardon; Ihad no thought of evasion. I considered the dictionaryman’s unconscious testimony suggestive and worth somethingin the discussion. I can give your question a direct answereasily enough: I do believe that a machine thinks about the workthat it is doing.”

That was direct enough, certainly. It was not altogetherpleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion thatMoxon’s devotion to study and work in his machine-shop hadnot been good for him. I knew, for one thing, that hesuffered from insomnia, and that is no light affliction.Had it affected his mind? His reply to my question seemedto me then evidence that it had; perhaps I should thinkdifferently about it now. I was younger then, and among theblessings that are not denied to youth is ignorance.Incited by that great stimulant to controversy, I said:

“And what, pray, does it think with—in the absenceof a brain?”

The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took hisfavorite form of counter-interrogation:

“With what does a plant think—in the absence of abrain?”

“Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class!I should be pleased to know some of their conclusions; you mayomit the premises.”

“Perhaps,” he replied, apparently unaffected by myfoolish irony, “you may be able to infer their convictionsfrom their acts. I will spare you the familiar examples ofthe sensitive mimosa, the several insectivorous flowers and thosewhose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the enteringbee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. Butobserve this. In an open spot in my garden I planted aclimbing vine. When it was barely above the surface I set astake into the soil a yard away. The vine at once made forit, but as it was about to reach it after several days I removedit a few feet. The vine at once altered its course, makingan acute angle, and again made for the stake. Thismanœuvre was repeated several times, but finally, as ifdiscouraged, the vine abandoned the pursuit and ignoring furtherattempts to divert it traveled to a small tree, further away,which it climbed.

“Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselvesincredibly in search of moisture. A well-knownhorticulturist relates that one entered an old drain pipe andfollowed it until it came to a break, where a section of the pipehad been removed to make way for a stone wall that had been builtacross its course. The root left the drain and followed thewall until it found an opening where a stone had fallenout. It crept through and following the other side of thewall back to the drain, entered the unexplored part and resumedits journey.”

“And all this?”

“Can you miss the significance of it? It shows theconsciousness of plants. It proves that theythink.”

“Even if it did—what then? We were speaking,not of plants, but of machines. They may be composed partlyof wood—wood that has no longer vitality—or wholly ofmetal. Is thought an attribute also of the mineralkingdom?”

“How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, ofcrystallization?”

“I do not explain them.”

“Because you cannot without affirming what you wish todeny, namely, intelligent cooperation among the constituentelements of the crystals. When soldiers form lines, orhollow squares, you call it reason. When wild geese inflight take the form of a letter V you say instinct. Whenthe homogeneous atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution,arrange themselves into shapes mathematically perfect, orparticles of frozen moisture into the symmetrical and beautifulforms of snowflakes, you have nothing to say. You have noteven invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason.”

Moxon was speaking with unusual animation andearnestness. As he paused I heard in an adjoining roomknown to me as his “machine-shop,” which no one buthimself was permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as ofsome one pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxonheard it at the same moment and, visibly agitated, rose andhurriedly passed into the room whence it came. I thought itodd that any one else should be in there, and my interest in myfriend—with doubtless a touch of unwarrantablecuriosity—led me to listen intently, though, I am happy tosay, not at the keyhole. There were confused sounds, as ofa struggle or scuffle; the floor shook. I distinctly heardhard breathing and a hoarse whisper which said “Damnyou!” Then all was silent, and presently Moxonreappeared and said, with a rather sorry smile:

“Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. I have amachine in there that lost its temper and cut uprough.”

Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which wastraversed by four parallel excoriations showing blood, Isaid:

“How would it do to trim its nails?”

I could have spared myself the jest; he gave it no attention,but seated himself in the chair that he had left and resumed theinterrupted monologue as if nothing had occurred:

“Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not namethem to a man of your reading) who have taught that all matter issentient, that every atom is a living, feeling, consciousbeing. I do. There is no such thing as dead,inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, actualand potential; all sensitive to the same forces in itsenvironment and susceptible to the contagion of higher andsubtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may bebrought into relation with, as those of man when he is fashioningit into an instrument of his will. It absorbs something ofhis intelligence and purpose—more of them in proportion tothe complexity of the resulting machine and that of its work.

“Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer’sdefinition of ‘Life’? I read it thirty yearsago. He may have altered it afterward, for anything I know,but in all that time I have been unable to think of a single wordthat could profitably be changed or added or removed. Itseems to me not only the best definition, but the only possibleone.

“‘Life,’ he says, ‘is a definitecombination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous andsuccessive, in correspondence with external coexistences andsequences.’”

“That defines the phenomenon,” I said, “butgives no hint of its cause.”

“That,” he replied, “is all that anydefinition can do. As Mill points out, we know nothing ofcause except as an antecedent—nothing of effect except as aconsequent. Of certain phenomena, one never occurs withoutanother, which is dissimilar: the first in point of time we callcause, the second, effect. One who had many times seen arabbit pursued by a dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogsotherwise, would think the rabbit the cause of the dog.

“But I fear,” he added, laughing naturally enough,“that my rabbit is leading me a long way from the track ofmy legitimate quarry: I’m indulging in the pleasure of thechase for its own sake. What I want you to observe is thatin Herbert Spencer’s definition of ‘life’ theactivity of a machine is included—there is nothing in thedefinition that is not applicable to it. According to thissharpest of observers and deepest of thinkers, if a man duringhis period of activity is alive, so is a machine when inoperation. As an inventor and constructor of machines Iknow that to be true.”

Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into thefire. It was growing late and I thought it time to begoing, but somehow I did not like the notion of leaving him inthat isolated house, all alone except for the presence of someperson of whose nature my conjectures could go no further thanthat it was unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning toward himand looking earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with myhand through the door of his workshop, I said:

“Moxon, whom have you in there?”

Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answeredwithout hesitation:

“Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was causedby my folly in leaving a machine in action with nothing to actupon, while I undertook the interminable task of enlighteningyour understanding. Do you happen to know thatConsciousness is the creature of Rhythm?”

“O bother them both!” I replied, rising and layinghold of my overcoat. “I’m going to wish yougood night; and I’ll add the hope that the machine whichyou inadvertently left in action will have her gloves on the nexttime you think it needful to stop her.”

Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left thehouse.

Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In thesky beyond the crest of a hill toward which I groped my way alongprecarious plank sidewalks and across miry, unpaved streets Icould see the faint glow of the city’s lights, but behindme nothing was visible but a single window of Moxon’shouse. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious andfateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture inmy friend’s “machine-shop,” and I had littledoubt that he had resumed the studies interrupted by his dutiesas my instructor in mechanical consciousness and the fatherhoodof Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as hisconvictions seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divestmyself of the feeling that they had some tragic relation to hislife and character—perhaps to his destiny—although Ino longer entertained the notion that they were the vagaries of adisordered mind. Whatever might be thought of his views,his exposition of them was too logical for that. Over andover, his last words came back to me: “Consciousness is thecreature of Rhythm.” Bald and terse as the statementwas, I now found it infinitely alluring. At each recurrenceit broadened in meaning and deepened in suggestion. Why,here, (I thought) is something upon which to found aphilosophy. If consciousness is the product of rhythm allthings are conscious, for all have motion, and all motionis rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon knew the significance andbreadth of his thought—the scope of this momentousgeneralization; or had he arrived at his philosophic faith by thetortuous and uncertain road of observation?

That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon’sexpounding had failed to make me a convert; but now it seemed asif a great light shone about me, like that which fell upon Saulof Tarsus; and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude Iexperienced what Lewes calls “The endless variety andexcitement of philosophic thought.” I exulted in anew sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feetseemed hardly to touch the earth; it was as if I were upliftedand borne through the air by invisible wings.

Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom Inow recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turnedabout, and almost before I was aware of having done so foundmyself again at Moxon’s door. I was drenched withrain, but felt no discomfort. Unable in my excitement tofind the doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. It turnedand, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had sorecently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I hadsupposed, was in the adjoining room—the“machine-shop.” Groping along the wall until Ifound the communicating door I knocked loudly several times, butgot no response, which I attributed to the uproar outside, forthe wind was blowing a gale and dashing the rain against the thinwalls in sheets. The drumming upon the shingle roofspanning the unceiled room was loud and incessant.

I had never been invited into the machine-shop—had,indeed, been denied admittance, as had all others, with oneexception, a skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anythingexcept that his name was Haley and his habit silence. Butin my spiritual exaltation, discretion and civility were alikeforgotten and I opened the door. What I saw took allphilosophical speculation out of me in short order.

Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table uponwhich a single candle made all the light that was in theroom. Opposite him, his back toward me, sat anotherperson. On the table between the two was a chessboard; themen were playing. I knew little of chess, but as only a fewpieces were on the board it was obvious that the game was nearits close. Moxon was intensely interested—not somuch, it seemed to me, in the game as in his antagonist, uponwhom he had fixed so intent a look that, standing though I diddirectly in the line of his vision, I was altogetherunobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his eyesglittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only aback view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared tosee his face.

He was apparently not more than five feet in height, withproportions suggesting those of a gorilla—a tremendousbreadth of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head,which had a tangled growth of black hair and was topped with acrimson fez. A tunic of the same color, belted tightly tothe waist, reached the seat—apparently a box—uponwhich he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His leftforearm appeared to rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with hisright hand, which seemed disproportionately long.

I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of thedoorway and in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than theface of his opponent he could have observed nothing now, exceptthat the door was open. Something forbade me either toenter or to retire, a feeling—I know not how itcame—that I was in the presence of an imminent tragedy andmight serve my friend by remaining. With a scarcelyconscious rebellion against the indelicacy of the act Iremained.

The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the boardbefore making his moves, and to my unskilled eye seemed to movethe piece most convenient to his hand, his motions in doing sobeing quick, nervous and lacking in precision. The responseof his antagonist, while equally prompt in the inception, wasmade with a slow, uniform, mechanical and, I thought, somewhattheatrical movement of the arm, that was a sore trial to mypatience. There was something unearthly about it all, and Icaught myself shuddering. But I was wet and cold.

Two or three times after moving a piece the stranger slightlyinclined his head, and each time I observed that Moxon shiftedhis king. All at once the thought came to me that the manwas dumb. And then that he was a machine—an automatonchess-player! Then I remembered that Moxon had once spokento me of having invented such a piece of mechanism, though I didnot understand that it had actually been constructed. Wasall his talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machinesmerely a prelude to eventual exhibition of this device—onlya trick to intensify the effect of its mechanical action upon mein my ignorance of its secret?

A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports—my“endless variety and excitement of philosophicthought!” I was about to retire in disgust whensomething occurred to hold my curiosity. I observed a shrugof the thing’s great shoulders, as if it were irritated:and so natural was this—so entirely human—that in mynew view of the matter it startled me. Nor was that all,for a moment later it struck the table sharply with its clenchedhand. At that gesture Moxon seemed even more startled thanI: he pushed his chair a little backward, as in alarm.

Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high abovethe board, pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk andwith the exclamation “checkmate!” rose quickly to hisfeet and stepped behind his chair. The automaton satmotionless.

The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lesseningintervals and progressively louder, the rumble and roll ofthunder. In the pauses between I now became conscious of alow humming or buzzing which, like the thunder, grew momentarilylouder and more distinct. It seemed to come from the bodyof the automaton, and was unmistakably a whirring ofwheels. It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanismwhich had escaped the repressive and regulating action of somecontrolling part—an effect such as might be expected if apawl should be jostled from the teeth of a ratchet-wheel.But before I had time for much conjecture as to its nature myattention was taken by the strange motions of the automatonitself. A slight but continuous convulsion appeared to havepossession of it. In body and head it shook like a man withpalsy or an ague chill, and the motion augmented every momentuntil the entire figure was in violent agitation. Suddenlyit sprang to its feet and with a movement almost too quick forthe eye to follow shot forward across table and chair, with botharms thrust forth to their full length—the posture andlunge of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself backward outof reach, but he was too late: I saw the horrible thing’shands close upon his throat, his own clutch its wrists.Then the table was overturned, the candle thrown to the floor andextinguished, and all was black dark. But the noise of thestruggle was dreadfully distinct, and most terrible of all werethe raucous, squawking sounds made by the strangled man’sefforts to breathe. Guided by the infernal hubbub, I sprangto the rescue of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in thedarkness when the whole room blazed with a blinding white lightthat burned into my brain and heart and memory a vivid picture ofthe combatants on the floor, Moxon underneath, his throat stillin the clutch of those iron hands, his head forced backward, hiseyes protruding, his mouth wide open and his tongue thrust out;and—horrible contrast!—upon the painted face of hisassassin an expression of tranquil and profound thought, as inthe solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, thenall was blackness and silence.

Three days later I recovered consciousness in ahospital. As the memory of that tragic night slowly evolvedin my ailing brain recognized in my attendant Moxon’sconfidential workman, Haley. Responding to a look heapproached, smiling.

“Tell me about it,” I managed to say,faintly—“all about it.”

“Certainly,” he said; “you were carriedunconscious from a burning house—Moxon’s.Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to do alittle explaining. The origin of the fire is a bitmysterious, too. My own notion is that the house was struckby lightning.”

“And Moxon?”

“Buried yesterday—what was left of him.”

Apparently this reticent person could unfold himself onoccasion. When imparting shocking intelligence to the sickhe was affable enough. After some moments of the keenestmental suffering I ventured to ask another question:

“Who rescued me?”

“Well, if that interests you—I did.”

“Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you forit. Did you rescue, also, that charming product of yourskill, the automaton chess-player that murdered itsinventor?”

The man was silent a long time, looking away from me.Presently he turned and gravely said:

“Do you know that?”

“I do,” I replied; “I saw itdone.”

That was many years ago. If asked to-day I should answerless confidently.

p. 106ATOUGH TUSSLE

One night in the autumn of 1861 aman sat alone in the heart of a forest in western Virginia.The region was one of the wildest on the continent—theCheat Mountain country. There was no lack of people closeat hand, however; within a mile of where the man sat was the nowsilent camp of a whole Federal brigade. Somewhereabout—it might be still nearer—was a force of theenemy, the numbers unknown. It was this uncertainty as toits numbers and position that accounted for the man’spresence in that lonely spot; he was a young officer of a Federalinfantry regiment and his business there was to guard hissleeping comrades in the camp against a surprise. He was incommand of a detachment of men constituting a picket-guard.These men he had stationed just at nightfall in an irregularline, determined by the nature of the ground, several hundredyards in front of where he now sat. The line ran throughthe forest, among the rocks and laurel thickets, the men fifteenor twenty paces apart, all in concealment and under injunction ofstrict silence and unremitting vigilance. In four hours, ifnothing occurred, they would be relieved by a fresh detachmentfrom the reserve now resting in care of its captain some distanceaway to the left and rear. Before stationing his men theyoung officer of whom we are writing had pointed out to his twosergeants the spot at which he would be found if it should benecessary to consult him, or if his presence at the front lineshould be required.

It was a quiet enough spot—the fork of an old wood-road,on the two branches of which, prolonging themselves deviouslyforward in the dim moonlight, the sergeants were themselvesstationed, a few paces in rear of the line. If drivensharply back by a sudden onset of the enemy—and pickets arenot expected to make a stand after firing—the men wouldcome into the converging roads and naturally following them totheir point of intersection could be rallied and“formed.” In his small way the author of thesedispositions was something of a strategist; if Napoleon hadplanned as intelligently at Waterloo he would have won thatmemorable battle and been overthrown later.

Second-Lieutenant Brainerd Byring was a brave and efficientofficer, young and comparatively inexperienced as he was in thebusiness of killing his fellow-men. He had enlisted in thevery first days of the war as a private, with no militaryknowledge whatever, had been made first-sergeant of his companyon account of his education and engaging manner, and had beenlucky enough to lose his captain by a Confederate bullet; in theresulting promotions he had gained a commission. He hadbeen in several engagements, such as they were—at Philippi,Rich Mountain, Carrick’s Ford and Greenbrier—and hadborne himself with such gallantry as not to attract the attentionof his superior officers. The exhilaration of battle wasagreeable to him, but the sight of the dead, with their clayfaces, blank eyes and stiff bodies, which when not unnaturallyshrunken were unnaturally swollen, had always intolerablyaffected him. He felt toward them a kind of reasonlessantipathy that was something more than the physical and spiritualrepugnance common to us all. Doubtless this feeling was dueto his unusually acute sensibilities—his keen sense of thebeautiful, which these hideous things outraged. Whatevermay have been the cause, he could not look upon a dead bodywithout a loathing which had in it an element ofresentment. What others have respected as the dignity ofdeath had to him no existence—was altogetherunthinkable. Death was a thing to be hated. It wasnot picturesque, it had no tender and solemn side—a dismalthing, hideous in all its manifestations and suggestions.Lieutenant Byring was a braver man than anybody knew, for nobodyknew his horror of that which he was ever ready to incur.

Having posted his men, instructed his sergeants and retired tohis station, he seated himself on a log, and with senses allalert began his vigil. For greater ease he loosened hissword-belt and taking his heavy revolver from his holster laid iton the log beside him. He felt very comfortable, though hehardly gave the fact a thought, so intently did he listen for anysound from the front which might have a menacingsignificance—a shout, a shot, or the footfall of one of hissergeants coming to apprise him of something worth knowing.From the vast, invisible ocean of moonlight overhead fell, hereand there, a slender, broken stream that seemed to plash againstthe intercepting branches and trickle to earth, forming smallwhite pools among the clumps of laurel. But these leakswere few and served only to accentuate the blackness of hisenvironment, which his imagination found it easy to people withall manner of unfamiliar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merelygrotesque.

He to whom the portentous conspiracy of night and solitude andsilence in the heart of a great forest is not an unknownexperience needs not to be told what another world it allis—how even the most commonplace and familiar objects takeon another character. The trees group themselvesdifferently; they draw closer together, as if in fear. Thevery silence has another quality than the silence of theday. And it is full of half-heard whispers—whispersthat startle—ghosts of sounds long dead. There areliving sounds, too, such as are never heard under otherconditions: notes of strange night-birds, the cries of smallanimals in sudden encounters with stealthy foes or in theirdreams, a rustling in the dead leaves—it may be the leap ofa wood-rat, it may be the footfall of a panther. Whatcaused the breaking of that twig?—what the low, alarmedtwittering in that bushful of birds? There are soundswithout a name, forms without substance, translations in space ofobjects which have not been seen to move, movements whereinnothing is observed to change its place. Ah, children ofthe sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the worldin which you live!

Surrounded at a little distance by armed and watchful friends,Byring felt utterly alone. Yielding himself to the solemnand mysterious spirit of the time and place, he had forgotten thenature of his connection with the visible and audible aspects andphases of the night. The forest was boundless; men and thehabitations of men did not exist. The universe was oneprimeval mystery of darkness, without form and void, himself thesole, dumb questioner of its eternal secret. Absorbed inthoughts born of this mood, he suffered the time to slip awayunnoted. Meantime the infrequent patches of white lightlying amongst the tree-trunks had undergone changes of size, formand place. In one of them near by, just at the roadside,his eye fell upon an object that he had not previouslyobserved. It was almost before his face as he sat; he couldhave sworn that it had not before been there. It was partlycovered in shadow, but he could see that it was a humanfigure. Instinctively he adjusted the clasp of hissword-belt and laid hold of his pistol—again he was in aworld of war, by occupation an assassin.

The figure did not move. Rising, pistol in hand, heapproached. The figure lay upon its back, its upper part inshadow, but standing above it and looking down upon the face, hesaw that it was a dead body. He shuddered and turned fromit with a feeling of sickness and disgust, resumed his seat uponthe log, and forgetting military prudence struck a match and lita cigar. In the sudden blackness that followed theextinction of the flame he felt a sense of relief; he could nolonger see the object of his aversion. Nevertheless, hekept his eyes set in that direction until it appeared again withgrowing distinctness. It seemed to have moved a triflenearer.

“Damn the thing!” he muttered. “Whatdoes it want?”

It did not appear to be in need of anything but a soul.

Byring turned away his eyes and began humming a tune, but hebroke off in the middle of a bar and looked at the deadbody. Its presence annoyed him, though he could hardly havehad a quieter neighbor. He was conscious, too, of a vague,indefinable feeling that was new to him. It was not fear,but rather a sense of the supernatural—in which he did notat all believe.

“I have inherited it,” he said to himself.“I suppose it will require a thousand ages—perhapsten thousand—for humanity to outgrow this feeling.Where and when did it originate? Away back, probably, inwhat is called the cradle of the human race—the plains ofCentral Asia. What we inherit as a superstition ourbarbarous ancestors must have held as a reasonableconviction. Doubtless they believed themselves justified byfacts whose nature we cannot even conjecture in thinking a deadbody a malign thing endowed with some strange power of mischief,with perhaps a will and a purpose to exert it. Possiblythey had some awful form of religion of which that was one of thechief doctrines, sedulously taught by their priesthood, as oursteach the immortality of the soul. As the Aryans movedslowly on, to and through the Caucasus passes, and spread overEurope, new conditions of life must have resulted in theformulation of new religions. The old belief in themalevolence of the dead body was lost from the creeds and evenperished from tradition, but it left its heritage of terror,which is transmitted from generation to generation—is asmuch a part of us as are our blood and bones.”

In following out his thought he had forgotten that whichsuggested it; but now his eye fell again upon the corpse.The shadow had now altogether uncovered it. He saw thesharp profile, the chin in the air, the whole face, ghastly whitein the moonlight. The clothing was gray, the uniform of aConfederate soldier. The coat and waistcoat, unbuttoned,had fallen away on each side, exposing the white shirt. Thechest seemed unnaturally prominent, but the abdomen had sunk in,leaving a sharp projection at the line of the lower ribs.The arms were extended, the left knee was thrust upward.The whole posture impressed Byring as having been studied with aview to the horrible.

“Bah!” he exclaimed; “he was anactor—he knows how to be dead.”

He drew away his eyes, directing them resolutely along one ofthe roads leading to the front, and resumed his philosophizingwhere he had left off.

“It may be that our Central Asian ancestors had not thecustom of burial. In that case it is easy to understandtheir fear of the dead, who really were a menace and anevil. They bred pestilences. Children were taught toavoid the places where they lay, and to run away if byinadvertence they came near a corpse. I think, indeed,I’d better go away from this chap.”

He half rose to do so, then remembered that he had told hismen in front and the officer in the rear who was to relieve himthat he could at any time be found at that spot. It was amatter of pride, too. If he abandoned his post he fearedthey would think he feared the corpse. He was no coward andhe was unwilling to incur anybody’s ridicule. So heagain seated himself, and to prove his courage looked boldly atthe body. The right arm—the one farthest fromhim—was now in shadow. He could barely see the handwhich, he had before observed, lay at the root of a clump oflaurel. There had been no change, a fact which gave him acertain comfort, he could not have said why. He did not atonce remove his eyes; that which we do not wish to see has astrange fascination, sometimes irresistible. Of the womanwho covers her eyes with her hands and looks between the fingerslet it be said that the wits have dealt with her not altogetherjustly.

Byring suddenly became conscious of a pain in his righthand. He withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked atit. He was grasping the hilt of his drawn sword so tightlythat it hurt him. He observed, too, that he was leaningforward in a strained attitude—crouching like a gladiatorready to spring at the throat of an antagonist. His teethwere clenched and he was breathing hard. This matter wassoon set right, and as his muscles relaxed and he drew a longbreath he felt keenly enough the ludicrousness of theincident. It affected him to laughter. Heavens! whatsound was that? what mindless devil was uttering an unholy gleein mockery of human merriment? He sprang to his feet andlooked about him, not recognizing his own laugh.

He could no longer conceal from himself the horrible fact ofhis cowardice; he was thoroughly frightened! He would haverun from the spot, but his legs refused their office; they gaveway beneath him and he sat again upon the log, violentlytrembling. His face was wet, his whole body bathed in achill perspiration. He could not even cry out.Distinctly he heard behind him a stealthy tread, as of some wildanimal, and dared not look over his shoulder. Had thesoulless living joined forces with the soulless dead?—wasit an animal? Ah, if he could but be assured of that!But by no effort of will could he now unfix his gaze from theface of the dead man.

I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave and intelligentman. But what would you have? Shall a man cope,single-handed, with so monstrous an alliance as that of night andsolitude and silence and the dead,—while an incalculablehost of his own ancestors shriek into the ear of his spirit theircoward counsel, sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, anddisarm his very blood of all its iron? The odds are toogreat—courage was not made for so rough use as that.

One sole conviction now had the man in possession: that thebody had moved. It lay nearer to the edge of its plot oflight—there could be no doubt of it. It had alsomoved its arms, for, look, they are both in the shadow! Abreath of cold air struck Byring full in the face; the boughs oftrees above him stirred and moaned. A strongly definedshadow passed across the face of the dead, left it luminous,passed back upon it and left it half obscured. The horriblething was visibly moving! At that moment a single shot rangout upon the picket-line—a lonelier and louder, though moredistant, shot than ever had been heard by mortal ear! Itbroke the spell of that enchanted man; it slew the silence andthe solitude, dispersed the hindering host from Central Asia andreleased his modern manhood. With a cry like that of somegreat bird pouncing upon its prey he sprang forward, hot-heartedfor action!

Shot after shot now came from the front. There wereshoutings and confusion, hoof-beats and desultory cheers.Away to the rear, in the sleeping camp, were a singing of buglesand grumble of drums. Pushing through the thickets oneither side the roads came the Federal pickets, in full retreat,firing backward at random as they ran. A straggling groupthat had followed back one of the roads, as instructed, suddenlysprang away into the bushes as half a hundred horsemen thunderedby them, striking wildly with their sabres as they passed.At headlong speed these mounted madmen shot past the spot whereByring had sat, and vanished round an angle of the road, shoutingand firing their pistols. A moment later there was a roarof musketry, followed by dropping shots—they hadencountered the reserve-guard in line; and back they came in direconfusion, with here and there an empty saddle and many amaddened horse, bullet-stung, snorting and plunging withpain. It was all over—“an affair ofoutposts.”

The line was reëstablished with fresh men, the rollcalled, the stragglers were reformed. The Federal commanderwith a part of his staff, imperfectly clad, appeared upon thescene, asked a few questions, looked exceedingly wise andretired. After standing at arms for an hour the brigade incamp “swore a prayer or two” and went to bed.

Early the next morning a fatigue-party, commanded by a captainand accompanied by a surgeon, searched the ground for dead andwounded. At the fork of the road, a little to one side,they found two bodies lying close together—that of aFederal officer and that of a Confederate private. Theofficer had died of a sword-thrust through the heart, but not,apparently, until he had inflicted upon his enemy no fewer thanfive dreadful wounds. The dead officer lay on his face in apool of blood, the weapon still in his breast. They turnedhim on his back and the surgeon removed it.

“Gad!” said the captain—“It isByring!”—adding, with a glance at the other,“They had a tough tussle.”

The surgeon was examining the sword. It was that of aline officer of Federal infantry—exactly like the one wornby the captain. It was, in fact, Byring’s own.The only other weapon discovered was an undischarged revolver inthe dead officer’s belt.

The surgeon laid down the sword and approached the otherbody. It was frightfully gashed and stabbed, but there wasno blood. He took hold of the left foot and tried tostraighten the leg. In the effort the body wasdisplaced. The dead do not wish to be moved—itprotested with a faint, sickening odor. Where it had lainwere a few maggots, manifesting an imbecile activity.

The surgeon looked at the captain. The captain looked atthe surgeon.

p. 121ONEOF TWINS

A LETTER FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OFTHE LATE MORTIMER BARR

You ask me if in my experience asone of a pair of twins I ever observed anything unaccountable bythe natural laws with which we have acquaintance. As tothat you shall judge; perhaps we have not all acquaintance withthe same natural laws. You may know some that I do not, andwhat is to me unaccountable may be very clear to you.

You knew my brother John—that is, you knew him when youknew that I was not present; but neither you nor, I believe, anyhuman being could distinguish between him and me if we chose toseem alike. Our parents could not; ours is the onlyinstance of which I have any knowledge of so close resemblance asthat. I speak of my brother John, but I am not at all surethat his name was not Henry and mine John. We wereregularly christened, but afterward, in the very act of tattooingus with small distinguishing marks, the operator lost hisreckoning; and although I bear upon my forearm a small“H” and he bore a “J,” it is by no meanscertain that the letters ought not to have been transposed.During our boyhood our parents tried to distinguish us moreobviously by our clothing and other simple devices, but we wouldso frequently exchange suits and otherwise circumvent the enemythat they abandoned all such ineffectual attempts, and during allthe years that we lived together at home everybody recognized thedifficulty of the situation and made the best of it by calling usboth “Jehnry.” I have often wondered at myfather’s forbearance in not branding us conspicuously uponour unworthy brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and usedour power of embarrassment and annoyance with commendablemoderation, we escaped the iron. My father was, in fact, asingularly good-natured man, and I think quietly enjoyednature’s practical joke.

Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose(where the only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting withso kind a friend as you) the family, as you know, was broken upby the death of both my parents in the same week. My fatherdied insolvent and the homestead was sacrificed to pay hisdebts. My sisters returned to relatives in the East, butowing to your kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of age,obtained employment in San Francisco, in different quarters ofthe town. Circumstances did not permit us to live together,and we saw each other infrequently, sometimes not oftener thanonce a week. As we had few acquaintances in common, thefact of our extraordinary likeness was little known. I comenow to the matter of your inquiry.

One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking downMarket street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by awell-dressed man of middle age, who after greeting me cordiallysaid: “Stevens, I know, of course, that you do not go outmuch, but I have told my wife about you, and she would be glad tosee you at the house. I have a notion, too, that my girlsare worth knowing. Suppose you come out to-morrow at sixand dine with us, en famille; and then if the ladiescan’t amuse you afterward I’ll stand in with a fewgames of billiards.”

This was said with so bright a smile and so engaging a mannerthat I had not the heart to refuse, and although I had never seenthe man in my life I promptly replied: “You are very good,sir, and it will give me great pleasure to accept theinvitation. Please present my compliments to Mrs. Margovanand ask her to expect me.”

With a shake of the hand and a pleasant parting word the manpassed on. That he had mistaken me for my brother was plainenough. That was an error to which I was accustomed andwhich it was not my habit to rectify unless the matter seemedimportant. But how had I known that this man’s namewas Margovan? It certainly is not a name that one wouldapply to a man at random, with a probability that it would beright. In point of fact, the name was as strange to me asthe man.

The next morning I hastened to where my brother was employedand met him coming out of the office with a number of bills thathe was to collect. I told him how I had“committed” him and added that if he didn’tcare to keep the engagement I should be delighted to continue theimpersonation.

“That’s queer,” he said thoughtfully.“Margovan is the only man in the office here whom I knowwell and like. When he came in this morning and we hadpassed the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me tosay: ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglectedto ask your address.’ I got the address, but whatunder the sun I was to do with it, I did not know untilnow. It’s good of you to offer to take theconsequence of your impudence, but I’ll eat that dinnermyself, if you please.”

He ate a number of dinners at the same place—more thanwere good for him, I may add without disparaging their quality;for he fell in love with Miss Margovan, proposed marriage to herand was heartlessly accepted.

Several weeks after I had been informed of the engagement, butbefore it had been convenient for me to make the acquaintance ofthe young woman and her family, I met one day on Kearney street ahandsome but somewhat dissipated-looking man whom somethingprompted me to follow and watch, which I did without any scruplewhatever. He turned up Geary street and followed it untilhe came to Union square. There he looked at his watch, thenentered the square. He loitered about the paths for sometime, evidently waiting for someone. Presently he wasjoined by a fashionably dressed and beautiful young woman and thetwo walked away up Stockton street, I following. I now feltthe necessity of extreme caution, for although the girl was astranger it seemed to me that she would recognize me at aglance. They made several turns from one street to anotherand finally, after both had taken a hasty look allabout—which I narrowly evaded by stepping into adoorway—they entered a house of which I do not care tostate the location. Its location was better than itscharacter.

I protest that my action in playing the spy upon these twostrangers was without assignable motive. It was one ofwhich I might or might not be ashamed, according to my estimateof the character of the person finding it out. As anessential part of a narrative educed by your question it isrelated here without hesitancy or shame.

A week later John took me to the house of his prospectivefather-in-law, and in Miss Margovan, as you have alreadysurmised, but to my profound astonishment, I recognized theheroine of that discreditable adventure. A gloriouslybeautiful heroine of a discreditable adventure I must in justiceadmit that she was; but that fact has only this importance: herbeauty was such a surprise to me that it cast a doubt upon heridentity with the young woman I had seen before; how could themarvelous fascination of her face have failed to strike me atthat time? But no—there was no possibility of error;the difference was due to costume, light and generalsurroundings.

John and I passed the evening at the house, enduring, with thefortitude of long experience, such delicate enough banter as ourlikeness naturally suggested. When the young lady and Iwere left alone for a few minutes I looked her squarely in theface and said with sudden gravity:

“You, too, Miss Margovan, have a double: I saw her lastTuesday afternoon in Union square.”

She trained her great gray eyes upon me for a moment, but herglance was a trifle less steady than my own and she withdrew it,fixing it on the tip of her shoe.

“Was she very like me?” she asked, with anindifference which I thought a little overdone.

“So like,” said I, “that I greatly admiredher, and being unwilling to lose sight of her I confess that Ifollowed her until—Miss Margovan, are you sure that youunderstand?”

She was now pale, but entirely calm. She again raisedher eyes to mine, with a look that did not falter.

“What do you wish me to do?” she asked.“You need not fear to name your terms. I acceptthem.”

It was plain, even in the brief time given me for reflection,that in dealing with this girl ordinary methods would not do, andordinary exactions were needless.

“Miss Margovan,” I said, doubtless with somethingof the compassion in my voice that I had in my heart, “itis impossible not to think you the victim of some horriblecompulsion. Rather than impose new embarrassments upon youI would prefer to aid you to regain your freedom.”

She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, and I continued,with agitation:

“Your beauty unnerves me. I am disarmed by yourfrankness and your distress. If you are free to act uponconscience you will, I believe, do what you conceive to be best;if you are not—well, Heaven help us all! You havenothing to fear from me but such opposition to this marriage as Ican try to justify on—on other grounds.”

These were not my exact words, but that was the sense of them,as nearly as my sudden and conflicting emotions permitted me toexpress it. I rose and left her without another look ather, met the others as they reentered the room and said, ascalmly as I could: “I have been bidding Miss Margovan goodevening; it is later than I thought.”

John decided to go with me. In the street he asked if Ihad observed anything singular in Julia’s manner.

“I thought her ill,” I replied; “that is whyI left.” Nothing more was said.

The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The eventsof the previous evening had made me nervous and ill; I had triedto cure myself and attain to clear thinking by walking in theopen air, but I was oppressed with a horrible presentiment ofevil—a presentiment which I could not formulate. Itwas a chill, foggy night; my clothing and hair were damp and Ishook with cold. In my dressing-gown and slippers before ablazing grate of coals I was even more uncomfortable. I nolonger shivered but shuddered—there is a difference.The dread of some impending calamity was so strong anddispiriting that I tried to drive it away by inviting a realsorrow—tried to dispel the conception of a terrible futureby substituting the memory of a painful past. I recalledthe death of my parents and endeavored to fix my mind upon thelast sad scenes at their bedsides and their graves. It allseemed vague and unreal, as having occurred ages ago and toanother person. Suddenly, striking through my thought andparting it as a tense cord is parted by the stroke ofsteel—I can think of no other comparison—I heard asharp cry as of one in mortal agony! The voice was that ofmy brother and seemed to come from the street outside mywindow. I sprang to the window and threw it open. Astreet lamp directly opposite threw a wan and ghastly light uponthe wet pavement and the fronts of the houses. A singlepoliceman, with upturned collar, was leaning against a gatepost,quietly smoking a cigar. No one else was in sight. Iclosed the window and pulled down the shade, seated myself beforethe fire and tried to fix my mind upon my surroundings. Byway of assisting, by performance of some familiar act, I lookedat my watch; it marked half-past eleven. Again I heard thatawful cry! It seemed in the room—at my side. Iwas frightened and for some moments had not the power tomove. A few minutes later—I have no recollection ofthe intermediate time—I found myself hurrying along anunfamiliar street as fast as I could walk. I did not knowwhere I was, nor whither I was going, but presently sprang up thesteps of a house before which were two or three carriages and inwhich were moving lights and a subdued confusion of voices.It was the house of Mr. Margovan.

You know, good friend, what had occurred there. In onechamber lay Julia Margovan, hours dead by poison; in another JohnStevens, bleeding from a pistol wound in the chest, inflicted byhis own hand. As I burst into the room, pushed aside thephysicians and laid my hand upon his forehead he unclosed hiseyes, stared blankly, closed them slowly and died without asign.

I knew no more until six weeks afterward, when I had beennursed back to life by your own saintly wife in your ownbeautiful home. All of that you know, but what you do notknow is this—which, however, has no bearing upon thesubject of your psychological researches—at least not uponthat branch of them in which, with a delicacy and considerationall your own, you have asked for less assistance than I think Ihave given you:

One moonlight night several years afterward I was passingthrough Union square. The hour was late and the squaredeserted. Certain memories of the past naturally came intomy mind as I came to the spot where I had once witnessed thatfateful assignation, and with that unaccountable perversity whichprompts us to dwell upon thoughts of the most painful character Iseated myself upon one of the benches to indulge them. Aman entered the square and came along the walk toward me.His hands were clasped behind him, his head was bowed; he seemedto observe nothing. As he approached the shadow in which Isat I recognized him as the man whom I had seen meet JuliaMargovan years before at that spot. But he was terriblyaltered—gray, worn and haggard. Dissipation and vicewere in evidence in every look; illness was no lessapparent. His clothing was in disorder, his hair fellacross his forehead in a derangement which was at once uncannyand picturesque. He looked fitter for restraint thanliberty—the restraint of a hospital.

With no defined purpose I rose and confronted him. Heraised his head and looked me full in the face. I have nowords to describe the ghastly change that came over his own; itwas a look of unspeakable terror—he thought himself eye toeye with a ghost. But he was a courageous man.“Damn you, John Stevens!” he cried, and lifting histrembling arm he dashed his fist feebly at my face and fellheadlong upon the gravel as I walked away.

Somebody found him there, stone-dead. Nothing more isknown of him, not even his name. To know of a man that heis dead should be enough.

p. 134THEHAUNTED VALLEY

I
HOW TREES ARE FELLED IN CHINA

A half-mile north from Jo.Dunfer’s, on the road from Hutton’s to Mexican Hill,the highway dips into a sunless ravine which opens out on eitherhand in a half-confidential manner, as if it had a secret toimpart at some more convenient season. I never used to ridethrough it without looking first to the one side and then to theother, to see if the time had arrived for the revelation.If I saw nothing—and I never did see anything—therewas no feeling of disappointment, for I knew the disclosure wasmerely withheld temporarily for some good reason which I had noright to question. That I should one day be taken into fullconfidence I no more doubted than I doubted the existence of Jo.Dunfer himself, through whose premises the ravine ran.

It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to erect a cabin insome remote part of it, but for some reason had abandoned theenterprise and constructed his present hermaphrodite habitation,half residence and half groggery, at the roadside, upon anextreme corner of his estate; as far away as possible, as if onpurpose to show how radically he had changed his mind.

This Jo. Dunfer—or, as he was familiarly known in theneighborhood, Whisky Jo.—was a very important personage inthose parts. He was apparently about forty years of age, along, shock-headed fellow, with a corded face, a gnarled arm anda knotty hand like a bunch of prison-keys. He was a hairyman, with a stoop in his walk, like that of one who is about tospring upon something and rend it.

Next to the peculiarity to which he owed his localappellation, Mr. Dunfer’s most obvious characteristic was adeep-seated antipathy to the Chinese. I saw him once in atowering rage because one of his herdsmen had permitted atravel-heated Asian to slake his thirst at the horse-trough infront of the saloon end of Jo.’s establishment. Iventured faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his unchristianspirit, but he merely explained that there was nothing aboutChinamen in the New Testament, and strode away to wreak hisdispleasure upon his dog, which also, I suppose, the inspiredscribes had overlooked.

Some days afterward, finding him sitting alone in his barroom,I cautiously approached the subject, when, greatly to my relief,the habitual austerity of his expression visibly softened intosomething that I took for condescension.

“You young Easterners,” he said, “are amile-and-a-half too good for this country, and you don’tcatch on to our play. People who don’t know aChileño from a Kanaka can afford to hang out liberal ideasabout Chinese immigration, but a fellow that has to fight for hisbone with a lot of mongrel coolies hasn’t any time forfoolishness.”

This long consumer, who had probably never done an honestday’s-work in his life, sprung the lid of a Chinesetobacco-box and with thumb and forefinger forked out a wad like asmall haycock. Holding this reinforcement within supportingdistance he fired away with renewed confidence.

“They’re a flight of devouring locusts, andthey’re going for everything green in this God blest land,if you want to know.”

Here he pushed his reserve into the breach and when hisgabble-gear was again disengaged resumed his upliftingdiscourse.

“I had one of them on this ranch five years ago, andI’ll tell you about it, so that you can see the nub of thiswhole question. I didn’t pan out particularly wellthose days—drank more whisky than was prescribed for me anddidn’t seem to care for my duty as a patriotic Americancitizen; so I took that pagan in, as a kind of cook. Butwhen I got religion over at the Hill and they talked of runningme for the Legislature it was given to me to see the light.But what was I to do? If I gave him the go somebody elsewould take him, and mightn’t treat him white.What was I to do? What would any good Christian do,especially one new to the trade and full to the neck with thebrotherhood of Man and the fatherhood of God?”

Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression of unstablesatisfaction, as of one who has solved a problem by a distrustedmethod. Presently he rose and swallowed a glass of whiskyfrom a full bottle on the counter, then resumed his story.

“Besides, he didn’t count formuch—didn’t know anything and gave himselfairs. They all do that. I said him nay, but he muledit through on that line while he lasted; but after turning theother cheek seventy and seven times I doctored the dice so thathe didn’t last forever. And I’m almighty glad Ihad the sand to do it.”

Jo.’s gladness, which somehow did not impress me, wasduly and ostentatiously celebrated at the bottle.

“About five years ago I started in to stick up ashack. That was before this one was built, and I put it inanother place. I set Ah Wee and a little cuss named Gopherto cutting the timber. Of course I didn’t expect AhWee to help much, for he had a face like a day in June and bigblack eyes—I guess maybe they were the damn’dest eyesin this neck o’ woods.”

While delivering this trenchant thrust at common sense Mr.Dunfer absently regarded a knot-hole in the thin board partitionseparating the bar from the living-room, as if that were one ofthe eyes whose size and color had incapacitated his servant forgood service.

“Now you Eastern galoots won’t believe anythingagainst the yellow devils,” he suddenly flamed out with anappearance of earnestness not altogether convincing, “but Itell you that Chink was the perversest scoundrel outside SanFrancisco. The miserable pigtail Mongolian went to hewingaway at the saplings all round the stems, like a worm o’the dust gnawing a radish. I pointed out his error aspatiently as I knew how, and showed him how to cut them on twosides, so as to make them fall right; but no sooner would I turnmy back on him, like this”—and he turned it on me,amplifying the illustration by taking some moreliquor—“than he was at it again. It was justthis way: while I looked at him, so”—regardingme rather unsteadily and with evident complexity ofvision—“he was all right; but when I looked away,so”—taking a long pull at thebottle—“he defied me. Then I’d gaze athim reproachfully, so, and butter wouldn’t havemelted in his mouth.”

Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended the look that he fixedupon me to be merely reproachful, but it was singularly fit toarouse the gravest apprehension in any unarmed person incurringit; and as I had lost all interest in his pointless andinterminable narrative, I rose to go. Before I had fairlyrisen, he had again turned to the counter, and with a barelyaudible “so,” had emptied the bottle at a gulp.

Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan in his last,strong agony. Jo. staggered back after emitting it, as acannon recoils from its own thunder, and then dropped into hischair, as if he had been “knocked in the head” like abeef—his eyes drawn sidewise toward the wall, with a stareof terror. Looking in the same direction, I saw that theknot-hole in the wall had indeed become a human eye—a full,black eye, that glared into my own with an entire lack ofexpression more awful than the most devilish glitter. Ithink I must have covered my face with my hands to shut out thehorrible illusion, if such it was, and Jo.’s little whiteman-of-all-work coming into the room broke the spell, and Iwalked out of the house with a sort of dazed fear thatdelirium tremens might be infectious. My horse washitched at the watering-trough, and untying him I mounted andgave him his head, too much troubled in mind to note whither hetook me.

I did not know what to think of all this, and like every onewho does not know what to think I thought a great deal, and tolittle purpose. The only reflection that seemed at allsatisfactory, was, that on the morrow I should be some milesaway, with a strong probability of never returning.

A sudden coolness brought me out of my abstraction, andlooking up I found myself entering the deep shadows of theravine. The day was stifling; and this transition from thepitiless, visible heat of the parched fields to the cool gloom,heavy with pungency of cedars and vocal with twittering of thebirds that had been driven to its leafy asylum, was exquisitelyrefreshing. I looked for my mystery, as usual, but notfinding the ravine in a communicative mood, dismounted, led mysweating animal into the undergrowth, tied him securely to a treeand sat down upon a rock to meditate.

I began bravely by analyzing my pet superstition about theplace. Having resolved it into its constituent elements Iarranged them in convenient troops and squadrons, and collectingall the forces of my logic bore down upon them from impregnablepremises with the thunder of irresistible conclusions and a greatnoise of chariots and general intellectual shouting. Then,when my big mental guns had overturned all opposition, and weregrowling almost inaudibly away on the horizon of purespeculation, the routed enemy straggled in upon their rear,massed silently into a solid phalanx, and captured me, bag andbaggage. An indefinable dread came upon me. I rose toshake it off, and began threading the narrow dell by an old,grass-grown cow-path that seemed to flow along the bottom, as asubstitute for the brook that Nature had neglected toprovide.

The trees among which the path straggled were ordinary,well-behaved plants, a trifle perverted as to trunk and eccentricas to bough, but with nothing unearthly in their generalaspect. A few loose bowlders, which had detached themselvesfrom the sides of the depression to set up an independentexistence at the bottom, had dammed up the pathway, here andthere, but their stony repose had nothing in it of the stillnessof death. There was a kind of death-chamber hush in thevalley, it is true, and a mysterious whisper above: the wind wasjust fingering the tops of the trees—that was all.

I had not thought of connecting Jo. Dunfer’s drunkennarrative with what I now sought, and only when I came into aclear space and stumbled over the level trunks of some smalltrees did I have the revelation. This was the site of theabandoned “shack.” The discovery was verifiedby noting that some of the rotting stumps were hacked all round,in a most unwoodmanlike way, while others were cut straightacross, and the butt ends of the corresponding trunks had theblunt wedge-form given by the axe of a master.

The opening among the trees was not more than thirty pacesacross. At one side was a little knoll—a naturalhillock, bare of shrubbery but covered with wild grass, and onthis, standing out of the grass, the headstone of a grave!

I do not remember that I felt anything like surprise at thisdiscovery. I viewed that lonely grave with something of thefeeling that Columbus must have had when he saw the hills andheadlands of the new world. Before approaching it Ileisurely completed my survey of the surroundings. I waseven guilty of the affectation of winding my watch at thatunusual hour, and with needless care and deliberation. ThenI approached my mystery.

The grave—a rather short one—was in somewhatbetter repair than was consistent with its obvious age andisolation, and my eyes, I dare say, widened a trifle at a clumpof unmistakable garden flowers showing evidence of recentwatering. The stone had clearly enough done duty once as adoorstep. In its front was carved, or rather dug, aninscription. It read thus:

AHWEE—CHINAMAN.
Age unknown. Worked for Jo. Dunfer.
This monument is erected by him to keep the Chink’s
memory green. Likewise as a warning to Celestials
not to take on airs. Devil take ’em!
She Was a Good Egg.

I cannot adequately relate my astonishment at this uncommoninscription! The meagre but sufficient identification ofthe deceased; the impudent candor of confession; the brutalanathema; the ludicrous change of sex and sentiment—allmarked this record as the work of one who must have been at leastas much demented as bereaved. I felt that any furtherdisclosure would be a paltry anti-climax, and with an unconsciousregard for dramatic effect turned squarely about and walkedaway. Nor did I return to that part of the county for fouryears.

p.145II
WHO DRIVES SANE OXEN SHOULD HIMSELF BE SANE

“Gee-up, there, old Fuddy-Duddy!”

This unique adjuration came from the lips of a queer littleman perched upon a wagonful of firewood, behind a brace of oxenthat were hauling it easily along with a simulation of mightyeffort which had evidently not imposed on their lord andmaster. As that gentleman happened at the moment to bestaring me squarely in the face as I stood by the roadside it wasnot altogether clear whether he was addressing me or his beasts;nor could I say if they were named Fuddy and Duddy and were bothsubjects of the imperative verb “to gee-up.”Anyhow the command produced no effect on us, and the queer littleman removed his eyes from mine long enough to spear Fuddy andDuddy alternately with a long pole, remarking, quietly but withfeeling: “Dern your skin,” as if they enjoyed thatintegument in common. Observing that my request for a ridetook no attention, and finding myself falling slowly astern, Iplaced one foot upon the inner circumference of a hind wheel andwas slowly elevated to the level of the hub, whence I boarded theconcern, sans cérémonie, and scramblingforward seated myself beside the driver—who took no noticeof me until he had administered another indiscriminatecastigation to his cattle, accompanied with the advice to“buckle down, you derned Incapable!” Then, themaster of the outfit (or rather the former master, for I couldnot suppress a whimsical feeling that the entire establishmentwas my lawful prize) trained his big, black eyes upon me with anexpression strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, familiar, laiddown his rod—which neither blossomed nor turned into aserpent, as I half expected—folded his arms, and gravelydemanded, “W’at did you do toW’isky?”

My natural reply would have been that I drank it, but therewas something about the query that suggested a hiddensignificance, and something about the man that did not invite ashallow jest. And so, having no other answer ready, Imerely held my tongue, but felt as if I were resting under animputation of guilt, and that my silence was being construed intoa confession.

Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, and caused me tolook up. We were descending into my ravine! I cannotdescribe the sensation that came upon me: I had not seen it sinceit unbosomed itself four years before, and now I felt like one towhom a friend has made some sorrowing confession of crime longpast, and who has basely deserted him in consequence. Theold memories of Jo. Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation, and theunsatisfying explanatory note by the headstone, came back withsingular distinctness. I wondered what had become of Jo.,and—I turned sharply round and asked my prisoner. Hewas intently watching his cattle, and without withdrawing hiseyes replied:

“Gee-up, old Terrapin! He lies aside of Ah Wee upthe gulch. Like to see it? They always come back tothe spot—I’ve been expectin’ you.H-woa!”

At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy-Duddy, the incapableterrapin, came to a dead halt, and before the vowel had died awayup the ravine had folded up all his eight legs and lain down inthe dusty road, regardless of the effect upon his dernedskin. The queer little man slid off his seat to the groundand started up the dell without deigning to look back to see if Iwas following. But I was.

It was about the same season of the year, and at near the samehour of the day, of my last visit. The jays clamoredloudly, and the trees whispered darkly, as before; and I somehowtraced in the two sounds a fanciful analogy to the openboastfulness of Mr. Jo. Dunfer’s mouth and the mysteriousreticence of his manner, and to the mingled hardihood andtenderness of his sole literary production—theepitaph. All things in the valley seemed unchanged,excepting the cow-path, which was almost wholly overgrown withweeds. When we came out into the “clearing,”however, there was change enough. Among the stumps andtrunks of the fallen saplings, those that had been hacked“China fashion” were no longer distinguishable fromthose that were cut “’Melican way.” Itwas as if the Old-World barbarism and the New-World civilizationhad reconciled their differences by the arbitration of animpartial decay—as is the way of civilizations. Theknoll was there, but the Hunnish brambles had overrun and all butobliterated its effete grasses; and the patrician garden-violethad capitulated to his plebeian brother—perhaps had merelyreverted to his original type. Another grave—a long,robust mound—had been made beside the first, which seemedto shrink from the comparison; and in the shadow of a newheadstone the old one lay prostrate, with its marvelousinscription illegible by accumulation of leaves and soil.In point of literary merit the new was inferior to theold—was even repulsive in its terse and savagejocularity:

JO. DUNFER. DONEFOR.

I turned from it with indifference, and brushing away theleaves from the tablet of the dead pagan restored to light themocking words which, fresh from their long neglect, seemed tohave a certain pathos. My guide, too, appeared to take onan added seriousness as he read it, and I fancied that I coulddetect beneath his whimsical manner something of manliness,almost of dignity. But while I looked at him his formeraspect, so subtly inhuman, so tantalizingly familiar, crept backinto his big eyes, repellant and attractive. I resolved tomake an end of the mystery if possible.

“My friend,” I said, pointing to the smallergrave, “did Jo. Dunfer murder that Chinaman?”

He was leaning against a tree and looking across the openspace into the top of another, or into the blue sky beyond.He neither withdrew his eyes, nor altered his posture as heslowly replied:

“No, sir; he justifiably homicided him.”

“Then he really did kill him.”

“Kill ’im? I should say he did,rather. Doesn’t everybody know that?Didn’t he stan’ up before the coroner’s juryand confess it? And didn’t they find a verdict of‘Came to ’is death by a wholesome Christian sentimentworkin’ in the Caucasian breast’? An’didn’t the church at the Hill turn W’isky down forit? And didn’t the sovereign people elect him Justiceof the Peace to get even on the gospelers? I don’tknow where you were brought up.”

“But did Jo. do that because the Chinaman did not, orwould n’ot, learn to cut down trees like a whiteman?”

“Sure!—it stan’s so on the record, whichmakes it true an’ legal. My knowin’ betterdoesn’t make any difference with legal truth; itwasn’t my funeral and I wasn’t invited to deliver anoration. But the fact is, W’isky was jealous o’me”—and the little wretch actually swelled outlike a turkeycock and made a pretense of adjusting an imaginaryneck-tie, noting the effect in the palm of his hand, held upbefore him to represent a mirror.

“Jealous of you!” I repeated withill-mannered astonishment.

“That’s what I said. Whynot?—don’t I look all right?”

He assumed a mocking attitude of studied grace, and twitchedthe wrinkles out of his threadbare waistcoat. Then,suddenly dropping his voice to a low pitch of singular sweetness,he continued:

“W’isky thought a lot o’ that Chink; nobodybut me knew how ’e doted on ’im. Couldn’tbear ’im out of ’is sight, the dernedprotoplasm! And w’en ’e came down to thisclear-in’ one day an’ found him an’ meneglectin’ our work—him asleep an’ me grapplina tarantula out of ’is sleeve—W’isky laid holdof my axe and let us have it, good an’ hard! I dodgedjust then, for the spider bit me, but Ah Wee got it bad in theside an’ tumbled about like anything. W’iskywas just weigh-in’ me out one w’en ’e saw thespider fastened on my finger; then ’e knew he’d madea jack ass of ’imself. He threw away the axe and gotdown on ’is knees alongside of Ah Wee, who gave a lastlittle kick and opened ’is eyes—he had eyes likemine—an’ puttin’ up ’is hands drew downW’isky’s ugly head and held it there w’ile’e stayed. That wasn’t long, for atremblin’ ran through ’im and ’e gave a bit ofa moan an’ beat the game.”

During the progress of the story the narrator had becometransfigured. The comic, or rather, the sardonic elementwas all out of him, and as he painted that strange scene it waswith difficulty that I kept my composure. And thisconsummate actor had somehow so managed me that the sympathy dueto his dramatis personæ was given to himself.I stepped forward to grasp his hand, when suddenly a broad grindanced across his face and with a light, mocking laugh hecontinued:

“W’en W’isky got ’is nut out o’that ’e was a sight to see! All his fineclothes—he dressed mighty blindin’ thosedays—were spoiled everlastin’! ’Is hairwas towsled and his face—what I could see of it—waswhiter than the ace of lilies. ’E stared once at me,and looked away as if I didn’t count; an’ then therewere shootin’ pains chasin’ one another from mybitten finger into my head, and it was Gopher to the dark.That’s why I wasn’t at the inquest.”

“But why did you hold your tongue afterward?” Iasked.

“It’s that kind of tongue,” he replied, andnot another word would he say about it.

“After that W’isky took to drinkin’ harderan’ harder, and was rabider an’ rabider anti-coolie,but I don’t think ’e was ever particularly glad that’e dispelled Ah Wee. He didn’t put on so muchdog about it w’en we were alone as w’en he had theear of a derned Spectacular Extravaganza like you. ’Eput up that headstone and gouged the inscription accordin’to his varyin’ moods. It took ’im three weeks,workin’ between drinks. I gouged his in oneday.”

“When did Jo. die?” I asked rather absently.The answer took my breath:

“Pretty soon after I looked at him through thatknot-hole, w’en you had put something in his w’isky,you derned Borgia!”

Recovering somewhat from my surprise at this astoundingcharge, I was half-minded to throttle the audacious accuser, butwas restrained by a sudden conviction that came to me in thelight of a revelation. I fixed a grave look upon him andasked, as calmly as I could: “And when did you goluny?”

“Nine years ago!” he shrieked, throwing out hisclenched hands—“nine years ago, w’en that bigbrute killed the woman who loved him better than she didme!—me who had followed ’er from San Francisco, where’e won ’er at draw poker!—me who had watchedover ’er for years w’en the scoundrel she belonged towas ashamed to acknowledge ’er and treat ’erwhite!—me who for her sake kept ’is cussed secrettill it ate ’im up!—me who w’en you poisonedthe beast fulfilled ’is last request to lay ’imalongside ’er and give ’im a stone to the head of’im! And I’ve never since seen ’er gravetill now, for I didn’t want to meet ’imhere.”

“Meet him? Why, Gopher, my poor fellow, he isdead!”

“That’s why I’m afraid of’im.”

I followed the little wretch back to his wagon and wrung hishand at parting. It was now nightfall, and as I stood thereat the roadside in the deepening gloom, watching the blankoutlines of the receding wagon, a sound was borne to me on theevening wind—a sound as of a series of vigorousthumps—and a voice came out of the night:

“Gee-up, there, you derned old Geranium.”

p. 155AJUG OF SIRUP

This narrative begins with thedeath of its hero. Silas Deemer died on the 16th day ofJuly, 1863, and two days later his remains were buried. Ashe had been personally known to every man, woman and well-grownchild in the village, the funeral, as the local newspaper phrasedit, “was largely attended.” In accordance witha custom of the time and place, the coffin was opened at thegraveside and the entire assembly of friends and neighbors filedpast, taking a last look at the face of the dead. And then,before the eyes of all, Silas Deemer was put into theground. Some of the eyes were a trifle dim, but in ageneral way it may be said that at that interment there was lackof neither observance nor observation; Silas was indubitablydead, and none could have pointed out any ritual delinquency thatwould have justified him in coming back from the grave. Yetif human testimony is good for anything (and certainly it onceput an end to witchcraft in and about Salem) he came back.

I forgot to state that the death and burial of Silas Deemeroccurred in the little village of Hillbrook, where he had livedfor thirty-one years. He had been what is known in someparts of the Union (which is admittedly a free country) as a“merchant”; that is to say, he kept a retail shop forthe sale of such things as are commonly sold in shops of thatcharacter. His honesty had never been questioned, so far asis known, and he was held in high esteem by all. The onlything that could be urged against him by the most censorious wasa too close attention to business. It was not urged againsthim, though many another, who manifested it in no greater degree,was less leniently judged. The business to which Silas wasdevoted was mostly his own—that, possibly, may have made adifference.

At the time of Deemer’s death nobody could recollect asingle day, Sundays excepted, that he had not passed in his“store,” since he had opened it more than aquarter-century before. His health having been perfectduring all that time, he had been unable to discern any validityin whatever may or might have been urged to lure him astray fromhis counter and it is related that once when he was summoned tothe county seat as a witness in an important law case and did notattend, the lawyer who had the hardihood to move that he be“admonished” was solemnly informed that the Courtregarded the proposal with “surprise.” Judicialsurprise being an emotion that attorneys are not commonlyambitious to arouse, the motion was hastily withdrawn and anagreement with the other side effected as to what Mr. Deemerwould have said if he had been there—the other side pushingits advantage to the extreme and making the supposititioustestimony distinctly damaging to the interests of itsproponents. In brief, it was the general feeling in allthat region that Silas Deemer was the one immobile verity ofHillbrook, and that his translation in space would precipitatesome dismal public ill or strenuous calamity.

Mrs. Deemer and two grown daughters occupied the upper roomsof the building, but Silas had never been known to sleepelsewhere than on a cot behind the counter of the store.And there, quite by accident, he was found one night, dying, andpassed away just before the time for taking down theshutters. Though speechless, he appeared conscious, and itwas thought by those who knew him best that if the end hadunfortunately been delayed beyond the usual hour for opening thestore the effect upon him would have been deplorable.

Such had been Silas Deemer—such the fixity and invarietyof his life and habit, that the village humorist (who had onceattended college) was moved to bestow upon him the sobriquet of“Old Ibidem,” and, in the first issue of the localnewspaper after the death, to explain without offence that Silashad taken “a day off.” It was more than a day,but from the record it appears that well within a month Mr.Deemer made it plain that he had not the leisure to be dead.

One of Hillbrook’s most respected citizens was AlvanCreede, a banker. He lived in the finest house in town,kept a carriage and was a most estimable man variously. Heknew something of the advantages of travel, too, having beenfrequently in Boston, and once, it was thought, in New York,though he modestly disclaimed that glittering distinction.The matter is mentioned here merely as a contribution to anunderstanding of Mr. Creede’s worth, for either way it iscreditable to him—to his intelligence if he had puthimself, even temporarily, into contact with metropolitanculture; to his candor if he had not.

One pleasant summer evening at about the hour of ten Mr.Creede, entering at his garden gate, passed up the gravel walk,which looked very white in the moonlight, mounted the stone stepsof his fine house and pausing a moment inserted his latchkey inthe door. As he pushed this open he met his wife, who wascrossing the passage from the parlor to the library. Shegreeted him pleasantly and pulling the door further back held itfor him to enter. Instead he turned and, looking about hisfeet in front of the threshold, uttered an exclamation ofsurprise.

“Why!—what the devil,” he said, “hasbecome of that jug?”

“What jug, Alvan?” his wife inquired, not verysympathetically.

“A jug of maple sirup—I brought it along from thestore and set it down here to open the door. Whatthe—”

“There, there, Alvan, please don’t swearagain,” said the lady, interrupting. Hillbrook, bythe way, is not the only place in Christendom where a vestigialpolytheism forbids the taking in vain of the Evil One’sname.

The jug of maple sirup which the easy ways of village life hadpermitted Hillbrook’s foremost citizen to carry home fromthe store was not there.

“Are you quite sure, Alvan?”

“My dear, do you suppose a man does not know when he iscarrying a jug? I bought that sirup at Deemer’s as Iwas passing. Deemer himself drew it and lent me the jug,and I—”

The sentence remains to this day unfinished. Mr. Creedestaggered into the house, entered the parlor and dropped into anarmchair, trembling in every limb. He had suddenlyremembered that Silas Deemer was three weeks dead.

Mrs. Creede stood by her husband, regarding him with surpriseand anxiety.

“For Heaven’s sake,” she said, “whatails you?”

Mr. Creede’s ailment having no obvious relation to theinterests of the better land he did not apparently deem itnecessary to expound it on that demand; he saidnothing—merely stared. There were long moments ofsilence broken by nothing but the measured ticking of the clock,which seemed somewhat slower than usual, as if it were civillygranting them an extension of time in which to recover theirwits.

“Jane, I have gone mad—that is it.” Hespoke thickly and hurriedly. “You should have toldme; you must have observed my symptoms before they became sopronounced that I have observed them myself. I thought Iwas passing Deemer’s store; it was open and litup—that is what I thought; of course it is never opennow. Silas Deemer stood at his desk behind thecounter. My God, Jane, I saw him as distinctly as I seeyou. Remembering that you had said you wanted some maplesirup, I went in and bought some—that is all—I boughttwo quarts of maple sirup from Silas Deemer, who is dead andunderground, but nevertheless drew that sirup from a cask andhanded it to me in a jug. He talked with me, too, rathergravely, I remember, even more so than was his way, but not aword of what he said can I now recall. But I sawhim—good Lord, I saw and talked with him—and he isdead! So I thought, but I’m mad, Jane, I’m ascrazy as a beetle; and you have kept it from me.”

This monologue gave the woman time to collect what facultiesshe had.

“Alvan,” she said, “you have given noevidence of insanity, believe me. This was undoubtedly anillusion—how should it be anything else? That wouldbe too terrible! But there is no insanity; you are workingtoo hard at the bank. You should not have attended themeeting of directors this evening; any one could see that youwere ill; I knew something would occur.”

It may have seemed to him that the prophecy had lagged a bit,awaiting the event, but he said nothing of that, being concernedwith his own condition. He was calm now, and could thinkcoherently.

“Doubtless the phenomenon was subjective,” hesaid, with a somewhat ludicrous transition to the slang ofscience. “Granting the possibility of spiritualapparition and even materialization, yet the apparition andmaterialization of a half-gallon brown clay jug—a piece ofcoarse, heavy pottery evolved from nothing—that is hardlythinkable.”

As he finished speaking, a child ran into the room—hislittle daughter. She was clad in a bedgown. Hasteningto her father she threw her arms about his neck, saying:“You naughty papa, you forgot to come in and kiss me.We heard you open the gate and got up and looked out. And,papa dear, Eddy says mayn’t he have the little jug when itis empty?”

As the full import of that revelation imparted itself to AlvanCreede’s understanding he visibly shuddered. For thechild could not have heard a word of the conversation.

The estate of Silas Deemer being in the hands of anadministrator who had thought it best to dispose of the“business” the store had been closed ever since theowner’s death, the goods having been removed by another“merchant” who had purchased them enbloc. The rooms above were vacant as well, for thewidow and daughters had gone to another town.

On the evening immediately after Alvan Creede’sadventure (which had somehow “got out”) a crowd ofmen, women and children thronged the sidewalk opposite thestore. That the place was haunted by the spirit of the lateSilas Deemer was now well known to every resident of Hillbrook,though many affected disbelief. Of these the hardiest, andin a general way the youngest, threw stones against the front ofthe building, the only part accessible, but carefully missed theunshuttered windows. Incredulity had not grown tomalice. A few venturesome souls crossed the street andrattled the door in its frame; struck matches and held them nearthe window; attempted to view the black interior. Some ofthe spectators invited attention to their wit by shouting andgroaning and challenging the ghost to a footrace.

After a considerable time had elapsed without anymanifestation, and many of the crowd had gone away, all thoseremaining began to observe that the interior of the store wassuffused with a dim, yellow light. At this alldemonstrations ceased; the intrepid souls about the door andwindows fell back to the opposite side of the street and weremerged in the crowd; the small boys ceased throwing stones.Nobody spoke above his breath; all whispered excitedly andpointed to the now steadily growing light. How long a timehad passed since the first faint glow had been observed nonecould have guessed, but eventually the illumination was brightenough to reveal the whole interior of the store; and there,standing at his desk behind the counter, Silas Deemer wasdistinctly visible!

The effect upon the crowd was marvelous. It beganrapidly to melt away at both flanks, as the timid left theplace. Many ran as fast as their legs would let them;others moved off with greater dignity, turning occasionally tolook backward over the shoulder. At last a score or more,mostly men, remained where they were, speechless, staring,excited. The apparition inside gave them no attention; itwas apparently occupied with a book of accounts.

Presently three men left the crowd on the sidewalk as if by acommon impulse and crossed the street. One of them, a heavyman, was about to set his shoulder against the door when itopened, apparently without human agency, and the courageousinvestigators passed in. No sooner had they crossed thethreshold than they were seen by the awed observers outside to beacting in the most unaccountable way. They thrust out theirhands before them, pursued devious courses, came into violentcollision with the counter, with boxes and barrels on the floor,and with one another. They turned awkwardly hither andthither and seemed trying to escape, but unable to retrace theirsteps. Their voices were heard in exclamations andcurses. But in no way did the apparition of Silas Deemermanifest an interest in what was going on.

By what impulse the crowd was moved none ever recollected, butthe entire mass—men, women, children, dogs—made asimultaneous and tumultuous rush for the entrance. Theycongested the doorway, pushing for precedence—resolvingthemselves at length into a line and moving up step bystep. By some subtle spiritual or physical alchemyobservation had been transmuted into action—the sightseershad become participants in the spectacle—the audience hadusurped the stage.

To the only spectator remaining on the other side of thestreet—Alvan Creede, the banker—the interior of thestore with its inpouring crowd continued in full illumination;all the strange things going on there were clearly visible.To those inside all was black darkness. It was as if eachperson as he was thrust in at the door had been stricken blind,and was maddened by the mischance. They groped with aimlessimprecision, tried to force their way out against the current,pushed and elbowed, struck at random, fell and were trampled,rose and trampled in their turn. They seized one another bythe garments, the hair, the beard—fought like animals,cursed, shouted, called one another opprobrious and obscenenames. When, finally, Alvan Creede had seen the last personof the line pass into that awful tumult the light that hadilluminated it was suddenly quenched and all was as black to himas to those within. He turned away and left the place.

In the early morning a curious crowd had gathered about“Deemer’s.” It was composed partly ofthose who had run away the night before, but now had the courageof sunshine, partly of honest folk going to their dailytoil. The door of the store stood open; the place wasvacant, but on the walls, the floor, the furniture, were shredsof clothing and tangles of hair. Hillbrook militant hadmanaged somehow to pull itself out and had gone home to medicineits hurts and swear that it had been all night in bed. Onthe dusty desk, behind the counter, was the sales-book. Theentries in it, in Deemer’s handwriting, had ceased on the16th day of July, the last of his life. There was no recordof a later sale to Alvan Creede.

That is the entire story—except that men’spassions having subsided and reason having resumed its immemorialsway, it was confessed in Hillbrook that, considering theharmless and honorable character of his first commercialtransaction under the new conditions, Silas Deemer, deceased,might properly have been suffered to resume business at the oldstand without mobbing. In that judgment the local historianfrom whose unpublished work these facts are compiled had thethoughtfulness to signify his concurrence.

p.169STALEY FLEMING’S HALLUCINATION

Of two men who were talking one wasa physician.

“I sent for you, Doctor,” said the other,“but I don’t think you can do me any good. Maybe you can recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I fancyI’m a bit loony.”

“You look all right,” the physician said.

“You shall judge—I have hallucinations. Iwake every night and see in my room, intently watching me, a bigblack Newfoundland dog with a white forefoot.”

“You say you wake; are you sure about that?‘Hallucinations’ are sometimes onlydreams.”

“Oh, I wake, all right. Sometimes I lie still along time, looking at the dog as earnestly as the dog looks atme—I always leave the light going. When I can’tendure it any longer I sit up in bed—and nothing isthere!”

“’M, ’m—what is the beast’sexpression?”

“It seems to me sinister. Of course I know that,except in art, an animal’s face in repose has always thesame expression. But this is not a real animal.Newfoundland dogs are pretty mild looking, you know; what’sthe matter with this one?”

“Really, my diagnosis would have no value: I am notgoing to treat the dog.”

The physician laughed at his own pleasantry, but narrowlywatched his patient from the corner of his eye. Presentlyhe said: “Fleming, your description of the beast fits thedog of the late Atwell Barton.”

Fleming half-rose from his chair, sat again and made a visibleattempt at indifference. “I remember Barton,”he said; “I believe he was—it was reportedthat—wasn’t there something suspicious in hisdeath?”

Looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient, thephysician said: “Three years ago the body of your oldenemy, Atwell Barton, was found in the woods near his house andyours. He had been stabbed to death. There have beenno arrests; there was no clew. Some of us had‘theories.’ I had one. Haveyou?”

“I? Why, bless your soul, what could I know aboutit? You remember that I left for Europe almost immediatelyafterward—a considerable time afterward. In the fewweeks since my return you could not expect me to construct a‘theory.’ In fact, I have not given the mattera thought. What about his dog?”

“It was first to find the body. It died ofstarvation on his grave.”

We do not know the inexorable law underlyingcoincidences. Staley Fleming did not, or he would perhapsnot have sprung to his feet as the night wind brought in throughthe open window the long wailing howl of a distant dog. Hestrode several times across the room in the steadfast gaze of thephysician; then, abruptly confronting him, almost shouted:“What has all this to do with my trouble, Dr.Halderman? You forget why you were sent for.”

Rising, the physician laid his hand upon his patient’sarm and said, gently: “Pardon me. I cannot diagnoseyour disorder off-hand—to-morrow, perhaps. Please goto bed, leaving your door unlocked; I will pass the night herewith your books. Can you call me without rising?”

“Yes, there is an electric bell.”

“Good. If anything disturbs you push the buttonwithout sitting up. Good night.”

Comfortably installed in an armchair the man of medicinestared into the glowing coals and thought deeply and long, butapparently to little purpose, for he frequently rose and openinga door leading to the staircase, listened intently; then resumedhis seat. Presently, however, he fell asleep, and when hewoke it was past midnight. He stirred the failing fire,lifted a book from the table at his side and looked at thetitle. It was Denneker’s“Meditations.” He opened it at random and beganto read:

“Forasmuch as it is ordained of God that all flesh hathspirit and thereby taketh on spiritual powers, so, also, thespirit hath powers of the flesh, even when it is gone out of theflesh and liveth as a thing apart, as many a violence performedby wraith and lemure sheweth. And there be who say that manis not single in this, but the beasts have the like evilinducement, and—”

The reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house, as bythe fall of a heavy object. The reader flung down the book,rushed from the room and mounted the stairs to Fleming’sbed-chamber. He tried the door, but contrary to hisinstructions it was locked. He set his shoulder against itwith such force that it gave way. On the floor near thedisordered bed, in his night clothes, lay Fleming gasping awayhis life.

The physician raised the dying man’s head from the floorand observed a wound in the throat. “I should havethought of this,” he said, believing it suicide.

When the man was dead an examination disclosed theunmistakable marks of an animal’s fangs deeply sunken intothe jugular vein.

But there was no animal.

p. 174ARESUMED IDENTITY

I
THE REVIEW AS A FORM OF WELCOME

One summer night a man stood on alow hill overlooking a wide expanse of forest and field. Bythe full moon hanging low in the west he knew what he might nothave known otherwise: that it was near the hour of dawn. Alight mist lay along the earth, partly veiling the lower featuresof the landscape, but above it the taller trees showed inwell-defined masses against a clear sky. Two or threefarmhouses were visible through the haze, but in none of them,naturally, was a light. Nowhere, indeed, was any sign orsuggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog, which,repeated with mechanical iteration, served rather to accentuatethan dispel the loneliness of the scene.

The man looked curiously about him on all sides, as one whoamong familiar surroundings is unable to determine his exactplace and part in the scheme of things. It is so, perhaps,that we shall act when, risen from the dead, we await the call tojudgment.

A hundred yards away was a straight road, showing white in themoonlight. Endeavoring to orient himself, as a surveyor ornavigator might say, the man moved his eyes slowly along itsvisible length and at a distance of a quarter-mile to the southof his station saw, dim and gray in the haze, a group of horsemenriding to the north. Behind them were men afoot, marchingin column, with dimly gleaming rifles aslant above theirshoulders. They moved slowly and in silence. Anothergroup of horsemen, another regiment of infantry, another andanother—all in unceasing motion toward the man’spoint of view, past it, and beyond. A battery of artilleryfollowed, the cannoneers riding with folded arms on limber andcaisson. And still the interminable procession came out ofthe obscurity to south and passed into the obscurity to north,with never a sound of voice, nor hoof, nor wheel.

The man could not rightly understand: he thought himself deaf;said so, and heard his own voice, although it had an unfamiliarquality that almost alarmed him; it disappointed his ear’sexpectancy in the matter of timbre and resonance.But he was not deaf, and that for the moment sufficed.

Then he remembered that there are natural phenomena to whichsome one has given the name “acoustic shadows.”If you stand in an acoustic shadow there is one direction fromwhich you will hear nothing. At the battle ofGaines’s Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts of the CivilWar, with a hundred guns in play, spectators a mile and a halfaway on the opposite side of the Chickahominy valley heardnothing of what they clearly saw. The bombardment of PortRoyal, heard and felt at St. Augustine, a hundred and fifty milesto the south, was inaudible two miles to the north in a stillatmosphere. A few days before the surrender at Appomattox athunderous engagement between the commands of Sheridan andPickett was unknown to the latter commander, a mile in the rearof his own line.

These instances were not known to the man of whom we write,but less striking ones of the same character had not escaped hisobservation. He was profoundly disquieted, but for anotherreason than the uncanny silence of that moonlight march.

“Good Lord!” he said to himself—and again itwas as if another had spoken his thought—“if thosepeople are what I take them to be we have lost the battle andthey are moving on Nashville!”

Then came a thought of self—an apprehension—astrong sense of personal peril, such as in another we callfear. He stepped quickly into the shadow of a tree.And still the silent battalions moved slowly forward in thehaze.

The chill of a sudden breeze upon the back of his neck drewhis attention to the quarter whence it came, and turning to theeast he saw a faint gray light along the horizon—the firstsign of returning day. This increased his apprehension.

“I must get away from here,” he thought, “orI shall be discovered and taken.”

He moved out of the shadow, walking rapidly toward the grayingeast. From the safer seclusion of a clump of cedars helooked back. The entire column had passed out of sight: thestraight white road lay bare and desolate in the moonlight!

Puzzled before, he was now inexpressibly astonished. Soswift a passing of so slow an army!—he could not comprehendit. Minute after minute passed unnoted; he had lost hissense of time. He sought with a terrible earnestness asolution of the mystery, but sought in vain. When at lasthe roused himself from his abstraction the sun’s rim wasvisible above the hills, but in the new conditions he found noother light than that of day; his understanding was involved asdarkly in doubt as before.

On every side lay cultivated fields showing no sign of war andwar’s ravages. From the chimneys of the farmhousesthin ascensions of blue smoke signaled preparations for aday’s peaceful toil. Having stilled its immemorialallocution to the moon, the watch-dog was assisting a negro who,prefixing a team of mules to the plow, was flatting and sharpingcontentedly at his task. The hero of this tale staredstupidly at the pastoral picture as if he had never seen such athing in all his life; then he put his hand to his head, passedit through his hair and, withdrawing it, attentively consideredthe palm—a singular thing to do. Apparently reassuredby the act, he walked confidently toward the road.

II
WHEN YOU HAVE LOST YOUR LIFE CONSULT A PHYSICIAN

Dr. Stilling Malson, of Murfreesboro, having visited a patientsix or seven miles away, on the Nashville road, had remained withhim all night. At daybreak he set out for home onhorseback, as was the custom of doctors of the time andregion. He had passed into the neighborhood ofStone’s River battlefield when a man approached him fromthe roadside and saluted in the military fashion, with a movementof the right hand to the hat-brim. But the hat was not amilitary hat, the man was not in uniform and had not a martialbearing. The doctor nodded civilly, half thinking that thestranger’s uncommon greeting was perhaps in deference tothe historic surroundings. As the stranger evidentlydesired speech with him he courteously reined in his horse andwaited.

“Sir,” said the stranger, “although acivilian, you are perhaps an enemy.”

“I am a physician,” was the non-committalreply.

“Thank you,” said the other. “I am alieutenant, of the staff of General Hazen.” He pauseda moment and looked sharply at the person whom he was addressing,then added, “Of the Federal army.”

The physician merely nodded.

“Kindly tell me,” continued the other, “whathas happened here. Where are the armies? Which haswon the battle?”

The physician regarded his questioner curiously with half-shuteyes. After a professional scrutiny, prolonged to the limitof politeness, “Pardon me,” he said; “oneasking information should be willing to impart it. Are youwounded?” he added, smiling.

“Not seriously—it seems.”

The man removed the unmilitary hat, put his hand to his head,passed it through his hair and, withdrawing it, attentivelyconsidered the palm.

“I was struck by a bullet and have beenunconscious. It must have been a light, glancing blow: Ifind no blood and feel no pain. I will not trouble you fortreatment, but will you kindly direct me to my command—toany part of the Federal army—if you know?”

Again the doctor did not immediately reply: he was recallingmuch that is recorded in the books of hisprofession—something about lost identity and the effect offamiliar scenes in restoring it. At length he looked theman in the face, smiled, and said:

“Lieutenant, you are not wearing the uniform of yourrank and service.”

At this the man glanced down at his civilian attire, liftedhis eyes, and said with hesitation:

“That is true. I—I don’t quiteunderstand.”

Still regarding him sharply but not unsympathetically the manof science bluntly inquired:

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three—if that has anything to do withit.”

“You don’t look it; I should hardly have guessedyou to be just that.”

The man was growing impatient. “We need notdiscuss that,” he said; “I want to know about thearmy. Not two hours ago I saw a column of troops movingnorthward on this road. You must have met them. Begood enough to tell me the color of their clothing, which I wasunable to make out, and I’ll trouble you nomore.”

“You are quite sure that you saw them?”

“Sure? My God, sir, I could have countedthem!”

“Why, really,” said the physician, with an amusingconsciousness of his own resemblance to the loquacious barber ofthe Arabian Nights, “this is very interesting. I metno troops.”

The man looked at him coldly, as if he had himself observedthe likeness to the barber. “It is plain,” hesaid, “that you do not care to assist me. Sir, youmay go to the devil!”

He turned and strode away, very much at random, across thedewy fields, his half-penitent tormentor quietly watching himfrom his point of vantage in the saddle till he disappearedbeyond an array of trees.

III
THE DANGER OF LOOKING INTO A POOL OF WATER

After leaving the road the man slackened his pace, and nowwent forward, rather deviously, with a distinct feeling offatigue. He could not account for this, though truly theinterminable loquacity of that country doctor offered itself inexplanation. Seating himself upon a rock, he laid one handupon his knee, back upward, and casually looked at it. Itwas lean and withered. He lifted both hands to hisface. It was seamed and furrowed; he could trace the lineswith the tips of his fingers. How strange!—a merebullet-stroke and a brief unconsciousness should not make one aphysical wreck.

“I must have been a long time in hospital,” hesaid aloud. “Why, what a fool I am! The battlewas in December, and it is now summer!” He laughed.“No wonder that fellow thought me an escaped lunatic.He was wrong: I am only an escaped patient.”

At a little distance a small plot of ground enclosed by astone wall caught his attention. With no very definiteintent he rose and went to it. In the center was a square,solid monument of hewn stone. It was brown with age,weather-worn at the angles, spotted with moss and lichen.Between the massive blocks were strips of grass the leverage ofwhose roots had pushed them apart. In answer to thechallenge of this ambitious structure Time had laid hisdestroying hand upon it, and it would soon be “one withNineveh and Tyre.” In an inscription on one side hiseye caught a familiar name. Shaking with excitement, hecraned his body across the wall and read:

HAZEN’SBRIGADE
to
The Memory of Its Soldiers
who fell at
Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862.

The man fell back from the wall, faint and sick. Almostwithin an arm’s length was a little depression in theearth; it had been filled by a recent rain—a pool of clearwater. He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the upperpart of his body on his trembling arms, thrust forward his headand saw the reflection of his face, as in a mirror. Heuttered a terrible cry. His arms gave way; he fell, facedownward, into the pool and yielded up the life that had spannedanother life.

p. 185ABABY TRAMP

If you had seen little Jo standingat the street corner in the rain, you would hardly have admiredhim. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, butthe water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to beeither just or unjust, and so perhaps did not come under the lawof impartial distribution) appeared to have some propertypeculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark andadhesive—sticky. But that could hardly be so, even inBlackburg, where things certainly did occur that were a good dealout of the common.

For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of smallfrogs had fallen, as is credibly attested by a contemporaneouschronicle, the record concluding with a somewhat obscurestatement to the effect that the chronicler considered it goodgrowing-weather for Frenchmen.

Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it iscold in Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequentand deep. There can be no doubt of it—the snow inthis instance was of the color of blood and melted into water ofthe same hue, if water it was, not blood. The phenomenonhad attracted wide attention, and science had as manyexplanations as there were scientists who knew nothing aboutit. But the men of Blackburg—men who for many yearshad lived right there where the red snow fell, and might besupposed to know a good deal about the matter—shook theirheads and said something would come of it.

And something did, for the next summer was made memorable bythe prevalence of a mysterious disease—epidemic, endemic,or the Lord knows what, though the physiciansdidn’t—which carried away a full half of thepopulation. Most of the other half carried themselves awayand were slow to return, but finally came back, and were nowincreasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg had not sincebeen altogether the same.

Of quite another kind, though equally “out of thecommon,” was the incident of Hetty Parlow’sghost. Hetty Parlow’s maiden name had been Brownon,and in Blackburg that meant more than one would think.

The Brownons had from time immemorial—from the veryearliest of the old colonial days—been the leading familyof the town. It was the richest and it was the best, andBlackburg would have shed the last drop of its plebeian blood indefense of the Brownon fair fame. As few of thefamily’s members had ever been known to live permanentlyaway from Blackburg, although most of them were educatedelsewhere and nearly all had traveled, there was quite a numberof them. The men held most of the public offices, and thewomen were foremost in all good works. Of these latter,Hetty was most beloved by reason of the sweetness of herdisposition, the purity of her character and her singularpersonal beauty. She married in Boston a young scapegracenamed Parlow, and like a good Brownon brought him to Blackburgforthwith and made a man and a town councilman of him. Theyhad a child which they named Joseph and dearly loved, as was thenthe fashion among parents in all that region. Then theydied of the mysterious disorder already mentioned, and at the ageof one whole year Joseph set up as an orphan.

Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off hisparents did not stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearlythe whole Brownon contingent and its allies by marriage; andthose who fled did not return. The tradition was broken,the Brownon estates passed into alien hands and the only Brownonsremaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery,where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough to resist theencroachment of surrounding tribes and hold the best part of thegrounds. But about the ghost:

One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow,a number of the young people of Blackburg were passing Oak HillCemetery in a wagon—if you have been there you willremember that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on thesouth. They had been attending a May Day festival atGreenton; and that serves to fix the date. Altogether theremay have been a dozen, and a jolly party they were, consideringthe legacy of gloom left by the town’s recent somberexperiences. As they passed the cemetery the man drivingsuddenly reined in his team with an exclamation ofsurprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, forjust ahead, and almost at the roadside, though inside thecemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could beno doubt of it, for she had been personally known to every youthand maiden in the party. That established the thing’sidentity; its character as ghost was signified by all thecustomary signs—the shroud, the long, undone hair, the“far-away look”—everything. Thisdisquieting apparition was stretching out its arms toward thewest, as if in supplication for the evening star, which,certainly, was an alluring object, though obviously out ofreach. As they all sat silent (so the story goes) everymember of that party of merrymakers—they had merry-made oncoffee and lemonade only—distinctly heard that ghost callthe name “Joey, Joey!” A moment later nothingwas there. Of course one does not have to believe allthat.

Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey waswandering about in the sage-brush on the opposite side of thecontinent, near Winnemucca, in the State of Nevada. He hadbeen taken to that town by some good persons distantly related tohis dead father, and by them adopted and tenderly caredfor. But on that evening the poor child had strayed fromhome and was lost in the desert.

His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps whichconjecture alone can fill. It is known that he was found bya family of Piute Indians, who kept the little wretch with themfor a time and then sold him—actually sold him for money toa woman on one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long wayfrom Winnemucca. The woman professed to have made allmanner of inquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless and awidow, she adopted him herself. At this point of his careerJo seemed to be getting a long way from the condition oforphanage; the interposition of a multitude of parents betweenhimself and that woeful state promised him a long immunity fromits disadvantages.

Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland,Ohio. But her adopted son did not long remain withher. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman, new to thatbeat, deliberately toddling away from her house, and beingquestioned answered that he was “a doin’home.” He must have traveled by rail, somehow, forthree days later he was in the town of Whiteville, which, as youknow, is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing was inpretty fair condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable togive any account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant andsentenced to imprisonment in the Infants’ ShelteringHome—where he was washed.

Jo ran away from the Infants’ Sheltering Home atWhiteville—just took to the woods one day, and the Homeknew him no more forever.

We find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlornin the cold autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg;and it seems right to explain now that the raindrops falling uponhim there were really not dark and gummy; they only failed tomake his face and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfullyand wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist.And the forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare,red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped with bothlegs. As to clothing—ah, you would hardly have hadthe skill to name any single garment that he wore, or say by whatmagic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over andall through did not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself.Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for thatreason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be therehimself, he could not for the flickering little life of him havetold, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding a hundredwords. From the way he stared about him one could have seenthat he had not the faintest notion of where (nor why) hewas.

Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation;being cold and hungry, and still able to walk a little by bendinghis knees very much indeed and putting his feet down toes first,he decided to enter one of the houses which flanked the street atlong intervals and looked so bright and warm. But when heattempted to act upon that very sensible decision a burly dogcame bowsing out and disputed his right. Inexpressiblyfrightened and believing, no doubt (with some reason, too) thatbrutes without meant brutality within, he hobbled away from allthe houses, and with gray, wet fields to right of him and gray,wet fields to left of him—with the rain half blinding himand the night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along theroad that leads to Greenton. That is to say, the road leadsthose to Greenton who succeed in passing the Oak HillCemetery. A considerable number every year do not.

Jo did not.

They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold,but no longer hungry. He had apparently entered thecemetery gate—hoping, perhaps, that it led to a house wherethere was no dog—and gone blundering about in the darkness,falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired of it alland given up. The little body lay upon one side, with onesoiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other hand tucked awayamong the rags to make it warm, the other cheek washed clean andwhite at last, as for a kiss from one of God’s greatangels. It was observed—though nothing was thought ofit at the time, the body being as yet unidentified—that thelittle fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty Parlow. Thegrave, however, had not opened to receive him. That is acircumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish hadbeen ordered otherwise.

p. 194THENIGHT-DOINGS AT “DEADMAN’S”

A STORY THAT IS UNTRUE

It was a singularly sharp night,and clear as the heart of a diamond. Clear nights have atrick of being keen. In darkness you may be cold and notknow it; when you see, you suffer. This night was brightenough to bite like a serpent. The moon was movingmysteriously along behind the giant pines crowning the SouthMountain, striking a cold sparkle from the crusted snow, andbringing out against the black west the ghostly outlines of theCoast Range, beyond which lay the invisible Pacific. Thesnow had piled itself, in the open spaces along the bottom of thegulch, into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills thatappeared to toss and scatter spray. The spray was sunlight,twice reflected: dashed once from the moon, once from thesnow.

In this snow many of the shanties of the abandoned mining campwere obliterated, (a sailor might have said they had gone down)and at irregular intervals it had overtopped the tall trestleswhich had once supported a river called a flume; for, of course,“flume” is flumen. Among the advantagesof which the mountains cannot deprive the gold-hunter is theprivilege of speaking Latin. He says of his dead neighbor,“He has gone up the flume.” This is not a badway to say, “His life has returned to the Fountain ofLife.”

While putting on its armor against the assaults of the wind,this snow had neglected no coign of vantage. Snow pursuedby the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In theopen field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it canget a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it doesso. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind abit of broken wall. The devious old road, hewn out of themountain side, was full of it. Squadron upon squadron hadstruggled to escape by this line, when suddenly pursuit hadceased. A more desolate and dreary spot thanDeadman’s Gulch in a winter midnight it is impossible toimagine. Yet Mr. Hiram Beeson elected to live there, thesole inhabitant.

Away up the side of the North Mountain his little pine-logshanty projected from its single pane of glass a long, thin beamof light, and looked not altogether unlike a black beetlefastened to the hillside with a bright new pin. Within itsat Mr. Beeson himself, before a roaring fire, staring into itshot heart as if he had never before seen such a thing in all hislife. He was not a comely man. He was gray; he wasragged and slovenly in his attire; his face was wan and haggard;his eyes were too bright. As to his age, if one hadattempted to guess it, one might have said forty-seven, thencorrected himself and said seventy-four. He was reallytwenty-eight. Emaciated he was; as much, perhaps, as hedared be, with a needy undertaker at Bentley’s Flat and anew and enterprising coroner at Sonora. Poverty and zealare an upper and a nether millstone. It is dangerous tomake a third in that kind of sandwich.

As Mr. Beeson sat there, with his ragged elbows on his raggedknees, his lean jaws buried in his lean hands, and with noapparent intention of going to bed, he looked as if the slightestmovement would tumble him to pieces. Yet during the lasthour he had winked no fewer than three times.

There was a sharp rapping at the door. A rap at thattime of night and in that weather might have surprised anordinary mortal who had dwelt two years in the gulch withoutseeing a human face, and could not fail to know that the countrywas impassable; but Mr. Beeson did not so much as pull his eyesout of the coals. And even when the door was pushed open heonly shrugged a little more closely into himself, as one does whois expecting something that he would rather not see. Youmay observe this movement in women when, in a mortuary chapel,the coffin is borne up the aisle behind them.

But when a long old man in a blanket overcoat, his head tiedup in a handkerchief and nearly his entire face in a muffler,wearing green goggles and with a complexion of glitteringwhiteness where it could be seen, strode silently into the room,laying a hard, gloved hand on Mr. Beeson’s shoulder, thelatter so far forgot himself as to look up with an appearance ofno small astonishment; whomever he may have been expecting, hehad evidently not counted on meeting anyone like this.Nevertheless, the sight of this unexpected guest produced in Mr.Beeson the following sequence: a feeling of astonishment; a senseof gratification; a sentiment of profound good will. Risingfrom his seat, he took the knotty hand from his shoulder, andshook it up and down with a fervor quite unaccountable; for inthe old man’s aspect was nothing to attract, much torepel. However, attraction is too general a property forrepulsion to be without it. The most attractive object inthe world is the face we instinctively cover with a cloth.When it becomes still more attractive—fascinating—weput seven feet of earth above it.

“Sir,” said Mr. Beeson, releasing the oldman’s hand, which fell passively against his thigh with aquiet clack, “it is an extremely disagreeable night.Pray be seated; I am very glad to see you.”

Mr. Beeson spoke with an easy good breeding that one wouldhardly have expected, considering all things. Indeed, thecontrast between his appearance and his manner was sufficientlysurprising to be one of the commonest of social phenomena in themines. The old man advanced a step toward the fire, glowingcavernously in the green goggles. Mr. Beeson resumed:

“You bet your life I am!”

Mr. Beeson’s elegance was not too refined; it had madereasonable concessions to local taste. He paused a moment,letting his eyes drop from the muffled head of his guest, downalong the row of moldy buttons confining the blanket overcoat, tothe greenish cowhide boots powdered with snow, which had begun tomelt and run along the floor in little rills. He took aninventory of his guest, and appeared satisfied. Who wouldnot have been? Then he continued:

“The cheer I can offer you is, unfortunately, in keepingwith my surroundings; but I shall esteem myself highly favored ifit is your pleasure to partake of it, rather than seek better atBentley’s Flat.”

With a singular refinement of hospitable humility Mr. Beesonspoke as if a sojourn in his warm cabin on such a night, ascompared with walking fourteen miles up to the throat in snowwith a cutting crust, would be an intolerable hardship. Byway of reply, his guest unbuttoned the blanket overcoat.The host laid fresh fuel on the fire, swept the hearth with thetail of a wolf, and added:

“But I think you’d betterskedaddle.”

The old man took a seat by the fire, spreading his broad solesto the heat without removing his hat. In the mines the hatis seldom removed except when the boots are. Withoutfurther remark Mr. Beeson also seated himself in a chair whichhad been a barrel, and which, retaining much of its originalcharacter, seemed to have been designed with a view to preservinghis dust if it should please him to crumble. For a momentthere was silence; then, from somewhere among the pines, came thesnarling yelp of a coyote; and simultaneously the door rattled inits frame. There was no other connection between the twoincidents than that the coyote has an aversion to storms, and thewind was rising; yet there seemed somehow a kind of supernaturalconspiracy between the two, and Mr. Beeson shuddered with a vaguesense of terror. He recovered himself in a moment and againaddressed his guest.

“There are strange doings here. I will tell youeverything, and then if you decide to go I shall hope toaccompany you over the worst of the way; as far as where BaldyPeterson shot Ben Hike—I dare say you know theplace.”

The old man nodded emphatically, as intimating not merely thathe did, but that he did indeed.

“Two years ago,” began Mr. Beeson, “I, withtwo companions, occupied this house; but when the rush to theFlat occurred we left, along with the rest. In ten hoursthe Gulch was deserted. That evening, however, I discoveredI had left behind me a valuable pistol (that is it) and returnedfor it, passing the night here alone, as I have passed everynight since. I must explain that a few days before we left,our Chinese domestic had the misfortune to die while the groundwas frozen so hard that it was impossible to dig a grave in theusual way. So, on the day of our hasty departure, we cutthrough the floor there, and gave him such burial as wecould. But before putting him down I had the extremely badtaste to cut off his pigtail and spike it to that beam above hisgrave, where you may see it at this moment, or, preferably, whenwarmth has given you leisure for observation.

“I stated, did I not, that the Chinaman came to hisdeath from natural causes? I had, of course, nothing to dowith that, and returned through no irresistible attraction, ormorbid fascination, but only because I had forgotten apistol. This is clear to you, is it not, sir?”

The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared to be a man offew words, if any. Mr. Beeson continued:

“According to the Chinese faith, a man is like a kite:he cannot go to heaven without a tail. Well, to shortenthis tedious story—which, however, I thought it my duty torelate—on that night, while I was here alone and thinkingof anything but him, that Chinaman came back for his pigtail.

“He did not get it.”

At this point Mr. Beeson relapsed into blank silence.Perhaps he was fatigued by the unwonted exercise of speaking;perhaps he had conjured up a memory that demanded his undividedattention. The wind was now fairly abroad, and the pinesalong the mountainside sang with singular distinctness. Thenarrator continued:

“You say you do not see much in that, and I must confessI do not myself.

“But he keeps coming!”

There was another long silence, during which both stared intothe fire without the movement of a limb. Then Mr. Beesonbroke out, almost fiercely, fixing his eyes on what he could seeof the impassive face of his auditor:

“Give it him? Sir, in this matter I have nointention of troubling anyone for advice. You will pardonme, I am sure”—here he became singularlypersuasive—“but I have ventured to nail that pigtailfast, and have assumed the somewhat onerous obligation ofguarding it. So it is quite impossible to act on yourconsiderate suggestion.

“Do you play me for a Modoc?”

Nothing could exceed the sudden ferocity with which he thrustthis indignant remonstrance into the ear of his guest. Itwas as if he had struck him on the side of the head with a steelgauntlet. It was a protest, but it was a challenge.To be mistaken for a coward—to be played for a Modoc: thesetwo expressions are one. Sometimes it is a Chinaman.Do you play me for a Chinaman? is a question frequently addressedto the ear of the suddenly dead.

Mr. Beeson’s buffet produced no effect, and after amoment’s pause, during which the wind thundered in thechimney like the sound of clods upon a coffin, he resumed:

“But, as you say, it is wearing me out. I feelthat the life of the last two years has been a mistake—amistake that corrects itself; you see how. The grave!No; there is no one to dig it. The ground is frozen,too. But you are very welcome. You may say atBentley’s—but that is not important. It wasvery tough to cut: they braid silk into their pigtails.Kwaagh.”

Mr. Beeson was speaking with his eyes shut, and hewandered. His last word was a snore. A moment laterhe drew a long breath, opened his eyes with an effort, made asingle remark, and fell into a deep sleep. What he said wasthis:

“They are swiping my dust!”

Then the aged stranger, who had not uttered one word since hisarrival, arose from his seat and deliberately laid off his outerclothing, looking as angular in his flannels as the lateSignorina Festorazzi, an Irish woman, six feet in height, andweighing fifty-six pounds, who used to exhibit herself in herchemise to the people of San Francisco. He then crept intoone of the “bunks,” having first placed a revolver ineasy reach, according to the custom of the country. Thisrevolver he took from a shelf, and it was the one which Mr.Beeson had mentioned as that for which he had returned to theGulch two years before.

In a few moments Mr. Beeson awoke, and seeing that his guesthad retired he did likewise. But before doing so heapproached the long, plaited wisp of pagan hair and gave it apowerful tug, to assure himself that it was fast and firm.The two beds—mere shelves covered with blankets notoverclean—faced each other from opposite sides of the room,the little square trapdoor that had given access to theChinaman’s grave being midway between. This, by theway, was crossed by a double row of spike-heads. In hisresistance to the supernatural, Mr. Beeson had not disdained theuse of material precautions.

The fire was now low, the flames burning bluely andpetulantly, with occasional flashes, projecting spectral shadowson the walls—shadows that moved mysteriously about, nowdividing, now uniting. The shadow of the pendent queue,however, kept moodily apart, near the roof at the further end ofthe room, looking like a note of admiration. The song ofthe pines outside had now risen to the dignity of a triumphalhymn. In the pauses the silence was dreadful.

It was during one of these intervals that the trap in thefloor began to lift. Slowly and steadily it rose, andslowly and steadily rose the swaddled head of the old man in thebunk to observe it. Then, with a clap that shook the houseto its foundation, it was thrown clean back, where it lay withits unsightly spikes pointing threateningly upward. Mr.Beeson awoke, and without rising, pressed his fingers into hiseyes. He shuddered; his teeth chattered. His guestwas now reclining on one elbow, watching the proceedings with thegoggles that glowed like lamps.

Suddenly a howling gust of wind swooped down the chimney,scattering ashes and smoke in all directions, for a momentobscuring everything. When the firelight again illuminatedthe room there was seen, sitting gingerly on the edge of a stoolby the hearthside, a swarthy little man of prepossessingappearance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the oldman with a friendly and engaging smile. “From SanFrancisco, evidently,” thought Mr. Beeson, who havingsomewhat recovered from his fright was groping his way to asolution of the evening’s events.

But now another actor appeared upon the scene. Out ofthe square black hole in the middle of the floor protruded thehead of the departed Chinaman, his glassy eyes turned upward intheir angular slits and fastened on the dangling queue above witha look of yearning unspeakable. Mr. Beeson groaned, andagain spread his hands upon his face. A mild odor of opiumpervaded the place. The phantom, clad only in a short bluetunic quilted and silken but covered with grave-mold, roseslowly, as if pushed by a weak spiral spring. Its kneeswere at the level of the floor, when with a quick upward impulselike the silent leaping of a flame it grasped the queue with bothhands, drew up its body and took the tip in its horrible yellowteeth. To this it clung in a seeming frenzy, grimacingghastly, surging and plunging from side to side in its efforts todisengage its property from the beam, but uttering nosound. It was like a corpse artificially convulsed by meansof a galvanic battery. The contrast between its superhumanactivity and its silence was no less than hideous!

Mr. Beeson cowered in his bed. The swarthy littlegentleman uncrossed his legs, beat an impatient tattoo with thetoe of his boot and consulted a heavy gold watch. The oldman sat erect and quietly laid hold of the revolver.

Bang!

Like a body cut from the gallows the Chinaman plumped into theblack hole below, carrying his tail in his teeth. Thetrapdoor turned over, shutting down with a snap. Theswarthy little gentleman from San Francisco sprang nimbly fromhis perch, caught something in the air with his hat, as a boycatches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as if drawn upby suction.

From away somewhere in the outer darkness floated in throughthe open door a faint, far cry—a long, sobbing wail, as ofa child death-strangled in the desert, or a lost soul borne awayby the Adversary. It may have been the coyote.

In the early days of the following spring a party of miners ontheir way to new diggings passed along the Gulch, and strayingthrough the deserted shanties found in one of them the body ofHiram Beeson, stretched upon a bunk, with a bullet hole throughthe heart. The ball had evidently been fired from theopposite side of the room, for in one of the oaken beams overheadwas a shallow blue dint, where it had struck a knot and beendeflected downward to the breast of its victim. Stronglyattached to the same beam was what appeared to be an end of arope of braided horsehair, which had been cut by the bullet inits passage to the knot. Nothing else of interest wasnoted, excepting a suit of moldy and incongruous clothing,several articles of which were afterward identified byrespectable witnesses as those in which certain deceased citizensof Deadman’s had been buried years before. But it isnot easy to understand how that could be, unless, indeed, thegarments had been worn as a disguise by Death himself—whichis hardly credible.

p.210BEYOND THE WALL

Many years ago, on my way fromHongkong to New York, I passed a week in San Francisco. Along time had gone by since I had been in that city, during whichmy ventures in the Orient had prospered beyond my hope; I wasrich and could afford to revisit my own country to renew myfriendship with such of the companions of my youth as still livedand remembered me with the old affection. Chief of these, Ihoped, was Mohun Dampier, an old schoolmate with whom I had helda desultory correspondence which had long ceased, as is the wayof correspondence between men. You may have observed thatthe indisposition to write a merely social letter is in the ratioof the square of the distance between you and yourcorrespondent. It is a law.

I remembered Dampier as a handsome, strong young fellow ofscholarly tastes, with an aversion to work and a markedindifference to many of the things that the world cares for,including wealth, of which, however, he had inherited enough toput him beyond the reach of want. In his family, one of theoldest and most aristocratic in the country, it was, I think, amatter of pride that no member of it had ever been in trade norpolitics, nor suffered any kind of distinction. Mohun was atrifle sentimental, and had in him a singular element ofsuperstition, which led him to the study of all manner of occultsubjects, although his sane mental health safeguarded him againstfantastic and perilous faiths. He made daring incursionsinto the realm of the unreal without renouncing his residence inthe partly surveyed and charted region of what we are pleased tocall certitude.

The night of my visit to him was stormy. The Californianwinter was on, and the incessant rain plashed in the desertedstreets, or, lifted by irregular gusts of wind, was hurledagainst the houses with incredible fury. With no smalldifficulty my cabman found the right place, away out toward theocean beach, in a sparsely populated suburb. The dwelling,a rather ugly one, apparently, stood in the center of itsgrounds, which as nearly as I could make out in the gloom weredestitute of either flowers or grass. Three or four trees,writhing and moaning in the torment of the tempest, appeared tobe trying to escape from their dismal environment and take thechance of finding a better one out at sea. The house was atwo-story brick structure with a tower, a story higher, at onecorner. In a window of that was the only visiblelight. Something in the appearance of the place made meshudder, a performance that may have been assisted by a rill ofrain-water down my back as I scuttled to cover in thedoorway.

In answer to my note apprising him of my wish to call, Dampierhad written, “Don’t ring—open the door and comeup.” I did so. The staircase was dimly lightedby a single gas-jet at the top of the second flight. Imanaged to reach the landing without disaster and entered by anopen door into the lighted square room of the tower.Dampier came forward in gown and slippers to receive me, givingme the greeting that I wished, and if I had held a thought thatit might more fitly have been accorded me at the front door thefirst look at him dispelled any sense of his inhospitality.

He was not the same. Hardly past middle age, he had gonegray and had acquired a pronounced stoop. His figure wasthin and angular, his face deeply lined, his complexiondead-white, without a touch of color. His eyes, unnaturallylarge, glowed with a fire that was almost uncanny.

He seated me, proffered a cigar, and with grave and obvioussincerity assured me of the pleasure that it gave him to meetme. Some unimportant conversation followed, but all thewhile I was dominated by a melancholy sense of the great changein him. This he must have perceived, for he suddenly saidwith a bright enough smile, “You are disappointed inme—non sum qualis eram.”

I hardly knew what to reply, but managed to say: “Why,really, I don’t know: your Latin is about thesame.”

He brightened again. “No,” he said,“being a dead language, it grows in appropriateness.But please have the patience to wait: where I am going there isperhaps a better tongue. Will you care to have a message init?”

The smile faded as he spoke, and as he concluded he waslooking into my eyes with a gravity that distressed me. YetI would not surrender myself to his mood, nor permit him to seehow deeply his prescience of death affected me.

“I fancy that it will be long,” I said,“before human speech will cease to serve our need; and thenthe need, with its possibilities of service, will havepassed.”

He made no reply, and I too was silent, for the talk had takena dispiriting turn, yet I knew not how to give it a moreagreeable character. Suddenly, in a pause of the storm,when the dead silence was almost startling by contrast with theprevious uproar, I heard a gentle tapping, which appeared to comefrom the wall behind my chair. The sound was such as mighthave been made by a human hand, not as upon a door by one askingadmittance, but rather, I thought, as an agreed signal, anassurance of someone’s presence in an adjoining room; mostof us, I fancy, have had more experience of such communicationsthan we should care to relate. I glanced at Dampier.If possibly there was something of amusement in the look he didnot observe it. He appeared to have forgotten my presence,and was staring at the wall behind me with an expression in hiseyes that I am unable to name, although my memory of it is asvivid to-day as was my sense of it then. The situation wasembarrassing; I rose to take my leave. At this he seemed torecover himself.

“Please be seated,” he said; “it isnothing—no one is there.”

But the tapping was repeated, and with the same gentle, slowinsistence as before.

“Pardon me,” I said, “it is late. MayI call to-morrow?”

He smiled—a little mechanically, I thought.“It is very delicate of you,” said he, “butquite needless. Really, this is the only room in the tower,and no one is there. At least—” He left thesentence incomplete, rose, and threw up a window, the onlyopening in the wall from which the sound seemed to come.“See.”

Not clearly knowing what else to do I followed him to thewindow and looked out. A street-lamp some little distanceaway gave enough light through the murk of the rain that wasagain falling in torrents to make it entirely plain that“no one was there.” In truth there was nothingbut the sheer blank wall of the tower.

Dampier closed the window and signing me to my seat resumedhis own.

The incident was not in itself particularly mysterious; anyone of a dozen explanations was possible (though none hasoccurred to me), yet it impressed me strangely, the more,perhaps, from my friend’s effort to reassure me, whichseemed to dignify it with a certain significance andimportance. He had proved that no one was there, but inthat fact lay all the interest; and he proffered noexplanation. His silence was irritating and made meresentful.

“My good friend,” I said, somewhat ironically, Ifear, “I am not disposed to question your right to harboras many spooks as you find agreeable to your taste and consistentwith your notions of companionship; that is no business ofmine. But being just a plain man of affairs, mostly of thisworld, I find spooks needless to my peace and comfort. I amgoing to my hotel, where my fellow-guests are still in theflesh.”

It was not a very civil speech, but he manifested no feelingabout it. “Kindly remain,” he said.“I am grateful for your presence here. What you haveheard to-night I believe myself to have heard twice before.Now I know it was no illusion. That is much tome—more than you know. Have a fresh cigar and a goodstock of patience while I tell you the story.”

The rain was now falling more steadily, with a low, monotonoussusurration, interrupted at long intervals by the sudden slashingof the boughs of the trees as the wind rose and failed. Thenight was well advanced, but both sympathy and curiosity held mea willing listener to my friend’s monologue, which I didnot interrupt by a single word from beginning to end.

“Ten years ago,” he said, “I occupied aground-floor apartment in one of a row of houses, all alike, awayat the other end of the town, on what we call Rincon Hill.This had been the best quarter of San Francisco, but had falleninto neglect and decay, partly because the primitive character ofits domestic architecture no longer suited the maturing tastes ofour wealthy citizens, partly because certain public improvementshad made a wreck of it. The row of dwellings in one ofwhich I lived stood a little way back from the street, eachhaving a miniature garden, separated from its neighbors by lowiron fences and bisected with mathematical precision by abox-bordered gravel walk from gate to door.

“One morning as I was leaving my lodging I observed ayoung girl entering the adjoining garden on the left. Itwas a warm day in June, and she was lightly gowned inwhite. From her shoulders hung a broad straw hat profuselydecorated with flowers and wonderfully beribboned in the fashionof the time. My attention was not long held by theexquisite simplicity of her costume, for no one could look at herface and think of anything earthly. Do not fear; I shallnot profane it by description; it was beautifulexceedingly. All that I had ever seen or dreamed ofloveliness was in that matchless living picture by the hand ofthe Divine Artist. So deeply did it move me that, without athought of the impropriety of the act, I unconsciously bared myhead, as a devout Catholic or well-bred Protestant uncoversbefore an image of the Blessed Virgin. The maiden showed nodispleasure; she merely turned her glorious dark eyes upon mewith a look that made me catch my breath, and without otherrecognition of my act passed into the house. For a moment Istood motionless, hat in hand, painfully conscious of myrudeness, yet so dominated by the emotion inspired by that visionof incomparable beauty that my penitence was less poignant thanit should have been. Then I went my way, leaving my heartbehind. In the natural course of things I should probablyhave remained away until nightfall, but by the middle of theafternoon I was back in the little garden, affecting an interestin the few foolish flowers that I had never beforeobserved. My hope was vain; she did not appear.

“To a night of unrest succeeded a day of expectation anddisappointment, but on the day after, as I wandered aimlesslyabout the neighborhood, I met her. Of course I did notrepeat my folly of uncovering, nor venture by even so much as toolong a look to manifest an interest in her; yet my heart wasbeating audibly. I trembled and consciously colored as sheturned her big black eyes upon me with a look of obviousrecognition entirely devoid of boldness or coquetry.

“I will not weary you with particulars; many timesafterward I met the maiden, yet never either addressed her orsought to fix her attention. Nor did I take any actiontoward making her acquaintance. Perhaps my forbearance,requiring so supreme an effort of self-denial, will not beentirely clear to you. That I was heels over head in loveis true, but who can overcome his habit of thought, orreconstruct his character?

“I was what some foolish persons are pleased to call,and others, more foolish, are pleased to be called—anaristocrat; and despite her beauty, her charms and graces, thegirl was not of my class. I had learned hername—which it is needless to speak—and something ofher family. She was an orphan, a dependent niece of theimpossible elderly fat woman in whose lodging-house shelived. My income was small and I lacked the talent formarrying; it is perhaps a gift. An alliance with thatfamily would condemn me to its manner of life, part me from mybooks and studies, and in a social sense reduce me to theranks. It is easy to deprecate such considerations as theseand I have not retained myself for the defense. Letjudgment be entered against me, but in strict justice all myancestors for generations should be made co-defendants and I bepermitted to plead in mitigation of punishment the imperiousmandate of heredity. To a mésalliance of that kindevery globule of my ancestral blood spoke in opposition. Inbrief, my tastes, habits, instinct, with whatever of reason mylove had left me—all fought against it. Moreover, Iwas an irreclaimable sentimentalist, and found a subtle charm inan impersonal and spiritual relation which acquaintance mightvulgarize and marriage would certainly dispel. No woman, Iargued, is what this lovely creature seems. Love is adelicious dream; why should I bring about my own awakening?

“The course dictated by all this sense and sentiment wasobvious. Honor, pride, prudence, preservation of myideals—all commanded me to go away, but for that I was tooweak. The utmost that I could do by a mighty effort of willwas to cease meeting the girl, and that I did. I evenavoided the chance encounters of the garden, leaving my lodgingonly when I knew that she had gone to her music lessons, andreturning after nightfall. Yet all the while I was as onein a trance, indulging the most fascinating fancies and orderingmy entire intellectual life in accordance with my dream.Ah, my friend, as one whose actions have a traceable relation toreason, you cannot know the fool’s paradise in which Ilived.

“One evening the devil put it into my head to be anunspeakable idiot. By apparently careless and purposelessquestioning I learned from my gossipy landlady that the youngwoman’s bedroom adjoined my own, a party-wallbetween. Yielding to a sudden and coarse impulse I gentlyrapped on the wall. There was no response, naturally, but Iwas in no mood to accept a rebuke. A madness was upon meand I repeated the folly, the offense, but again ineffectually,and I had the decency to desist.

“An hour later, while absorbed in some of my infernalstudies, I heard, or thought I heard, my signal answered.Flinging down my books I sprang to the wall and as steadily as mybeating heart would permit gave three slow taps upon it.This time the response was distinct, unmistakable: one, two,three—an exact repetition of my signal. That was allI could elicit, but it was enough—too much.

“The next evening, and for many evenings afterward, thatfolly went on, I always having ‘the last word.’During the whole period I was deliriously happy, but with theperversity of my nature I persevered in my resolution not to seeher. Then, as I should have expected, I got no furtheranswers. ‘She is disgusted,’ I said to myself,‘with what she thinks my timidity in making no moredefinite advances’; and I resolved to seek her and make heracquaintance and—what? I did not know, nor do I nowknow, what might have come of it. I know only that I passeddays and days trying to meet her, and all in vain; she wasinvisible as well as inaudible. I haunted the streets wherewe had met, but she did not come. From my window I watchedthe garden in front of her house, but she passed neither in norout. I fell into the deepest dejection, believing that shehad gone away, yet took no steps to resolve my doubt by inquiryof my landlady, to whom, indeed, I had taken an unconquerableaversion from her having once spoken of the girl with less ofreverence than I thought befitting.

“There came a fateful night. Worn out withemotion, irresolution and despondency, I had retired early andfallen into such sleep as was still possible to me. In themiddle of the night something—some malign power bent uponthe wrecking of my peace forever—caused me to open my eyesand sit up, wide awake and listening intently for I knew notwhat. Then I thought I heard a faint tapping on thewall—the mere ghost of the familiar signal. In a fewmoments it was repeated: one, two, three—no louder thanbefore, but addressing a sense alert and strained to receiveit. I was about to reply when the Adversary of Peace againintervened in my affairs with a rascally suggestion ofretaliation. She had long and cruelly ignored me; now Iwould ignore her. Incredible fatuity—may God forgiveit! All the rest of the night I lay awake, fortifying myobstinacy with shameless justifications and—listening.

“Late the next morning, as I was leaving the house, Imet my landlady, entering.

“‘Good morning, Mr. Dampier,’ shesaid. ‘Have you heard the news?’

“I replied in words that I had heard no news; in manner,that I did not care to hear any. The manner escaped herobservation.

“‘About the sick young lady next door,’ shebabbled on. ‘What! you did not know? Why, shehas been ill for weeks. And now—’

“I almost sprang upon her. ‘And now,’I cried, ‘now what?’

“‘She is dead.’

“That is not the whole story. In the middle of thenight, as I learned later, the patient, awakening from a longstupor after a week of delirium, had asked—it was her lastutterance—that her bed be moved to the opposite side of theroom. Those in attendance had thought the request a vagaryof her delirium, but had complied. And there the poorpassing soul had exerted its failing will to restore a brokenconnection—a golden thread of sentiment between itsinnocence and a monstrous baseness owning a blind, brutalallegiance to the Law of Self.

“What reparation could I make? Are there massesthat can be said for the repose of souls that are abroad suchnights as this—spirits ‘blown about by the viewlesswinds’—coming in the storm and darkness with signsand portents, hints of memory and presages of doom?

“This is the third visitation. On the firstoccasion I was too skeptical to do more than verify by naturalmethods the character of the incident; on the second, I respondedto the signal after it had been several times repeated, butwithout result. To-night’s recurrence completes the‘fatal triad’ expounded by ParapeliusNecromantius. There is no more to tell.”

When Dampier had finished his story I could think of nothingrelevant that I cared to say, and to question him would have beena hideous impertinence. I rose and bade him good night in away to convey to him a sense of my sympathy, which he silentlyacknowledged by a pressure of the hand. That night, alonewith his sorrow and remorse, he passed into the Unknown.

p. 227APSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK

In the summer of 1874 I was inLiverpool, whither I had gone on business for the mercantilehouse of Bronson & Jarrett, New York. I am WilliamJarrett; my partner was Zenas Bronson. The firm failed lastyear, and unable to endure the fall from affluence to poverty hedied.

Having finished my business, and feeling the lassitude andexhaustion incident to its dispatch, I felt that a protracted seavoyage would be both agreeable and beneficial, so instead ofembarking for my return on one of the many fine passengersteamers I booked for New York on the sailing vesselMorrow, upon which I had shipped a large and valuableinvoice of the goods I had bought. The Morrow was anEnglish ship with, of course, but little accommodation forpassengers, of whom there were only myself, a young woman and herservant, who was a middle-aged negress. I thought itsingular that a traveling English girl should be so attended, butshe afterward explained to me that the woman had been left withher family by a man and his wife from South Carolina, both ofwhom had died on the same day at the house of the younglady’s father in Devonshire—a circumstance in itselfsufficiently uncommon to remain rather distinctly in my memory,even had it not afterward transpired in conversation with theyoung lady that the name of the man was William Jarrett, the sameas my own. I knew that a branch of my family had settled inSouth Carolina, but of them and their history I was ignorant.

The Morrow sailed from the mouth of the Mersey on the15th of June and for several weeks we had fair breezes andunclouded skies. The skipper, an admirable seaman butnothing more, favored us with very little of his society, exceptat his table; and the young woman, Miss Janette Harford, and Ibecame very well acquainted. We were, in truth, nearlyalways together, and being of an introspective turn of mind Ioften endeavored to analyze and define the novel feeling withwhich she inspired me—a secret, subtle, but powerfulattraction which constantly impelled me to seek her; but theattempt was hopeless. I could only be sure that at least itwas not love. Having assured myself of this and beingcertain that she was quite as whole-hearted, I ventured oneevening (I remember it was on the 3d of July) as we sat on deckto ask her, laughingly, if she could assist me to resolve mypsychological doubt.

For a moment she was silent, with averted face, and I began tofear I had been extremely rude and indelicate; then she fixed hereyes gravely on my own. In an instant my mind was dominatedby as strange a fancy as ever entered human consciousness.It seemed as if she were looking at me, not with, butthrough, those eyes—from an immeasurable distancebehind them—and that a number of other persons, men, womenand children, upon whose faces I caught strangely familiarevanescent expressions, clustered about her, struggling withgentle eagerness to look at me through the same orbs. Ship,ocean, sky—all had vanished. I was conscious ofnothing but the figures in this extraordinary and fantasticscene. Then all at once darkness fell upon me, and anonfrom out of it, as to one who grows accustomed by degrees to adimmer light, my former surroundings of deck and mast and cordageslowly resolved themselves. Miss Harford had closed hereyes and was leaning back in her chair, apparently asleep, thebook she had been reading open in her lap. Impelled bysurely I cannot say what motive, I glanced at the top of thepage; it was a copy of that rare and curious work,“Denneker’s Meditations,” and the lady’sindex finger rested on this passage:

“To sundry it is given to be drawn away, and to be apartfrom the body for a season; for, as concerning rills which wouldflow across each other the weaker is borne along by the stronger,so there be certain of kin whose paths intersecting, their soulsdo bear company, the while their bodies go fore-appointed ways,unknowing.”

Miss Harford arose, shuddering; the sun had sunk below thehorizon, but it was not cold. There was not a breath ofwind; there were no clouds in the sky, yet not a star wasvisible. A hurried tramping sounded on the deck; thecaptain, summoned from below, joined the first officer, who stoodlooking at the barometer. “Good God!” I heardhim exclaim.

An hour later the form of Janette Harford, invisible in thedarkness and spray, was torn from my grasp by the cruel vortex ofthe sinking ship, and I fainted in the cordage of the floatingmast to which I had lashed myself.

It was by lamplight that I awoke. I lay in a berth amidthe familiar surroundings of the stateroom of a steamer. Ona couch opposite sat a man, half undressed for bed, reading abook. I recognized the face of my friend Gordon Doyle, whomI had met in Liverpool on the day of my embarkation, when he washimself about to sail on the steamer City of Prague, onwhich he had urged me to accompany him.

After some moments I now spoke his name. He simply said,“Well,” and turned a leaf in his book withoutremoving his eyes from the page.

“Doyle,” I repeated, “did they saveher?”

He now deigned to look at me and smiled as if amused. Heevidently thought me but half awake.

“Her? Whom do you mean?”

“Janette Harford.”

His amusement turned to amazement; he stared at me fixedly,saying nothing.

“You will tell me after a while,” I continued;“I suppose you will tell me after a while.”

A moment later I asked: “What ship is this?”

Doyle stared again. “The steamer City ofPrague, bound from Liverpool to New York, three weeks outwith a broken shaft. Principal passenger, Mr. Gordon Doyle;ditto lunatic, Mr. William Jarrett. These two distinguishedtravelers embarked together, but they are about to part, it beingthe resolute intention of the former to pitch the latteroverboard.”

I sat bolt upright. “Do you mean to say that Ihave been for three weeks a passenger on this steamer?”

“Yes, pretty nearly; this is the 3d of July.”

“Have I been ill?”

“Right as a trivet all the time, and punctual at yourmeals.”

“My God! Doyle, there is some mystery here; dohave the goodness to be serious. Was I not rescued from thewreck of the ship Morrow?”

Doyle changed color, and approaching me, laid his fingers onmy wrist. A moment later, “What do you know ofJanette Harford?” he asked very calmly.

“First tell me what you know of her?”

Mr. Doyle gazed at me for some moments as if thinking what todo, then seating himself again on the couch, said:

“Why should I not? I am engaged to marry JanetteHarford, whom I met a year ago in London. Her family, oneof the wealthiest in Devonshire, cut up rough about it, and weeloped—are eloping rather, for on the day that you and Iwalked to the landing stage to go aboard this steamer she and herfaithful servant, a negress, passed us, driving to the shipMorrow. She would not consent to go in the samevessel with me, and it had been deemed best that she take asailing vessel in order to avoid observation and lessen the riskof detection. I am now alarmed lest this cursed breaking ofour machinery may detain us so long that the Morrow willget to New York before us, and the poor girl will not know whereto go.”

I lay still in my berth—so still I hardlybreathed. But the subject was evidently not displeasing toDoyle, and after a short pause he resumed:

“By the way, she is only an adopted daughter of theHarfords. Her mother was killed at their place by beingthrown from a horse while hunting, and her father, mad withgrief, made away with himself the same day. No one everclaimed the child, and after a reasonable time they adoptedher. She has grown up in the belief that she is theirdaughter.”

“Doyle, what book are you reading?”

“Oh, it’s called ‘Denneker’sMeditations.’ It’s a rum lot, Janette gave itto me; she happened to have two copies. Want to seeit?”

He tossed me the volume, which opened as it fell. On oneof the exposed pages was a marked passage:

“To sundry it is given to be drawn away, and to be apartfrom the body for a season; for, as concerning rills which wouldflow across each other the weaker is borne along by the stronger,so there be certain of kin whose paths intersecting, their soulsdo bear company, the while their bodies go fore-appointed ways,unknowing.”

“She had—she has—a singular taste inreading,” I managed to say, mastering my agitation.

“Yes. And now perhaps you will have the kindnessto explain how you knew her name and that of the ship she sailedin.”

“You talked of her in your sleep,” I said.

A week later we were towed into the port of New York.But the Morrow was never heard from.

p. 235THEMIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT

I

It is well known that the oldManton house is haunted. In all the rural district nearabout, and even in the town of Marshall, a mile away, not oneperson of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it; incredulity isconfined to those opinionated persons who will be called“cranks” as soon as the useful word shall havepenetrated the intellectual demesne of the MarshallAdvance. The evidence that the house is haunted isof two kinds: the testimony of disinterested witnesses who havehad ocular proof, and that of the house itself. The formermay be disregarded and ruled out on any of the various grounds ofobjection which may be urged against it by the ingenious; butfacts within the observation of all are material andcontrolling.

In the first place, the Manton house has been unoccupied bymortals for more than ten years, and with its outbuildings isslowly falling into decay—a circumstance which in itselfthe judicious will hardly venture to ignore. It stands alittle way off the loneliest reach of the Marshall and Harristonroad, in an opening which was once a farm and is still disfiguredwith strips of rotting fence and half covered with bramblesoverrunning a stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with theplow. The house itself is in tolerably good condition,though badly weather-stained and in dire need of attention fromthe glazier, the smaller male population of the region havingattested in the manner of its kind its disapproval of dwellingwithout dwellers. It is two stories in height, nearlysquare, its front pierced by a single doorway flanked on eachside by a window boarded up to the very top. Correspondingwindows above, not protected, serve to admit light and rain tothe rooms of the upper floor. Grass and weeds grow prettyrankly all about, and a few shade trees, somewhat the worse forwind, and leaning all in one direction, seem to be making aconcerted effort to run away. In short, as the Marshalltown humorist explained in the columns of the Advance,“the proposition that the Manton house is badly haunted isthe only logical conclusion from the premises.” Thefact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton thought it expedient onenight some ten years ago to rise and cut the throats of his wifeand two small children, removing at once to another part of thecountry, has no doubt done its share in directing publicattention to the fitness of the place for supernaturalphenomena.

To this house, one summer evening, came four men in awagon. Three of them promptly alighted, and the one who hadbeen driving hitched the team to the only remaining post of whathad been a fence. The fourth remained seated in thewagon. “Come,” said one of his companions,approaching him, while the others moved away in the direction ofthe dwelling—“this is the place.”

The man addressed did not move. “By God!” hesaid harshly, “this is a trick, and it looks to me as ifyou were in it.”

“Perhaps I am,” the other said, looking himstraight in the face and speaking in a tone which had somethingof contempt in it. “You will remember, however, thatthe choice of place was with your own assent left to the otherside. Of course if you are afraid ofspooks—”

“I am afraid of nothing,” the man interrupted withanother oath, and sprang to the ground. The two then joinedthe others at the door, which one of them had already opened withsome difficulty, caused by rust of lock and hinge. Allentered. Inside it was dark, but the man who had unlockedthe door produced a candle and matches and made a light. Hethen unlocked a door on their right as they stood in thepassage. This gave them entrance to a large, square roomthat the candle but dimly lighted. The floor had a thickcarpeting of dust, which partly muffled their footfalls.Cobwebs were in the angles of the walls and depended from theceiling like strips of rotting lace, making undulatory movementsin the disturbed air. The room had two windows in adjoiningsides, but from neither could anything be seen except the roughinner surfaces of boards a few inches from the glass. Therewas no fireplace, no furniture; there was nothing: besides thecobwebs and the dust, the four men were the only objects therewhich were not a part of the structure.

Strange enough they looked in the yellow light of thecandle. The one who had so reluctantly alighted wasespecially spectacular—he might have been calledsensational. He was of middle age, heavily built, deepchested and broad shouldered. Looking at his figure, onewould have said that he had a giant’s strength; at hisfeatures, that he would use it like a giant. He was cleanshaven, his hair rather closely cropped and gray. His lowforehead was seamed with wrinkles above the eyes, and over thenose these became vertical. The heavy black brows followedthe same law, saved from meeting only by an upward turn at whatwould otherwise have been the point of contact. Deeplysunken beneath these, glowed in the obscure light a pair of eyesof uncertain color, but obviously enough too small. Therewas something forbidding in their expression, which was notbettered by the cruel mouth and wide jaw. The nose was wellenough, as noses go; one does not expect much of noses. Allthat was sinister in the man’s face seemed accentuated byan unnatural pallor—he appeared altogether bloodless.

The appearance of the other men was sufficiently commonplace:they were such persons as one meets and forgets that hemet. All were younger than the man described, between whomand the eldest of the others, who stood apart, there wasapparently no kindly feeling. They avoided looking at eachother.

“Gentlemen,” said the man holding the candle andkeys, “I believe everything is right. Are you ready,Mr. Rosser?”

The man standing apart from the group bowed and smiled.

“And you, Mr. Grossmith?”

The heavy man bowed and scowled.

“You will be pleased to remove your outerclothing.”

Their hats, coats, waistcoats and neckwear were soon removedand thrown outside the door, in the passage. The man withthe candle now nodded, and the fourth man—he who had urgedGrossmith to leave the wagon—produced from the pocket ofhis overcoat two long, murderous-looking bowie-knives, which hedrew now from their leather scabbards.

“They are exactly alike,” he said, presenting oneto each of the two principals—for by this time the dullestobserver would have understood the nature of this meeting.It was to be a duel to the death.

Each combatant took a knife, examined it critically near thecandle and tested the strength of blade and handle across hislifted knee. Their persons were then searched in turn, eachby the second of the other.

“If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith,” saidthe man holding the light, “you will place yourself in thatcorner.”

He indicated the angle of the room farthest from the door,whither Grossmith retired, his second parting from him with agrasp of the hand which had nothing of cordiality in it. Inthe angle nearest the door Mr. Rosser stationed himself, andafter a whispered consultation his second left him, joining theother near the door. At that moment the candle was suddenlyextinguished, leaving all in profound darkness. This mayhave been done by a draught from the opened door; whatever thecause, the effect was startling.

“Gentlemen,” said a voice which sounded strangelyunfamiliar in the altered condition affecting the relations ofthe senses—“gentlemen, you will not move until youhear the closing of the outer door.”

A sound of trampling ensued, then the closing of the innerdoor; and finally the outer one closed with a concussion whichshook the entire building.

A few minutes afterward a belated farmer’s boy met alight wagon which was being driven furiously toward the town ofMarshall. He declared that behind the two figures on thefront seat stood a third, with its hands upon the bowed shouldersof the others, who appeared to struggle vainly to free themselvesfrom its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, was clad inwhite, and had undoubtedly boarded the wagon as it passed thehaunted house. As the lad could boast a considerable formerexperience with the supernatural thereabouts his word had theweight justly due to the testimony of an expert. The story(in connection with the next day’s events) eventuallyappeared in the Advance, with some slight literaryembellishments and a concluding intimation that the gentlemenreferred to would be allowed the use of the paper’s columnsfor their version of the night’s adventure. But theprivilege remained without a claimant.

II

The events that led up to this “duel in the dark”were simple enough. One evening three young men of the townof Marshall were sitting in a quiet corner of the porch of thevillage hotel, smoking and discussing such matters as threeeducated young men of a Southern village would naturally findinteresting. Their names were King, Sancher andRosser. At a little distance, within easy hearing, buttaking no part in the conversation, sat a fourth. He was astranger to the others. They merely knew that on hisarrival by the stage-coach that afternoon he had written in thehotel register the name Robert Grossmith. He had not beenobserved to speak to anyone except the hotel clerk. Heseemed, indeed, singularly fond of his own company—or, asthe personnel of the Advance expressed it,“grossly addicted to evil associations.” Butthen it should be said in justice to the stranger that thepersonnel was himself of a too convivial dispositionfairly to judge one differently gifted, and had, moreover,experienced a slight rebuff in an effort at an“interview.”

“I hate any kind of deformity in a woman,” saidKing, “whether natural or—acquired. I have atheory that any physical defect has its correlative mental andmoral defect.”

“I infer, then,” said Rosser, gravely, “thata lady lacking the moral advantage of a nose would find thestruggle to become Mrs. King an arduous enterprise.”

“Of course you may put it that way,” was thereply; “but, seriously, I once threw over a most charminggirl on learning quite accidentally that she had sufferedamputation of a toe. My conduct was brutal if you like, butif I had married that girl I should have been miserable for lifeand should have made her so.”

“Whereas,” said Sancher, with a light laugh,“by marrying a gentleman of more liberal views she escapedwith a parted throat.”

“Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, she marriedManton, but I don’t know about his liberality; I’mnot sure but he cut her throat because he discovered that shelacked that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe of the rightfoot.”

“Look at that chap!” said Rosser in a low voice,his eyes fixed upon the stranger.

That chap was obviously listening intently to theconversation.

“Damn his impudence!” mutteredKing—“what ought we to do?”

“That’s an easy one,” Rosser replied,rising. “Sir,” he continued, addressing thestranger, “I think it would be better if you would removeyour chair to the other end of the veranda. The presence ofgentlemen is evidently an unfamiliar situation to you.”

The man sprang to his feet and strode forward with clenchedhands, his face white with rage. All were nowstanding. Sancher stepped between the belligerents.

“You are hasty and unjust,” he said to Rosser;“this gentleman has done nothing to deserve suchlanguage.”

But Rosser would not withdraw a word. By the custom ofthe country and the time there could be but one outcome to thequarrel.

“I demand the satisfaction due to a gentleman,”said the stranger, who had become more calm. “I havenot an acquaintance in this region. Perhaps you,sir,” bowing to Sancher, “will be kind enough torepresent me in this matter.”

Sancher accepted the trust—somewhat reluctantly it mustbe confessed, for the man’s appearance and manner were notat all to his liking. King, who during the colloquy hadhardly removed his eyes from the stranger’s face and hadnot spoken a word, consented with a nod to act for Rosser, andthe upshot of it was that, the principals having retired, ameeting was arranged for the next evening. The nature ofthe arrangements has been already disclosed. The duel withknives in a dark room was once a commoner feature of Southwesternlife than it is likely to be again. How thin a veneering of“chivalry” covered the essential brutality of thecode under which such encounters were possible we shall see.

III

In the blaze of a midsummer noonday the old Manton house washardly true to its traditions. It was of the earth,earthy. The sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately,with evident disregard of its bad reputation. The grassgreening all the expanse in its front seemed to grow, not rankly,but with a natural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds blossomedquite like plants. Full of charming lights and shadows andpopulous with pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade trees nolonger struggled to run away, but bent reverently beneath theirburdens of sun and song. Even in the glassless upperwindows was an expression of peace and contentment, due to thelight within. Over the stony fields the visible heat dancedwith a lively tremor incompatible with the gravity which is anattribute of the supernatural.

Such was the aspect under which the place presented itself toSheriff Adams and two other men who had come out from Marshall tolook at it. One of these men was Mr. King, thesheriff’s deputy; the other, whose name was Brewer, was abrother of the late Mrs. Manton. Under a beneficent law ofthe State relating to property which has been for a certainperiod abandoned by an owner whose residence cannot beascertained, the sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton farmand appurtenances thereunto belonging. His present visitwas in mere perfunctory compliance with some order of a court inwhich Mr. Brewer had an action to get possession of the propertyas heir to his deceased sister. By a mere coincidence, thevisit was made on the day after the night that Deputy King hadunlocked the house for another and very different purpose.His presence now was not of his own choosing: he had been orderedto accompany his superior and at the moment could think ofnothing more prudent than simulated alacrity in obedience to thecommand.

Carelessly opening the front door, which to his surprise wasnot locked, the sheriff was amazed to see, lying on the floor ofthe passage into which it opened, a confused heap of men’sapparel. Examination showed it to consist of two hats, andthe same number of coats, waistcoats and scarves, all in aremarkably good state of preservation, albeit somewhat defiled bythe dust in which they lay. Mr. Brewer was equallyastonished, but Mr. King’s emotion is not of record.With a new and lively interest in his own actions the sheriff nowunlatched and pushed open a door on the right, and the threeentered. The room was apparently vacant—no; as theireyes became accustomed to the dimmer light something was visiblein the farthest angle of the wall. It was a humanfigure—that of a man crouching close in the corner.Something in the attitude made the intruders halt when they hadbarely passed the threshold. The figure more and moreclearly defined itself. The man was upon one knee, his backin the angle of the wall, his shoulders elevated to the level ofhis ears, his hands before his face, palms outward, the fingersspread and crooked like claws; the white face turned upward onthe retracted neck had an expression of unutterable fright, themouth half open, the eyes incredibly expanded. He was stonedead. Yet, with the exception of a bowie-knife, which hadevidently fallen from his own hand, not another object was in theroom.

In thick dust that covered the floor were some confusedfootprints near the door and along the wall through which itopened. Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past theboarded-up windows, was the trail made by the man himself inreaching his corner. Instinctively in approaching the bodythe three men followed that trail. The sheriff grasped oneof the outthrown arms; it was as rigid as iron, and theapplication of a gentle force rocked the entire body withoutaltering the relation of its parts. Brewer, pale withexcitement, gazed intently into the distorted face.“God of mercy!” he suddenly cried, “it isManton!”

“You are right,” said King, with an evidentattempt at calmness: “I knew Manton. He then wore afull beard and his hair long, but this is he.”

He might have added: “I recognized him when hechallenged Rosser. I told Rosser and Sancher who he wasbefore we played him this horrible trick. When Rosser leftthis dark room at our heels, forgetting his outer clothing in theexcitement, and driving away with us in his shirtsleeves—all through the discreditable proceedings we knewwhom we were dealing with, murderer and coward that hewas!”

But nothing of this did Mr. King say. With his betterlight he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man’sdeath. That he had not once moved from the corner where hehad been stationed; that his posture was that of neither attacknor defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that he hadobviously perished of sheer horror of something that hesaw—these were circumstances which Mr. King’sdisturbed intelligence could not rightly comprehend.

Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze ofdoubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of onewho ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there,in the light of day and in the presence of living companions,affected him with terror. In the dust of years that laythick upon the floor—leading from the door by which theyhad entered, straight across the room to within a yard ofManton’s crouching corpse—were three parallel linesof footprints—light but definite impressions of bare feet,the outer ones those of small children, the inner awoman’s. From the point at which they ended they didnot return; they pointed all one way. Brewer, who hadobserved them at the same moment, was leaning forward in anattitude of rapt attention, horribly pale.

“Look at that!” he cried, pointing with both handsat the nearest print of the woman’s right foot, where shehad apparently stopped and stood. “The middle toe ismissing—it was Gertrude!”

Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister to Mr. Brewer.

p. 252JOHNMORTONSON’S FUNERAL [252]

John Mortonson was dead: his linesin “the tragedy ‘Man’” had all beenspoken and he had left the stage.

The body rested in a fine mahogany coffin fitted with a plateof glass. All arrangements for the funeral had been so wellattended to that had the deceased known he would doubtless haveapproved. The face, as it showed under the glass, was notdisagreeable to look upon: it bore a faint smile, and as thedeath had been painless, had not been distorted beyond therepairing power of the undertaker. At two o’clock ofthe afternoon the friends were to assemble to pay their lasttribute of respect to one who had no further need of friends andrespect. The surviving members of the family came severallyevery few minutes to the casket and wept above the placidfeatures beneath the glass. This did them no good; it didno good to John Mortonson; but in the presence of death reasonand philosophy are silent.

As the hour of two approached the friends began to arrive andafter offering such consolation to the stricken relatives as theproprieties of the occasion required, solemnly seated themselvesabout the room with an augmented consciousness of theirimportance in the scheme funereal. Then the minister came,and in that overshadowing presence the lesser lights went intoeclipse. His entrance was followed by that of the widow,whose lamentations filled the room. She approached thecasket and after leaning her face against the cold glass for amoment was gently led to a seat near her daughter.Mournfully and low the man of God began his eulogy of the dead,and his doleful voice, mingled with the sobbing which it was itspurpose to stimulate and sustain, rose and fell, seemed to comeand go, like the sound of a sullen sea. The gloomy day grewdarker as he spoke; a curtain of cloud underspread the sky and afew drops of rain fell audibly. It seemed as if all naturewere weeping for John Mortonson.

When the minister had finished his eulogy with prayer a hymnwas sung and the pall-bearers took their places beside thebier. As the last notes of the hymn died away the widow ranto the coffin, cast herself upon it and sobbedhysterically. Gradually, however, she yielded todissuasion, becoming more composed; and as the minister was inthe act of leading her away her eyes sought the face of the deadbeneath the glass. She threw up her arms and with a shriekfell backward insensible.

The mourners sprang forward to the coffin, the friendsfollowed, and as the clock on the mantel solemnly struck threeall were staring down upon the face of John Mortonson,deceased.

They turned away, sick and faint. One man, trying in histerror to escape the awful sight, stumbled against the coffin soheavily as to knock away one of its frail supports. Thecoffin fell to the floor, the glass was shattered to bits by theconcussion.

From the opening crawled John Mortonson’s cat, whichlazily leapt to the floor, sat up, tranquilly wiped its crimsonmuzzle with a forepaw, then walked with dignity from theroom.

p. 255THEREALM OF THE UNREAL

I

For a part of the distance betweenAuburn and Newcastle the road—first on one side of a creekand then on the other—occupies the whole bottom of theravine, being partly cut out of the steep hillside, and partlybuilt up with bowlders removed from the creek-bed by theminers. The hills are wooded, the course of the ravine issinuous. In a dark night careful driving is required inorder not to go off into the water. The night that I havein memory was dark, the creek a torrent, swollen by a recentstorm. I had driven up from Newcastle and was within abouta mile of Auburn in the darkest and narrowest part of the ravine,looking intently ahead of my horse for the roadway.Suddenly I saw a man almost under the animal’s nose, andreined in with a jerk that came near setting the creature uponits haunches.

“I beg your pardon,” I said; “I did not seeyou, sir.”

“You could hardly be expected to see me,” the manreplied, civilly, approaching the side of the vehicle; “andthe noise of the creek prevented my hearing you.”

I at once recognized the voice, although five years had passedsince I had heard it. I was not particularly well pleasedto hear it now.

“You are Dr. Dorrimore, I think,” said I.

“Yes; and you are my good friend Mr. Manrich. I ammore than glad to see you—the excess,” he added, witha light laugh, “being due to the fact that I am going yourway, and naturally expect an invitation to ride withyou.”

“Which I extend with all my heart.”

That was not altogether true.

Dr. Dorrimore thanked me as he seated himself beside me, and Idrove cautiously forward, as before. Doubtless it is fancy,but it seems to me now that the remaining distance was made in achill fog; that I was uncomfortably cold; that the way was longerthan ever before, and the town, when we reached it, cheerless,forbidding, and desolate. It must have been early in theevening, yet I do not recollect a light in any of the houses nora living thing in the streets. Dorrimore explained at somelength how he happened to be there, and where he had been duringthe years that had elapsed since I had seen him. I recallthe fact of the narrative, but none of the facts narrated.He had been in foreign countries and had returned—this isall that my memory retains, and this I already knew. As tomyself I cannot remember that I spoke a word, though doubtless Idid. Of one thing I am distinctly conscious: theman’s presence at my side was strangely distasteful anddisquieting—so much so that when I at last pulled up underthe lights of the Putnam House I experienced a sense of havingescaped some spiritual peril of a nature peculiarlyforbidding. This sense of relief was somewhat modified bythe discovery that Dr. Dorrimore was living at the samehotel.

II

In partial explanation of my feelings regarding Dr. DorrimoreI will relate briefly the circumstances under which I had met himsome years before. One evening a half-dozen men of whom Iwas one were sitting in the library of the Bohemian Club in SanFrancisco. The conversation had turned to the subject ofsleight-of-hand and the feats of the prestidigitateurs,one of whom was then exhibiting at a local theatre.

“These fellows are pretenders in a double sense,”said one of the party; “they can do nothing which it isworth one’s while to be made a dupe by. The humblestwayside juggler in India could mystify them to the verge oflunacy.”

“For example, how?” asked another, lighting acigar.

“For example, by all their common and familiarperformances—throwing large objects into the air whichnever come down; causing plants to sprout, grow visibly andblossom, in bare ground chosen by spectators; putting a man intoa wicker basket, piercing him through and through with a swordwhile he shrieks and bleeds, and then—the basket beingopened nothing is there; tossing the free end of a silken ladderinto the air, mounting it and disappearing.”

“Nonsense!” I said, rather uncivilly, Ifear. “You surely do not believe suchthings?”

“Certainly not: I have seen them too often.”

“But I do,” said a journalist of considerablelocal fame as a picturesque reporter. “I have sofrequently related them that nothing but observation could shakemy conviction. Why, gentlemen, I have my own word forit.”

Nobody laughed—all were looking at something behindme. Turning in my seat I saw a man in evening dress who hadjust entered the room. He was exceedingly dark, almostswarthy, with a thin face, black-bearded to the lips, anabundance of coarse black hair in some disorder, a high nose andeyes that glittered with as soulless an expression as those of acobra. One of the group rose and introduced him as Dr.Dorrimore, of Calcutta. As each of us was presented in turnhe acknowledged the fact with a profound bow in the Orientalmanner, but with nothing of Oriental gravity. His smileimpressed me as cynical and a trifle contemptuous. Hiswhole demeanor I can describe only as disagreeably engaging.

His presence led the conversation into other channels.He said little—I do not recall anything of what he didsay. I thought his voice singularly rich and melodious, butit affected me in the same way as his eyes and smile. In afew minutes I rose to go. He also rose and put on hisovercoat.

“Mr. Manrich,” he said, “I am going yourway.”

“The devil you are!” I thought. “Howdo you know which way I am going?” Then I said,“I shall be pleased to have your company.”

We left the building together. No cabs were in sight,the street cars had gone to bed, there was a full moon and thecool night air was delightful; we walked up the California streethill. I took that direction thinking he would naturallywish to take another, toward one of the hotels.

“You do not believe what is told of the Hindujugglers,” he said abruptly.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Without replying he laid his hand lightly upon my arm and withthe other pointed to the stone sidewalk directly in front.There, almost at our feet, lay the dead body of a man, the faceupturned and white in the moonlight! A sword whose hiltsparkled with gems stood fixed and upright in the breast; a poolof blood had collected on the stones of the sidewalk.

I was startled and terrified—not only by what I saw, butby the circumstances under which I saw it. Repeatedlyduring our ascent of the hill my eyes, I thought, had traversedthe whole reach of that sidewalk, from street to street.How could they have been insensible to this dreadful object nowso conspicuous in the white moonlight?

As my dazed faculties cleared I observed that the body was inevening dress; the overcoat thrown wide open revealed thedress-coat, the white tie, the broad expanse of shirt frontpierced by the sword. And—horriblerevelation!—the face, except for its pallor, was that of mycompanion! It was to the minutest detail of dress andfeature Dr. Dorrimore himself. Bewildered and horrified, Iturned to look for the living man. He was nowhere visible,and with an added terror I retired from the place, down the hillin the direction whence I had come. I had taken but a fewstrides when a strong grasp upon my shoulder arrested me. Icame near crying out with terror: the dead man, the sword stillfixed in his breast, stood beside me! Pulling out the swordwith his disengaged hand, he flung it from him, the moonlightglinting upon the jewels of its hilt and the unsullied steel ofits blade. It fell with a clang upon the sidewalk aheadand—vanished! The man, swarthy as before, relaxed hisgrasp upon my shoulder and looked at me with the same cynicalregard that I had observed on first meeting him. The deadhave not that look—it partly restored me, and turning myhead backward, I saw the smooth white expanse of sidewalk,unbroken from street to street.

“What is all this nonsense, you devil?” Idemanded, fiercely enough, though weak and trembling in everylimb.

“It is what some are pleased to call jugglery,” heanswered, with a light, hard laugh.

He turned down Dupont street and I saw him no more until wemet in the Auburn ravine.

III

On the day after my second meeting with Dr. Dorrimore I didnot see him: the clerk in the Putnam House explained that aslight illness confined him to his rooms. That afternoon atthe railway station I was surprised and made happy by theunexpected arrival of Miss Margaret Corray and her mother, fromOakland.

This is not a love story. I am no storyteller, and loveas it is cannot be portrayed in a literature dominated andenthralled by the debasing tyranny which “sentencesletters” in the name of the Young Girl. Under theYoung Girl’s blighting reign—or rather under the ruleof those false Ministers of the Censure who have appointedthemselves to the custody of her welfare—love

veilsher sacred fires,
And, unaware, Morality expires,

famished upon the sifted meal and distilled water of a prudishpurveyance.

Let it suffice that Miss Corray and I were engaged inmarriage. She and her mother went to the hotel at which Ilived, and for two weeks I saw her daily. That I was happyneeds hardly be said; the only bar to my perfect enjoyment ofthose golden days was the presence of Dr. Dorrimore, whom I hadfelt compelled to introduce to the ladies.

By them he was evidently held in favor. What could Isay? I knew absolutely nothing to his discredit. Hismanners were those of a cultivated and considerate gentleman; andto women a man’s manner is the man. On one or twooccasions when I saw Miss Corray walking with him I was furious,and once had the indiscretion to protest. Asked forreasons, I had none to give and fancied I saw in her expression ashade of contempt for the vagaries of a jealous mind. Intime I grew morose and consciously disagreeable, and resolved inmy madness to return to San Francisco the next day. Ofthis, however, I said nothing.

IV

There was at Auburn an old, abandoned cemetery. It wasnearly in the heart of the town, yet by night it was as gruesomea place as the most dismal of human moods could crave. Therailings about the plats were prostrate, decayed, or altogethergone. Many of the graves were sunken, from others grewsturdy pines, whose roots had committed unspeakable sin.The headstones were fallen and broken across; brambles overranthe ground; the fence was mostly gone, and cows and pigs wanderedthere at will; the place was a dishonor to the living, a calumnyon the dead, a blasphemy against God.

The evening of the day on which I had taken my madman’sresolution to depart in anger from all that was dear to me foundme in that congenial spot. The light of the half moon fellghostly through the foliage of trees in spots and patches,revealing much that was unsightly, and the black shadows seemedconspiracies withholding to the proper time revelations of darkerimport. Passing along what had been a gravel path, I sawemerging from shadow the figure of Dr. Dorrimore. I wasmyself in shadow, and stood still with clenched hands and setteeth, trying to control the impulse to leap upon and stranglehim. A moment later a second figure joined him and clung tohis arm. It was Margaret Corray!

I cannot rightly relate what occurred. I know that Isprang forward, bent upon murder; I know that I was found in thegray of the morning, bruised and bloody, with finger marks uponmy throat. I was taken to the Putnam House, where for daysI lay in a delirium. All this I know, for I have beentold. And of my own knowledge I know that whenconsciousness returned with convalescence I sent for the clerk ofthe hotel.

“Are Mrs. Corray and her daughter still here?” Iasked.

“What name did you say?”

“Corray.”

“Nobody of that name has been here.”

“I beg you will not trifle with me,” I saidpetulantly. “You see that I am all right now; tell methe truth.”

“I give you my word,” he replied with evidentsincerity, “we have had no guests of that name.”

His words stupefied me. I lay for a few moments insilence; then I asked: “Where is Dr. Dorrimore?”

“He left on the morning of your fight and has not beenheard of since. It was a rough deal he gave you.”

V

Such are the facts of this case. Margaret Corray is nowmy wife. She has never seen Auburn, and during the weekswhose history as it shaped itself in my brain I have endeavoredto relate, was living at her home in Oakland, wondering where herlover was and why he did not write. The other day I saw inthe Baltimore Sun the following paragraph:

“Professor Valentine Dorrimore, the hypnotist, had alarge audience last night. The lecturer, who has lived mostof his life in India, gave some marvelous exhibitions of hispower, hypnotizing anyone who chose to submit himself to theexperiment, by merely looking at him. In fact, he twicehypnotized the entire audience (reporters alone exempted), makingall entertain the most extraordinary illusions. The mostvaluable feature of the lecture was the disclosure of the methodsof the Hindu jugglers in their famous performances, familiar inthe mouths of travelers. The professor declares that thesethaumaturgists have acquired such skill in the art which helearned at their feet that they perform their miracles by simplythrowing the ‘spectators’ into a state of hypnosisand telling them what to see and hear. His assertion that apeculiarly susceptible subject may be kept in the realm of theunreal for weeks, months, and even years, dominated by whateverdelusions and hallucinations the operator may from time to timesuggest, is a trifle disquieting.”

p. 268JOHNBARTINE’S WATCH

A STORY BY A PHYSICIAN

“The exact time? GoodGod! my friend, why do you insist? One wouldthink—but what does it matter; it is easilybedtime—isn’t that near enough? But, here, ifyou must set your watch, take mine and see foryourself.”

With that he detached his watch—a tremendously heavy,old-fashioned one—from the chain, and handed it to me; thenturned away, and walking across the room to a shelf of books,began an examination of their backs. His agitation andevident distress surprised me; they appeared reasonless.Having set my watch by his, I stepped over to where he stood andsaid, “Thank you.”

As he took his timepiece and reattached it to the guard Iobserved that his hands were unsteady. With a tact uponwhich I greatly prided myself, I sauntered carelessly to thesideboard and took some brandy and water; then, begging hispardon for my thoughtlessness, asked him to have some and wentback to my seat by the fire, leaving him to help himself, as wasour custom. He did so and presently joined me at thehearth, as tranquil as ever.

This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where JohnBartine was passing an evening. We had dined together atthe club, had come home in a cab and—in short, everythinghad been done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartineshould break in upon the natural and established order of thingsto make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, apparentlyfor his own entertainment, I could nowise understand. Themore I thought of it, while his brilliant conversational giftswere commending themselves to my inattention, the more curious Igrew, and of course had no difficulty in persuading myself thatmy curiosity was friendly solicitude. That is the disguisethat curiosity usually assumes to evade resentment. So Iruined one of the finest sentences of his disregarded monologueby cutting it short without ceremony.

“John Bartine,” I said, “you must try toforgive me if I am wrong, but with the light that I have atpresent I cannot concede your right to go all to pieces whenasked the time o’ night. I cannot admit that it isproper to experience a mysterious reluctance to look your ownwatch in the face and to cherish in my presence, withoutexplanation, painful emotions which are denied to me, and whichare none of my business.”

To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, butsat looking gravely into the fire. Fearing that I hadoffended I was about to apologize and beg him to think no moreabout the matter, when looking me calmly in the eyes he said:

“My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not atall disguise the hideous impudence of your demand; but happily Ihad already decided to tell you what you wish to know, and nomanifestation of your unworthiness to hear it shall alter mydecision. Be good enough to give me your attention and youshall hear all about the matter.

“This watch,” he said, “had been in myfamily for three generations before it fell to me. Itsoriginal owner, for whom it was made, was my great-grandfather,Bramwell Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of Colonial Virginia,and as stanch a Tory as ever lay awake nights contriving newkinds of maledictions for the head of Mr. Washington, and newmethods of aiding and abetting good King George. One daythis worthy gentleman had the deep misfortune to perform for hiscause a service of capital importance which was not recognized aslegitimate by those who suffered its disadvantages. It doesnot matter what it was, but among its minor consequences was myexcellent ancestor’s arrest one night in his own house by aparty of Mr. Washington’s rebels. He was permitted tosay farewell to his weeping family, and was then marched awayinto the darkness which swallowed him up forever. Not theslenderest clew to his fate was ever found. After the warthe most diligent inquiry and the offer of large rewards failedto turn up any of his captors or any fact concerning hisdisappearance. He had disappeared, and that wasall.”

Something in Bartine’s manner that was not in hiswords—I hardly knew what it was—prompted me toask:

“What is your view of the matter—of the justice ofit?”

“My view of it,” he flamed out, bringing hisclenched hand down upon the table as if he had been in a publichouse dicing with blackguards—“my view of it is thatit was a characteristically dastardly assassination by thatdamned traitor, Washington, and his ragamuffin rebels!”

For some minutes nothing was said: Bartine was recovering histemper, and I waited. Then I said:

“Was that all?”

“No—there was something else. A few weeksafter my great-grandfather’s arrest his watch was foundlying on the porch at the front door of his dwelling. Itwas wrapped in a sheet of letter paper bearing the name of RupertBartine, his only son, my grandfather. I am wearing thatwatch.”

Bartine paused. His usually restless black eyes werestaring fixedly into the grate, a point of red light in each,reflected from the glowing coals. He seemed to haveforgotten me. A sudden threshing of the branches of a treeoutside one of the windows, and almost at the same instant arattle of rain against the glass, recalled him to a sense of hissurroundings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single gustof wind, and in a few moments the steady plash of the water onthe pavement was distinctly heard. I hardly know why Irelate this incident; it seemed somehow to have a certainsignificance and relevancy which I am unable now todiscern. It at least added an element of seriousness,almost solemnity. Bartine resumed:

“I have a singular feeling toward this watch—akind of affection for it; I like to have it about me, thoughpartly from its weight, and partly for a reason I shall nowexplain, I seldom carry it. The reason is this: Everyevening when I have it with me I feel an unaccountable desire toopen and consult it, even if I can think of no reason for wishingto know the time. But if I yield to it, the moment my eyesrest upon the dial I am filled with a mysteriousapprehension—a sense of imminent calamity. And thisis the more insupportable the nearer it is to eleveno’clock—by this watch, no matter what the actual hourmay be. After the hands have registered eleven the desireto look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. Then I canconsult the thing as often as I like, with no more emotion thanyou feel in looking at your own. Naturally I have trainedmyself not to look at that watch in the evening before eleven;nothing could induce me. Your insistence this evening upsetme a trifle. I felt very much as I suppose an opium-eatermight feel if his yearning for his special and particular kind ofhell were re-enforced by opportunity and advice.

“Now that is my story, and I have told it in theinterest of your trumpery science; but if on any eveninghereafter you observe me wearing this damnable watch, and youhave the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, I shall beg leave toput you to the inconvenience of being knocked down.”

His humor did not amuse me. I could see that in relatinghis delusion he was again somewhat disturbed. Hisconcluding smile was positively ghastly, and his eyes had resumedsomething more than their old restlessness; they shifted hitherand thither about the room with apparent aimlessness and Ifancied had taken on a wild expression, such as is sometimesobserved in cases of dementia. Perhaps this was my ownimagination, but at any rate I was now persuaded that my friendwas afflicted with a most singular and interestingmonomania. Without, I trust, any abatement of myaffectionate solicitude for him as a friend, I began to regardhim as a patient, rich in possibilities of profitablestudy. Why not? Had he not described his delusion inthe interest of science? Ah, poor fellow, he was doing morefor science than he knew: not only his story but himself was inevidence. I should cure him if I could, of course, butfirst I should make a little experiment in psychology—nay,the experiment itself might be a step in his restoration.

“That is very frank and friendly of you, Bartine,”I said cordially, “and I’m rather proud of yourconfidence. It is all very odd, certainly. Do youmind showing me the watch?”

He detached it from his waistcoat, chain and all, and passedit to me without a word. The case was of gold, very thickand strong, and singularly engraved. After closelyexamining the dial and observing that it was nearly twelveo’clock, I opened it at the back and was interested toobserve an inner case of ivory, upon which was painted aminiature portrait in that exquisite and delicate manner whichwas in vogue during the eighteenth century.

“Why, bless my soul!” I exclaimed, feeling a sharpartistic delight—“how under the sun did you get thatdone? I thought miniature painting on ivory was a lostart.”

“That,” he replied, gravely smiling, “is notI; it is my excellent great-grandfather, the late Bramwell OlcottBartine, Esquire, of Virginia. He was younger then thanlater—about my age, in fact. It is said to resembleme; do you think so?”

“Resemble you? I should say so! Barring thecostume, which I supposed you to have assumed out of complimentto the art—or for vraisemblance, so to say—andthe no mustache, that portrait is you in every feature, line, andexpression.”

No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book fromthe table and began reading. I heard outside the incessantplash of the rain in the street. There were occasionalhurried footfalls on the sidewalks; and once a slower, heaviertread seemed to cease at my door—a policeman, I thought,seeking shelter in the doorway. The boughs of the treestapped significantly on the window panes, as if asking foradmittance. I remember it all through these years and yearsof a wiser, graver life.

Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned key thatdangled from the chain and quickly turned back the hands of thewatch a full hour; then, closing the case, I handed Bartine hisproperty and saw him replace it on his person.

“I think you said,” I began, with assumedcarelessness, “that after eleven the sight of the dial nolonger affects you. As it is now nearlytwelve”—looking at my owntimepiece—“perhaps, if you don’t resent mypursuit of proof, you will look at it now.”

He smiled good-humoredly, pulled out the watch again, openedit, and instantly sprang to his feet with a cry that Heaven hasnot had the mercy to permit me to forget! His eyes, theirblackness strikingly intensified by the pallor of his face, werefixed upon the watch, which he clutched in both hands. Forsome time he remained in that attitude without uttering anothersound; then, in a voice that I should not have recognized as his,he said:

“Damn you! it is two minutes to eleven!”

I was not unprepared for some such outbreak, and withoutrising replied, calmly enough:

“I beg your pardon; I must have misread your watch insetting my own by it.”

He shut the case with a sharp snap and put the watch in hispocket. He looked at me and made an attempt to smile, buthis lower lip quivered and he seemed unable to close hismouth. His hands, also, were shaking, and he thrust them,clenched, into the pockets of his sack-coat. The courageousspirit was manifestly endeavoring to subdue the cowardbody. The effort was too great; he began to sway from sideto side, as from vertigo, and before I could spring from my chairto support him his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardlyforward and fell upon his face. I sprang to assist him torise; but when John Bartine rises we shall all rise.

The post-mortem examination disclosed nothing; everyorgan was normal and sound. But when the body had beenprepared for burial a faint dark circle was seen to havedeveloped around the neck; at least I was so assured by severalpersons who said they saw it, but of my own knowledge I cannotsay if that was true.

Nor can I set limitations to the law of heredity. I donot know that in the spiritual world a sentiment or emotion maynot survive the heart that held it, and seek expression in akindred life, ages removed. Surely, if I were to guess atthe fate of Bramwell Olcott Bartine, I should guess that he washanged at eleven o’clock in the evening, and that he hadbeen allowed several hours in which to prepare for thechange.

As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes,and—Heaven forgive me!—my victim for eternity, thereis no more to say. He is buried, and his watch withhim—I saw to that. May God rest his soul in Paradise,and the soul of his Virginian ancestor, if, indeed, they are twosouls.

p. 280THEDAMNED THING

I
ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS EAT WHAT IS ON THE TABLE

By the light of a tallow candlewhich had been placed on one end of a rough table a man wasreading something written in a book. It was an old accountbook, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently, verylegible, for the man sometimes held the page close to the flameof the candle to get a stronger light on it. The shadow ofthe book would then throw into obscurity a half of the room,darkening a number of faces and figures; for besides the reader,eight other men were present. Seven of them sat against therough log walls, silent, motionless, and the room being small,not very far from the table. By extending an arm any one ofthem could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table,face upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at hissides. He was dead.

The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke;all seemed to be waiting for something to occur; the dead manonly was without expectation. From the blank darknessoutside came in, through the aperture that served for a window,all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in thewilderness—the long nameless note of a distant coyote; thestilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange criesof night birds, so different from those of the birds of day; thedrone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorusof small sounds that seem always to have been but half heard whenthey have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of anindiscretion. But nothing of all this was noted in thatcompany; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle interestin matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in everyline of their rugged faces—obvious even in the dim light ofthe single candle. They were evidently men of thevicinity—farmers and woodsmen.

The person reading was a trifle different; one would have saidof him that he was of the world, worldly, albeit there was thatin his attire which attested a certain fellowship with theorganisms of his environment. His coat would hardly havepassed muster in San Francisco; his foot-gear was not of urbanorigin, and the hat that lay by him on the floor (he was the onlyone uncovered) was such that if one had considered it as anarticle of mere personal adornment he would have missed itsmeaning. In countenance the man was rather prepossessing,with just a hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed orcultivated, as appropriate to one in authority. For he wasa coroner. It was by virtue of his office that he hadpossession of the book in which he was reading; it had been foundamong the dead man’s effects—in his cabin, where theinquest was now taking place.

When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into hisbreast pocket. At that moment the door was pushed open anda young man entered. He, clearly, was not of mountain birthand breeding: he was clad as those who dwell in cities. Hisclothing was dusty, however, as from travel. He had, infact, been riding hard to attend the inquest.

The coroner nodded; no one else greeted him.

“We have waited for you,” said the coroner.“It is necessary to have done with this businessto-night.”

The young man smiled. “I am sorry to have keptyou,” he said. “I went away, not to evade yoursummons, but to post to my newspaper an account of what I supposeI am called back to relate.”

The coroner smiled.

“The account that you posted to your newspaper,”he said, “differs, probably, from that which you will givehere under oath.”

“That,” replied the other, rather hotly and with avisible flush, “is as you please. I used manifoldpaper and have a copy of what I sent. It was not written asnews, for it is incredible, but as fiction. It may go as apart of my testimony under oath.”

“But you say it is incredible.”

“That is nothing to you, sir, if I also swear that it istrue.”

The coroner was silent for a time, his eyes upon thefloor. The men about the sides of the cabin talked inwhispers, but seldom withdrew their gaze from the face of thecorpse. Presently the coroner lifted his eyes and said:“We will resume the inquest.”

The men removed their hats. The witness was sworn.

“What is your name?” the coroner asked.

“William Harker.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“You knew the deceased, Hugh Morgan?”

“Yes.”

“You were with him when he died?”

“Near him.”

“How did that happen—your presence, Imean?”

“I was visiting him at this place to shoot andfish. A part of my purpose, however, was to study him andhis odd, solitary way of life. He seemed a good model for acharacter in fiction. I sometimes write stories.”

“I sometimes read them.”

“Thank you.”

“Stories in general—not yours.”

Some of the jurors laughed. Against a sombre backgroundhumor shows high lights. Soldiers in the intervals ofbattle laugh easily, and a jest in the death chamber conquers bysurprise.

“Relate the circumstances of this man’sdeath,” said the coroner. “You may use anynotes or memoranda that you please.”

The witness understood. Pulling a manuscript from hisbreast pocket he held it near the candle and turning the leavesuntil he found the passage that he wanted began to read.

II
WHAT MAY HAPPEN IN A FIELD OF WILD OATS

“ . . . The sun had hardly risen when we left thehouse. We were looking for quail, each with a shotgun, butwe had only one dog. Morgan said that our best ground wasbeyond a certain ridge that he pointed out, and we crossed it bya trail through the chaparral. On the other side wascomparatively level ground, thickly covered with wild oats.As we emerged from the chaparral Morgan was but a fewyards in advance. Suddenly we heard, at a little distanceto our right and partly in front, a noise as of some animalthrashing about in the bushes, which we could see were violentlyagitated.

“‘We’ve started a deer,’ I said.‘I wish we had brought a rifle.’

“Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching theagitated chaparral, said nothing, but had cocked bothbarrels of his gun and was holding it in readiness to aim.I thought him a trifle excited, which surprised me, for he had areputation for exceptional coolness, even in moments of suddenand imminent peril.

“‘O, come,’ I said. ‘You are notgoing to fill up a deer with quail-shot, are you?’

“Still he did not reply; but catching a sight of hisface as he turned it slightly toward me I was struck by theintensity of his look. Then I understood that we hadserious business in hand and my first conjecture was that we had‘jumped’ a grizzly. I advanced toMorgan’s side, cocking my piece as I moved.

“The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased,but Morgan was as attentive to the place as before.

“‘What is it? What the devil is it?’ Iasked.

“‘That Damned Thing!’ he replied, withoutturning his head. His voice was husky and unnatural.He trembled visibly.

“I was about to speak further, when I observed the wildoats near the place of the disturbance moving in the mostinexplicable way. I can hardly describe it. It seemedas if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, butpressed it down—crushed it so that it did not rise; andthis movement was slowly prolonging itself directly towardus.

“Nothing that I had ever seen had affected me sostrangely as this unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon, yet Iam unable to recall any sense of fear. I remember—andtell it here because, singularly enough, I recollected itthen—that once in looking carelessly out of an open windowI momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand for one of agroup of larger trees at a little distance away. It lookedthe same size as the others, but being more distinctly andsharply defined in mass and detail seemed out of harmony withthem. It was a mere falsification of the law of aërialperspective, but it startled, almost terrified me. We sorely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that anyseeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, awarning of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparentlycauseless movement of the herbage and the slow, undeviatingapproach of the line of disturbance were distinctlydisquieting. My companion appeared actually frightened, andI could hardly credit my senses when I saw him suddenly throw hisgun to his shoulder and fire both barrels at the agitatedgrain! Before the smoke of the discharge had cleared away Iheard a loud savage cry—a scream like that of a wildanimal—and flinging his gun upon the ground Morgan sprangaway and ran swiftly from the spot. At the same instant Iwas thrown violently to the ground by the impact of somethingunseen in the smoke—some soft, heavy substance that seemedthrown against me with great force.

“Before I could get upon my feet and recover my gun,which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I heard Morgancrying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his crieswere such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from fightingdogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet andlooked in the direction of Morgan’s retreat; and may Heavenin mercy spare me from another sight like that! At adistance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon oneknee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, hislong hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement fromside to side, backward and forward. His right arm waslifted and seemed to lack the hand—at least, I could seenone. The other arm was invisible. At times, as mymemory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern buta part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blottedout—I cannot otherwise express it—then a shifting ofhis position would bring it all into view again.

“All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yetin that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determinedwrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength. I sawnothing but him, and him not always distinctly. During theentire incident his shouts and curses were heard, as if throughan enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I hadnever heard from the throat of man or brute!

“For a moment only I stood irresolute, then throwingdown my gun I ran forward to my friend’s assistance.I had a vague belief that he was suffering from a fit, or someform of convulsion. Before I could reach his side he wasdown and quiet. All sounds had ceased, but with a feelingof such terror as even these awful events had not inspired I nowsaw again the mysterious movement of the wild oats, prolongingitself from the trampled area about the prostrate man toward theedge of a wood. It was only when it had reached the woodthat I was able to withdraw my eyes and look at mycompanion. He was dead.”

III
A MAN THOUGH NAKED MAY BE IN RAGS

The coroner rose from his seat and stood beside the deadman. Lifting an edge of the sheet he pulled it away,exposing the entire body, altogether naked and showing in thecandle-light a claylike yellow. It had, however, broadmaculations of bluish black, obviously caused by extravasatedblood from contusions. The chest and sides looked as ifthey had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadfullacerations; the skin was torn in strips and shreds.

The coroner moved round to the end of the table and undid asilk handkerchief which had been passed under the chin andknotted on the top of the head. When the handkerchief wasdrawn away it exposed what had been the throat. Some of thejurors who had risen to get a better view repented theircuriosity and turned away their faces. Witness Harker wentto the open window and leaned out across the sill, faint andsick. Dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man’sneck the coroner stepped to an angle of the room and from a pileof clothing produced one garment after another, each of which heheld up a moment for inspection. All were torn, and stiffwith blood. The jurors did not make a closerinspection. They seemed rather uninterested. Theyhad, in truth, seen all this before; the only thing that was newto them being Harker’s testimony.

“Gentlemen,” the coroner said, “we have nomore evidence, I think. Your duty has been alreadyexplained to you; if there is nothing you wish to ask you may gooutside and consider your verdict.”

The foreman rose—a tall, bearded man of sixty, coarselyclad.

“I should like to ask one question, Mr. Coroner,”he said. “What asylum did this yer last witnessescape from?”

“Mr. Harker,” said the coroner, gravely andtranquilly, “from what asylum did you lastescape?”

Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the sevenjurors rose and solemnly filed out of the cabin.

“If you have done insulting me, sir,” said Harker,as soon as he and the officer were left alone with the dead man,“I suppose I am at liberty to go?”

“Yes.”

Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the doorlatch. The habit of his profession was strong inhim—stronger than his sense of personal dignity. Heturned about and said:

“The book that you have there—I recognize it asMorgan’s diary. You seemed greatly interested in it;you read in it while I was testifying. May I see it?The public would like—”

“The book will cut no figure in this matter,”replied the official, slipping it into his coat pocket;“all the entries in it were made before the writer’sdeath.”

As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stoodabout the table, on which the now covered corpse showed under thesheet with sharp definition. The foreman seated himselfnear the candle, produced from his breast pocket a pencil andscrap of paper and wrote rather laboriously the followingverdict, which with various degrees of effort all signed:

“We, the jury, do find that the remains come to theirdeath at the hands of a mountain lion, but some of us thinks, allthe same, they had fits.”

IV
AN EXPLANATION FROM THE TOMB

In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interestingentries having, possibly, a scientific value assuggestions. At the inquest upon his body the book was notput in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it not worth whileto confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entriesmentioned cannot be ascertained; the upper part of the leaf istorn away; the part of the entry remaining follows:

“ . . . would run in a half-circle, keeping his headturned always toward the centre, and again he would stand still,barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush asfast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gonemad, but on returning to the house found no other alteration inhis manner than what was obviously due to fear of punishment.

“Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impresssome cerebral centre with images of the thing that emitted them?. . .

“Sept. 2.—Looking at the stars last night as theyrose above the crest of the ridge east of the house, I observedthem successively disappear—from left to right. Eachwas eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the same time, butalong the entire length of the ridge all that were within adegree or two of the crest were blotted out. It was as ifsomething had passed along between me and them; but I could notsee it, and the stars were not thick enough to define itsoutline. Ugh! I don’t like this.” . ..

Several weeks’ entries are missing, three leaves beingtorn from the book.

“Sept. 27.—It has been about here again—Ifind evidences of its presence every day. I watched againall last night in the same cover, gun in hand, double-chargedwith buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints werethere, as before. Yet I would have sworn that I did notsleep—indeed, I hardly sleep at all. It is terrible,insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real Ishall go mad; if they are fanciful I am mad already.

“Oct. 3.—I shall not go—it shall not driveme away. No, this is my house, my land.God hates a coward . . .

“Oct. 5.—I can stand it no longer; I have invitedHarker to pass a few weeks with me—he has a levelhead. I can judge from his manner if he thinks me mad.

“Oct. 7.—I have the solution of the mystery; itcame to me last night—suddenly, as by revelation. Howsimple—how terribly simple!

“There are sounds that we cannot hear. At eitherend of the scale are notes that stir no chord of that imperfectinstrument, the human ear. They are too high or toograve. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying anentire tree-top—the tops of several trees—and all infull song. Suddenly—in a moment—at absolutelythe same instant—all spring into the air and flyaway. How? They could not all see oneanother—whole tree-tops intervened. At no point coulda leader have been visible to all. There must have been asignal of warning or command, high and shrill above the din, butby me unheard. I have observed, too, the same simultaneousflight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but otherbirds—quail, for example, widely separated bybushes—even on opposite sides of a hill.

“It is known to seamen that a school of whales baskingor sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with theconvexity of the earth between, will sometimes dive at the sameinstant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The signalhas been sounded—too grave for the ear of the sailor at themasthead and his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feelits vibrations in the ship as the stones of a cathedral arestirred by the bass of the organ.

“As with sounds, so with colors. At each end ofthe solar spectrum the chemist can detect the presence of whatare known as ‘actinic’ rays. They representcolors—integral colors in the composition oflight—which we are unable to discern. The human eyeis an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of thereal ‘chromatic scale.’ I am not mad; there arecolors that we cannot see.

“And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such acolor!”

p.297HAÏTA THE SHEPHERD

In the heart of Haïta theillusions of youth had not been supplanted by those of age andexperience. His thoughts were pure and pleasant, for hislife was simple and his soul devoid of ambition. He rosewith the sun and went forth to pray at the shrine of Hastur, thegod of shepherds, who heard and was pleased. Afterperformance of this pious rite Haïta unbarred the gate ofthe fold and with a cheerful mind drove his flock afield, eatinghis morning meal of curds and oat cake as he went, occasionallypausing to add a few berries, cold with dew, or to drink of thewaters that came away from the hills to join the stream in themiddle of the valley and be borne along with it, he knew notwhither.

During the long summer day, as his sheep cropped the goodgrass which the gods had made to grow for them, or lay with theirforelegs doubled under their breasts and chewed the cud,Haïta, reclining in the shadow of a tree, or sitting upon arock, played so sweet music upon his reed pipe that sometimesfrom the corner of his eye he got accidental glimpses of theminor sylvan deities, leaning forward out of the copse to hear;but if he looked at them directly they vanished. Fromthis—for he must be thinking if he would not turn into oneof his own sheep—he drew the solemn inference thathappiness may come if not sought, but if looked for will never beseen; for next to the favor of Hastur, who never disclosedhimself, Haïta most valued the friendly interest of hisneighbors, the shy immortals of the wood and stream. Atnightfall he drove his flock back to the fold, saw that the gatewas secure and retired to his cave for refreshment and fordreams.

So passed his life, one day like another, save when the stormsuttered the wrath of an offended god. Then Haïtacowered in his cave, his face hidden in his hands, and prayedthat he alone might be punished for his sins and the world savedfrom destruction. Sometimes when there was a great rain,and the stream came out of its banks, compelling him to urge histerrified flock to the uplands, he interceded for the people inthe cities which he had been told lay in the plain beyond the twoblue hills forming the gateway of his valley.

“It is kind of thee, O Hastur,” so he prayed,“to give me mountains so near to my dwelling and my foldthat I and my sheep can escape the angry torrents; but the restof the world thou must thyself deliver in some way that I knownot of, or I will no longer worship thee.”

And Hastur, knowing that Haïta was a youth who kept hisword, spared the cities and turned the waters into the sea.

So he had lived since he could remember. He could notrightly conceive any other mode of existence. The holyhermit who dwelt at the head of the valley, a full hour’sjourney away, from whom he had heard the tale of the great citieswhere dwelt people—poor souls!—who had no sheep, gavehim no knowledge of that early time, when, so he reasoned, hemust have been small and helpless like a lamb.

It was through thinking on these mysteries and marvels, and onthat horrible change to silence and decay which he felt sure mustsome time come to him, as he had seen it come to so many of hisflock—as it came to all living things except thebirds—that Haïta first became conscious how miserableand hopeless was his lot.

“It is necessary,” he said, “that I knowwhence and how I came; for how can one perform his duties unlessable to judge what they are by the way in which he was intrustedwith them? And what contentment can I have when I know nothow long it is going to last? Perhaps before another sun Imay be changed, and then what will become of the sheep?What, indeed, will have become of me?”

Pondering these things Haïta became melancholy andmorose. He no longer spoke cheerfully to his flock, nor ranwith alacrity to the shrine of Hastur. In every breeze heheard whispers of malign deities whose existence he now firstobserved. Every cloud was a portent signifying disaster,and the darkness was full of terrors. His reed pipe whenapplied to his lips gave out no melody, but a dismal wail; thesylvan and riparian intelligences no longer thronged thethicket-side to listen, but fled from the sound, as he knew bythe stirred leaves and bent flowers. He relaxed hisvigilance and many of his sheep strayed away into the hills andwere lost. Those that remained became lean and ill for lackof good pasturage, for he would not seek it for them, butconducted them day after day to the same spot, through mereabstraction, while puzzling about life and death—ofimmortality he knew not.

One day while indulging in the gloomiest reflections hesuddenly sprang from the rock upon which he sat, and with adetermined gesture of the right hand exclaimed: “I will nolonger be a suppliant for knowledge which the godswithhold. Let them look to it that they do me nowrong. I will do my duty as best I can and if I err upontheir own heads be it!”

Suddenly, as he spoke, a great brightness fell about him,causing him to look upward, thinking the sun had burst through arift in the clouds; but there were no clouds. No more thanan arm’s length away stood a beautiful maiden. Sobeautiful she was that the flowers about her feet folded theirpetals in despair and bent their heads in token of submission; sosweet her look that the humming birds thronged her eyes,thrusting their thirsty bills almost into them, and the wild beeswere about her lips. And such was her brightness that theshadows of all objects lay divergent from her feet, turning asshe moved.

Haïta was entranced. Rising, he knelt before her inadoration, and she laid her hand upon his head.

“Come,” she said in a voice that had the music ofall the bells of his flock—“come, thou art not toworship me, who am no goddess, but if thou art truthful anddutiful I will abide with thee.”

Haïta seized her hand, and stammering his joy andgratitude arose, and hand in hand they stood and smiled into eachother’s eyes. He gazed on her with reverence andrapture. He said: “I pray thee, lovely maid, tell methy name and whence and why thou comest.”

At this she laid a warning finger on her lip and began towithdraw. Her beauty underwent a visible alteration thatmade him shudder, he knew not why, for still she wasbeautiful. The landscape was darkened by a giant shadowsweeping across the valley with the speed of a vulture. Inthe obscurity the maiden’s figure grew dim and indistinctand her voice seemed to come from a distance, as she said, in atone of sorrowful reproach: “Presumptuous and ungratefulyouth! must I then so soon leave thee? Would nothing do butthou must at once break the eternal compact?”

Inexpressibly grieved, Haïta fell upon his knees andimplored her to remain—rose and sought her in the deepeningdarkness—ran in circles, calling to her aloud, but all invain. She was no longer visible, but out of the gloom heheard her voice saying: “Nay, thou shalt not have me byseeking. Go to thy duty, faithless shepherd, or we shallnever meet again.”

Night had fallen; the wolves were howling in the hills and theterrified sheep crowding about Haïta’s feet. Inthe demands of the hour he forgot his disappointment, drove hissheep to the fold and repairing to the place of worship pouredout his heart in gratitude to Hastur for permitting him to savehis flock, then retired to his cave and slept.

When Haïta awoke the sun was high and shone in at thecave, illuminating it with a great glory. And there, besidehim, sat the maiden. She smiled upon him with a smile thatseemed the visible music of his pipe of reeds. He dared notspeak, fearing to offend her as before, for he knew not what hecould venture to say.

“Because,” she said, “thou didst thy duty bythe flock, and didst not forget to thank Hastur for staying thewolves of the night, I am come to thee again. Wilt thouhave me for a companion?”

“Who would not have thee forever?” repliedHaïta. “Oh! never again leave meuntil—until I—change and become silent andmotionless.”

Haïta had no word for death.

“I wish, indeed,” he continued, “that thouwert of my own sex, that we might wrestle and run races and sonever tire of being together.”

At these words the maiden arose and passed out of the cave,and Haïta, springing from his couch of fragrant boughs toovertake and detain her, observed to his astonishment that therain was falling and the stream in the middle of the valley hadcome out of its banks. The sheep were bleating in terror,for the rising waters had invaded their fold. And there wasdanger for the unknown cities of the distant plain.

It was many days before Haïta saw the maiden again.One day he was returning from the head of the valley, where hehad gone with ewe’s milk and oat cake and berries for theholy hermit, who was too old and feeble to provide himself withfood.

“Poor old man!” he said aloud, as he trudged alonghomeward. “I will return to-morrow and bear him on myback to my own dwelling, where I can care for him.Doubtless it is for this that Hastur has reared me all these manyyears, and gives me health and strength.”

As he spoke, the maiden, clad in glittering garments, met himin the path with a smile that took away his breath.

“I am come again,” she said, “to dwell withthee if thou wilt now have me, for none else will. Thoumayest have learned wisdom, and art willing to take me as I am,nor care to know.”

Haïta threw himself at her feet. “Beautifulbeing,” he cried, “if thou wilt but deign to acceptall the devotion of my heart and soul—after Hastur beserved—it is thine forever. But, alas! thou artcapricious and wayward. Before to-morrow’s sun I maylose thee again. Promise, I beseech thee, that however inmy ignorance I may offend, thou wilt forgive and remain alwayswith me.”

Scarcely had he finished speaking when a troop of bears cameout of the hills, racing toward him with crimson mouths and fieryeyes. The maiden again vanished, and he turned and fled forhis life. Nor did he stop until he was in the cot of theholy hermit, whence he had set out. Hastily barring thedoor against the bears he cast himself upon the ground andwept.

“My son,” said the hermit from his couch of straw,freshly gathered that morning by Haïta’s hands,“it is not like thee to weep for bears—tell me whatsorrow hath befallen thee, that age may minister to the hurts ofyouth with such balms as it hath of its wisdom.”

Haïta told him all: how thrice he had met the radiantmaid, and thrice she had left him forlorn. He relatedminutely all that had passed between them, omitting no word ofwhat had been said.

When he had ended, the holy hermit was a moment silent, thensaid: “My son, I have attended to thy story, and I know themaiden. I have myself seen her, as have many. Know,then, that her name, which she would not even permit thee toinquire, is Happiness. Thou saidst the truth to her, thatshe is capricious for she imposeth conditions that man cannotfulfill, and delinquency is punished by desertion. Shecometh only when unsought, and will not be questioned. Onemanifestation of curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression ofmisgiving, and she is away! How long didst thou have her atany time before she fled?”

“Only a single instant,” answered Haïta,blushing with shame at the confession. “Each time Idrove her away in one moment.”

“Unfortunate youth!” said the holy hermit,“but for thine indiscretion thou mightst have had her fortwo.”

p. 308ANINHABITANT OF CARCOSA

For there be divers sorts of death—somewherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite awaywith the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude(such is God’s will) and, none seeing the end, we say theman is lost, or gone on a long journey—which indeed hehath; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, asabundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the spiritalso dieth, and this it hath been known to do while yet the bodywas in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as is veritablyattested, it dieth with the body, but after a season is raised upagain in that place where the body did decay.

Pondering these words of Hali (whomGod rest) and questioning their full meaning, as one who, havingan intimation, yet doubts if there be not something behind, otherthan that which he has discerned, I noted not whither I hadstrayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived in mea sense of my surroundings. I observed with astonishmentthat everything seemed unfamiliar. On every side of mestretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain, covered with atall overgrowth of sere grass, which rustled and whistled in theautumn wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquietingsuggestion. Protruded at long intervals above it, stoodstrangely shaped and somber-colored rocks, which seemed to havean understanding with one another and to exchange looks ofuncomfortable significance, as if they had reared their heads towatch the issue of some foreseen event. A few blasted treeshere and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracyof silent expectation.

The day, I thought, must be far advanced, though the sun wasinvisible; and although sensible that the air was raw and chillmy consciousness of that fact was rather mental thanphysical—I had no feeling of discomfort. Over all thedismal landscape a canopy of low, lead-colored clouds hung like avisible curse. In all this there were a menace and aportent—a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. Bird,beast, or insect there was none. The wind sighed in thebare branches of the dead trees and the gray grass bent towhisper its dread secret to the earth; but no other sound normotion broke the awful repose of that dismal place.

I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones,evidently shaped with tools. They were broken, covered withmoss and half sunken in the earth. Some lay prostrate, someleaned at various angles, none was vertical. They wereobviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves nolonger existed as either mounds or depressions; the years hadleveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocksshowed where some pompous tomb or ambitious monument had onceflung its feeble defiance at oblivion. So old seemed theserelics, these vestiges of vanity and memorials of affection andpiety, so battered and worn and stained—so neglected,deserted, forgotten the place, that I could not help thinkingmyself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric raceof men whose very name was long extinct.

Filled with these reflections, I was for some time heedless ofthe sequence of my own experiences, but soon I thought,“How came I hither?” A moment’sreflection seemed to make this all clear and explain at the sametime, though in a disquieting way, the singular character withwhich my fancy had invested all that I saw or heard. I wasill. I remembered now that I had been prostrated by asudden fever, and that my family had told me that in my periodsof delirium I had constantly cried out for liberty and air, andhad been held in bed to prevent my escape out-of-doors. NowI had eluded the vigilance of my attendants and had wanderedhither to—to where? I could not conjecture.Clearly I was at a considerable distance from the city where Idwelt—the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.

No signs of human life were anywhere visible nor audible; norising smoke, no watch-dog’s bark, no lowing of cattle, noshouts of children at play—nothing but that dismalburial-place, with its air of mystery and dread, due to my owndisordered brain. Was I not becoming again delirious, therebeyond human aid? Was it not indeed all an illusionof my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives andsons, reached out my hands in search of theirs, even as I walkedamong the crumbling stones and in the withered grass.

A noise behind me caused me to turn about. A wildanimal—a lynx—was approaching. The thought cameto me: If I break down here in the desert—if the feverreturn and I fail, this beast will be at my throat. Isprang toward it, shouting. It trotted tranquilly by withina hand’s breadth of me and disappeared behind a rock.

A moment later a man’s head appeared to rise out of theground a short distance away. He was ascending the fartherslope of a low hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguishedfrom the general level. His whole figure soon came intoview against the background of gray cloud. He was halfnaked, half clad in skins. His hair was unkempt, his beardlong and ragged. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow;the other held a blazing torch with a long trail of blacksmoke. He walked slowly and with caution, as if he fearedfalling into some open grave concealed by the tall grass.This strange apparition surprised but did not alarm, and takingsuch a course as to intercept him I met him almost face to face,accosting him with the familiar salutation, “God keepyou.”

He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his pace.

“Good stranger,” I continued, “I am ill andlost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa.”

The man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue,passing on and away.

An owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally and wasanswered by another in the distance. Looking upward, I sawthrough a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and theHyades! In all this there was a hint of night—thelynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw—Isaw even the stars in absence of the darkness. I saw, butwas apparently not seen nor heard. Under what awful spelldid I exist?

I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously toconsider what it were best to do. That I was mad I could nolonger doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in theconviction. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, asense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me—afeeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemedall alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I couldhear the silence.

A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned asI sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of whichprotruded into a recess formed by another root. The stonewas thus partly protected from the weather, though greatlydecomposed. Its edges were worn round, its corners eatenaway, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. Glitteringparticles of mica were visible in the earth aboutit—vestiges of its decomposition. This stone hadapparently marked the grave out of which the tree had sprung agesago. The tree’s exacting roots had robbed the graveand made the stone a prisoner.

A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from theuppermost face of the stone; I saw the low-relief letters of aninscription and bent to read it. God in Heaven! myname in full!—the date of my birth!—the dateof my death!

A level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the treeas I sprang to my feet in terror. The sun was rising in therosy east. I stood between the tree and his broad reddisk—no shadow darkened the trunk!

A chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn. I saw themsitting on their haunches, singly and in groups, on the summitsof irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desertprospect and extending to the horizon. And then I knew thatthese were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa.

Such are the facts imparted to the medium Bayrolles by thespirit Hoseib Alar Robardin.

p. 315THESTRANGER

A man stepped out of the darknessinto the little illuminated circle about our failing campfire andseated himself upon a rock.

“You are not the first to explore this region,” hesaid, gravely.

Nobody controverted his statement; he was himself proof of itstruth, for he was not of our party and must have been somewherenear when we camped. Moreover, he must have companions notfar away; it was not a place where one would be living ortraveling alone. For more than a week we had seen, besidesourselves and our animals, only such living things asrattlesnakes and horned toads. In an Arizona desert onedoes not long coexist with only such creatures as these: one musthave pack animals, supplies, arms—“anoutfit.” And all these imply comrades. It wasperhaps a doubt as to what manner of men this unceremoniousstranger’s comrades might be, together with something inhis words interpretable as a challenge, that caused every man ofour half-dozen “gentlemen adventurers” to rise to asitting posture and lay his hand upon a weapon—an actsignifying, in that time and place, a policy ofexpectation. The stranger gave the matter no attention andbegan again to speak in the same deliberate, uninflected monotonein which he had delivered his first sentence:

“Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, GeorgeW. Kent and Berry Davis, all of Tucson, crossed the SantaCatalina mountains and traveled due west, as nearly as theconfiguration of the country permitted. We were prospectingand it was our intention, if we found nothing, to push through tothe Gila river at some point near Big Bend, where we understoodthere was a settlement. We had a good outfit but noguide—just Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent andBerry Davis.”

The man repeated the names slowly and distinctly, as if to fixthem in the memories of his audience, every member of which wasnow attentively observing him, but with a slackened apprehensionregarding his possible companions somewhere in the darkness thatseemed to enclose us like a black wall; in the manner of thisvolunteer historian was no suggestion of an unfriendlypurpose. His act was rather that of a harmless lunatic thanan enemy. We were not so new to the country as not to knowthat the solitary life of many a plainsman had a tendency todevelop eccentricities of conduct and character not always easilydistinguishable from mental aberration. A man is like atree: in a forest of his fellows he will grow as straight as hisgeneric and individual nature permits; alone in the open, heyields to the deforming stresses and tortions that environhim. Some such thoughts were in my mind as I watched theman from the shadow of my hat, pulled low to shut out thefirelight. A witless fellow, no doubt, but what could he bedoing there in the heart of a desert?

Having undertaken to tell this story, I wish that I coulddescribe the man’s appearance; that would be a naturalthing to do. Unfortunately, and somewhat strangely, I findmyself unable to do so with any degree of confidence, forafterward no two of us agreed as to what he wore and how helooked; and when I try to set down my own impressions they eludeme. Anyone can tell some kind of story; narration is one ofthe elemental powers of the race. But the talent fordescription is a gift.

Nobody having broken silence the visitor went on to say:

“This country was not then what it is now. Therewas not a ranch between the Gila and the Gulf. There was alittle game here and there in the mountains, and near theinfrequent water-holes grass enough to keep our animals fromstarvation. If we should be so fortunate as to encounter noIndians we might get through. But within a week the purposeof the expedition had altered from discovery of wealth topreservation of life. We had gone too far to go back, forwhat was ahead could be no worse than what was behind; so wepushed on, riding by night to avoid Indians and the intolerableheat, and concealing ourselves by day as best we could.Sometimes, having exhausted our supply of wild meat and emptiedour casks, we were days without food or drink; then a water-holeor a shallow pool in the bottom of an arroyo so restoredour strength and sanity that we were able to shoot some of thewild animals that sought it also. Sometimes it was a bear,sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a cougar—that was as Godpleased; all were food.

“One morning as we skirted a mountain range, seeking apracticable pass, we were attacked by a band of Apaches who hadfollowed our trail up a gulch—it is not far fromhere. Knowing that they outnumbered us ten to one, theytook none of their usual cowardly precautions, but dashed upon usat a gallop, firing and yelling. Fighting was out of thequestion: we urged our feeble animals up the gulch as far asthere was footing for a hoof, then threw ourselves out of oursaddles and took to the chaparral on one of the slopes,abandoning our entire outfit to the enemy. But we retainedour rifles, every man—Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, GeorgeW. Kent and Berry Davis.”

“Same old crowd,” said the humorist of ourparty. He was an Eastern man, unfamiliar with the decentobservances of social intercourse. A gesture of disapprovalfrom our leader silenced him and the stranger proceeded with histale:

“The savages dismounted also, and some of them ran upthe gulch beyond the point at which we had left it, cutting offfurther retreat in that direction and forcing us on up theside. Unfortunately the chaparral extended only ashort distance up the slope, and as we came into the open groundabove we took the fire of a dozen rifles; but Apaches shoot badlywhen in a hurry, and God so willed it that none of us fell.Twenty yards up the slope, beyond the edge of the brush, werevertical cliffs, in which, directly in front of us, was a narrowopening. Into that we ran, finding ourselves in a cavernabout as large as an ordinary room in a house. Here for atime we were safe: a single man with a repeating rifle coulddefend the entrance against all the Apaches in the land.But against hunger and thirst we had no defense. Courage westill had, but hope was a memory.

“Not one of those Indians did we afterward see, but bythe smoke and glare of their fires in the gulch we knew that byday and by night they watched with ready rifles in the edge ofthe bush—knew that if we made a sortie not a man of uswould live to take three steps into the open. For threedays, watching in turn, we held out before our suffering becameinsupportable. Then—it was the morning of the fourthday—Ramon Gallegos said:

“‘Senores, I know not well of the good God andwhat please him. I have live without religion, and I am notacquaint with that of you. Pardon, senores, if I shock you,but for me the time is come to beat the game of theApache.’

“He knelt upon the rock floor of the cave and pressedhis pistol against his temple. ‘Madre de Dios,’he said, ‘comes now the soul of Ramon Gallegos.’

“And so he left us—William Shaw, George W. Kentand Berry Davis.

“I was the leader: it was for me to speak.

“‘He was a brave man,’ Isaid—‘he knew when to die, and how. It isfoolish to go mad from thirst and fall by Apache bullets, or beskinned alive—it is in bad taste. Let us join RamonGallegos.’

“‘That is right,’ said William Shaw.

“‘That is right,’ said George W. Kent.

“I straightened the limbs of Ramon Gallegos and put ahandkerchief over his face. Then William Shaw said:‘I should like to look like that—a littlewhile.’

“And George W. Kent said that he felt that way, too.

“‘It shall be so,’ I said: ‘the reddevils will wait a week. William Shaw and George W. Kent,draw and kneel.’

“They did so and I stood before them.

“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said I.

“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said WilliamShaw.

“‘Almighty God, our Father,’ said George W.Kent.

“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said I.

“‘Forgive us our sins,’ said they.

“‘And receive our souls.’

“‘And receive our souls.’

“‘Amen!’

“‘Amen!’

“I laid them beside Ramon Gallegos and covered theirfaces.”

There was a quick commotion on the opposite side of thecampfire: one of our party had sprung to his feet, pistol inhand.

“And you!” he shouted—“youdared to escape?—you dare to be alive? You cowardlyhound, I’ll send you to join them if I hang forit!”

But with the leap of a panther the captain was upon him,grasping his wrist. “Hold it in, Sam Yountsey, holdit in!”

We were now all upon our feet—except the stranger, whosat motionless and apparently inattentive. Some one seizedYountsey’s other arm.

“Captain,” I said, “there is something wronghere. This fellow is either a lunatic or merely aliar—just a plain, every-day liar whom Yountsey has no callto kill. If this man was of that party it had five members,one of whom—probably himself—he has notnamed.”

“Yes,” said the captain, releasing the insurgent,who sat down, “there is something—unusual.Years ago four dead bodies of white men, scalped and shamefullymutilated, were found about the mouth of that cave. Theyare buried there; I have seen the graves—we shall all seethem to-morrow.”

The stranger rose, standing tall in the light of the expiringfire, which in our breathless attention to his story we hadneglected to keep going.

“There were four,” he said—“RamonGallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and BerryDavis.”

With this reiterated roll-call of the dead he walked into thedarkness and we saw him no more.

At that moment one of our party, who had been on guard, strodein among us, rifle in hand and somewhat excited.

“Captain,” he said, “for the last half-hourthree men have been standing out there on themesa.” He pointed in the direction taken bythe stranger. “I could see them distinctly, for themoon is up, but as they had no guns and I had them covered withmine I thought it was their move. They have made none, but,damn it! they have got on to my nerves.”

“Go back to your post, and stay till you see themagain,” said the captain. “The rest of you liedown again, or I’ll kick you all into the fire.”

The sentinel obediently withdrew, swearing, and did notreturn. As we were arranging our blankets the fieryYountsey said: “I beg your pardon, Captain, but who thedevil do you take them to be?”

“Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw and George W.Kent.”

“But how about Berry Davis? I ought to have shothim.”

“Quite needless; you couldn’t have made him anydeader. Go to sleep.”

FOOTNOTES

[252] Rough notes of this tale werefound among the papers of the late Leigh Bierce. It isprinted here with such revision only as the author might himselfhave made in transcription.

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