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Dracula's Guest & Other Weird Tales · Dracula's Guest & Other Weird Tales

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  Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker. When we started for our drive, the sun
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  was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of
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  early summer. Just as we were about to depart here Delbruk, the Matre
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  d'hotel of the Catrasazon, where I was staying, came down bare headed to
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  the carriage, and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the
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  coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door, remember
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  you are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright, but there is a
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  shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But
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  I am sure you will not be late here, he smiled, and added,
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  for you know what night it is. Johann answered with an emphatic yar
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  mane hair, and touching his hat, drove off quickly. When we had
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  cleared the town, I said, after signaling to him to stop. Tell
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  me, Johann, what is tonight? He crossed himself as he answered laconically,
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  Valpurgisnacht. Then he took out his watch, a great old fashioned German
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  silver thing as big as a turnip, and looked at it with his eyebrows
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  gathered together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders. I realized that this
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  was his way of respectfully protesting against the unnecessary delay, and sank back in
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  the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed. He started off rapidly, as
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  if to make up for lost time. Every now and then, the horses
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  seemed to throw up their heads and sniff the air suspiciously. On such occasions,
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  often looked round in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we
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  were traversing a sort of high windswept plateau. As we drove, I saw
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  a road that looked but little used, and which seemed to dip through a
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  little winding valley. It looked so inviting that even at the risk of offending
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  him, I called called Johann to stop, and when he had pulled up,
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  I told him I would like to drive down that road. He made
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  all sorts of excuses and frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued
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  my curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly and repeated
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  looking at his watch in protest. Finally, I said, well, Johann,
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  I want to go down this road. I shall not ask you to
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  come unless you like. But tell me why you do not like to go.
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  That is all I ask for answer. He seemed to throw himself off
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  the box, so quickly did he reach the ground. Then he stretched out
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  his hands appealingly to me and implored me not to go. There was just
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  enough of English mixed with the German for me to understand the drift of his
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  talk. He seemed always just about to tell me something, the very idea
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  of which evidently frightened him. But each time he pulled himself up, saying
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  as he crossed himself Auguessnacht. I tried to argue with him, but it
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  was difficult to argue with a man when I did not know his language.
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  The advantage certainly rested with him, for although he began to speak in English
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  of a very crude and broken kind, he always got excited and broke into
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  his native tongue. And every time he did so, he looked at his
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  watch. Then the horses became restless and sniffed the air. At this he
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  grew very pale, and, looking around in a frightened way, he suddenly
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  jumped forward took them by the bridles, and led them on some twenty feet.
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  I followed and asked why he had done this. For answer, he
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  crossed himself and pointed to the spot we had left, and drew his carriage
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  in the direction of the other road, indicating a cross and said, first
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  in German, then in English, buried him him what killed themselves? I
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  remembered the old custom of burying suicides at the cross roads. Ah, I
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  see a suicide. How interesting. But for the life of me, I
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  could not make out why the horses were frightened. Whilst we were talking,
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  we heard the sort of sound between a yelp and a bark. It was
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  far away, but the horses got very restless, and it took Johan all
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  his time to quiet them. He was pale and said, it sounds like
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  a wolf. But yet there are no wolves here now no, I said,
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  questioning him, isn't it long since the wolves were so near the city?
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  Long long? He answered, in the spring and summer. But with
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  the snow the wolves have been here not so long. While he was petting
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  the horses and trying to quiet them, the dark clouds drifted rapidly across the
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  sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind seemed to
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  drift past us. It was only a breath, however, and more in
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  the nature of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly
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  again. Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and said, the
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  storm of snow he comes before long time. Then he looked at his watch
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  again and straightway, holding his reins firmly, for the horses were still pouring
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  the ground restlessly and shaking their heads. He climbed to his box, as
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  though the time had come for proceeding on our journey. I felt a little
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  obstinate, and did not at once get into the carriage. Tell me,
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  I said, about this place where the road leads, and I pointed down
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  again. He crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered, it is
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  unholy. What is unholy? I inquired, the village? Then there is
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  a village, No, no, No, one lives there hundreds of years.
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  My curiosity was piqued. But you said there was a village there was,
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  Where is it now? Whereupon he burst out into a long story in
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  German and English, so mixed that I could not quite understand exactly what he
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  said. But roughly, I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years,
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  men had died there and been buried in their graves, and sounds were heard
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  under the clay, And when the graves were opened, men and women were
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  found rosy with life, and their mouths red with blood. And so in
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  haste saved their lives, ay and their souls. And here he crossed himself.
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  Those who were left fled away to other places where the living lived and
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  the dead were dead, and not not something He was evidently afraid to speak
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  the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and
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  more excited. It seemed as if imagination had got hold of him, and
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  he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear, white faced, perspiring, trembling,
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  and looking round him, as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest
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  itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain. Finally, in an
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  agony of desperation, he cried Valpurgisnacht and pointed to the carriage for me to
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  get in. All my English blood rose at this, and standing back,
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  I said, you're afraid, Johann, you are afraid. Go home.
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  I shall return alone the walk will do me good. The carriage door was
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  open. I took from the seat my oak walking stick, which I always
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  carry on my holiday excursions, and closed the door, pointing back to Munich,
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  and said, go home, Johann. Valpurgisnacht doesn't concern Englishmen. The
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  horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying to hold them
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  in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so foolish. I pitied
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  the poor fellow. He was deeply in earnest, but all the same I
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  could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In his anxiety,
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  he had forgotten that his only means of making me understand was to talk
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  my language, So he jabbered away in his native German. It began to
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  be a little tedious. After giving the direction home, I turned to go
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  down the cross road into the valley. With a despairing gesture, Johann turned
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  his horses towards Munich. I leaned on my stick and looked after him.
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  He went slowly along the road for a while. Then there came over the
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  crest of the hill a man, tall and thin. I could see so
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  much in the distance. When he drew near the horses. They began to
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  jump and kick about, then to scream with terror. Johan could not hold
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  them in. They bolted down the road, running away madly. I watched
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  them out of sight, then looked for the stranger, but I found that
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  he too was gone. With a light heart, I turned down the side
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  road through the deepening valley to which Johan had objected. There was not the
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  slightest reason that I could see for his objection, and I dare say I
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  tramped for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance, and certainly
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  without seeing a person or a house. So far as the place was concerned,
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  it was desolation itself. But I did not notice this particularly till on
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  turning a bend in the road, I came upon a scattered fringe of wood.
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  Then I recognized that I had been impressed unconsciously by the desolation of the
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  region through which I had passed. I sat down to rest myself and began
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  to look around. It struck me that it was considerably colder than it had
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  been at the commencement of my walk. A sort of sighing sound seemed to
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  be around me with now, and then high overhead, a sort of muffled
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  roar. Looking upwards, I noticed that great, thick clouds were drifting rapidly
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  across the sky from north to south at a great height. There were signs
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  of coming storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little
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  chilly, and, thinking that it was the sitting still after the exercise of
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  walking, I resumed my journey. The ground I passed over was now much
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  more picturesque. There were no striking objects that the eye might single out,
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  but in all there was a charm of beauty. I took little heed of
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  time, and it was only when the deepening twilight forced itself upon me that
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  I began to think of how I should find my way home. The brightness
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  of the day had gone, the air was cold, and the drifting of
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  clouds high overhead was more marked. They were accompanied by a sort of far
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  away, rushing sound, through which seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry,
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  which the driver had said came from a wolf. For a while I
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  hesitated. I had said I would see the deserted village. So on I
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  went, and presently came on a wide stretch of open country, shut in
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  by hills all around their sides were covered with trees which spread down to the
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  plain, dotting in clumps the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there.
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  I followed with my eye the winding of the road, and saw that
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  it curved close to one of the densest of these clumps, and was lost
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  behind it. As I looked, there came a cold shiver in the air,
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  and the snow began to fall. I thought of the miles and miles
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  of bleak country I had passed, and then hurried on to seek the shelter
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  of the wood in front. Darker and darker grew the sky, and faster
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  and heavier fell the snow, till the earth before and around me was a
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  glistening white carpet, the further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness.
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  The road was here but crude, and when on the level, its boundaries
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  were not so marked. And when it passed through the cuttings, and in
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  a little while I found that I must have strayed from it, for I
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  missed underfoot the hard surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and
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  moss. Then the wind grew stronger and blew with ever increasing force till I
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  was fain to run before it. The air became icy cold, and in
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  spite of my exercise, I began to suffer. The snow was now falling
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  so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies that I could hardly keep
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  my eyes open. Every now and then the heavens were torn asunder by vivid
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  lightning, and in the flashes I could see ahead of me a great mass
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  of trees, chiefly ew and cypress, all heavily coated with snow. I
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  was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there, in comparative silence,
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  I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently, the
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  blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night. By
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  and by the storm seemed to be passing away. It now only came in
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  fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments, the weird sound of the wolf
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  appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me. Now and again,
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  through the black mass of drifting cloud came a straggling ray of moonlight, which
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  lit up the expanse and showed me that I was at the age of a
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  dense mass of cypress and new trees. As the snow had ceased to fall,
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  I walked out from the shelter and began to investigate more closely. It
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  appeared to me that among so many old foundations as I had passed, there
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  might still be standing a house in which, though in ruins, I could
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  find some sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the edge of
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  the copse, I found that a low wall encircled it, and following this
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  I presently found an opening. Here the cypress formed an alley leading up to
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  a square mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught sight of
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  this, however, the drifting clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up
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  the path in darkness. The wind must have grown colder, for I felt
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  myself shiver as I walked, but there was hope of shelter, and I
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  groped my way blindly. On I stopped, for there was a sudden stillness.
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  The storm had passed, and perhaps in sympathy with nature's silence, my
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  heart seemed to cease to beat. But this was only momentarily, for suddenly
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  the moonlight broke through the clouds, showing me that I was in a graveyard,
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  and that the square object before me was a great, massive tomb of
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  marble, as white as the snow that lay on and all around it with
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  the moonlight, there came a fierce sigh of the storm, which appeared to
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  resume its course with a long, low howl, as of many dogs or
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  wolves. I was awed and shocked, and felt the cold perceptibly grow upon
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  me, till it seemed to grip me by the heart. Then, while
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  the flood of moonlight still fell on the marble tomb, the storm gave further
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  evidence of renewing, as though it was returning on its track. Impelled by
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  some sort of fascination, I approached the sepulcher to see what it was and
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  why such a thing stood alone in such a place. I walked around it
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  and read over the doric door. In German, Countess Dolingen of grat in
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  Sterea sought and found death eighteen o one on the top of the tomb,
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  seemingly driven through the solid marble. For the structure was composed of a few
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  vast blocks of stone. Was a great iron spike or stake. On going
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  to the back, I saw graven in great Russian letters, the dead travel
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  fast. There was something so weird and uncanny about the whole thing that it
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  gave me a turn and made me feel quite faint. I began to wish
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  for the first time that I had taken Johann's advice. Here a thought struck
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  me, which came under almost mysterious circumstances, and with a terrible shock.
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  This was Valpurgus Knight. Valpurgus Knight, when, according to the belief of
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  millions of people, the devil was abroad, when the graves were opened,
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  and the dead came forth and walked, when all evil things of earth and
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  air and water held revel this very place the driver had specially shunned. This
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  was the depopulated village of centuries ago. This was where the suicide lay.
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  And this was the place where I was alone, unmanned, shivering with cold,
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  in a shroud of snow, with a wild storm gathering again upon me.
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  It took all my philosophy, all the religion I had been taught,
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  all my courage not to collapse in a paroxysm of fright, and now a
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  perfect tornado burst upon me. The ground shook as though thousands of horses thundered
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  across it, and this time the storm bore on its icy wings not snow,
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  but great hailstones, which drove with such violence that they might have come
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  from the throngs of Bellairic singers. Hailstones that beat down leaf and branch,
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  and made the shelter of the cypresses of no more avail than though their stems
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  were standing corn. At the first I had rushed to the nearest tree,
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  but I was soon fain to leave it and seek the only spot that seemed
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  to afford refuge, the deep doric doorway of the marble tomb. There,
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  crouching against the massive bronze door, I gained a certain amount of protection from
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  the beating of the hailstones, for now they only drove against me as they
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  ricocheted from the ground and the side of the marble. As I leaned against
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  the door, it moved slightly and opened inwards. The shelter of even a
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  tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest, and I was about to enter it
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  when there came a flash of forked lightning that lit up the whole expanse of
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  the heavens. In the instant as I am a living man, I saw,
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  as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful
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  woman with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bear. As
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  the thunder broke overhead, I was grasped as by the hand of a giant,
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  and hurled out into the storm the hall. Thing was so sudden that
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  before I could realize the shock moral as well as physical, I found the
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  helstones beating me down. At the same time, I had a strange,
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  dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb. Just
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  then there came another blinding flash which seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted
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  the tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and crumbling the marble.
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  As in the burst of flame. The dead woman rose for a moment
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  of agony while she was lapped in the flame, and her bitter scream of
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  pain was drowned in the thunder crash. The last thing I heard was this
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  mingling of dreadful sound, as again I was seized in the giant grasp and
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  dragged away, while the heilstones beat on me and the air around seemed reverberant
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  with the howling of wolves. The last thing that I remembered was a vague,
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  white, moving mass, as if all the graves around me had sent
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  out the phantoms of their sheeted dead, and that they were closing in on
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  me through the white cloudiness of the driving hail. Gradually there came a sort
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  of vague beginning of consciousness, then a sense of weariness that was dreadful.
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  For a time I remembered nothing, but slowly my senses returned. My feet
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  seemed positively racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed
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  to be numbed. There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck
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  and all down my spine and my ears like my feet were dead yet in
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  torment. But there was in my breast a sense of warmth which was by
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  comparison delicious. It was a nightmare, a physical nightmare, if one may
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  use such an expression. For some heavy weight on my chest made it difficult
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  for me to breathe. This period of semi lethargy seemed to remain a long
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  time, and as it faded away, I must have slept or swooned.
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  Then came a sort of loathing, like the first stage of sea sickness,
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  and a wild desire to be free from something I knew, not what.
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  A vast stillness enveloped me, as though all the world were asleep or dead,
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  only broken by the low panting as of some animal close to me.
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  I felt a warm rasping at my throat. Then came a consciousness of the
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  awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up
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  through my brain. Some great animal was lying on me and now licking my
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  throat. I feared to stir, but some instinct of prudence bade me lie
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  still. But the brute seemed to realize that there was now some change in
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  me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes, I saw above
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  me the two great, flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white
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  teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel its hot breath,
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  fierce and acrid, upon me. For another spell of time I remembered
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  no more. Then I became conscious of a low growl, followed by a
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  yelp, renewed again and again. Then, seemingly very far away, I
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  heard her, Halla, Halla, as of many voices calling in unison.
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  Cautiously, I raised my head and looked in the direction whence the sound came,
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  but the cemetery blocked my view. The wolf still continued to yelp in
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  a strange way, and a red glare began to move around the grove of
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  cypresses, as though following the sound. As the voices drew closer, the
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  wolf yelped faster and louder. I feared to make either sound or motion.
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  Nearer came the red glow over the white pall, which stretched into the darkness
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  around me. Then all at once, from beyond the trees, there came,
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  at a trot, a troop of horsemen bearing torches. The wolf rose
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  from my breast and made for the cemetery. I saw one of the horsemen,
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  soldiers by their caps and long military cloaks, raise his carbine and take
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  aim. A companion knocked up his arm, and I heard the ball whiz
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  over my head. He had evidently taken my body for that of the wolf.
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  Another sighted the animal as it slunk away, and a shot followed.
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  Then at a gallop, the troop rode forward, some towards me, others
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  following the wolf as it disappeared amongst the snow clad cypresses. As they drew
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  nearer. I tried to move, but was powerless, although I could see
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  and hear all that went on around me. Two or three of the soldiers
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  jumped from their horses and knelt beside me. One of them raised my head
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  and placed his hand over my heart. Good news, comrades, he cried.
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  His heart still beats. Then some brandy was poured down my throat.
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  It put vigor into me, and I was able to open my eyes fully
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  and look around. Lights and shadows were moving among the trees, and I
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  heard men call to one another. They drew together, uttering fright and exclamations,
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  and the lights flashed as the others came pouring out the cemetery, pell
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  mell, like men possessed. When the further ones came close to us,
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  those who were around me asked them eagerly, well have you found him?
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  The reply rang out hurriedly, No, No, come away quick quick,
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  This is no place to stay. And on this of all nights, what
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  is it? Was a question asked in all manner of keys. The answer
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  came variously and all indefinitely, as though the men were moved by some common
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  impulse to speak, yet were restrained by some common fear from giving their thoughts
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  it It indeed gibbered one whose wits had plainly given out for the moment a
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  wolf, and yet not a wolf. Another put in, shudderingly, no
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  use trying for him without the sacred bullet. A third remark, in a
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  more ordinary manner, serve us right for coming out on this night. Truly
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  we have earned our thousand marks. Were the ejaculations of a fourth. There
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  was blood on the broken marble. Another said, after a pause, the
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  lightning never bought that there. And for him is he safe? Look at
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  his throat, See, comrades, the wolf has been lying on him and
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  keeping his blood warm. The officer looked at my throat and replied, he
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  is all right. The skin is not pierced. What does it all mean?
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  We should never have found him but for the yelping of the wolf.
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  What came of it? Asked the man who was holding up my head,
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  and who seen the least panic stricken of the party, For his hands were
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  steady and without tremor. On his sleeve was the chevron of a petty officer.
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  It went to its home, answered the man, whose long face was
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  pallid, and who actually shook with terror. As he glanced around him fearfully.
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  There are graves enough there in which it may lie. Come, comrades,
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  come quickly, let us leave this cursed spot. The officer raised me
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  to a sitting posture as he uttered a word of command. Then several men
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  placed me upon a horse. He sprang to the saddle behind me, took
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  me in his arms, gave the word to advance, and, turning their
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  faces away from the cypresses, we rode away in swift military order. As
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  yet, my tongue refused its office, and I was perfore silent. I
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  must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I remembered was finding myself standing
• 25:18
  up, supported by a soldier on each side of me. It was almost
• 25:22
  broad daylight, and to the north a red streak of sunlight was reflected like
• 25:27
  a path of blood over the waist of snow. The officer was telling the
• 25:33
  men to say nothing of what they had seen, except that they found an
• 25:37
  English stranger guarded by a large dog. Dog that was no dog cut in
• 25:42
  the man who had exhibited such fear, I think I know a wolf when
• 25:45
  I see one, the young officer answered, calmly. I said, dog
• 25:52
  dog, reiterated the other. Ironically, it was evident that his courage was
• 25:56
  rising with the sun, and pointing to me, he said, look at
• 26:00
  his throat. Is that the work of a dog master. Instinctively I raised
• 26:06
  my hand to my throat, and as I touched it, I cried out
• 26:08
  in pain. The men crowded round to look, some stooping down from their
• 26:14
  saddles, and again there came the calm voice of the young officer a dog
• 26:18
  as I said, if aught else were said, we should only be laughed
• 26:22
  at. I was then mounted behind a trooper and we rode on into the
• 26:26
  suburbs of Munich. Here we came across a stray carriage into which I was
• 26:32
  lifted and it was driven off to the catrasson the young officer accompanying me,
• 26:37
  whilst a trooper followed with his horse, and the others rode off to their
• 26:41
  barracks. When we arrived, Herr Delbrook rushed so quickly down the steps to
• 26:47
  meet me that it was apparent he had been watching within. Taking me by
• 26:52
  both hands, he solicitously led me in. The officer saluted me and was
• 26:56
  turning to withdraw when I recognized his purpose and insisted that he should come to
• 27:00
  my rooms over a glass of wine. I warmly thanked him and his brave
• 27:07
  comrades for saving me. He replied simply that he was more than glad,
• 27:11
  and that her Delbrook had at first taken steps to make all the searching party
• 27:15
  please, at which ambiguous utterance the matred' hootel smiled, while the officer pleaded
• 27:22
  duty and withdrew. But her Delbrook I inquired, how and why was it
• 27:27
  that soldiers searched for me. He shrugged his shoulders, as if in depreciation
• 27:33
  of his own deed, as he replied, I was so fortunate as to
• 27:37
  obtain leave from the commander of the regiment in which I served to ask for
• 27:41
  volunteers. But how did you know I was lost? I asked. The
• 27:45
  driver came hither with the remains of his carriage, which had been upset when
• 27:49
  the horses ran away. But surely you would not send a search party of
• 27:55
  soldiers merely on his account. Oh no, he answered, But even befo
• 28:00
  before the coachman arrived, I had this telegram from the boyar whose guest you
• 28:03
  are. And he took from his pocket a telegram which he handed to me,
• 28:07
  and I read Bistritz be careful of my guest. His safety is most
• 28:15
  precious to me. Should aught happen to him, or if he be missed,
• 28:18
  spend nothing to find him and insure his safety. He is English and
• 28:23
  therefore adventurous. There are often dangers from snow and wolves at night. Lose
• 28:30
  not a moment if you suspect harm to him. I answer your zeal with
• 28:33
  my fortune, Dracula. As I held a telegram in my hand, the
• 28:41
  room seemed to whirl around me. And if the attentive matred'hotel had not caught
• 28:45
  me, I think I should have fallen. There was something so strange in
• 28:49
  all this, something so weird and impossible to imagine, that there grew on
• 28:53
  me a sense of my being in some way the sport of opposite forces,
• 28:57
  the mere vague idea of which seemed in a way to paralyze me. I
• 29:03
  was certainly under some form of mysterious protection from a distant country. Had come
• 29:10
  in the very nick of time, a message that took me out of the
• 29:14
  danger of the snow, sleep and the jaws of the wolf. End of
• 29:19
  Dracula's Guest The Judge's House by bram Stoker, When the time for his examination
• 29:26
  drew near Malcolm Malcolmson made up his mind to go somewhere to read by himself.
• 29:32
  He feared the attractions of the seaside, and also he feared completely rural
• 29:37
  isolation, for of old he knew it charms, and so he determined to
• 29:41
  find some unpretentious little town. But there would be nothing to distract him.
• 29:45
  He refrained from asking suggestions from any of his friends, for he argued that
• 29:48
  each would recommend some place of which he had knowledge and where he had already
• 29:52
  acquaintances. As Malcolmson wished to avoid friends, he had no wish to encomber
• 29:57
  himself with the attention of friends friends, and so he determined to look out
• 30:00
  for a place for himself. He packed a portmanteau, woods and clothes and
• 30:06
  all the books he required, and then took ticket for the first name on
• 30:10
  the local time table, which he did not know. When at the end
• 30:14
  of three hours journey he alighted at ben Church, he felt satisfied that he
• 30:18
  had so far obliterated his tracks as to be sure of having a peaceful opportunity
• 30:22
  of pursuing his studies. He went straight to the one inn which the sleepy
• 30:26
  little pace contained and put up for the night. Benchurch was a market town,
• 30:32
  and once in three weeks was crowded to excess, But for the remainder
• 30:34
  of the twenty one days it was as attractive as a desert. Larkhamston looked
• 30:38
  around the day after his arrival to try to find quarters more isolated than even
• 30:42
  so quiet an inn. As the good Traveler afforded, there was only one
• 30:47
  place which took his fancy, and it certainly satisfied his wildest ideas regarding quiet.
• 30:52
  In fact, quiet was not the proper word to apply to it.
• 30:56
  Desolation was the only term conveying any suitable idea of its isolation. It was
• 31:03
  an old, rambling, heavy built house of the Jacobean style, with heavy
• 31:07
  gables and windows unusually small and set higher than was customary in such houses,
• 31:12
  and was surrounded with a high brick wall, massively built. Indeed, on
• 31:17
  examination it looked more like a fortified house than an ordinary dwelling. But all
• 31:22
  these things pleased Malcolmson. Here, he thought, is the very spot I
• 31:26
  have been looking for, and if I can get opportunity of using it,
• 31:30
  I shall be happy. His joy was increased when he realized beyond doubt that
• 31:37
  it was not at present inhabited. From the post office he got the name
• 31:41
  of the agent who was really surprised at the application to rent a part of
• 31:44
  the old house. Mister Carnford, the local lawyer and agent, was a
• 31:48
  genial old gentleman, and frankly confessed his delight at anyone being willing to live
• 31:53
  in the house. To tell you the truth, said he, I should
• 31:57
  be only too happy on behalf of the owners to let anyone have the house
• 32:02
  rent free for a term of years, if only to accustom the people here
• 32:06
  to see inhabited. It has been so long empty that some kind of absurd
• 32:10
  prejudice has grown up about it, and this can be best put down by
• 32:14
  its occupation, if only, he added, with a slight glance at Malcolmson,
• 32:19
  by a scholar like yourself, who wants it quiet for a time.
• 32:22
  Malcolmson thought it needless to ask the agent about the absurd prejudice. He knew
• 32:28
  he would get more information if he should require it on that subject from other
• 32:30
  quarters. He paid his three months rent, got a receipt and the name
• 32:35
  of an old woman who would probably undertaken to do for him, and came
• 32:38
  away with the keys in his pocket. He then went to the landlady of
• 32:43
  the inn, who was a cheerful and most kindly person, and asked her
• 32:45
  advice as to such stores and provisions as he would be likely to require.
• 32:51
  She threw up her hands in amazement when he told her where he was going
• 32:54
  to settle himself. Not in the judge's house, she said, and grew
• 33:00
  pale as she spoke. He explained the locality of the house, saying that
• 33:05
  he did not know its name. When he had finished, she answered,
• 33:08
  aye, sure enough, sure enough, the very place it is the judges
• 33:13
  how sure enough, he asked her her tell him about the place why so
• 33:15
  called, and what there was against it? She told him that it was
• 33:20
  so called locally because it had been many years before. How long she could
• 33:22
  not say, as she was herself from another part of the country, but
• 33:25
  she thought it must have been one hundred years or more, the abode of
• 33:29
  a judge who was held in great terror on account of his harsh sentences and
• 33:34
  his hostility to prisoners at assizes. As to what there was against the house
• 33:38
  itself, she could not tell. She had often asked, but no one
• 33:44
  could inform her. But there was a general feeling that there was something,
• 33:47
  and for her own part, she would not take all the money and drinkwater's
• 33:51
  bank and stay in the house an hour by herself. Then she apologized to
• 33:55
  Markhamson for her disturbing talk. It is too bad of me, sir,
• 34:00
  and you and a young gentleman too, if you will pardon me saying it,
• 34:04
  going to live there all alone, if you and my boy, if
• 34:07
  you'll excluse me for saying it, you won't sleep there at night, not
• 34:09
  if I had to go there myself and pull the bigger arm belts on the
• 34:13
  roof. The good creature was so manifestly in earnest, and was so kindly
• 34:17
  in her intentions that Malcolmson, although amused, was touched. He told her
• 34:22
  kindly how much he appreciated her interest in him, and added, but my
• 34:27
  dear missus withham indeed, you need not be concerned about me. A man
• 34:30
  who is reading for the Mathematical Tripods has too much to think of to be
• 34:35
  disturbed by any of these mysterious some things. And his work is of too
• 34:39
  exact and prosaicic kind to allow us of hanging any corner of his mind for
• 34:44
  mysteries of any kind. Harmonical progression, permutations and combinations, and elliptic functions
• 34:50
  have sufficient mysteries for me. Missus Withham kindly undertook to see after his commissions,
• 34:54
  and he went himself to look for the old woman who had been recommended
• 34:58
  to him. When he returned to the judge's house with her, after an
• 35:00
  interval of a couple of hours, he found Missus Witham herself waiting with several
• 35:05
  men and boys carrying parcels, and an upholsterous man with a bed and a
• 35:08
  car. For she said, though tables and chairs might be all very well,
• 35:13
  a bed that hadn't been aired for mayhaps fifty years was not proper for
• 35:16
  young bones to lie on. She was evidently curious to see the inside of
• 35:22
  the house, and though manifestly so afraid of the some things, that at
• 35:25
  the slightest sound she clutched on to Markamson, whom she never left for a
• 35:30
  moment, went over the whole place. After his examination of the house,
• 35:35
  Malcolmson decided to take up his abode in the great dining room, which was
• 35:37
  big enough to serve for all his requirements, and Missus Witham with the aid
• 35:42
  of the charwoman, Missus Dempster proceeded to arrange matters. When the hampers were
• 35:46
  brought in and unpacked, Malkinson saw that, with much kind forethought, she
• 35:51
  had sent from her own kitchens official provisions to last for a few days.
• 35:54
  Before going, she expressed all sorts of kind wishes. Another door turned and
• 35:59
  said, and perhaps, sir, as the room is big and drafty,
• 36:02
  it might be well to have one of those big screens put round your bed
• 36:06
  at night. Though, truth to tell, I would die myself if I
• 36:09
  were to be so shut in with all kinds of things that put their heads
• 36:14
  round the sides or over the top and look on me. The image which
• 36:16
  she had called up was too much for her nerves, and she fled incontinently.
• 36:22
  Missus Dempster sniffed in a superior manner as the landlady disappeared, and remarked
• 36:27
  that for her own part, she wasn't afraid of all the bogies in the
• 36:30
  kingdom. I'll tell you what it is, sir, she said. Bogies
• 36:34
  is all carnes and sorts of things except bogies, rats and mice and beetles
• 36:39
  and creaky doors and loose slates and broken panes and stiff drawer handles stay out
• 36:45
  when you pull them and then fall down in the middle of the night.
• 36:47
  Look at the wainskirt of the room. It is all hundreds of years old.
• 36:52
  Do you think there's no rats and beetles there? And do you imagine,
• 36:54
  sir, that you won't seen none of them? Rats is bogies are
• 36:59
  telling you and Bogey we're at And don't you get to think anything else,
• 37:01
  missus Dempster, said Malcolmson, gravely, making her a polite bow. You
• 37:07
  know more than a senior wrangler, and let me say that as a mark
• 37:10
  of esteem for your indubitable soundness of head and heart, I shall, when
• 37:15
  I go, give you possession of this house and let you stay here by
• 37:17
  yourself for the last two months of my tendency for four weeks will serve my
• 37:22
  purpose. Thank you kindly, sir, she answered. But I can't sleep
• 37:27
  away from home at night. I'm in Greenhouse charity, and if I slept
• 37:31
  a night away from my rooms, I should lose all I have got to
• 37:34
  live on. The rules is very straight, and there's too many watching full
• 37:37
  a vacancy for me to run any risks in the matter. And for that,
• 37:42
  sir, I'd gladly come here on a hand on your altogether during your
• 37:45
  stay, my good woman, said Malcolmson hastily. I have come here on
• 37:50
  purpose to obtain solitude. And believe me that I am grateful to the late
• 37:53
  Greenhouse for having so organized his admirable charity. Whatever it is that I am
• 37:59
  perforced in gnied the opportunity of suffering from such a form of temptation, said
• 38:02
  Anthony himself, could not be more rigid on the point. The old woman
• 38:07
  laughed harshly. Ah, you young gentlemen, she said, you don't fear
• 38:12
  for nought, and but like you'll get all the solitude you want here,
• 38:16
  she said, to work with her cleaning and by nightfall. When Malcolmson returned
• 38:20
  from his walk, he always had one of his books to study. As
• 38:22
  he walked, he found the room swept and tidied, a fire burning in
• 38:25
  the old hearth, the lamp lit, and the table spread for supper with
• 38:29
  Missus Witham's excellent fare. This is comfort, indeed, he said, as
• 38:32
  he rubbed his hands. When he had finished his supper and lifted the tray
• 38:37
  to the other end of the great oak dining table, he got out his
• 38:39
  books again, put fresh wood on the fire, trimmed his lamp, and
• 38:43
  set himself down to a spell of real hard work. He went on without
• 38:46
  pause till about eleven o'clock, when he knocked off for a bit to fix
• 38:50
  his fire and lamp and to make himself a cup of tea. He had
• 38:52
  always been a tea drinker, and during his college life had sat late a
• 38:57
  work and had taken tea late. The rest was a greatly luxury to him,
• 39:01
  and he enjoyed it with a sense of delicious, voluptuous ease. The
• 39:06
  renewed fire leaped and sparkled and threw quaint shadows through the great old room,
• 39:10
  and as he sipped his hot tea, he reveled and the sense of isolation
• 39:15
  from his kind. Then it was that he began to notice for the first
• 39:19
  time what a noise the rats were making. Surely, he thought, they
• 39:23
  cannot have been at it all the time I was reading. Had they been,
• 39:27
  I must have noticed it presently. When the noise increased, he satisfied
• 39:31
  himself that it was really new. It was evident that at first the rats
• 39:36
  had been frightened at the presence of a stranger and the light of fire,
• 39:38
  and lump, but that as the time went on they had grown bolder and
• 39:43
  were now disporting themselves as was their wont how busy they were, and harked
• 39:47
  to the strange noises up and down behind the old wainskirt, over the ceiling,
• 39:52
  and under the floor. They raised a nod and scratched. Malcolmson smiled
• 39:57
  to himself, as I recalled to mind the saying of Missus Dempster's burgerses rats
• 40:00
  and rats his bogies. The tea began to have its effect of intellectual and
• 40:05
  nervous stimulus. He saw with joy another long spell of work to be done
• 40:08
  before the night was passed, And in the sense of security which it gave
• 40:12
  him, he allowed himself the luxury of a good look around the room.
• 40:15
  He took his lamp in one hand and went all around, wondering that so
• 40:19
  quaint and beautiful an old house had been so long neglected. The carving of
• 40:23
  the oak on the panels of the wainscot was fine, and on and round
• 40:28
  the doors and windows. It was beautiful and of rare merit. There were
• 40:31
  some old pictures on the walls, but they were coated so thick with dust
• 40:36
  and dirt that he could not distinguish any detail of them, though he held
• 40:38
  his lamp as high as he could over his head. Here and there,
• 40:43
  as he went round he saw some crack or hole blocked for a moment by
• 40:45
  the face of a rat, with its bright eyes glittering in the light.
• 40:50
  But in an instant it was gone, and a squeak and a scamper followed.
• 40:54
  The thing that most struck him, however, was the rope of the
• 40:58
  great alarm bell on the roof, which hung down in a corner of the
• 41:00
  room, on the right hand side of the fireplace. He pulled up close
• 41:04
  to the hearth a great, high backed, carved oak chair, and sat
• 41:07
  down to his last cup of tea. When this was done, he made
• 41:12
  up the fire and went back to his work, sitting at the corner of
• 41:14
  the table, having the fire to his left. For a little while,
• 41:17
  the rats disturbed him somewhat with their perpetual scampering, but he got accustomed to
• 41:22
  the noise, as one does to the ticking of a clock or to the
• 41:23
  roar of moving water, and he became so immersed in his work that everything
• 41:28
  in the world except the problem which he was trying to solve, passed away
• 41:31
  from him. He suddenly looked up. His problem was still unsolved, and
• 41:37
  there was in the air that sense of the hour before the dawn, which
• 41:39
  is so dread to doubtful life. The noise of the rats had ceased.
• 41:45
  Indeed, it seemed to him that it must have ceased but lately, and
• 41:47
  that it was the sudden cessation which had disturbed him. The fire had fallen
• 41:52
  low, but still it threw out a deep red glow. As he looked,
• 41:58
  he started in spite of his sang. There on the great, high
• 42:02
  backed, carved oak chair by the right side of the fireplace sat an enormous
• 42:07
  rat, steadily glaring at him with baleful eyes. He made a motion to
• 42:12
  it, as though to hunt it away, but it did not stir.
• 42:15
  Then he made the motion of throwing something. Still it did not stir,
• 42:20
  but showed its great white teeth angrily, and its cruel eyes shone in the
• 42:23
  lamp light with an added vindictiveness. Mackinson felt amazed, and, seizing the
• 42:30
  poker from the hearth, ran at it to kill it. Before, however,
• 42:34
  he could strike it, the rat, with a squeak that sounded like
• 42:36
  the concentration of hate, jumped upon the floor, and running up the rope
• 42:40
  of the alarm bell disappeared in the darkness beyond the range of the green shaded
• 42:44
  lamp. Instantly strange to say, the noisy scampering of the rats in the
• 42:49
  windscot began again. By this time Malcolmson's mind was quite off the problem,
• 42:53
  and as a shrill cock crow outside told him of the approach of morning,
• 42:58
  he went to bed and to sleep. He slept so sound that he was
• 43:01
  not even waked by Missus Dempster coming in to make up his room. It
• 43:05
  was only when she had tidied up the place and got his breakfast ready and
• 43:08
  tapped on the screen which closed in his bed, that he woke. He
• 43:13
  was a little tired still after his night's hard work, but a strong cup
• 43:15
  of tea soon freshened him up, and taking his book, he went out
• 43:20
  for his morning walk, bringing with him a few sandwiches lest he should not
• 43:22
  care to return till dinner time. He found a quiet walk between high elms
• 43:27
  some way outside the town, and here he spent the greater part of the
• 43:30
  day studying his la place. On his return, he looked in to see
• 43:34
  Missus witham and to thank her for her kindness. When she saw him coming
• 43:37
  through the diamond paned bay window of her sanctum, she came out to meet
• 43:42
  him and asked him in. She looked at him searchingly and shook her head
• 43:45
  as she said he must not overdo it. Sir, you are paler this
• 43:49
  morning than you should be. Two late hours and too hard work on the
• 43:52
  brain isn't good for any man. But tell me, sir, how did
• 43:57
  you pass the night? Well? I hope, but my heart I was
• 44:00
  glad when Missus Dempster told me this morning that you are right in sleeping sound
• 44:02
  when she went in, Oh, I was all right, he answered,
• 44:06
  smiling that some things didn't worry me as yet, only the rats, and
• 44:12
  they had a circus. I'd tell you. All over the place there was
• 44:15
  one wicked looking old devil that sat up on my own chair by the fire
• 44:20
  and wouldn't go till I took the poker to him. And then he ran
• 44:22
  up the rope of the alarm bell and got to somewhere up the wall or
• 44:24
  the ceiling. I couldn't see where it was so dark. Mercy your nose,
• 44:30
  said Missus. Witham an old devil and sitting on a chair by the
• 44:34
  fireside. Take care, sir, take care as many a true word spoken
• 44:37
  in jest. How do you mean upon my word? I don't understand an
• 44:43
  old devil, The old devil? Perhaps there, sir, he needed a
• 44:46
  laugh, for Malcolmson had broken into a hearty peal. You young folks think
• 44:52
  it's easy to laugh at things that makes older one shudder. Never mind,
• 44:54
  sir, never mind, Please God, you'll laugh all the time. That's
• 44:59
  what I wish you. My and the good lady beamed all over in sympathy
• 45:01
  with his enjoyment. Have Fiz gone for a moment? Oh, forgive me,
• 45:07
  said Markinson, presently, don't think me rude, But the idea was
• 45:10
  too much for me. That the old devil himself was on the chair last
• 45:14
  night, And at the thought he laughed again. Then he went home to
• 45:17
  dinner this evening. The scampering of the rats began earlier, indeed, it
• 45:22
  had been going on before his arrival, and only ceased whilst his presence,
• 45:25
  by its freshness, disturbed them. After dinner, he sat by the fire
• 45:30
  for a while and had a smoke, and then, having cleared his table,
• 45:32
  began to work as before to night. The rats disturbed him more than
• 45:37
  they had done on the previous night. How they scampered up and down,
• 45:39
  and under and over, How they squeaked and scratched and gnawed, How they,
• 45:44
  getting bolder by degrees, came to the mouths of their holes, and
• 45:47
  to the chinks and cracks and crannies in the wainscotting, till their eyes shone
• 45:51
  like tiny lamps as the firelight rose and fell. But to him, now
• 45:55
  doubtless accustomed to them, eyes were not wicked. Only their playfulness touched him.
• 46:00
  Sometimes the boldest of them made sallies out on the floor or along the
• 46:04
  moldings of the wainscots. Now and again, as they disturbed him, Malcolmson
• 46:08
  made a sound to frighten them, smiting the table with his hand, or
• 46:12
  giving a fierce sh so that they fled straight away to their holes. And
• 46:16
  so the early part of the night were on, and despite the noise,
• 46:21
  Malcolmson got more and more immersed in his work. All at once he stopped,
• 46:25
  as on the previous night, being overcome by a sudden sense of silence.
• 46:30
  There was not the faintest sound of gnaw or scratch or squeak. The
• 46:36
  silence was as of the grave. He remembered the odd occurrence of the previous
• 46:42
  night, and instinctively he looked at the chest unenclosed by the fireside, and
• 46:46
  then a very odd sensation thrilled through him. There on the great, old,
• 46:52
  high backed carved oak chair beside the fireplace, sapt the same enormous rat,
• 46:58
  steadily glaring at him baleful eyes. Instinctively, he took the nearest thing
• 47:02
  to his hand, a book of logarithms, and flung it at it.
• 47:07
  The book was badly aimed, and the rat did not stir. So again
• 47:09
  the poker performance of the previous night was repeated, and again the rat,
• 47:14
  being closely pursued, fled up the rope of the alarm bell. Strangely,
• 47:17
  too, the departure of this rat was instantly followed by the renewal of the
• 47:21
  noise made by the general rat community. On this occasion, as on the
• 47:24
  previous one, Malcolmson could not see at what part of the room the rat
• 47:28
  disappeared, for the green shade of his lamp left the upper part of the
• 47:30
  room in darkness, and the fire had burned low. On looking at his
• 47:36
  watch, he found it was close on midnight, and not sorry for the
• 47:38
  de vatismo. He made up his fire and made himself his nightly pot of
• 47:42
  tea. He had got through a good spell of work and thought himself entitled
• 47:45
  to a cigarette, and so he sat on the great oak chair before the
• 47:49
  fire and enjoyed it. Whilst smoking, he began to think that he would
• 47:52
  like to know where the rat disappeared to, for he had certain ideas for
• 47:57
  the morrow, not entirely disconnected with a trap. Accordingly, he lit another
• 48:01
  lamp and placed it so that it would shine well into the right hand corner
• 48:05
  of the wall by the fireplace. Then he got all the books he had
• 48:08
  with him and placed them handy to throw at the vermin. Finally, he
• 48:13
  lifted the rope of the alarm bell and placed the end of it on the
• 48:15
  table, fixing the extreme end under the lamp. As he handled it,
• 48:20
  he could not help noticing how pliable it was, especially for so strong a
• 48:23
  rope and one not in use. You could hang a man with it,
• 48:29
  he thought to himself. When his preparations were made, he looked around and
• 48:34
  said, complacently, there now, my friend, I think we shall learn
• 48:37
  something of you. This time. He began his work again, and though
• 48:40
  as before, somewhat disturbed at first by the noise of the rats, soon
• 48:44
  lost himself in his propositions and problems. Again he was called to his immediate
• 48:49
  surroundings suddenly. This time it might not have been a sudden silence only which
• 48:53
  took his attention. There was a slight movement of the rope, and the
• 48:57
  lamp moved without stirring, to see if his pile of books was within range,
• 49:01
  and then cast his eye along the rope. As he looked, he
• 49:05
  saw the great rat drop from the rope on the oak arm chair and sit
• 49:07
  there glaring at him. He raised a book in his right hand, and
• 49:13
  taking careful aim, flung it at the rat. The latter, with a
• 49:15
  quick movement, sprang aside and dodged the missile. He then took another book
• 49:19
  and a third and flung them one after another at the rat, but each
• 49:22
  time unsuccessfully. At last, as he stood with a book poised in his
• 49:25
  hand to throw, the rat squeaked and seemed afraid. This made Malcolmson more
• 49:30
  than ever eager to strike, and the book flew and struck the rat a
• 49:34
  resounding blow. It gave a terrified squeak, and turning on his pursuer,
• 49:38
  a look of terrible malevolence, ran up the chair back and made a great
• 49:43
  jump to the rope of the alarm bell, and ran up it like lightning.
• 49:46
  The lamp rocked under the sudden strain, but it was a heavy one
• 49:50
  and did not topple over. Malcolmson kept his eyes on the rat and saw
• 49:52
  it, by the light of the second lamp, leap to a molding of
• 49:55
  the wainscirt and disappear through a hole in one of the great pictures which hung
• 49:59
  on the wall, obscured and invisible through its coating of dirt and dust.
• 50:04
  I shall look up my friend's habitation in the morning, so that the student,
• 50:07
  as he went over to collect his books the third picture from the fireplace,
• 50:10
  I shall not forget. He picked up the books one by one,
• 50:15
  commenting on them as he lifted them. Conic sections he does not mind,
• 50:19
  nor cycloidal oscillations, nor the princeship here, nor were Turnion's nor thermodynamics.
• 50:27
  Now for the book that fetched him, Malcolmson took it up and looked at
• 50:30
  it. As he did so, he started, and a sudden pallor overspread
• 50:35
  his face. He looked round uneasily and shivered slightly as he murmured to himself
• 50:40
  the Bible my mother gave me. What an odd coincidence. He sat down
• 50:46
  to work again, and the rats in the wainskirt renewed their gambols. They
• 50:50
  did not disturb him, however, somehow their presence gave him the sense of
• 50:52
  companionship. But he could not attend to his work, and after striving to
• 50:57
  matter the subject on which he was engaged, he gave it up in despair
• 51:00
  and went to bed as the first streak of dawn stolen through the eastern window.
• 51:05
  He slept heavily but uneasily, and dreamed much, And when Missus Dempster
• 51:08
  woke him late in the morning, he seemed ill at ease, and for
• 51:10
  a few minutes did not seem to realize exactly where he was. His first
• 51:15
  request rather surprised the servant, Missus Dempster. When I'm out to day,
• 51:20
  I wish you would get the steps and dust stoll wash those pictures, especially
• 51:24
  that one the third from the fireplace. I want to see what they are.
• 51:30
  Late in the afternoon, Malcolmson worked at his books in the shaded walk,
• 51:32
  and the cheerfulness of the previous day came back to him as the day
• 51:36
  wore on, and he found that his reading was progressing well. He had
• 51:38
  worked out to a satisfactory conclusion all the problems which it had as yet baffled
• 51:43
  him, And it was in a state of jubilation that he paid a visit
• 51:45
  to Missus Witham at the Good Traveler. He found a stranger in the cozy
• 51:50
  sitting room with the landlady, who was introduced to him as Dr Thornhill.
• 51:53
  She was not quite at ease, and this, combined with the doctor's plunging
• 51:58
  at once into a series of questions, made Malcolmson come to the conclusion that
• 52:01
  his presence was not an accident. So without preliminary he said, Dr Thornhill,
• 52:07
  I shall with pleasure answer you any question you may choose to ask me,
• 52:10
  if you will answer me one question first. The doctor seemed surprised,
• 52:15
  but he smiled and answered at once done. What is it? Did Missus
• 52:21
  witham ask you to come here and see me and advise me? Doctor Thornhill
• 52:25
  for a moment was taken aback, and Missus with them got fiery red and
• 52:29
  turned away. But the doctor was a frank and ready man, and he
• 52:31
  answered at once and openly she did, but she didn't intend you to know
• 52:37
  it. I suppose it was my clumsy haste that made you suspect. She
• 52:42
  told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house
• 52:44
  all by yourself, and that she thought you took too much strong tea.
• 52:49
  In fact, she wants me to advise you, if possible, to give
• 52:52
  up the tea in the very late hours. I was a king student in
• 52:55
  my time, so I suppose I might take the liberty of a color,
• 53:00
  ma'am, and without offense, advise you, not quite as a stranger.
• 53:05
  Malcolmson, with a bright smile, held out his hand shake as they say
• 53:09
  in America. He said, I must thank you for your kindness, and
• 53:13
  missus witham too, and your kindness deserves a return on my part. I
• 53:16
  promised to take no more strong tea note to you at all till you let
• 53:21
  me, and I shall go to bed tonight at one o'clock at latest.
• 53:23
  Will that do? Capital said the doctor, Now tell us all that you
• 53:30
  noticed in the old house. And so Mackinson then and there told him minute
• 53:34
  detail all that had happened in the last two nights. He was interrupted every
• 53:37
  now and then by some exclamation from Missus Witham, till finally, when he
• 53:40
  told of the episode of the Bible, that a landlady's pent up emotions found
• 53:45
  vent in a shriek, and it was not till a stiff glass of brandy
• 53:47
  and water had been administered that she grew composed again. Doctor Thornhill listened with
• 53:52
  a face of growing gravity, and when the narrative was complete and Missus Witham
• 53:57
  had been restored, he asked the rat always when up the rope of the
• 54:00
  alarm bell, always, I suppose you know, said the doctor, after
• 54:06
  a pause. What the rope is? No, it is, said the
• 54:13
  doctor slowly, the very rope which the hangman used for all the victims of
• 54:19
  the judge's a judicial rancor. Here he was interrupted by another scream from Missus
• 54:23
  Withham. In steps had to be taken for her recovery. Malcolmson, having
• 54:28
  looked at his watch and found that it was close to his dinner hour,
• 54:30
  had gone home before her complete recovery. But Missus Witheran was herself against.
• 54:35
  She almost assailed the doctor with angry questions as to what he meant by putting
• 54:38
  such horrible ideas into the poor young man's mind. He has quite enough there
• 54:44
  already to upset him, she added. Doctor Thornhill replied, my dear madam,
• 54:49
  I had a distinct purpose in it. I wanted to draw his attention
• 54:53
  to the bell rope and to fix it there. It may be that he
• 54:57
  is in a highly overwrought state, has been studying too much, although I'm
• 55:01
  bound to say that he seems a sound and healthy young man mentally and bodily
• 55:06
  as ever I saw. But then the rats and that suggestion of the devil.
• 55:12
  The doctor shook his head and went on, I would have offered to
• 55:15
  go and stay the first night with him, but that I felt sure it
• 55:17
  would have been the cause of offense. He may get in the night some
• 55:22
  strange fright or hallucination, and if he does, I want him to pull
• 55:25
  that rope all alone as he is. It will give us warning and we
• 55:30
  may reach him in time to be of service. I should be sitting up
• 55:32
  pretty late tonight and should keep my ears open to not be alarmed if benchurch
• 55:37
  gets a surprise before morning. A doctor, what do you mean? What
• 55:43
  do you mean? I mean this that possibly, nay more probably visually hear
• 55:49
  the great alarm bell from the Judge's house tonight, and the doctor made about
• 55:52
  as effective an exit as could be thought of. When Malcolmson arrived home,
• 55:57
  he found that he was a little after his usual time. Miss Dempster had
• 56:00
  gone away. The rules of Greenhow's charity were not to be neglected. He
• 56:05
  was glad to see that the place was bright and tidy, with a cheerful
• 56:07
  fire and a well trimed lamp. The evening was colder than might have been
• 56:10
  expected in April, and a heavy wind was blown with such rapidly increasing strength
• 56:15
  that there was every promise of a storm during the night. For a few
• 56:19
  minutes after his entrance, the noise of the rats ceased, but so soon
• 56:22
  as they became accustomed to his presence they began again. He was glad to
• 56:27
  hear them, for he felt once more the feeling of companionship in their noise,
• 56:30
  and his mind ran back to the strange fact that they only ceased to
• 56:34
  manifest themselves when that other, the great rat with the baleful eyes, came
• 56:37
  upon the scene. The reading lamp only was lit, and its green shade
• 56:42
  kept the ceiling the upper part of the room in darkness, so that the
• 56:45
  cheerful light from the hearth, spreading over the floor and shining on the white
• 56:47
  cloth laid over the end of the table was warm and cheery. Malcolmson sat
• 56:52
  down to his dinner with a good appetite and a buoyant spirit. After his
• 56:57
  dinner and a cigarette, he sat steadily down to work, determined not to
• 57:00
  let anything disturb him, for he remembered his promise to the doctor and made
• 57:05
  up his mind to make the best of the time at his disposal. For
• 57:07
  an hour or so he worked all right, and then his thoughts began to
• 57:12
  wander from his books. The actual circumstances around him. The calls on his
• 57:16
  physical attention and his nervous susceptibility were not to be denied. By this time,
• 57:22
  the wind had become a gale, and the gale a storm. The
• 57:24
  old house solid, though it was, seemed to shake to its foundations,
• 57:29
  and the storm roared and raged through its many chimneys and its queer old gables,
• 57:32
  producing strange, unearthly sounds and the empty rooms and corridors. Even the
• 57:37
  great alarm bell on the roof must have felt the force of the wind,
• 57:39
  for the rope rose and fell slightly, as other bell were moved a little
• 57:44
  from time to time, and the limber rope fell on the oak floor with
• 57:46
  a hard and hollow sound. As Malcolmson listened to it, he bethought himself
• 57:51
  of the doctor's words, it is the rope which the hangman used for the
• 57:54
  victims of the judge's judicial rancor. And he went over to the corner of
• 57:59
  the fireplace and took it in his hand to look at it. There seemed
• 58:01
  a sort of deadly interest in it, and as he stood there he lost
• 58:06
  himself for a moment in speculation as to who these victims were, and the
• 58:08
  grim wish of the Dodge to have such a ghastly relic Ever under his eyes,
• 58:14
  as he stood there, the swaying of the bell on the roof still
• 58:15
  lifted the rope now and again. But presently there came a new sensation,
• 58:20
  a sort of tremor in the rope, as though something was moving along it.
• 58:24
  Looking up instinctively, Malcolmson saw the great rat coming slowly down towards him,
• 58:30
  glaring at him steadily. He dropped the rope and started back with a
• 58:34
  muttered curse, and the rat, turning, ran up the rope again and
• 58:37
  disappeared, And at the same instant, Malcolmson became consciousness that the noise of
• 58:40
  the rats, which had ceased for a while, began again. All this
• 58:45
  set him thinking, and it occurred to him that he had not investigated the
• 58:47
  lair of the rat or looked at the pictures as he had intended. He
• 58:52
  lit the other lamp without the shade, and holding it up, went and
• 58:54
  stood opposite the third picture from the fireplace on the right hand side, where
• 58:58
  he had seen the rat disappear on the previous night. At the first glance,
• 59:01
  he started back so suddenly that he almost dropped the lamp, and a
• 59:05
  deadly pallor overspread his face. His knees shook, and heavy drops of sweat
• 59:10
  came on his forehead, and he trembled like an aspen. But he was
• 59:15
  young and plucky and pulled himself together, and, after the pause of a
• 59:20
  few seconds, stepped forward again, raised the lamp and examined the picture,
• 59:23
  which had been dusted and washed and now stood out clearly. It was of
• 59:28
  a judge dressed in his robes of scarlet and ermine. His face was strong
• 59:32
  and merciless, evil, crafty and vindictive, with a sensual mouth, hooked
• 59:38
  nose of ruddy color and shaped like the beak of a bird of prey.
• 59:43
  The rest of the face was of a cadaverous color. The eyes were of
• 59:46
  peculiar brilliance and with a terribly malignant expression. As he looked at them,
• 59:52
  Malcolmson grew cold, for he saw there the very counterpart of the eyes of
• 59:58
  the great rat. The lamp almost fell from his hand. He saw the
• 1:00:00
  rat with its baleful eyes, peering out through the hole in the corner of
• 1:00:05
  the picture, and noted the sudden cessation of the noise of the other rats.
• 1:00:09
  However, he pulled himself together and went on with his examination of the
• 1:00:14
  picture. The judge was seated in a great, high backed, carved oak
• 1:00:17
  chair on the right hand side of a great stone fireplace, where in the
• 1:00:23
  corner a rope hung down from the ceiling, its end lying coiled on the
• 1:00:28
  floor. With a feeling of something like horror, Malcolmson recognized the scene of
• 1:00:31
  the room as it stood, and gazed around him in an awe struck manner,
• 1:00:35
  as though he expected to find some strange presence behind him. Then he
• 1:00:37
  looked over to the corner of the fireplace, and with a loud cry,
• 1:00:40
  he let the lamp fall from his hand. There in the judge's arm chair,
• 1:00:45
  with a rope hanging behind, sat the rat, with the judge's baleful
• 1:00:47
  eyes now intensified him with a fiendish leer. Save for the howling of the
• 1:00:52
  storm, without there was silence. The fallen line, recalled Malcolmson to himself.
• 1:01:00
  Fortunately it was of metal, and so the oil was not spilt.
• 1:01:02
  However, the practical need of attending to it settled at once his nervous apprehensions.
• 1:01:07
  When he had turned it out, he wagged his brow and thought for
• 1:01:09
  a moment, this will not do, he said to himself. If I
• 1:01:15
  go on like this, I shall become a crazy fool. This must stop,
• 1:01:20
  I promised the doctor I would not take tea faith. He was pretty
• 1:01:23
  right. My nerves must have been getting into a queer state. Funny,
• 1:01:28
  I did not notice it. I never felt better in my life. However,
• 1:01:31
  it is all right now, and I shall not be such a fool
• 1:01:35
  again. Then he mixed himself a good stiff glass of brandy and water and
• 1:01:38
  resolutely sat down to his work. It was nearly an hour when he looked
• 1:01:43
  up from his book, disturbed by the sudden stillness without the wind howled and
• 1:01:49
  roared louder than ever, and the rain drove in sheets against the windows,
• 1:01:52
  beating like hail on the glass. But within there was no sound whatever,
• 1:01:58
  save the echo of the wind as it roared in the great chimney, and
• 1:02:01
  now and then a hiss as a few raindrops found their way down the chimney
• 1:02:05
  in a lull of the storm. The fire had fallen low and had ceased
• 1:02:09
  a flame, though it threw out a red glow. Makinson listened attentively,
• 1:02:15
  and presently had a thin squeaking noise, very faint. It came from the
• 1:02:20
  corner of the room where the rope hung down, and he thought it was
• 1:02:22
  the creaking of the rope on the floor as the swaying of the bell raised
• 1:02:25
  and lowered it. Looking up, however, he saw in the dim light
• 1:02:31
  the great rat clinging to the rope and gnawing it. The rope was already
• 1:02:37
  nearly gnawed through. He could see the lighter color where the strands were laid
• 1:02:39
  bare. As he looked. The job was completed, and the severed end
• 1:02:45
  of the rope fell clattering on the oaken floor, whilst for an instant the
• 1:02:47
  great rat remained like a noble tassel at the end of the rope, which
• 1:02:51
  now began to sway to and fro. Markinson felt for a moment another pang
• 1:02:55
  of terror, as he thought that now the possibility of calling the outer while
• 1:03:00
  to his assistance was cut off. But an intense anger took its place,
• 1:03:04
  and, seizing the book he was reading, he held it at the rat.
• 1:03:07
  The blow was well aimed, but before the missile could reach him,
• 1:03:10
  the rat dropped off and struck the floor with a soft thud. Malcolmson instantly
• 1:03:15
  rushed over towards him, but it darted away and disappeared in the darkness of
• 1:03:19
  the shadows of the room. Malcolmson felt that his work was over for the
• 1:03:22
  night, and determined then and there to vary the monotony of the proceedings by
• 1:03:27
  a hunt for the rat, and took off the green shade of the lamp
• 1:03:29
  so as to ensure a wider spreading light. As he did so, the
• 1:03:31
  gloom of the upper part of the room was relieved, and in the new
• 1:03:35
  flood of light great by comparison with the previous darkness, the pictures on the
• 1:03:39
  wall stood out boldly. From where he stood, Malcolmson saw right opposite to
• 1:03:45
  him, the third picture on the wall from the right of the fireplace.
• 1:03:49
  He rubbed his eyes in surprise, and then a great fear began to come
• 1:03:52
  upon him. In the center of the picture was a great irregular patch of
• 1:03:55
  brown canvas, as fresh as when it was stretched on the frame. The
• 1:04:00
  ground was as before, with chair and chimney, corner and rope, but
• 1:04:03
  the figure of the Judge had disappeared. Malcolmson, almost in a chill of
• 1:04:10
  horror, turned slowly round, and then he began to shake and tremble,
• 1:04:14
  like a man in a palsy. His strength seemed to have left him,
• 1:04:17
  and he was incapable of action or movement, hardly even of thought. He
• 1:04:21
  could only see and hear. There on the great, high backed, carved
• 1:04:28
  oak chair sat the Judge in his robes of scarlet and ermine, with his
• 1:04:33
  baleful eyes glaring vindictively, and a smile of triumph on the resolute cruel mouth.
• 1:04:41
  As he lifted with his hands a black cap. Malcolmson felt as if
• 1:04:45
  the blood was running from his heart, as one does in moments of prolonged
• 1:04:48
  suspense. There was a singing in his ears. Without he could hear the
• 1:04:53
  roar and howl of the tempest, and through it swept on the storm came
• 1:04:57
  the striking of midnight by the great chimes marketplace. He stood for a space
• 1:05:01
  of time that seemed to him endless, still as a statue, and with
• 1:05:05
  wide open horror struck eyes breathless. As the clock struck, so the smile
• 1:05:12
  of triumph on the Judge's face intensified, and at the last stroke of midnight
• 1:05:16
  he placed the black cap on his head. Slowly and deliberately, the judge
• 1:05:23
  rose from his chair and picked up the piece of the rope of the alarm
• 1:05:25
  bell which lay on the floor, drew it through his hands as if he
• 1:05:28
  enjoyed its touch, and then deliberately began to knock one end of it,
• 1:05:31
  fashioning it into a noose. This he tightened and tested with his foot,
• 1:05:35
  pulling hard at it till he was satisfied, and then making a running noose
• 1:05:40
  of it, which he held in his hand. Then he began to move
• 1:05:43
  along the table on the opposite side to Malcolmson, keeping his eyes on him
• 1:05:46
  until he passed him, when, with a quick movement, he stood in
• 1:05:48
  front of the door. Malcolmson then began to feel that he was trapped and
• 1:05:55
  try to think of what he should do. There was some fascination in the
• 1:06:00
  judge's eyes, which he never took off him, and he had perforced to
• 1:06:02
  look. He saw the judge approach, still keeping between him and the door,
• 1:06:08
  and raise the noose and throw it towards him, as if to entangle
• 1:06:11
  him with a great effort. He made a quick movement to one side and
• 1:06:14
  saw the rope fall beside him, and heard it strike the oaken floor.
• 1:06:17
  Again, the judge raised the noose and tried to ensnare him, ever keeping
• 1:06:21
  his baleful eyes fixed on him, and each time, by a mighty effort,
• 1:06:25
  the student just managed to evade it. So this went on for many
• 1:06:29
  times, the judge seeming never discouraged nor discomposed at failure, but playing as
• 1:06:32
  a cat does with a mouse. At last, in despair which had reached
• 1:06:38
  its climax, Malcolmson cast a quick glance around him. The lamp seemed to
• 1:06:42
  have blazed up, and there was a fairly good light in the room.
• 1:06:45
  At the many rat holes and in the chinks and crannies of the wainscut,
• 1:06:47
  he saw the rat's eyes, and this aspect that was purely physical, gave
• 1:06:51
  him a gleam of comfort. He looked around and saw that the rope of
• 1:06:57
  the great alarm bell was laden with rats. Every inch of it was covered
• 1:07:00
  with them, and more and more were pouring through the small circular hole in
• 1:07:03
  the ceiling whence it emerged, so that with their weight, the bell was
• 1:07:06
  beginning to sway. Hark it had swayed till the clapper had touched the bell.
• 1:07:13
  The sound was but a tiny one, but the bell was only beginning
• 1:07:15
  to sway, and it would increase At the sound. The judge, who
• 1:07:19
  had been keeping his eyes fixed on Markhamson, looked up and a scowl of
• 1:07:24
  diabolical anger overspread his face. His eyes fairly glowed like hot coals, and
• 1:07:30
  he stamped his foot with a sound that seemed to make the house shake.
• 1:07:33
  A dreadful peal of thunder broke overhead as he raised the rope again, whilst
• 1:07:39
  the rats kept running up and down the rope as they were working against time.
• 1:07:43
  This time, instead of throwing it, he drew close to his victim
• 1:07:47
  and held open the noses he approached. As he came closer, they seemed
• 1:07:51
  something paralyzing in his very presence, and Malcolmson stood rigid as a corpse.
• 1:07:59
  He felt the which his icy fingers touched his throat. As he adjusted the
• 1:08:01
  rope, the noose tightened, tightened. Then the judge, taking the rigid
• 1:08:08
  form of the student in his arms, carried him over and placed him standing
• 1:08:13
  in the up chair, and stepping up beside him, put his hand up
• 1:08:15
  and caught the end of the swaying rope of the alarm bell. As he
• 1:08:19
  raised his hands, the rats fled, squeaking and disappeared through the hole in
• 1:08:24
  the ceiling. Taking the end of the noose which was round Malcolmson's neck,
• 1:08:29
  he tied it to the hanging bell rope, and then, descending, pulled
• 1:08:33
  away the chair. When the alarm bell of the judge's house began to sound,
• 1:08:40
  a crowd soon assembled. Lights and torches of various kinds appeared, and
• 1:08:44
  soon a silent crowd was hurrying to the spot. They knocked loudly at the
• 1:08:47
  door, but there was no reply. Then they burst in at the door
• 1:08:51
  and poured into the great dining room, the doctor at the head. There,
• 1:08:57
  at the end of the rope of the great alarm bell hung the body
• 1:09:00
  of the student, and on the face of the judge. In the picture
• 1:09:03
  was a malignant smile. End of the Judge's house. Nurrenberg at the time
• 1:09:10
  was not so much exploited as it has been since then. Irving had not
• 1:09:14
  been playing faust, and the very name of the old town was hardly known
• 1:09:16
  to the great bulk of the traveling public. My wife and I, being
• 1:09:20
  in the second week of our honeymoon, naturally want someone else to join our
• 1:09:24
  party, so that when the cheery stranger Elias P. Hutcheson, hailing from
• 1:09:29
  Isthmian City Bleeding Gulch, Maple Tree County, Nebraska, turned up at the
• 1:09:33
  station at Frankfort and casually remarked that he was going on to see the most
• 1:09:38
  all fired old Methuselah of the town in Europe, and that he guessed that
• 1:09:42
  so much traveling alone was enough to send an intelligent, active citizen into the
• 1:09:45
  melancholy ward of a daft house. We took the pretty broad hint and suggested
• 1:09:49
  that we should join forces. We found, on comparing notes afterwards, that
• 1:09:55
  we had each intended to speak with some diffidence or hesitation so as not to
• 1:09:59
  appear too eager, such not being a good compliment to the success of our
• 1:10:01
  married life, but the effect was entirely marred by our both beginning to speak
• 1:10:05
  at the same instant, stopping simultaneously, and then going on together again.
• 1:10:11
  Anyhow, no matter how it was done, and Elias P. Hutcheson became
• 1:10:14
  one of our party straightway, Amelia and I found the pleasant benefit instead of
• 1:10:17
  quarreling as we had been doing, we found that the restraining influence of a
• 1:10:21
  third party was such that we now took every opportunity of spooning in odd corners.
• 1:10:27
  Amelia declares that ever since she has, as the result of that experience,
• 1:10:30
  advised all her friends to take a friend on the honeymoon. Well we
• 1:10:33
  did Nuremberg together and much enjoyed the racy remarks of our transatlantic friend, who,
• 1:10:39
  from his quaint speech and his wonderful stock of adventures, might have stepped
• 1:10:42
  out of a novel. We heard from the last object of interest in the
• 1:10:45
  city to be visited, the Burgh, and on the day appointed for the
• 1:10:48
  visit, strolled round the outer wall of the city by the eastern side.
• 1:10:54
  The burg is seated on a rock dominating the town, and an immensely deep
• 1:10:58
  foss guards it on the northern side. Nurnberg has been happy in that it
• 1:11:01
  was never sacked. Had it been, it would certainly not be so spick
• 1:11:04
  and span perfect as it is at present. The ditch has not been used
• 1:11:10
  for centuries, and now its base is spread with tea gardens and orchards,
• 1:11:14
  of which some of the trees are of quite respectable growth. As we wandered
• 1:11:17
  round the wall, dawdling in the hot July sunshine, we often pause to
• 1:11:21
  admire the views spread before us, and in especial the great plain, covered
• 1:11:26
  with towns and villages, and bounded with a blue line of hills, like
• 1:11:30
  a landscape of Claude, Lorraine. From this we always turned with new delight
• 1:11:33
  to the city itself, with its myriad of quaint old gables and acre wide
• 1:11:38
  red roofs dotted with dormer windows, tier upon tier. A little to our
• 1:11:43
  right rose the towers of the Burg, and nearer, still standing grim the
• 1:11:46
  Torture Tower, which was and is perhaps the most interesting place in the city
• 1:11:51
  for centuries. The tradition of the iron Virgin of Nuremberg has been handed down
• 1:11:56
  as an instance of the horrors of cruelty of which man is capable. We
• 1:12:00
  had long looked forward to seeing it, and here at last was its home.
• 1:12:03
  In one of our pauses, we leaned over the wall. The mountain
• 1:12:06
  looked down, the garden seemed quite fifty or sixty feet below us, and
• 1:12:11
  the sun pouring into it with an intense, moveless heat like that of an
• 1:12:14
  oven. Beyond rose the garden grim wall, seemingly of endless height and losing
• 1:12:18
  itself right and left in the angles of bastion and counterscarp trees and bushes crowned
• 1:12:24
  the wall, and above again towered the lofty houses on whose massive beauty time
• 1:12:29
  has only set the hand of approval. The sun was hot, and we
• 1:12:31
  were lazy. Time was our own, and we lingered leaning on the wall.
• 1:12:35
  Just below us was a pretty sight, a great black cat lying stretched
• 1:12:40
  in the sun, which drowned her gambled pretty a tiny black kitten. The
• 1:12:44
  mother would wave her tail for the kitten to play with, but would raise
• 1:12:46
  her feet and push away the little one as an encouragement to further play.
• 1:12:50
  They were just at the foot of the wall, and Elias p hutcheson in
• 1:12:55
  order to help the play, stooped and took from the walk a moderate sized
• 1:12:58
  pebble. He said, I will drop it near the kitten, and they
• 1:13:01
  will both wonder where it came from. Oh be careful, said my wife.
• 1:13:05
  You might hit the dear little thing. Not me, ma'am, said
• 1:13:09
  elias P. Why I'm as tender as a main cherry tree, lor bless
• 1:13:13
  you. I wouldn't hurt the poor putty little critter more nut scalp a baby.
• 1:13:16
  And you may bet your very gay socks on that. See, I'll
• 1:13:19
  drop it fur away on the outside, so it's not to go so near.
• 1:13:24
  Thus saying, he leaned over and held his arm out at full length,
• 1:13:27
  and drop the stone. It may be that there is some attractive force
• 1:13:30
  which draws lesser matters to greater, or more probably that the wall was not
• 1:13:34
  plump, but sloped to its base, we not noticing the inclination from above.
• 1:13:39
  But the stone fell with a sickening thud that came up to us through
• 1:13:43
  the hot air, right on the kitten's head, and shattered out its little
• 1:13:45
  brains. Then and there the black cat cast a swift upward glance, and
• 1:13:50
  we saw her eyes like green fire, fixed an instant on elias p hutcheson,
• 1:13:55
  and then her attention was given to the kitten, which lay still with
• 1:13:58
  just a quiver of her tiny limbs, whilst a thin red stream trickled from
• 1:14:01
  a gaping wound. With a muffled cry such as a human being might give.
• 1:14:05
  She bent over the kitten, licking its wounds and moaning. Suddenly she
• 1:14:10
  seemed to realize it was dead, and again threw up her eyes at us.
• 1:14:14
  I shall never forget the sight, for she looked the perfect incarnation of
• 1:14:16
  hate. Her green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and the white, sharp
• 1:14:20
  teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled her mouth and whiskers.
• 1:14:26
  She gnashed her teeth, and her claws stood out, stark and at full
• 1:14:30
  length on every paw. Then she made a wild rush up the wall,
• 1:14:32
  as if to reach us. When the momentum end, it fell back,
• 1:14:36
  and further added to her horrible appearance, for she fell upon the kitten and
• 1:14:40
  rose with her black furs smeared with its brains of blood. Amelia turned quite
• 1:14:45
  faint, and I had to lift her back from the wall. There was
• 1:14:47
  a seat close by and shade of a spreading plane tree, and here I
• 1:14:51
  placed her whilst she composed herself. Then I went back to Hutcheson, who
• 1:14:56
  stood without moving looking down on the angry cat below. As I joined him,
• 1:15:00
  he said, well, I guess that air the savagest beast I ever
• 1:15:03
  see set once when Apache Squaw had an edge on a half breathe, which
• 1:15:08
  they nicknamed Splinters, cause the way he fixed up her papoose, which he
• 1:15:12
  stole on a raige, just to show they appreciated the way they'd given his
• 1:15:15
  mother the fire torture. She got that kind of look so set on her
• 1:15:18
  face that it just seemed to grow. There she falls Splinters more'n three years
• 1:15:23
  till at last the braves gone and handed him over to her. They did
• 1:15:27
  say it, no man, white, no orangun, had ever been so
• 1:15:29
  long down under the torches the apaches. The only time I ever seen her
• 1:15:32
  smile was when I wiped her out. I came on the camp just in
• 1:15:35
  time to see Splinter's pats in his checks, And it wasn't sorry to go
• 1:15:39
  either. He was a hard citizen. No one never could shake with him.
• 1:15:43
  After that papoose business. What was bitter bad. And he should have
• 1:15:45
  been a white man, for he looked like one. I see, you
• 1:15:48
  got pay out in full during me. But I took a piece of his
• 1:15:51
  hive from one of his skin imposts and had it made into a pocket book.
• 1:15:55
  It's here now, and he slapped the breast pocket of his coat.
• 1:15:59
  Whilst he was speaking, the cat was continuing her frantic efforts to get up
• 1:16:01
  the wall. She would take a run back and then charge up, sometimes
• 1:16:05
  reaching an incredible height. She did not seem to mind the heavy fall,
• 1:16:10
  which she had each time, but started with renewed vigor, and at every
• 1:16:14
  tumble her appearance became more horrible. Hutcheson was a kind hearted man. My
• 1:16:17
  wife and I had both noticed little lacks of kindness to animals as well as
• 1:16:20
  to persons, and he seemed concerned at the state of fury to which the
• 1:16:25
  cat had brought herself. Wow now, he said, I do declare that
• 1:16:29
  our poor career seems quite desperate there there, poor thing. It was all
• 1:16:32
  an accident, though that won't bring back your little one to you say,
• 1:16:36
  I wouldn't have had such a thing happen for a thousand Just shows what a
• 1:16:40
  clumsy fool of a man can do when he tries to play. Seems I'm
• 1:16:44
  too darned slipperhanded to even play with a cat, say Colonel. It was
• 1:16:48
  a pleasant way he had to bestow titles freely. I hope your wife don't
• 1:16:51
  hold no grudge against me on account of this unpleasantness. Why I wouldn't have
• 1:16:55
  had to occur on no account. He came over to Amelia and apologize for
• 1:17:00
  and she, with her usual kindness of heart, hastened to assure him that
• 1:17:03
  she quite understood that it was an accident. Then we all went again to
• 1:17:06
  the wall and looked over the cat. Missing Huncheson's face drawn back across the
• 1:17:12
  note, and was sitting on her haunches as though ready to spring. Indeed,
• 1:17:15
  the very instant she saw him, she did spring, and with a
• 1:17:17
  blind and reasoning fury which would have been grotesque only that it was so frightfully
• 1:17:23
  real. She did not try to run up the wall, but simply launched
• 1:17:26
  herself at him, as though hate and fury could lead her wings to pass
• 1:17:29
  straight through the great distance between them. Amelia womanlike, got quite concerned and
• 1:17:33
  said to Elif's p in a warning voice, oh, you must be very
• 1:17:36
  careful. That animal would try to kill you if she would hear Her eyes
• 1:17:41
  looked like positive murder. He laughed out, jovially, excuse me, ma'am,
• 1:17:45
  he said, I can't help but laughing. Fancy a man that has
• 1:17:48
  fought grizzlies and injuns being careful of being murdered by a cat. When the
• 1:17:53
  cat heard him laugh, her whole demeanor seemed to change. She no longer
• 1:17:57
  tried to jump or run up the wall, but went quietly over, and,
• 1:18:00
  sitting again beside the dead kitten, began to lick and farmwood as though
• 1:18:03
  it were alive. See, said I the effect of a really strong man.
• 1:18:09
  Even that animal, in the midst of her fury, recognizes the voice
• 1:18:12
  of a master and bows to him like a squaw, was the only comment
• 1:18:15
  of Elias P. Hutcheson. As we moved on our way around the city
• 1:18:19
  Fosse, every now and then we looked over the wall, and each time
• 1:18:23
  we saw the cat following us. At first, she had kept going back
• 1:18:26
  to the dead kitten, and then, as the distance grew greater, took
• 1:18:29
  it in her mouth and so followed. After a while, however, she
• 1:18:32
  abandoned this, for we saw her following all along. She had evidently hidden
• 1:18:36
  the body somewhere. Amelia's alarm grew at the cat's persistence, and more than
• 1:18:41
  once she repeated her warning, but the American always laughed with amusement, till
• 1:18:45
  finally, seeing that she's beginning to be worried, he said, I say,
• 1:18:48
  ma'am, you needn't be scared over that cat. I go heeled,
• 1:18:51
  I do here, He slapped his pistol pocket at the back of his lumber
• 1:18:56
  region. Why sooner and have you worry? I'll shoot the critter right here
• 1:19:00
  and risked the police interfering with the Citizts in the United States for carrying arms
• 1:19:03
  contrary regulations. As he spoke, he looked over the wall, but the
• 1:19:08
  cat, on seeing him, retreated with a growl into a bed of tall
• 1:19:11
  flowers and was hidden. He went on, blessed that our career had got
• 1:19:15
  no more sense of what is good for her than most Christians. I guess
• 1:19:17
  we've seen a last of her. You bet she'll go back now to that
• 1:19:20
  busted kit and have a private funeral of it all orself. Amelia did not
• 1:19:26
  want to say more, lest he might a mistaken kindness to her fulfill his
• 1:19:29
  threat of shooting the cat, And so she went on and crossed the little
• 1:19:31
  wooden bridge leading into the gateway. Whence ran the steep paved roadway between the
• 1:19:35
  burg and the pentagonal torture tower. As we crossed the bridge, we saw
• 1:19:41
  the cat again down below us. When she saw us, her fury seemed
• 1:19:44
  to return, and she made frantic efforts to get up the steep wall.
• 1:19:47
  Hutchison laughed as he looked down at her and said, goodbye, old girl.
• 1:19:53
  Sorry I injured feelings, but you'll get over it in time. So
• 1:19:56
  long and then we passed through the long dim archway and came to the the
• 1:20:00
  gate of the burgh. When we came out again, our survey of this
• 1:20:02
  most beautiful old place, which not even the well intentioned efforts of the Gothic
• 1:20:06
  restorers of forty years ago had been able to spoil, though their restoration was
• 1:20:11
  then glaring white, we seemed to have forgotten the unpleasant episode of the morning.
• 1:20:15
  The old lime tree, with its great trunk gnarled with the pressing of
• 1:20:17
  nearly nine centuries, the deep well cut through the heart of the rock by
• 1:20:21
  those captives of old, and the lovely view from the city wall, whence
• 1:20:26
  we heard, spread over almost a full quarter of an hour, the multitudinous
• 1:20:30
  chimes of the city had all helped to wipe out from our minds the incident
• 1:20:33
  of the slain kitten. We were the only visitors who had entered the Torture
• 1:20:38
  Tower that morning, so at least said the old Custodian, And as we
• 1:20:41
  had the place all to ourselves, were able to make a minute and more
• 1:20:44
  satisfactory survey than would have otherwise been possible. The Custodian looking to us as
• 1:20:49
  the sole source of his gains, for they was willing to meet our wishes
• 1:20:53
  in any way. The Torture Tower is truly a grim place, even now
• 1:20:57
  when many thousands of visitors are sent a stream of life, life and the
• 1:21:00
  joy that follows life into the place. By the time I mentioned it wore
• 1:21:03
  its grimace and most gruesome aspect. The dust of ages seemed to have settled
• 1:21:09
  on it, and the darkness and the horror of its memories seemed to have
• 1:21:12
  become sentient in a way that would have satisfied the pantheistic souls of Philo or
• 1:21:16
  Spinoza. The lower chamber where we entered was seemingly in its normal state,
• 1:21:21
  filled with incarnate darkness. Even the hot sunlight streaming in through the door seemed
• 1:21:27
  to be lost in the vast thickness of the walls, and only showed the
• 1:21:30
  masonry rough as when the builders scaffolding had come down, but coated with dust
• 1:21:33
  and marked here and there with patches of dark stain, which, if walls
• 1:21:38
  could speak, could have given their own dread memories of fear and pain.
• 1:21:43
  We were glad to pass up the dusty wooden staircase, the custodian leaving the
• 1:21:45
  outer door open to light us somewhat on our way, for to our eyes
• 1:21:49
  the one long, wicked, evil smelling candle stuck in a sconce on the
• 1:21:54
  wall gave an inadequate life. When we came up through the open door trap
• 1:21:58
  in the corner of the chamber overhead, Alia held on to me so tightly
• 1:22:00
  that I could actually feel her heart beat. I must say that for my
• 1:22:04
  own part, that I was not surprised at her fear, for the room
• 1:22:08
  was even more gruesome than that below. Here there were certainly more light,
• 1:22:13
  but only just sufficient to realize the horrible surroundings of the place. The builders
• 1:22:16
  of the tower had evidently intended that only they she gained the top should any
• 1:22:20
  have the joys of light and prospect. There, as we had noticed from
• 1:22:24
  below, were ranges of windows, albeit of medieval smallness. But elsewhere in
• 1:22:29
  the tower were only a few very narrow slits, such as were habitual in
• 1:22:31
  places of medieval defense. A few of these things only lit the chamber,
• 1:22:35
  and those so high up in the wall that from no part could the sky
• 1:22:39
  be seen through the thickness of the walls. In racks and leaning in disorder
• 1:22:44
  against the walls were a number of headsman's swords, great double handed weapons with
• 1:22:47
  broad blade and keen edge. Hard By were several blocks, whereupon the necks
• 1:22:53
  of the victims had lain, with here and there deep notches where the steel
• 1:22:56
  had bidden through the guard of flesh and shored into the wood round the chamber.
• 1:23:00
  Placed in all sorts of irregular ways were many implements of torture, which
• 1:23:05
  made one's heart ache to see chairs and couches with dull mobs whose torture was
• 1:23:11
  seemingly less, but which, though slower, were equally efficacious. Racks,
• 1:23:15
  belts, boots, gloves, collars, all made for compressing at will,
• 1:23:19
  steel baskets in which the head could be slowly crushed into a pulp if necessary.
• 1:23:25
  Watchmen's hooks with long handle and knife that cut at resistance. This especialty
• 1:23:30
  of the old Nuremberg police system, and many many other devices from man's injury
• 1:23:34
  to man. Amelia grew quite pale at the horror of these things, but
• 1:23:39
  fortunately did not faint. For being a little overcome, she sat down on
• 1:23:43
  a torture chair, but jumped up again with a shriek all tendency to faint.
• 1:23:46
  God, we both pretended that it was the injury done to her dress
• 1:23:49
  by the dustla chair and the rusty spikes which had upset her, and mister
• 1:23:54
  Hutcheson acquiesced in accepting the explanation with a kind hearted laugh. But the central
• 1:24:00
  object in the whole of this chamber of poors was the engine known as the
• 1:24:02
  Iron Virgin, which stood near the center of the room. It was a
• 1:24:05
  rouely shaped figure of a woman, something of the bell order, or to
• 1:24:10
  make a closer comparison of the figure of Missus Noah in the Children's arp But
• 1:24:15
  without that slimness of waste and perfect rondure of hip which marks the aesthetic type
• 1:24:19
  of the Noah family, one would have hardly recognized it as intended for human
• 1:24:24
  figure at all, had not the founders shaped on the forehead a rude semblance
• 1:24:27
  of a woman's face. This machine was coated with rust without and covered with
• 1:24:31
  dust. A rope was fastened to a ring in the front of a figure,
• 1:24:34
  about where the waist should have been, and was drawn through a pulley
• 1:24:38
  fastened on the wooden pillar which sustained the flooring above the custodium. Pulling this
• 1:24:42
  rope showed that a section of the front was hinged like a door at one
• 1:24:45
  side. We then saw that the engine was of considerable thickness, leaving just
• 1:24:49
  room enough inside for a man to be placed. The door was of vequal
• 1:24:53
  thickness and of great weight. Foretook the custodian all his strength aided. Though
• 1:24:57
  he was by the contrivance of the pulley to open this way, it was
• 1:25:00
  partly due to the fact that the door was of manifest purpose, hung so
• 1:25:03
  as to throw its weight downwards, so that it might shut of its own
• 1:25:06
  accord. When the strain was released. The inside was honeycomb with russ.
• 1:25:12
  Nay More, the rest alone that comes through time would hardly have eaten so
• 1:25:15
  deep into the iron walls. The rest of the cruel stains was deep.
• 1:25:18
  Indeed, it was only however, when we came to look at the inside
• 1:25:23
  of the door that the diabolical intention was manifest to the full. Here were
• 1:25:27
  several long spikes, square and massive, broad at the base and sharp at
• 1:25:30
  the points, placed in such a position that when the door should close,
• 1:25:34
  the upper ones would pierce the eyes of the victim, and the lower ones
• 1:25:38
  his heart vitals. The sight was too much for poor Amelia, and this
• 1:25:42
  time she fainted dead off, and I had to carry her down the stairs
• 1:25:45
  and place her on a bench outside till she recovered that she felt it to
• 1:25:48
  the quick was afterwards shown by the fact that my eldest son bears to this
• 1:25:53
  day a rude birthmark on his breast, which was, by family consent,
• 1:25:57
  being accepted as representing the number of virgins. When we got back to the
• 1:26:00
  chamber, we found Hutcheson still opposite the iron virgin. He had been evidently
• 1:26:04
  philosophizing, and now gave us the benefit of his thought in the shape of
• 1:26:09
  a sort of exordium. While I guess I've been learning something here, while
• 1:26:13
  Madame has been getting over a faint, hears to me that we're a long
• 1:26:15
  way behind the times. On our side of the big drink, weis to
• 1:26:19
  think out in the planes that the engine give us points in trying to make
• 1:26:23
  a man uncomfortable. But I guess your old medieval law and order party could
• 1:26:26
  raise him every time. Blinters were pretty good in his bluff on the squaw.
• 1:26:30
  But this here, young mistress held a straight flush all high on him.
• 1:26:33
  The points of them spikes are sharp enough still, though even the edges
• 1:26:38
  are eating out by wist be on him. It'd be a good thing for
• 1:26:41
  Indian Section to get some specimens to hear playtoy to send him round the reservations,
• 1:26:45
  just to knock the stuffin out of the bucks and the squaws too,
• 1:26:48
  by showing them as how old civilization lays over them at their best. Guess,
• 1:26:54
  but I'll get mat Box a match just to see how it feels.
• 1:26:58
  Oh no, no, said Amelia, it's too terrible, guess ma'am.
• 1:27:01
  Nothing's too terrible to the explore in mind. I've been in some queer places
• 1:27:05
  in my time. Spent a night side a dead horse while a prairie fire
• 1:27:09
  slept over me in the Tana territory, and another time slept side of dead
• 1:27:13
  buffaler when the Camachees was on the war path, and I didn't care to
• 1:27:16
  leave my key on them. I've been two days and a carved in tunnel
• 1:27:19
  and the Billy Bronco gold Mine, New Mexico, and was one of the
• 1:27:23
  four shut up for three parts of the day in the casm would slid over
• 1:27:27
  her sigh when she was set in the foundations of Buffalo Bridge. I've not
• 1:27:30
  funked a not experience yet, and I don't propose to begin now. We
• 1:27:34
  saw he was set on the experiment, so I said, well, hurry
• 1:27:38
  up, old man, and get through it quick, all right, General
• 1:27:42
  said he, I calculate we ain't quite ready yet. The gentleman my predecessors
• 1:27:45
  with stood in that there canister didn't volunteer for the office, not much,
• 1:27:50
  and I guess there was some ornamental time up before the big stroke was made.
• 1:27:54
  I want to go into the sing fair and square, so I might
• 1:27:57
  get fixed up proper. First, I dare say this old can raise some
• 1:28:00
  string and tie me up acorn to a sample. This was said interrogatively to
• 1:28:04
  the old custodian, but the latter, who understood the drift of his speech,
• 1:28:09
  though perhaps not appreciating to the full the niceties of dialect and imagery,
• 1:28:13
  shook his head. His protest was, however, only formal and made to
• 1:28:16
  be overcome. The American thrust a gold piece into his hand, saying,
• 1:28:21
  take it pard to your pot, and don't be scared. This ain't no
• 1:28:25
  neck type part of that. He asked to assistant. He produced some thin,
• 1:28:29
  frayed rope and proceeded to bind our companion with sufficient strictness for the purpose.
• 1:28:32
  When the upper part of his body was bound, Hutchinson said, hold
• 1:28:36
  on a moment, judge, guess I'm too heavy for you to talk on
• 1:28:40
  the canister. You just let me walk in and then you wash up,
• 1:28:44
  regarding my legs will speaking. He had backed himself into the opening, which
• 1:28:47
  was just enough to hold him. It was close fit and no mistake.
• 1:28:51
  Amelia looked on with fear in her eyes, but she evidently did not like
• 1:28:55
  to say anything. Then the custodian completed his task by tying the American's feet
• 1:28:59
  together, so that he was now absolutely helpless and fixed into voluntary prison.
• 1:29:03
  He seemed to really enjoy it, and the incipient smile which was habitual to
• 1:29:08
  his face, blossomed into actuality as he said, guess this here eve was
• 1:29:13
  made out of the rib of a dwarf, very much room for full grown
• 1:29:15
  cysts in the United States. To hustle, we has to make coffins more
• 1:29:19
  room near in Idaho Territory. Now, judge, you just begin to let
• 1:29:23
  this door down. Slow on to me. I want to feel the same
• 1:29:27
  pleasure as the other jades had when those spikes began to move toward their eyes.
• 1:29:30
  Oh no, no, no, broke in Amelia hysterically. It is
• 1:29:34
  too terrible. I can't bear to see it. I can't, I can't.
• 1:29:38
  But the American was obdurate, say colonel said he why not take Madame
• 1:29:43
  for a little promenade. I wouldn't hurt feelings for the world. But now
• 1:29:46
  that I'm here, having came eight thousand miles, wouldn't it be hard to
• 1:29:50
  give up the very experience I'm pinning and panting for A man can't get to
• 1:29:54
  experience like cant goods every time. Me and the judge here'll fix up the
• 1:29:58
  sing of no time, and then you'll come back. We'll be all laughing
• 1:30:00
  together once more. The resolution that is born of curiosity triumphed, and Emilia
• 1:30:05
  stayed holding tight to my arm and shivering, whilst the custodian began to slacken
• 1:30:10
  slowly, inch by inch the rope that held back the iron door. Hutchins's
• 1:30:15
  eyes wore positively radiant as his eyes followed the first movement of the spice.
• 1:30:19
  Wow, he said, I guess I've not had enjoyment like this since I
• 1:30:23
  left New York. Baris scrap with a French sailor wapping, and that wasn't
• 1:30:27
  much of a picnic neither. I've not had a show for real pleasure in
• 1:30:30
  this DoD ridden countment, whether ain't no bars nor engines. A weirdinary man
• 1:30:35
  goes healed. Slow there, judge, don't you rushless business? I want
• 1:30:39
  to show for my money this game I do. Custodia must have had in
• 1:30:43
  him some of the blood of his predecessors in that ghastly tower, for he
• 1:30:45
  worked the engine with a deliberate and excruciating slowness, which, after five minutes,
• 1:30:50
  which the outer edge of the door had not moved half as many inches,
• 1:30:55
  began to overcome Amelia. I saw her lips whiten, and felt her
• 1:30:59
  hold upon my arm relax. I looked around an instant for a place whereupon
• 1:31:01
  delay her, And when I looked at her again, found that her eyes
• 1:31:04
  had become fixed on the side of the virgin. Following his stretch, I
• 1:31:09
  saw the black cat crouching out of sight. Her green eyes shone like danger
• 1:31:13
  lamps in the gloom of the place, and their color was heightened by the
• 1:31:15
  blood which still smeared her coat red in her mouth, I cried out,
• 1:31:19
  the cat, look out for the cat for even then she sprang out before
• 1:31:24
  the engine. At this moment she looked like a triumphant demon. Her eyes
• 1:31:28
  blazed with ferocity, her hair bristled out till she seemed twice her normal size,
• 1:31:32
  and her tail lashed about as does the tiger's when the quarry is behind
• 1:31:35
  it. Elias P. Hutchinson, when he saw her, was amused,
• 1:31:39
  and his eyes positively sparkled with fun, as he said, Darna's squaw hadn't
• 1:31:44
  gone on all our war paint. Just give her a shove off. She
• 1:31:45
  comes near any tricks on me, and I'm so fixed everlastingly by the boss.
• 1:31:50
  But during my skin, if I can keep my eyes from her,
• 1:31:53
  she wants them. Easy there, Judge, don't you slack that our rope
• 1:31:57
  where I'm yuchered. At this moment, Amelia complete her faint and I had
• 1:32:00
  to clutch hold of her round the waist or she would have fallen to the
• 1:32:02
  floor. Whilst attending to her, I saw the black cat crouching for a
• 1:32:06
  spring and jumped up to turn the creature out, but at that instant,
• 1:32:11
  with a sort of hellish scream, she hurled herself, not as we expect
• 1:32:14
  at Hutchinson the straight at the face of the custodian. Her claws seemed to
• 1:32:17
  be tearing wildly, as one sees in the Chinese drawings of the dragon rampant,
• 1:32:23
  and as I looked, I saw one of them light on the poor
• 1:32:25
  man's eye and actually tear through him down his cheek, leaving a wide band
• 1:32:29
  of red where the blood seemed to spurt from every vein with a yellow sheer
• 1:32:32
  terror which came quicker than even his sense of pain. The man leapt back,
• 1:32:36
  dropping as he did so the rope which held back the iron door.
• 1:32:41
  I jumped for it, but was too late. The cord ran like the
• 1:32:44
  lightning through the pulley block, and the heavy mass fell forward from its own
• 1:32:46
  weight. As the door closed, I caught a glimpse of our poor companion's
• 1:32:50
  face. He seemed frozen with terror, His eyes stared with a horrible anguish,
• 1:32:55
  as if dazed, and no sound came from his lips. And then
• 1:32:59
  the spikes did their work happily. The end was quick, for when I
• 1:33:01
  wrenched open the door, they appeared so deep that they had locked in the
• 1:33:04
  bones of the skull through which they had crushed, and actually tore him it
• 1:33:10
  out of his iron prison. Till bound as he was, he fell at
• 1:33:14
  length with a sickly thud upon the floor, the face turning upward as he
• 1:33:17
  fell. I rushed to my wife, lifted her up and carried her out,
• 1:33:21
  for I feared for her very reason if she would wake from her faint
• 1:33:25
  to such a scene. I laid her on the bench outside and ran back.
• 1:33:29
  Leaning against the wooden column was Custodian, moaning in pain whilst he held
• 1:33:31
  his reddening handkerchief to his eyes. And sitting on the head of the poor
• 1:33:35
  American was the cat, purring loudly as she licked the blood which trickled through
• 1:33:40
  the gashed socket of his eyes. I think no one will call me cruel,
• 1:33:44
  because I seized one of the old executioner's swords and shore her in two.
• 1:33:47
  As she sat end of the squaw The Secret of the Growing Gold by
• 1:33:54
  bram Stoker. When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock, the whole
• 1:34:00
  neighborhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal. Scandals in connection with
• 1:34:03
  either the Delandre family or the Brents of Brent's Rock were not few, and
• 1:34:09
  if the secret history of the county had been written in full, both names
• 1:34:12
  would have been found well represented. It is true that the status of each
• 1:34:16
  was so different that they might have belonged to different continents, or to different
• 1:34:19
  worlds, for the matter of that, for hitherto their orbits had never crossed.
• 1:34:25
  The Brents were accorded by the whole section of the county a unique social
• 1:34:29
  dominance, and had ever held themselves as high above the yoming class to which
• 1:34:32
  Margaret Delandre belonged, As a blue blooded Spanish hidalgo out tops his peasant tenantry.
• 1:34:39
  The Delandres had an ancient record and were proud of it in their way,
• 1:34:42
  as the Brents were of theirs. But the family had never risen above
• 1:34:45
  yeomanry. And although they had been once well to do in the good old
• 1:34:48
  times of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes had withered under the scorching of
• 1:34:53
  the free trade sun and the piping times of peace. They had, as
• 1:34:58
  the elder members used to assert, stuck to the land, with the result
• 1:35:00
  that they had taken root in it, body and soul. In fact,
• 1:35:04
  they, having chosen the life of vegetables, had flourished as vegetation does,
• 1:35:10
  blossomed and thrived in the good season, and suffered in the bad. Their
• 1:35:13
  holding, Dander's Croft, seemed to have been worked out, and to be
• 1:35:16
  typical of the family which had lived in it. The latter had declined generation
• 1:35:21
  after generation, sending out now and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy in
• 1:35:26
  the shape of a soldier or sailor who had worked his way to the minor
• 1:35:30
  grades of the services, and had there stopped cut short, either from unheeding
• 1:35:33
  gallantry in action, or from that destroying cause to men without breeding or youthful
• 1:35:38
  care, the recognition of a position above them which they feel unfitted to fill.
• 1:35:43
  So little by little the family dropped lower and lower, the men brooding
• 1:35:46
  and dissatisfied and drinking themselves into the grave, the women drudging at home or
• 1:35:51
  marrying beneath them, or worse. In process of time, all disappeared,
• 1:35:57
  leaving only two in the croft, Wickham Delandre and his sister Margaret. The
• 1:36:01
  man and women seem to have inherited, in masculine and feminine form, respectively,
• 1:36:06
  the evil tendency of their race, sharing in common the principles, though
• 1:36:11
  manifesting them in different ways of sullen passion, voluptuousness, and recklessness. The
• 1:36:16
  history of the Brents had been something similar, but showing the causes of decadence
• 1:36:20
  in their aristocratic and not their plebeian forms. They too had sent their shoots
• 1:36:26
  to the wars, but their positions had been different, and they had often
• 1:36:29
  attained honor, for without flaw, they were gallant, and brave deeds were
• 1:36:32
  done by them before the selfish dissipation which marked them had sapped their vigor.
• 1:36:38
  The present head of the family, if family it could now be called,
• 1:36:41
  when one remained of the direct line, was Jeffrey Brent. He was almost
• 1:36:45
  a type of worn out race, manifesting in some ways its most brilliant qualities
• 1:36:49
  and in others its utter degradation. He might be fairly compared with some of
• 1:36:55
  those antique Italian nobles whom the painters have preserved to us with their courage,
• 1:36:59
  their unsc scrupulousness, their refinement of lust and cruelty, the voluptuary actual with
• 1:37:03
  the fiendish potential. He was certainly handsome, with that dark, aquiline,
• 1:37:09
  commanding beauty which women so generally recognize is dominant with men. He was distant
• 1:37:14
  and cold, but such a bearing never deters womankind. The unscrutable laws of
• 1:37:18
  sex are so arranged that even a timid woman is not afraid of a fierce
• 1:37:23
  and haughty man. And so it was that there was hardly a woman of
• 1:37:27
  any kind or degree who lived within view of brince Rock who did not cherish
• 1:37:30
  some form of secret admiration for the handsome wastrel. The category was a wide
• 1:37:35
  one, for brince Rock rose up steeply from the midst of a level region,
• 1:37:39
  and for a circuit of one hundred miles it lay on the horizon,
• 1:37:43
  with its high, old towers and steep roofs, cutting the level edge of
• 1:37:45
  wood Ane hamlet and far scattered mansions. So long as Jeffrey Brent confined his
• 1:37:50
  dissipations to London and Paris and Vienna, anywhere out of sight and sound of
• 1:37:56
  his home, opinion was silent. It is easy to listen too far off
• 1:38:00
  echoes unmoved, and we can treat them with disbelief or scorn or disdain,
• 1:38:04
  or whatever attitude of coldness may suit our purpose. But when the scandal came
• 1:38:09
  close to home, it was another matter, and the feelings of independence and
• 1:38:13
  integrity, which is in people of every community which is not utterly spoiled,
• 1:38:16
  asserted itself and demanded that condemnation should be expressed. Still, there was a
• 1:38:21
  certain reticence in all and no more notice was taken of the existing facts than
• 1:38:27
  was absolutely necessary. Margaret Delandre bore herself so fearlessly and so openly. She
• 1:38:32
  accepted her position as the justified companion of Jeffrey Brent, so naturally that people
• 1:38:36
  came to believe that she was secretly married to him, and therefore thought it
• 1:38:41
  wiser to hold their tongues lest time should justify her and also make her an
• 1:38:45
  active enemy. The one person who, by his interference, could have settled
• 1:38:49
  all doubts, was debarred by circumstances from interfering in the matter. Wickham Delandre
• 1:38:56
  had quarreled with his sister, or perhaps it was that she had quarreled with
• 1:38:59
  him, and they were on terms not merely of armed neutrality, but of
• 1:39:02
  bitter hatred. The quarrel had been antecedent to Margaret going to Brent's rock.
• 1:39:08
  She and Wickham had almost come to blows. There had certainly been threats on
• 1:39:12
  one side and on the other, and in the end, Wickham, overcome
• 1:39:15
  with passion, had ordered his sister to leave his house. She had risen
• 1:39:19
  straight away, and without waiting to pack up even her own personal belongings,
• 1:39:24
  had walked out of the house. On the threshold. She had paused for
• 1:39:27
  a moment to hurl a bitter threat at Wickham that he would ruin shame and
• 1:39:30
  despair to the last hour of his life his act of that day. Some
• 1:39:33
  weeks had since passed, and it was understood in the neighborhood that Margaret had
• 1:39:38
  gone to London when she suddenly appeared driving out with Jeffrey Brent, and the
• 1:39:42
  entire neighborhood knew before nightfall that she had taken up her abode at the Rock.
• 1:39:46
  It was no subject of surprise that Brent had come back unexpectedly, for
• 1:39:50
  such was his usual custom. Even his own servants never knew when to expect
• 1:39:55
  him, for there was a private door of which he alone had the key,
• 1:39:59
  by which he sometimes entered without anyone in the house being aware of his
• 1:40:02
  coming. This was his usual method of appearing after a long absence. Wickham
• 1:40:08
  Delandre was furious at the news. He vowed vengeance, and to keep his
• 1:40:13
  mind level with his passion, drank deeper than ever. He tried several times
• 1:40:16
  to see his sister, but she contemptuously refused to meet him. He tried
• 1:40:20
  to have an interview with Brent and was refused by him also. Then he
• 1:40:24
  tried to stop him in the road, but without avail, for Jeffrey was
• 1:40:28
  not a man to be stopped against his will. Several actual encounters took place
• 1:40:31
  between the two men, and many more were threatened and avoided. At last,
• 1:40:35
  Wickham Delandre settled down to a morose, vengeful acceptance of the situation.
• 1:40:41
  Neither Margaret nor Jeffrey was of a pacific temperament, and it was not long
• 1:40:45
  before there began to be quarrels between them. One thing would lead to another,
• 1:40:48
  and wine flowed freely at Brent's rock. Now and again the quarrels would
• 1:40:53
  assume a bitter aspect, and threats would be exchanged in uncompromising language that fairly
• 1:40:58
  awed the listening servants. But such quarrels generally ended where domestic altercations do,
• 1:41:02
  in reconciliation and in a mutual respect for the fighting qualities proportionate to their manifestation.
• 1:41:10
  Fighting for its own sake is found by a certain class of persons all
• 1:41:14
  the world over to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there is no
• 1:41:17
  reason to believe that domestic conditions minimize its potency. Geoffrey and Margaret made occasional
• 1:41:24
  absences from Brent's Rock, and on each of these occasions Wickham Delandre also absented
• 1:41:29
  himself, but as he generally heard of the absence too late to be of
• 1:41:32
  any service, he returned home each time in a more bitter and discontented frame
• 1:41:36
  of mind than before. At last, there came a time when the absence
• 1:41:41
  from Brent's Rock became longer than before. Only a few days earlier there had
• 1:41:45
  been a quarrel exceeding in bitterness anything which had gone before. But this too
• 1:41:49
  had been made up, and a trip on the continent had been mentioned before
• 1:41:53
  the servants. After a few days Wickham Delandre also went away, and it
• 1:41:58
  was some weeks before he returned. It was noticed that he was full of
• 1:42:01
  some new importance, satisfaction, exaltation, they hardly knew how to call it.
• 1:42:08
  He went straightway to Brent's Rock and demanded to see Jeffrey Brent, and
• 1:42:11
  on being told that he had not yet returned, said with a grim decision,
• 1:42:15
  which the servants noted, I shall come again. My news is solid.
• 1:42:18
  It can wait, and turned away. Week after week went by,
• 1:42:23
  and month after month, and then there came a rumor certified later on,
• 1:42:28
  that an accident had occurred in the Zermatt Valley. Whilst crossing a dangerous pass.
• 1:42:32
  The carriage containing an English lady and the driver had fallen over a precipice.
• 1:42:38
  The gentleman of the party, mister Jeffrey Brent, having been fortunately saved
• 1:42:42
  as he had been walking up the hill to ease the horses. He gave
• 1:42:45
  information and a search was made the broken rail, the excoriated roadway, the
• 1:42:49
  marks where the horses had struggled on the decline before finally pitching over into the
• 1:42:54
  Torrent all told the sad tale. It was a wet season and there had
• 1:42:59
  been much snow and the winter, so that the river was swollen beyond its
• 1:43:01
  usual volume, and the eddies of the stream were packed with ice. All
• 1:43:05
  search was made, and finally the wreck of the carriage and the body of
• 1:43:10
  one horse were found in an eddy of the river. Later, the body
• 1:43:13
  of the driver was found on the sandy Torrent swept waste near Tash, but
• 1:43:17
  the body of the lady, like that of the other horse, had quite
• 1:43:20
  disappeared, and was what was left of it by that time, whirling amongst
• 1:43:24
  the eddies of the Rhone on its way down to the Lake of Geneva.
• 1:43:28
  Wickham Delandre made all the inquiries possible, but could not find any traits of
• 1:43:32
  the missing woman. He found, however, in the books of the various
• 1:43:35
  hotels the name of mister and missus Jeffrey Brent, and he had a stone
• 1:43:41
  erected at Zermatt to his sister's memory under her married name, and a tablet
• 1:43:45
  put up in the church at Breton, the parish in which both Brent's Rock
• 1:43:48
  and Danderscroft were situated. There was a lapse of nearly a year after the
• 1:43:54
  excitement of the matter had worn away, and the whole neighborhood had gone on
• 1:43:57
  in its accustomed way. Brent was still at abs and de Laundre more drunken,
• 1:44:00
  more morose, and more revengeful than before. Then there was a new
• 1:44:04
  excitement. Brent's rock was being made ready for a new mistress. It was
• 1:44:09
  officially announced by Geoffrey himself in a letter to the Vicar that he had been
• 1:44:13
  married some months before to an Italian lady, and that they were then on
• 1:44:16
  their way home. Then a small army of workmen invaded the house, and
• 1:44:20
  hammer and planes sounded, and a general air of size and paint pervaded the
• 1:44:25
  atmosphere. One wing of the old house, the south, was entirely redone,
• 1:44:30
  and then the great body of the workmen departed, leaving only materials for
• 1:44:33
  the doing of the old hall. When Jeffrey Brench should have returned, for
• 1:44:36
  he had directed that the decoration was only to be done under his own eyes,
• 1:44:42
  he had brought with him accurate drawings of a hall in the house of
• 1:44:45
  his bride's father, for he wished to reproduce for her the place to which
• 1:44:47
  he had been accustomed. As the molding had all to be redone, some
• 1:44:51
  scaffolding, poles and boards were brought in and laid on one side of the
• 1:44:56
  Great Hall, and also a great wooden tank or box for mixing the lime,
• 1:45:00
  which was laid in bags beside it. When the new mistress of Brent's
• 1:45:02
  Rock arrived, the bells of the church rang out, and there was a
• 1:45:05
  general jubilation. She was a beautiful creature, full of the poetry and fire
• 1:45:11
  and passion of the South, and the few English words which he had learned
• 1:45:14
  were spoken in such a sweet and pretty broken way that she won the hearts
• 1:45:17
  of the people, almost as much by the music of her voice as by
• 1:45:20
  the melting beauty of her dark eyes. Geoffrey Brent seemed more happy than he
• 1:45:26
  had ever before appeared, but there was a dark, anxious look on his
• 1:45:29
  face that was new to those who knew him of old, and he started
• 1:45:32
  at times as though at some noise that was unheard by others. And so
• 1:45:36
  months passed, and the whisper grew that at last Brent's Rock was to have
• 1:45:40
  an air. Jeffrey was very tender to his wife, and the new bond
• 1:45:44
  between them seemed to soften him. He took more interest in his tenants and
• 1:45:47
  their needs than he had ever done, and works of charity on his part,
• 1:45:50
  as well as on his sweet young wife's, were not lacking. He
• 1:45:55
  seemed to have set all his hopes on the child that was coming, and
• 1:45:58
  as he looked deeper into the future, the dark shadow that had come over
• 1:46:00
  his face seemed to die gradually away. All the time Wickham delandre nursed his
• 1:46:05
  revenge. Deep in his heart had grown up a purpose of vengeance which only
• 1:46:10
  waited an opportunity to crystallize and take a definite shape. His vague idea was
• 1:46:15
  somehow centered in the wife of Brent, for he knew that he could strike
• 1:46:18
  him best through those he loved, and the coming time seemed to hold in
• 1:46:23
  its womb the opportunity for which he longed. One night, he sat alone
• 1:46:28
  in the living room of his house. It had once been a handsome room
• 1:46:30
  in its way, but time and neglect had done their work, and it
• 1:46:33
  was now little better than a ruin without dignity or picturesqueness of any kind.
• 1:46:40
  He had been drinking heavily for some time and was more than half stupefied.
• 1:46:44
  He thought he heard a noise as of someone at the door, and looked
• 1:46:46
  up. Then he called, half savagely to come in, but there was
• 1:46:50
  no response. With a muttered blasphemy, he renewed his potations. Presently he
• 1:46:57
  forgot all around him, sank into a daze, but suddenly awoke to see
• 1:47:01
  standing before him some one or some thing like a battered, ghostly addition of
• 1:47:06
  his sister. For a few moments there came upon him a sort of fear.
• 1:47:12
  The woman before him, with distorted features and burning eyes, seemed hardly
• 1:47:15
  human, and the only thing that seemed a reality of his sister as she
• 1:47:19
  had been was her wealth of golden hair, and this was now streaked with
• 1:47:24
  gray. She eyed her brother with a long, cold stare, and he
• 1:47:28
  too, as he looked and began to realize the actuality of her presence,
• 1:47:31
  found the hatred of her which he had had once again surging up in his
• 1:47:34
  heart. All the brooding passion of the past year seemed to find a voice
• 1:47:39
  at once, as he asked her, why are you here? You're dead
• 1:47:43
  and buried. I am here, wickam delandrefa no love of you, but
• 1:47:47
  because I hate another even more than I do you. A great passion blazed
• 1:47:53
  in her eyes him. He asked, in so fierce a whisper that even
• 1:47:57
  the woman was for an instant startled till she regained her calm. Yes,
• 1:48:00
  him, she answered, But make no mistake, My revenge is my own,
• 1:48:05
  and I merely use you to help me to it. Wickham asked,
• 1:48:09
  suddenly, did he marry you? The woman's distorted face broadened out, and
• 1:48:14
  a ghastly attempt at a smile. It was a hideous mockery, for the
• 1:48:16
  broken features and seamed scars took strange shapes, and strange colors, and queer
• 1:48:21
  lines of white showed out as the straining muscles pressed on the old Cicatrice's.
• 1:48:27
  So you would like to know it would please your pride to feel that your
• 1:48:30
  sister was truly married. Well, you shall not know. That was my
• 1:48:34
  revenge on you, and I do not mean to change it by a hair's
• 1:48:38
  breadth. I have come here tonight simply to let you know that I am
• 1:48:42
  alive, so that if any violence be done me where I am going,
• 1:48:45
  there may be a witness. Where are you going? Demanded her brother.
• 1:48:50
  That is my affair, and I have not the least intention of letting you
• 1:48:55
  know. Wickham stood up, but the drink was on him, and he
• 1:48:58
  reeled and fell as he on the floor. He announced his intention of following
• 1:49:01
  his sister, and with an outburst of splenetic humor, told her that he
• 1:49:05
  would follow her through the darkness by the light of her hair and of her
• 1:49:09
  beauty. At this she turned on him and said that there were others beside
• 1:49:13
  him that would ru her hair and her beauty too, as he will.
• 1:49:17
  She hissed for the hair remains, though the beauty be gone. When he
• 1:49:23
  withdrew the lynch pin and sent us over the precipice into the torrent, he
• 1:49:27
  had little thought of my beauty. Perhaps his beauty would be scarred like mine
• 1:49:31
  where he whirled as I was amongst the rocks of the visp and frozen on
• 1:49:36
  the ice pack in the drift of the river. But let him beware his
• 1:49:41
  time is coming, And with a fierce gesture, she flung open the door
• 1:49:45
  and passed out into the night. Later on that night, missus Brent,
• 1:49:50
  who was but half asleep, became suddenly awake and spoke to her husband,
• 1:49:55
  Geoffrey. Was not that the click of a lock somewhere below we? But
• 1:50:00
  Jeffrey, though she thought that he too had started at the noise, seemed
• 1:50:04
  sound asleep, and breathed heavily. Again, Missus Brent dozed, but this
• 1:50:09
  time awoke to the fact that her husband had arisen and was partially dressed.
• 1:50:13
  He was deadly pale, and when the light of the lamp which he had
• 1:50:15
  in his hand, fell on his face, she was frightened at the look
• 1:50:19
  in his eyes. What is it, Geoffrey, What dost thou? She
• 1:50:23
  asked, Hush, little one, he answered, in a strange, hoarse
• 1:50:27
  voice, go to sleep. I am restless and wished to finish some work
• 1:50:30
  I left undone. Bring it here, my husband, she said, I
• 1:50:34
  am lonely and I feel when thou art away. For a reply, he
• 1:50:38
  merely kissed her and went out, closing the door behind him. She lay
• 1:50:42
  awake for a while, and then nature asserted itself and she slept. Suddenly
• 1:50:46
  she started broad awake with the memory in her ears of a smothered cry from
• 1:50:50
  somewhere not far off. She jumped up and ran to the door and listened,
• 1:50:55
  but there was no sound. She grew alarmed for her husband and called
• 1:50:58
  out Jeffrey, Jeffrey. After a few moments, the door of the Great
• 1:51:02
  Hall opened, and Jeffrey appeared at it, but without his lamp. Hush
• 1:51:06
  he said, in a sort of whisper, and his voice was harsh and
• 1:51:10
  stern. Hush, Get to bed. I'm working and must not be disturbed.
• 1:51:14
  Go to sleep, and do not wait the house. With a chill
• 1:51:16
  in her heart, for the harshness in her husband's voice was new to her,
• 1:51:20
  she crept back to bed and lay there trembling, too frightened to cry
• 1:51:25
  and listen to every sound. There was a long pause of silence, and
• 1:51:29
  then the sound of some iron implements striking muffled blows. Then there came a
• 1:51:32
  clang of heavy stone falling, fall by a muffled curse, then a dragging
• 1:51:38
  sound, and then more noise of stone on stone. She lay all the
• 1:51:42
  while in an agony of fear, and her heart beat dreadfully. She heard
• 1:51:45
  a curious sort of scraping sound, and then there was silence. Presently,
• 1:51:50
  the door opened gently, and Jeffrey appeared. His wife pretended to be asleep,
• 1:51:56
  but through her eyelashes she saw him wash from his hands some white that
• 1:52:00
  looked like lime. In the morning, he made no allusion to the previous
• 1:52:03
  night, and she was afraid to ask any question. From that day,
• 1:52:08
  there seemed some shadow over Jeffrey Brent. He neither ate nor slept as he
• 1:52:13
  had been accustomed, and his former habit of turning suddenly as though someone were
• 1:52:16
  speaking from behind him revived. The old hall seemed to have some kind of
• 1:52:20
  fascination for him. He used to go there many times in the day,
• 1:52:25
  but grew impatient if anyone, even his wife, entered it. When the
• 1:52:29
  builder's foreman came to inquire about continuing his work, Jeffrey was out driving.
• 1:52:32
  The man went into the hall, and when Jeffrey returned, the servant told
• 1:52:36
  him of his arrival and where he was. With a frightful oath, he
• 1:52:40
  pushed the servant aside and hurried up to the old hall. The workman met
• 1:52:43
  him almost at the door, and as Jeffrey burst into the room, he
• 1:52:45
  ran against him. The man apologized, beg pardon, sir, but I
• 1:52:49
  was just going out to make some enquiries. I directed twelve sects of lamb
• 1:52:54
  to be sentia, but I see there are only ten cuss the ten sacks
• 1:52:58
  and the twelve two was the younger, gracious and incomprehensible rejoinder. The workmen
• 1:53:02
  looked surprised and tried to turn the conversation. I see, sir, there's
• 1:53:06
  a little matter which our people must have done, but the governor will of
• 1:53:10
  course see it set right at his own cost. What do you mean that?
• 1:53:15
  Yeah, a stone, sir. So idiot must have put a scaffold
• 1:53:17
  pole on it and cracked it right down the middle, and it's thick enough
• 1:53:20
  you'd think to stand anything. Jeffrey was silent for quite a minute, and
• 1:53:25
  then said, in a constrained voice, and with much gentler manner, tell
• 1:53:29
  your people that I am not going on with the work in the hall at
• 1:53:31
  present. I want to leave it as it is for a while longer,
• 1:53:35
  all right, sir, I'll send up a few of our chaps to take
• 1:53:39
  away these poles and line bags and tied it the place up a bit.
• 1:53:43
  No, no, said Jeffrey. Leave them where they are. I shall
• 1:53:45
  send and tell you when you are to get on with the work. So
• 1:53:49
  the foreman went away, and his comment to his master was, I'd send
• 1:53:53
  in the bill surf for the work already done. Appears to me that money's
• 1:53:57
  a little shaky in that quarter. Once or twice de Laundre tried to stop
• 1:54:00
  Brent on the road, and at last, finding that he could not attain
• 1:54:03
  his object, rode after the carriage, calling out, what has become of
• 1:54:08
  my sister your wife? Jeffrey lashed his horses into a gallop, and the
• 1:54:12
  other, seeing from his white face and from his wife's collapse, almost into
• 1:54:15
  a faint, that his object was attained, rode away with a scowl and
• 1:54:19
  a laugh. That night, when Jeffrey went into the hall, he passed
• 1:54:24
  over to the great fireplace, and all at once started back with a smothered
• 1:54:28
  cry. Then with an effort, he pulled himself together and went away,
• 1:54:31
  returning with a light. He bent down over the broken hearthstone to see if
• 1:54:35
  the moonlight falling through the storied window had in any way deceived him. Then,
• 1:54:40
  with a groan of anguish, sank to his knees. There, sure
• 1:54:44
  enough, through the crack and the broken stone, were protruding a multitude of
• 1:54:47
  threads of golden hair, just hinged with gray. He was disturbed by a
• 1:54:53
  noise at the door, and looking round, saw his wife standing in the
• 1:54:57
  doorway. In the desperation of the moment, he took out action to prevent
• 1:55:00
  discovery, and, lighting a match at the table, stooped down and burned
• 1:55:03
  away the hair that rose through the broken stone. Then, rising as nonchalantly
• 1:55:08
  as he could, he pretended surprise at seeing his wife beside him. For
• 1:55:13
  the next week he lived in an agony, for, whether by accident or
• 1:55:16
  design, he could not find himself alone in the hall for any length of
• 1:55:19
  time. At each visit, the hare had grown afresh through the crack,
• 1:55:24
  and he had to watch it carefully lest his terrible secret should be discovered.
• 1:55:29
  He tried to find a receptacle for the body of the murdered woman outside the
• 1:55:31
  house, but someone always interrupted him, and once, when he was coming
• 1:55:35
  out of the private doorway, he was met by his wife, who began
• 1:55:39
  to question him about it, and manifested surprise that she should not have before
• 1:55:43
  noticed the key, which he now reluctantly showed her. Jeffrey dearly and passionately
• 1:55:47
  loved his wife, so that any possibility of her discovering his dread secrets,
• 1:55:53
  or even of doubting him, filled him with anguish, and after a couple
• 1:55:57
  of days had passed, he could not help coming to the conclusion that at
• 1:56:00
  least she suspected something. That very evening, she came into the hall after
• 1:56:05
  her drive and found him there sitting moodily by the deserted fireplace. She spoke
• 1:56:10
  to him directly, Geoffrey, I have been spoken to by that fellow Delandre,
• 1:56:15
  and he says horrible things. He tells me that a week ago his
• 1:56:19
  sister returned to his house the reckoned ruin of her former self, with only
• 1:56:25
  her golden hair as of old, and denounced some fell intention. He asked
• 1:56:30
  me where she is? And oh, Geoffrey, she is dead. She
• 1:56:32
  is dead, So how can she have returned? I am in dread and
• 1:56:36
  I know not where to turn for answer. Jeoffrey burst into a torrent of
• 1:56:42
  blasphemy, which made her shudder. He cursed Alandre and his sister and all
• 1:56:45
  their kind, and in his special he hurled curse after curse on her golden
• 1:56:49
  hair. Oh hush, hush, she said, and was then silent,
• 1:56:54
  for she feared her husband when she saw the evil effect of his humor.
• 1:56:58
  Jeffrey, in the torn of his anger, stood up and moved away from
• 1:57:00
  the hearth, but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of terror in
• 1:57:04
  his wife's eyes. He followed their glance, and then he too shuddered,
• 1:57:09
  for there on the broken hearthstone lay a golden streak as the point of the
• 1:57:14
  hair rose through the crack. Look, look, she shrieked, it is
• 1:57:16
  some ghost of the dead. Come away, Come away, And seizing her
• 1:57:21
  husband by the wrist with a frenzy of madness, she pulled him from the
• 1:57:25
  room. That night, she was in a raging fever. The doctor of
• 1:57:30
  the district attended her at once, and special aid was telegraphed for to London.
• 1:57:34
  Jeoffrey was in despair, and in his anguish at the danger of his
• 1:57:38
  young wife, almost forgot his own crime and its consequences. In the evening,
• 1:57:42
  the doctor had to leave to attend to others, but he left Geoffrey
• 1:57:45
  in charge of his wife. His last words were, remember you must humor
• 1:57:49
  her till I come in the morning, or till some other doctor has her
• 1:57:53
  case in hand. What you have to dread is another attack of emotion.
• 1:57:57
  See that she is kept warm. Nothing more can be done. Late in
• 1:58:00
  the evening, when the rest of the household had retired, Jeoffrey's wife got
• 1:58:04
  up from her bed and called to her husband. Come. She said,
• 1:58:09
  come to the old hall. I know where the gold comes from. I
• 1:58:12
  want to see it grow. Geoffrey would fain have stopped her, But he
• 1:58:15
  feared for her life or reason on the one hand, and lest in a
• 1:58:18
  paroxysm she should shriek out her terrible suspicion, And, seeing that it was
• 1:58:23
  useless to try and prevent her, wrapped a warm rug about her and went
• 1:58:27
  with her to the old hall. When they entered, she turned and shut
• 1:58:30
  the door and locked it. We want no strangers amongst us three tonight,
• 1:58:33
  she whispered, with a wand smile. We three, nayves, We are
• 1:58:39
  two, said Geoffrey, with a shudder. He feared to say more.
• 1:58:42
  Sit here, said his wife, as she put out the light. Sit
• 1:58:45
  here by the hearth and watch the gold growing. The silver moonlight is jealous.
• 1:58:49
  See it steals along the floor towards the gold, our gold. Jeffrey
• 1:58:55
  looked with growing horror and saw that during the hours that had passed, the
• 1:58:59
  golden hair had protruded further through the broken hearth stone. He tried to hide
• 1:59:03
  it by placing his feet over the broken place, and his wife, drawing
• 1:59:06
  her chair beside him, leant over and laid her head on his shoulder.
• 1:59:11
  Now do not stir, dear, she said, let us sit still and
• 1:59:15
  watch. We shall find the secret of the growing gold. He passed his
• 1:59:19
  arm round her and sat silent, and as the moonlight stole along the floor,
• 1:59:24
  she sank to sleep. He feared to wake her, and so sat
• 1:59:28
  silent and miserable as the hours stole away. Before his horror struck eyes.
• 1:59:32
  The golden hair from the broken stone grew and grew, and as it increased,
• 1:59:39
  so his heart got colder and colder, till at last he had not
• 1:59:43
  power to stir, and sat with his eyes full of terror, watching his
• 1:59:47
  doom. In the morning, when the London doctor came, neither Jeffrey nor
• 1:59:54
  his wife could be found. Search was made in all the rooms, but
• 1:59:58
  without avail. As a last resource, the great door of the old hall
• 2:00:01
  was broken open, and those who entered saw a grim and sorry sight.
• 2:00:06
  There By the deserted hearth. Jeoffrey Brent and his young wife sat cold and
• 2:00:12
  white and dead. Her face was peaceful, and her eyes were closed in
• 2:00:16
  sleep. But his face was a sight that made all who saw it shudder,
• 2:00:21
  for there was on it a look of unutterable horror. The eyes were
• 2:00:26
  open and stared glassily at his feet, which were twined with tresses of golden
• 2:00:30
  hair. Streaked with gray, which came through the broken hearth stone. End
• 2:00:39
  of the Secret of the Growing Gold, the Gipsy Prophecy by bram Stoker.
• 2:00:45
  I really think, said the doctor, that at any rate one of us
• 2:00:49
  should go and try whether or not the thing is an imposture. Good,
• 2:00:54
  said Considine. After dinner, we will take Arsagar's and stroll over to the
• 2:00:58
  camp accordingly. When the dinner was over and the lattour finished, Joshua Considine
• 2:01:03
  and his friend doctor Burley went over to the east side of the moor where
• 2:01:08
  the Gipsy encampment lay. As they were leaving, Mary Considine, who had
• 2:01:13
  walked as far at the end of the garden where opened into the laneway,
• 2:01:15
  called after her husband. Mind, Joshua, you're to give them a fair
• 2:01:19
  chance, but don't give them any clue to a fortune. And don't you
• 2:01:23
  get flirting with any of the gypsy maidens, and take care to keep Gerald
• 2:01:28
  out of harm. For answer, Considine held up his hand as if taking
• 2:01:31
  a stage oath, and whistled the air of the old song the Gipsy Countess
• 2:01:36
  Gerald joined in the strain, and then breaking into merry laughter. The two
• 2:01:41
  men passed along the lane way to the common, turning now, and then
• 2:01:44
  to wave their hands to Mary, who leaned over the gate in the twilight
• 2:01:46
  looking after them. It was a lovely evening in the summer. The very
• 2:01:51
  air was full of rest and quiet happiness, as though an outward type of
• 2:01:56
  the peacefulness and joy which made a heaven of the home of the young married
• 2:01:59
  folk. Considine's life had not been an eventful one. The only disturbing element
• 2:02:03
  which he had ever known was in his wooing of Mary Winston, and the
• 2:02:08
  long continued objection of her ambitious parents, who expected a brilliant match for their
• 2:02:14
  only daughter. When mister and Missus Winston had discovered the attachment of the young
• 2:02:17
  barrister, they had tried to keep the young people apart by sending their daughter
• 2:02:23
  away for a long round of visits, having made her promise not to correspond
• 2:02:26
  with her lover during her absence. Love, however, had stood the test.
• 2:02:30
  Neither absence nor neglect seemed to call the passion of the young man,
• 2:02:34
  and jealousy seemed a thing unknown to his sanguine nature. So after a long
• 2:02:39
  period of waiting, the parents had given in and the young folk were married.
• 2:02:44
  They had been living in the cottage a few months and were just beginning
• 2:02:47
  to feel at home. Gerald Burley, Joshua's old college chum, and himself
• 2:02:51
  some time victim of Mary's beauty, had arrived a week before to stay with
• 2:02:56
  them for as long a time as he could tear himself away from his work
• 2:02:59
  in London. When her husband had quite disappeared, Mary went into the house,
• 2:03:02
  and, sitting down at the piano, gave an hour to Mendelssohn.
• 2:03:08
  It was but a short walk across the common, and before the cigars required
• 2:03:11
  renewing, the two men had reached the gypsy camp. The place was as
• 2:03:15
  picturesque as gypsy camps when in villages and when business is good usually are.
• 2:03:20
  There were some few persons round the fire, investing their money in prophecy,
• 2:03:25
  and a large number of others, poorer or more parsimonious, who stayed just
• 2:03:29
  outside the bounds, but near enough to see all that went on. As
• 2:03:32
  the two gentlemen approached, the villagers who knew Joshua made way a little,
• 2:03:36
  and a pretty keen eyed gipsy girl tripped up and asked to tell their fortunes.
• 2:03:42
  Joshua held out his hands, but the girl without seeming to see it,
• 2:03:45
  stared at his face in a very odd manner. Gerald nudged him.
• 2:03:49
  You must cross her hand with silver, he said, it is one of
• 2:03:53
  the most important parts of the mystery. Joshua took from his pocket a half
• 2:03:58
  crown and held it out to her, but without looking at it, she
• 2:04:00
  answered, you have to cross the gipsy's hand with gold. Gerald laughed,
• 2:04:08
  you are at a premium as a subject, he said, Joshua was of
• 2:04:12
  the kind of man, the universal kind, who can tolerate being stared at
• 2:04:15
  by a pretty girl. So, with some little deliberation he answered, all
• 2:04:19
  right, here you are, my pretty girl, but you must give me
• 2:04:23
  a real good fortune for it. And he handed her a half sovereign,
• 2:04:27
  which she took, saying it is not for me to give good fortune nor
• 2:04:30
  bad, but only to read what the stars have said. She took his
• 2:04:35
  right hand and turned it palm upward, but the instant her eyes met it,
• 2:04:40
  she dropped it as though it had been red hot, and with a
• 2:04:43
  startled look, glided swiftly away, lifting the curtain of the large tent which
• 2:04:46
  occupied the center of the camp. She disappeared within sold again, said the
• 2:04:53
  cynical Gerald, Joshua stood a little amazed and not altogether satisfied. They both
• 2:04:59
  watched the large tent. In a few moments, there emerged from the opening,
• 2:05:02
  not the young girl, but a stately looking woman of middle age and
• 2:05:05
  commanding presents. The instant she appeared, the whole camp seemed to stand still.
• 2:05:13
  The clamor of tongues, the laughter and noise of the work were for
• 2:05:15
  a second or two arrested, and every man or woman who sat, or
• 2:05:19
  crouched or lay stood up and faced the imperial looking gipsy. The Queen,
• 2:05:26
  of course, murmured Gerald, we are in luck to night. The gypsy
• 2:05:30
  queen threw a searching glance around the camp, and then, without hesitating,
• 2:05:34
  an instant came straight over and stood before Joshua. Hold out your hand,
• 2:05:40
  she said, in a commanding tone. Again, Gerald spoke sotto vochi,
• 2:05:45
  I have not been spoken to in that way since I was at school.
• 2:05:47
  Your hand must be crossed with gold A hundred percent at this game, whispered
• 2:05:53
  Gerald. As Joshua laid another half sovereign on his upturned palm. The Gipsy
• 2:05:58
  looked at the hand with knitted brows, then suddenly looking up into his face,
• 2:06:01
  said, have you a strong will, have you a true heart that
• 2:06:06
  can be brave for one you love? I hope so, but I am
• 2:06:11
  afraid I have not vanity enough to say yes. Then I will answer for
• 2:06:16
  you, for I read resolution in your face, resolution, desperate and determined.
• 2:06:24
  If need be, you'll have a wife you love? Yes, emphatically,
• 2:06:30
  then leave her at once, never see her face again. Go from
• 2:06:35
  her now, while love is fresh and your heart is free from wicked intent.
• 2:06:41
  Go quick, go far, and never see her face again. Joshua
• 2:06:45
  drew away his hand quickly and said thank you, stiffly but sarcastically. As
• 2:06:49
  he began to move away, I say, said Gerald, you are not
• 2:06:55
  going like that, old ma'am. No use in being indignant with the stars
• 2:06:59
  or their profits, and moreover your sovereign, what of it? At least
• 2:07:03
  hear the matter out silence, Ribald commanded the queen. You know not what
• 2:07:10
  you do. Let him go and go ignorant. If you will not be
• 2:07:15
  warned. Joshua immediately turned back. At all events, we will see this
• 2:07:20
  thing out, he said. Now, madam, you have given me advice,
• 2:07:24
  but I paid for a fortune. Be warned, said the gipsy the
• 2:07:30
  stars have been silent for long, Let the mystery still wrap them round.
• 2:07:35
  My dear madam, I do not get within touch of a mystery every day,
• 2:07:41
  and I prefer for my money knowledge rather than ignorance. I can get
• 2:07:45
  the latter commodity for nothing when I want any of it. Gerald echoed the
• 2:07:49
  sentiment. As for me, I have a large and unsaleable stock on hand.
• 2:07:54
  The Gipsy queen eyed the two men sternly, and then said, as
• 2:07:57
  you wish, you have chold for yourself and have met warning with scorn and
• 2:08:03
  appeal with levity on your own heads, be the doom, Amen, said
• 2:08:11
  Gerald, with an imperious gesture. The queen took Joshua's hand again and began
• 2:08:16
  to tell his fortune. I see here the flowing of blood. It will
• 2:08:22
  flow before long. It is running in my sight. It flows through the
• 2:08:28
  broken circle of a severed ring. Go on, said Joshua, smiling.
• 2:08:35
  Gerald was silent. Must I speak plainer? Certainly, we commonplace mortals want
• 2:08:46
  something definite. The stars are a long way off, and their words get
• 2:08:50
  somewhat dulled in the message. The Gipsy shuddered and then spoke impressively, this
• 2:08:56
  is the hand of a murderer, the murderer of his wife. She dropped
• 2:09:03
  the hand and turned away. Joshua laughed. Do you know, said he.
• 2:09:09
  I think if I were you, I should prophecy some jurisprudence into my
• 2:09:13
  system. For instance, you say this hand is the hand of a murderer.
• 2:09:18
  Well, whatever it may be in the future or potentially it is at
• 2:09:24
  present, not one you ought to give your prophecy in such terms as the
• 2:09:28
  hand which will be a murderer's, or rather the hand of one who will
• 2:09:33
  be the murderer of his wife. The stars are not really good on technical
• 2:09:39
  questions. The gypsy made no reply of any kind, but with drooping head
• 2:09:43
  and despondent me and walked slowly to her tent, and, lifting the curtain,
• 2:09:48
  disappeared. Without speaking. The two men turned homewards and walked across them
• 2:09:52
  all presently. After some little hesitation, Gerald spoke, of course, old
• 2:09:58
  man, this is all a joke, a ghastly one, but still a
• 2:10:03
  joke. But would it not be well to keep it to ourselves? How
• 2:10:07
  do you mean, well, not tell your wife? He might alarm her.
• 2:10:15
  Alarm her, my dear Gerald, what are you thinking of? Why
• 2:10:20
  she would not be alarmed or afraid of me if all the gypsies that ever
• 2:10:22
  didn't come from behem me agreed that I was to murder her, or even
• 2:10:26
  to have a hard thought of her. Whilst so long as she was saying
• 2:10:30
  Jack Robinson, Gerald remonstrated, old fellow, women are superstitious, far more
• 2:10:37
  than we men are. And also they are blessed or cursed with a nervous
• 2:10:41
  system to which we are strangers. I see too much of it in my
• 2:10:46
  work not to realize it. Take my advice and do not let her know,
• 2:10:50
  or you will frighten her. Joshua's lips unconsciously hardened as he answered,
• 2:10:56
  my dear fellow, I would not have a secret from my wife. Why
• 2:11:01
  it would be the beginning of a new order of things between us. We
• 2:11:05
  have no secrets from each other. If we ever have, then you may
• 2:11:09
  begin to look out for something odd between us. Still, said Gerald,
• 2:11:15
  at the risk of our welcome interference, I say again, be warned in
• 2:11:20
  time. The gypsy's very words, said Joshua, You and she seemed quite
• 2:11:24
  of one accord. Tell me, old ma'am, is this a put up
• 2:11:28
  thing you told me of the gipsy camp? Did you arrange it all with
• 2:11:33
  her majesty. This was said with an air of bantering earnestness. Gerald assured
• 2:11:39
  him that he only heard of the camp that morning, but he made fun
• 2:11:41
  of every answer of his friend, and in the process of this raillery,
• 2:11:45
  the time passed and they entered the cottage. Mary was sitting at the piano,
• 2:11:50
  but not playing. The dim twilight had waked some very tender feelings in
• 2:11:54
  her breast, and her eyes were full of gentle tears. When the men
• 2:11:58
  came in, she sol over to her husband's side and kissed him. Joshua
• 2:12:01
  struck a tragic attitude, Mary, He said, in a deep voice,
• 2:12:07
  before you approach me, listen to the words of fate. The stars have
• 2:12:13
  spoken and the doom is sealed. What is it, dear? Tell me
• 2:12:18
  the fortune, But do not frighten me, not at all, my dear.
• 2:12:22
  But there is a truth which it is well that you should know.
• 2:12:26
  Nay, it is necessary so that all your arrangements can be made beforehand,
• 2:12:31
  and everything be decently done and in order go on, dear, I'm listening,
• 2:12:37
  Mary, conserdine, your effigy may yet be seen At Madame Tussord's The
• 2:12:43
  juris imprudent stars have announced their fell tidings that this hand is red with blood,
• 2:12:50
  Your blood, Mary, Mary, my god. He sprang forward,
• 2:12:56
  but too late to catch her, as she fell fainting on the floor.
• 2:12:58
  I hold you, said Gerald. You don't know them as well as I
• 2:13:03
  do. After a little while, Mary recovered from her swoon, but only
• 2:13:07
  to fall into strong hysterics, in which she laughed and wept and raved and
• 2:13:11
  cried keep him from me, from me, Joshua and my husband, and
• 2:13:16
  many other words of entreaty and of fear. Joshua Considine was in a state
• 2:13:20
  of mind bordering on agony, and when at last Mary became calm, he
• 2:13:24
  knelt by her and kissed her feet and hands and hair, and called her
• 2:13:26
  all the sweet names, and said all the tender things his lips could frame.
• 2:13:31
  All that night he sat by her bedside and held her hand. Far
• 2:13:35
  through the night, and up to the early morning. She kept waking from
• 2:13:37
  sleep and crying out as if in fear, till she was comforted by the
• 2:13:41
  consciousness that her husband was watching beside her. Breakfast was late the next morning,
• 2:13:46
  but during it Joshua received a telegram which a cried him to drive over
• 2:13:50
  to withering nearly twenty miles. He was loath to go, but Mary would
• 2:13:54
  not hear of his remaining, and so before noon he drove off in his
• 2:13:58
  dog heart alone. When he was gone, Mary retired to her room.
• 2:14:03
  She did not appear at lunch, but when afternoon tea was served on the
• 2:14:07
  lawn under the great weeping willow, she came to join her guest. She
• 2:14:11
  was looking quite recovered from my illness of the evening before. After some casual
• 2:14:15
  remarks, she said to Gerald, of course it was very silly about last
• 2:14:18
  night, but I could not help feeling frightened. Indeed, I would feel
• 2:14:22
  so still if I let myself think of it. But after all, these
• 2:14:26
  people may only imagine things, and I have got a test that can hardly
• 2:14:31
  fail to show that the prediction is false, if indeed it be false,
• 2:14:35
  She added sadly. What is your plan? Asked Gerald, I shall go
• 2:14:41
  myself to the gipsy camp and have my fortune told by the queen capital May
• 2:14:48
  I go with you? Oh? No, thou would spoil it. She
• 2:14:52
  might know you and guess at me, and suit her utterance. Accordingly,
• 2:14:56
  I shall go alone this afternoon. When the afternoon was gone, Mary Considine
• 2:15:01
  took her way to the Gipsy encampment. Gerald went with her as far as
• 2:15:05
  the near edge of the common, and returned alone. Half an hour had
• 2:15:09
  hardly elapsed from Mary entered the drawing room, where he lay on a sofa
• 2:15:11
  reading. She was ghastly pale and was in a state of extreme excitement.
• 2:15:18
  Hardly had she passed over the threshold when she collapsed and sank moaning on the
• 2:15:22
  carpet. Gerald rushed to aid her, but by a great effort she controlled
• 2:15:26
  herself and motioned him to be silent. He waited, and his ready attention
• 2:15:31
  to her wish seemed to be her best help, for in a few minutes
• 2:15:35
  she had somewhat recovered and was able to tell him what had passed. When
• 2:15:39
  I got to the camp, she said, there did not seem to be
• 2:15:43
  a soul about. I went into the center and stood there. Suddenly a
• 2:15:48
  tall woman stood beside me. Something told me I was wanted, She said,
• 2:15:54
  I held out my hand and laid a piece of silver on it.
• 2:15:58
  She took from her a small golden trinket and laid it there also, and
• 2:16:03
  then, seizing the two, threw them into the stream that ran by then
• 2:16:07
  she took my hand in hers and spoke gnawed bud blood in this guilty place,
• 2:16:15
  and turned away. I caught hold of her and asked her to tell
• 2:16:18
  me more. After some hesitation, she said, alas alas, I see
• 2:16:24
  you lying at your husband's feet, and his hands are red with blood.
• 2:16:28
  Gerald did not feel at all at ease and tried to laugh it off.
• 2:16:33
  Surely, he said, this woman has a craze about murder. Do not
• 2:16:37
  laugh, said Mary, I cannot bear it, and then, as if
• 2:16:41
  with a sudden impulse, she left the room. Not long after, Joshua
• 2:16:46
  returned, bright and cheery and as hungry as a hunter after his long drive.
• 2:16:50
  His presence cheered his wife, who seemed much brighter that she did not
• 2:16:54
  mention the episode of the visit to the gypsy camp, so Gerald did not
• 2:16:56
  mention it either, As if by Tassick consent, the subject was not alluded
• 2:17:01
  to during the evening, but there was a strange, settled look on Mary's
• 2:17:05
  face which Gerald could not but observe. In the morning, Joshua came down
• 2:17:09
  to breakfast later than usual. Mary had been up and about the house from
• 2:17:13
  an early hour, but as the time drew on, she seemed to get
• 2:17:16
  a little nervous, and now and again threw a round an anxious look.
• 2:17:22
  Gerald could not help noticing that none of those at breakfast could get on satisfactorily
• 2:17:26
  with their food. It was not altogether that the chops were tough, but
• 2:17:30
  that the knives were all so blunt. Being a guest, he of course
• 2:17:35
  made no sign, but presently saw Joshua draw his thumb across the edge of
• 2:17:39
  his knife in an unconscious sort of way. At the action, Mary turned
• 2:17:43
  pale and almost fainted. After breakfast, they all went out on the lawn.
• 2:17:48
  Mary was making up a bouquet and said to her husband, get me
• 2:17:52
  a few of the tea roses. Dear. Joshua pulled down a cluster from
• 2:17:54
  the front of the house. The stem bent but was too tough to break.
• 2:18:00
  He put his hand in his pocket to get his knife, but in
• 2:18:03
  vain. Lend me your knife, Gerald, he said. But Gerald had
• 2:18:07
  not got one, so he went into the breakfast room and took one from
• 2:18:09
  the table. He came out feeling his edge and grumbling, what on earth
• 2:18:15
  has happened to all the knives? The edges seem more ground off. Mary
• 2:18:20
  turned away hurriedly and entered the house. Joshua tried to sever the stalk with
• 2:18:24
  the blunt knife, as country cooks severn the necks of fowl, as schoolboys
• 2:18:26
  cut twine. With a little effort, he finished the task. The cluster
• 2:18:31
  of roses grew thick, so he determined to gather a great bunch. He
• 2:18:35
  could not find a single sharp knife in the sideboard where the cutlery was kept,
• 2:18:39
  so he called Mary, and when she came, told her the state
• 2:18:41
  of things. She looked so agitated and so miserable that he could not help
• 2:18:46
  knowing the truth, And as if astandard and hurt, asked her, do
• 2:18:50
  you mean to say that you have done it? She broke in, Oh,
• 2:18:56
  Joshua, I was so afraid. He paused, and a set white
• 2:19:01
  look came over his face. Mary said, he is this all the trust
• 2:19:05
  you have in me? I would not have believed it, Oh Joshua,
• 2:19:11
  Joshua. She cried entutingly, forgive me, and wept bitterly. Joshua thought
• 2:19:16
  a moment, and then said, I see how it is. We shall
• 2:19:20
  better end this or we shall all go mad. He ran into the drawing
• 2:19:24
  room. Where are you going? Almost screamed Mary Gerald saw what he meant,
• 2:19:31
  that he would not be tied to blunt instruments by the force of a
• 2:19:33
  superstition, and was not surprised when he saw him come out through the French
• 2:19:37
  window, bearing in his hand a large Gurkha knife, which usually lay on
• 2:19:41
  the center table, and which his brother had sent him from northern India.
• 2:19:45
  It was one of those great hunting knives which worked such havoc at close quarters
• 2:19:48
  with the enemies of the loyal Gurkhas during the mutiny. Of great weight,
• 2:19:52
  but so evenly balanced in the hand as to seem light, and with an
• 2:19:56
  edge like a razor. With one of these knights of the girk had and
• 2:20:00
  cut a sheep in two. When Mary saw him come out of the room
• 2:20:03
  with the weapon in his hand, she screamed in an agony of fright,
• 2:20:07
  and the hysterics of last night were promptly renewed. Joshua ran toward her,
• 2:20:13
  and, seeing her falling, threw down the knife and tried to catch her.
• 2:20:16
  However, he was just a second too late, and the two men
• 2:20:20
  cried out in horror simultaneously as they saw her fall upon the naked blade.
• 2:20:26
  When Gerald rushed over, he found that in falling, her left hand had
• 2:20:30
  struck the blade, which lay partly upwards on the grass. Some of the
• 2:20:33
  small veins were cut through, and the blood gushed freely from the wound.
• 2:20:39
  As he was tying it up, he pointed out to Joshua that the wedding
• 2:20:41
  ring was severed by the steel. They carried her, fainting to the house.
• 2:20:48
  When after a while she came out with her arm in a sling,
• 2:20:50
  she was peaceful in her mind, unhappy. She said to her husband.
• 2:20:54
  The gipsy was wonderfully near the truth, too near for the real thing ever
• 2:21:00
  to occur. Now, Dear Joshua bent over and kissed the wounded hand.
• 2:21:07
  End of the Gypsy prophecy The Coming of Abel Behenna by bram Stoker. The
• 2:21:13
  little Cornish port of Pencastle was bright in the early April, when the sun
• 2:21:18
  had seemingly come out to stay after a long and bitter winter. Boldly and
• 2:21:22
  blackly the rock stood out against a background of shaded blue, where the sky,
• 2:21:28
  fading into mist, met the far horizon. The sea was of true
• 2:21:31
  Cornish hue sapphire, save where it became deep emerald green in the fathomless depths
• 2:21:39
  under the cliffs where the seal caves opened their grim jaws on the slopes.
• 2:21:43
  The grass was parched and brown. The spikes of furze bushes were ashy gray,
• 2:21:50
  but the golden yellow of their flowers streamed along the hillside, dieping out
• 2:21:54
  in lines as the rock cropped up and lessening into patches and dots, till
• 2:21:58
  finally it died away all together, where the sea wind swept around the jutting
• 2:22:03
  cliffs and cut short the vegetation as though with an ever working aerial shear.
• 2:22:09
  The whole hillside, with its body of brown and flashes of yellow, was
• 2:22:13
  just like a colossal yellow hammer. The little harbour opened from the sea,
• 2:22:18
  between towering cliffs and behind a lonely rock pierced with many caves and blowholes,
• 2:22:24
  through which the sea in storm time sent its thunderous voice, together with a
• 2:22:28
  fountain of drifting spume. Hence it wound westwards in a serpentine course, guarded
• 2:22:35
  at its entrance by two little curving piers to left and right. These were
• 2:22:41
  roughly built of dark slates, placed endways and held together with great beams browned
• 2:22:46
  with iron bands. Thence it flowed up the rocky bed of the stream whose
• 2:22:50
  winter torrents had of old put out its way amongst the hills. This stream
• 2:22:56
  was deep at first with here and there were widened patches of broken rock exposed
• 2:23:01
  at low water, full of holes where crabs and lobsters were to be found
• 2:23:05
  at the ebb of the tide. From amongst the rocks rose steady pursts,
• 2:23:11
  used for warping in the little coasting vessels which frequented the port. Higher up,
• 2:23:16
  the streams still flowed deeply for the tide run far inland, but always
• 2:23:22
  calmly for all the force of the while the storm was broken below some quarter
• 2:23:26
  mile inland. The stream was deep at high water, but a low tide
• 2:23:31
  there were each side patches of the same broken rock as lower down, through
• 2:23:35
  the chinks of which the sweet water of the natural stream tickled and murmured after
• 2:23:39
  the tide had ebbed away. Here too rose mooring posts for the fishermen's boats.
• 2:23:46
  At either side of the river was a row of cottages down almost on
• 2:23:50
  the level of high tide. They were pretty cottages, strongly and snugly built,
• 2:23:54
  with trim narrow gardens in front, full of old fashioned plants, flowering
• 2:23:58
  cot trants, colored primroses, wallflower and stone. Crop. Over the fronts
• 2:24:03
  of many of them find clematis and wisteria. The window sides and doorposts of
• 2:24:09
  all were as white as snow, and the little pathway to each was paved
• 2:24:13
  with light colored stones. At some of the doors were tiny porches, whilst
• 2:24:18
  others were rustic seats cut from tree trunks or from old barrels. In nearly
• 2:24:22
  every case, the window ledges were filled with boxes or pots of flowers or
• 2:24:26
  foliage plants. Two men lived in cottages exactly opposite each other across the stream.
• 2:24:35
  Two men, both young, both good looking, both prosperous, and
• 2:24:39
  who had been companions and rivals from their boyhood. Abel Behenna was dark,
• 2:24:45
  with a gypsy darkness which the Phoenician mining wanderers left in their track. Eric
• 2:24:50
  Sampson, which the local antiquarian said was a corruption of Sagomanson, was fair,
• 2:24:56
  which the ruddy hue which marked the path of the now wild norsemenes.
• 2:25:01
  These two seemed to have singled out each other from the very beginning, to
• 2:25:05
  work and strive together, to fight for each other, and to step back
• 2:25:09
  to back in all endeavors. They had now put the coping stone on their
• 2:25:13
  temple of unity by falling in love with the same girl. Sarah refuses was
• 2:25:20
  certainly the prettiest girl in Pencastle, and there was many a young man who
• 2:25:24
  would gladly have tried his fortune with her, but that there were two to
• 2:25:28
  contend against, and each of these the strongest and most resolute man in the
• 2:25:33
  port except the other. The average young man thought that this was very hard,
• 2:25:39
  and on account of it, bore no good will to either of the
• 2:25:41
  three principles. Whilst the average young woman, who had lest worse, should
• 2:25:48
  befall to put up with the grumbling of her sweetheart and the sense of being
• 2:25:52
  only second best, which it implied, did not either be sure regard Sarah
• 2:25:56
  with friendly eye. Thus it came in the course of a year or so.
• 2:26:03
  The rustic courtship is a slow process. That the two men and women
• 2:26:07
  found themselves thrown much together. They were all satisfied, so it did not
• 2:26:13
  matter, And Sarah, who was vain and something frivolous, took care to
• 2:26:18
  have her revenge on both men and women in a quiet way. When a
• 2:26:24
  young woman in her walking out could only boast one not quite satisfied young man.
• 2:26:28
  It is no particular pleasure for her to see her escort cast sheep's eyes
• 2:26:33
  at a better looking girl, supported by two devoted swains at length. There
• 2:26:39
  came a time which Sarah dreaded, and which she had tried to keep distant,
• 2:26:43
  the time when she had to make a choice between the two men.
• 2:26:48
  She liked them both, and indeed either of them might have satisfied the ideas
• 2:26:52
  of even a more exacting girl. But her mind was so constituted that she
• 2:26:58
  thought more of what she might lose than of what she might gain. And
• 2:27:03
  whenever she thought she had made up her mind, she became instantly assailed with
• 2:27:07
  doubts as to the wisdom of her choice. Always, the man whom she
• 2:27:11
  had presumably lost became endowed afresh with a newer and more bountiful crop of advantages
• 2:27:18
  than had ever arisen from the possibility of his acceptance. She promised each man
• 2:27:24
  that on her birthday she would give him his answer, and that day,
• 2:27:28
  the eleventh of April, had now arrived. The promises had been given singly
• 2:27:33
  and confidentially, but each was given to a man who was not likely to
• 2:27:37
  forget. Early in the morning, she found both men hopping around her door,
• 2:27:43
  neither had taken the other into his confidence, and each was simply seeking
• 2:27:48
  an early opportunity of getting his answer and advancing his suit if necessary. Damon,
• 2:27:54
  as a rule, does not take pittheous with him when making a proposal,
• 2:27:58
  and the heart of each man his own affairs had a claim far above
• 2:28:03
  any requirements of friendship, so throughout the day they kept seeing each other out
• 2:28:09
  The position was feltless somewhat embarrassing to Sarah, and though the satisfaction of her
• 2:28:16
  vanity that she should be thus adored was very pleasing, yet there were moments
• 2:28:22
  when she was annoyed with both men for being so persistent. Her only consolation
• 2:28:28
  at such moments was that she saw through the elaborate smiles of the other girls,
• 2:28:33
  when in passing they noticed her daughters doubly guarded the jealousy which filled their
• 2:28:37
  hearts. Sarah's mother was a person of commonplace and sordid ideas, and seeing
• 2:28:45
  all along the state of affairs, her one intention, persistently expressed to her
• 2:28:50
  daughter in the plainest words, was to so arrange matters that Sarah should get
• 2:28:54
  all that was possible out of both men. With this purpose, she had
• 2:29:00
  cunningly kept herself as far as possible in the background in the matter of her
• 2:29:03
  daughter's wooings, and watched in silence. At first, Sarah had been indignant
• 2:29:09
  with her for her sordid views, but as usual, her weak nature gave
• 2:29:15
  way before persistence, and she had now got to the stage of acceptance.
• 2:29:20
  She was not surprised when her mother whispered to her in the little yard behind
• 2:29:24
  the house, go up the hillside for a while. I want to talk
• 2:29:28
  to these two. They're both reard heart for you, and now's the time
• 2:29:33
  to get things fixed. Sarah began a feeble remonstrance, but her mother cut
• 2:29:39
  her short. I tell you, girl that my mind is made up both
• 2:29:43
  these men, aren't you. I only one can have you, But before
• 2:29:46
  you choose, it'll be so arranged that you'll have all that both have got.
• 2:29:50
  Don't argy, child, Go up the hillside, and when you come
• 2:29:52
  back, I'll have it fixed. I see you away quite easy. So
• 2:29:58
  Sarah went up the hillside through the narrow pass between the golden Firs, and
• 2:30:01
  Missus Trefusius joined the two men in the living room of the little house.
• 2:30:07
  She opened attack with a desperate courage, which is in all mothers when they
• 2:30:11
  think for their children, howsoever mean the thoughts may be. You two men,
• 2:30:16
  you're both in love with my Sarah. Their bashful silence gave consent to
• 2:30:20
  the bare faced proposition. She went on, neither of you has much.
• 2:30:26
  Again, they tacitly acquiesced in the soft impeachment. I don't know that either
• 2:30:31
  of you could keep a wife. Though neither said a word, their lux
• 2:30:35
  and bearing expressed distinct descent. Missus Trefusis went on, but if you'd put
• 2:30:43
  what you both have together, you'd make a comfortable home for one year and
• 2:30:48
  Sarah. She eyed the men keenly, with her cunning eyes half shut as
• 2:30:54
  she spoke. Then, satisfied, satisfied from her scrutiny that the idea was
• 2:30:58
  accepted, she went quickly, as if to prevent argument. The girl likes
• 2:31:03
  you both, and mayhap it's hard for her to choose. Why don't you
• 2:31:07
  toss up for her first? Put your money together. You've each got a
• 2:31:11
  bit put by. I know. Let the lucky man take the lot and
• 2:31:15
  trade with it a bit, and then come home and marrier. Neither of
• 2:31:18
  you is afraid, I suppose, and neither of you'll say that you won't
• 2:31:22
  do that much for the girl that you both say you love. Abel broke
• 2:31:26
  the silence. It don't seem the square thing to toss for the girl.
• 2:31:31
  She won't like it herself, and it doesn't seem respectful like to her.
• 2:31:35
  Eric interrupted, He was conscious that his chance was not so good as Abel's
• 2:31:41
  in case Sarah should wish to choose between them. You're afraid of the hazard,
• 2:31:45
  not me, said Abel boldly. Miss Stuffusius, seeing that her idea
• 2:31:50
  was beginning to work, followed up the advantage. It is settled that you
• 2:31:56
  put your money together to make a home for her, whether you toss for
• 2:31:58
  her or leave it for her to choose, Yes, said Eric quickly,
• 2:32:03
  and Abele agreed with equal sturdiness. Missus Effusus's little cunning eyes twinkled. She
• 2:32:11
  heard Sarah step in the yard and said, well, here she comes,
• 2:32:13
  and I leave it to her, and she went out. During her brief
• 2:32:18
  walk on the hillside, Sarah had been trying to make up her mind.
• 2:32:22
  She was feeling almost angry with both men for being the cause of her difficulty,
• 2:32:26
  and as she came into the room said shortly, I want to have
• 2:32:30
  a word with you. Both come to the flagstaff rock, where we can
• 2:32:33
  be alone. She took her hat and went out of the house, up
• 2:32:37
  the winding path to the steep rock crowned with a high flagstaff where once the
• 2:32:41
  wreckers firebasket used to burn. This was the rock which formed the northern jaw
• 2:32:46
  of the little harbor. There was only room on the path for two abreast,
• 2:32:50
  and it marked the state of things pretty well when, by a sort
• 2:32:54
  of implied arrangement, Sarah went first, and the two men followed, walking
• 2:32:58
  abreast and keeping step. By this time each man's heart was boiling with jealousy.
• 2:33:05
  When they came to the top of the rock, Sarah stood against the
• 2:33:09
  flagstaff, and the two young men stood opposite her. She had chosen her
• 2:33:13
  position with knowledge and intention, for there was no room for anyone to stand
• 2:33:18
  beside her. They were all silent for a while. Then Sarah began to
• 2:33:22
  laugh and said, I promise the both of you to give you an answer
• 2:33:28
  today. I've been thinking. I've been thinking and thinking till till I began
• 2:33:33
  to get angry with you. Both are laving me so and even now I
• 2:33:37
  don't see many nearer than ever. I was to making up my mind.
• 2:33:41
  Eric said suddenly let us toss for it last. Sarah showed no indignation whatever
• 2:33:48
  at the proposition. Her mother's eternal suggestion had scolded her to the acceptance of
• 2:33:54
  something of the kind, and her weak nature made it easy for her to
• 2:33:56
  grasp at any way out of the difficulty. She stood with downcast eyes,
• 2:34:03
  madly picking at the sleeve of her dress, seemed to have tusitly acquiesced in
• 2:34:07
  the proposal. Both men, instinctively realizing this, pulled each a coin from
• 2:34:13
  his pocket, spun it in the air, and dropped his other hand over
• 2:34:16
  the palm on which it lay. For a few seconds, there remained thus
• 2:34:20
  all silent. Then Abel, who was the more thoughtful of the men,
• 2:34:24
  spoke, Sarah, is this good? As he spoke, he removed the
• 2:34:30
  upper hand from the coin and placed the latter back in his pocket. Sarah
• 2:34:35
  was nettled good or bad, it's good enough for me. Take it or
• 2:34:39
  leave it as you like, she said, to which he quickly replied,
• 2:34:43
  nay Las ought the consonance you is good enough for me. I did,
• 2:34:48
  but think of you lest you might have some pain or disappointment hereafter. If
• 2:34:50
  you look very better or me God's names say so, and I think,
• 2:34:54
  how man, and not to stand inside? Likewise I find the wor don't
• 2:35:00
  make us both miserable for life? Face to face with a difficulty, Sarah's
• 2:35:05
  weak nature proclaimed itself. She put her hands before her face. Are they
• 2:35:11
  going to cry? Saying with my mother, she keeps telling me. The
• 2:35:16
  silence which followed is broken by Eric, who said hotly to Abel, let
• 2:35:20
  the last alone, can't you? She wants to choose this way. Letter,
• 2:35:24
  It's good enough for me and for you too, she said it now
• 2:35:28
  must have bullied by it. Hereupon, Sarah turned upon him in sudden fury
• 2:35:33
  and cried, hold your tom what is it to you at any rate?
• 2:35:37
  And she resumed her crying. Eric was so flabbergasted that he had not a
• 2:35:41
  word to say, but stood looking particularly foolish, with his mouth open and
• 2:35:46
  his hands held out, with the coin still between them. Or was silent
• 2:35:50
  till Sarah, taking her hands from her face, laughed hysterically and said,
• 2:35:56
  as you two can't make up your minds, I'm going home. And she
• 2:36:01
  turned to go. Stop, said Abel in an authoritative voice, Eric,
• 2:36:07
  you hold the coin, nor cry now before we settle it. Let us
• 2:36:11
  clearly understand. The man who wins takes all the money that we both have
• 2:36:16
  got, brings it to Bristol and ships on a voyage and trees with it.
• 2:36:20
  Then he comes back marry Sarah, and they too, keep all whatever
• 2:36:24
  there may be as a result of the trading. Is this what we understand?
• 2:36:30
  Yes, said Eric. I'll marry him on my next birthday, said
• 2:36:35
  Sarah. Having said it. The intolerably mercenary spirit of her actions seemed to
• 2:36:39
  strike her, and impulsively she turned away with a bright blush. Fire seemed
• 2:36:45
  to sparkle in the eyes of both men, said Eric. A year or
• 2:36:48
  so be the man that wins is to have one year. Toss, cried
• 2:36:52
  Abel, and the coin spun in the air. Eric caught it and again
• 2:36:56
  held it between his outstretched hands. Heads cried Abe, a palace swooping over
• 2:37:01
  his face as he spoke. As he leaned forward to look, Sarah leaned
• 2:37:05
  forward too, and their heads almost touched. He could feel her hair blowing
• 2:37:09
  on his cheek, and it thrilled through him like fire. Eric lifted his
• 2:37:13
  upper hand, the coin lay with its head up. Abel stepped forward and
• 2:37:16
  took Sarah in his arms. With a curse. Eric felled the coin far
• 2:37:20
  into the sea. Then he leaned against the flagstaff and scowled at the others,
• 2:37:26
  with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Abel whispered wild words of
• 2:37:31
  passion and delight into Sarah's ears, and as she listened, she began to
• 2:37:35
  believe that fortune had quietly interpreted the wishes of her secret heart, and that
• 2:37:41
  she loved Abel best. Presently, Abel looked up and caught sight of Eric's
• 2:37:46
  face as the last ray of sunset struck it. The red light intensified the
• 2:37:50
  natural ruddiness of his complexion, and he looked as though he were steeped in
• 2:37:54
  blood. Abel did not mind his scowlful, now that his own heart was
• 2:37:58
  at rest, he could feel unalloyed pity for his friend. He stepped over
• 2:38:03
  me need to comfort him, and held out his hand, saying, it
• 2:38:07
  was my chance, old lad. Don't gudget me. I'll try to make
• 2:38:11
  Sarah a happy woman, and you shall be a brother Twias. Both brother
• 2:38:15
  be damned, was all the answer Eric made as he turned away. When
• 2:38:20
  he had gone a few steps down the rocky path, he turned and came
• 2:38:22
  back, standing before Abel and Sarah, who had their arms around each other.
• 2:38:26
  He said. You have a year, make the most of it,
• 2:38:31
  and be sure you're in time to claim your wife. Be back to have
• 2:38:33
  your bands up, in time to be married on the eleventh of April.
• 2:38:37
  If you're not, I tell you or he shall have my bands up,
• 2:38:41
  and you may get back too late. What do you mean, Eric,
• 2:38:45
  you're mad, no more mad than you are able the hennah you go.
• 2:38:48
  That's your chance for restate, that's mine. I don't mean to let the
• 2:38:52
  grass grow under my feet. Sarah cared no more for you than for me
• 2:38:58
  five minutes ago. And you may come back to night five minutes after your
• 2:39:03
  You won by a point. Only the game may change. The game won't
• 2:39:09
  change, said Abel shortly. Sarah, you'll be true to me. You
• 2:39:11
  won't marry till I return for a year, added Eric quickly. That's the
• 2:39:16
  bargain I promise for the year, said Sarah. A dark look came over
• 2:39:22
  Abel's face and he was about to speak, but he mustered himself and smiled.
• 2:39:28
  I mustn't be too hard or get angry tonight, come Eric. We
• 2:39:31
  played and fought together. I won fairly. I played fairy all the game
• 2:39:35
  of our wooing. You know that as well as I do. And now
• 2:39:39
  when I'm going away, I shall look to my old and true comrade to
• 2:39:41
  help me. When I'm gone, I'll help you, none, said Eric,
• 2:39:46
  So help me God, it was God, help me, said Abel
• 2:39:50
  simply. Then let him go on helping you, said Eric angrily. The
• 2:39:54
  devil is good enough for me, And without another word, he rushed down
• 2:39:58
  the steep path and disappeared behind the rocks. When he had gone, Abel
• 2:40:03
  hoped for some tender passage with Sarah, but the first remark she made chilled
• 2:40:07
  him. How lonely all seemed without Eric, and this note sounded till he
• 2:40:13
  had left her at home and after early on the next morning, Abel heard
• 2:40:18
  a noise at his door, and, on going out, saw Eric walking
• 2:40:22
  rapidly away. A small canvas bag full of gold and silver lay on the
• 2:40:26
  threshold. On a small slip of paper pinned to it was written, take
• 2:40:31
  the money and go. I stay God for you, the devil for me,
• 2:40:35
  Remember the eleventh of April, Eric Samson. That afternoon Abel went off
• 2:40:41
  to Bristol, and a week later sailed on the Star of the Sea,
• 2:40:45
  bound for pahand his money, including that which had been Eric's, was on
• 2:40:50
  board. In the shape of a venture of cheap toys. He had been
• 2:40:52
  advised by a shrewd old mariner of Bristol, whom he knew, and who
• 2:40:56
  knew the ways of the Chersonese, who predicted that every penny invested would be
• 2:41:01
  returned with a shilling to boot. As the year wore on, Sarah became
• 2:41:05
  more and more disturbed in her mind. Eric was always at hand to make
• 2:41:09
  a love to her in his own persistent, masterful manner, and to this
• 2:41:13
  she did not object. Only one letter came from Abel to say that his
• 2:41:18
  venture had proved successful, and that he had sent some two hundred pounds to
• 2:41:22
  the bank at Bristol and was trading with fifty pounds still remaining in goods for
• 2:41:26
  China, whither the Star of the Sea was bound, and whence she would
• 2:41:31
  return to Bristol. He suggested that Eric's share of the venture should be returned
• 2:41:35
  to him with his share of the profits. This proposition was treated with anger
• 2:41:39
  by Eric in a simply childish by Sarah's mother. More than six months had
• 2:41:45
  since then elapsed, but no other letter had come, and Eric's hopes,
• 2:41:48
  which had been dashed down by the letter from Pahn began to rise again.
• 2:41:52
  He perpetually assailed Sarah with an if if Abel did not return, would she
• 2:41:58
  then marry him? If the eleventh of April went by without Able being in
• 2:42:01
  the port, would she give him over? If Abel had taken this fortune
• 2:42:05
  and married another girl ahead of it, would she marry him Eric as soon
• 2:42:09
  as the truth were known? And so on? In an endless variety of
• 2:42:13
  possibilities, the power of the strong will and the determined purpose over the woman's
• 2:42:18
  weaker nature became in time manifest. Sarah began to lose her faith enable and
• 2:42:24
  to regard Eric as a possible husband. And a possible husband is in a
• 2:42:28
  woman's eye, different to all other men. A new affection for him began
• 2:42:31
  to arise in her breast, and the daily familiarities of permitted courtship furthered the
• 2:42:37
  growing affection. Sarah began to regard Abel as rather a rock in the road
• 2:42:41
  of her life, And had it not been for her mother's constantly reminding her
• 2:42:46
  of the good fortune already laid by in the Bristol bank, she would have
• 2:42:50
  tried to have shut her eyes altogether to the fact of Abel's existence. The
• 2:42:54
  eleventh of April was a Saturday, so that in order to have the marriage
• 2:42:58
  on that day it would be I say that the band should be called on
• 2:43:01
  Sunday, the twenty second of March. From the beginning of that month,
• 2:43:05
  Eric kept perpetually on the subject of Abel's absence. His outspoken opinion that the
• 2:43:09
  latter was either dead or married began to become a reality to the woman's mind.
• 2:43:15
  As the first half of the month were on, Eric became more jubilant,
• 2:43:18
  and after church on the fifteenth he took Sarah for a walk to the
• 2:43:22
  flagstaff rock. There he asserted himself strongly. I told Abel and you too,
• 2:43:28
  that if he was not here to put up his bands in time for
• 2:43:30
  the eleventh, I'll put up mine for the twelfth. Now the time has
• 2:43:33
  come when I mean to do it. He hasn't kept his word. Here,
• 2:43:37
  Sarah struck in out of her weakness and indecision. He hasn't broken it
• 2:43:41
  yet. Eric ground his teeth with anger. If you mean to stick up
• 2:43:46
  for him, he said, as he smoked his hands savagely on the flagstaff,
• 2:43:50
  which sent forth a shivering murmur. Well and good, I'll keep my
• 2:43:54
  part of the bargain. On Sunday or I shall give notice of the bands,
• 2:44:00
  and you can deny them in the church if you will. If Abel
• 2:44:03
  is in Pencastle on the eleventh, he can have them counseled and his own
• 2:44:05
  put up Till then, oh take my course, and woe to any one
• 2:44:11
  who stands in my way. With that, he flung himself down the rocky
• 2:44:15
  pathway, and Sarah could not but admire his Viking strength and spirit. As
• 2:44:20
  crossing the hill, he strode away along the cliffs towards Beude. During the
• 2:44:24
  week, no news was heard of Abel, and on Saturday Eric gave notice
• 2:44:28
  of the bands of marriage between himself and Sarah. Suffusus the clergyman would have
• 2:44:33
  remonstrated with him, for although nothing formal had been told to the neighbors,
• 2:44:39
  it had been understood since Abe's departure that on his return he was to marry
• 2:44:43
  Sarah. But Eric would not discuss the question. It is a painful subject,
• 2:44:48
  sir, he said, with a firmace, which the parson, who
• 2:44:50
  was a very young man, could not but be swayed by. Surely there
• 2:44:54
  is nothing against Sarah or me. Why should there be any bones made about
• 2:44:58
  the matter? The parson said no more, and on the next day,
• 2:45:03
  he read out the bands for the first time, amidst an audible buzz from
• 2:45:05
  the congregation. Sarah was present, contrary to custom, and though she blushed,
• 2:45:11
  furiously enjoyed her triumph over the other girls whose bands had not yet come.
• 2:45:18
  Before the week was over, she began to make her wedding dress.
• 2:45:22
  Eric used to come and look at her at work, and the sight thrilled
• 2:45:26
  through him. He used to say all sorts of pretty things to her at
• 2:45:28
  such times, and they were to both delicious moments of love making. The
• 2:45:33
  bands were read a second time on the twenty ninth, and Eric's hope grew
• 2:45:37
  more and more fixed, though there were to him moments of acute despair,
• 2:45:41
  when he realized that the cup of happiness might be dashed from his lips at
• 2:45:46
  any moment, right up to the last. At such times he was full
• 2:45:50
  of passion, desperate and remorseless, and he ground his teeth and clenched his
• 2:45:54
  hands in a wild way, as though some taint of the old berserker fury
• 2:45:58
  of his ancestors still lingered in his blood. On the Thursday of that week,
• 2:46:01
  he looked in on Sarah and found her amid a flood of sunshine,
• 2:46:05
  putting Finish's touches to her white wedding gown. His own heart was full of
• 2:46:09
  gayety, and the sight of the woman who was so soon to be his
• 2:46:13
  own so occupied, filled him with a joy unspeakable, and he felt faint
• 2:46:18
  with languorous ecstasy. Bending over, he kissed Sarah on the mouth, and
• 2:46:22
  then whispered in her rosy, ear your wedding dress, Sarah, and for
• 2:46:26
  me. As he drew back to admire her, she looked up saucily and
• 2:46:31
  said to him, perhaps not for you. There is more than a week
• 2:46:35
  yet for Abele, and then cried out in dismay, for with a wild
• 2:46:39
  gesture and a fierce of Eric dashed out of the house, banging the door
• 2:46:43
  behind him. The incident disturbed Sarah more than she could have thought possible,
• 2:46:46
  for it to web all her fears and doubts and indecision afresh. She cried
• 2:46:50
  a little, and put by her dress, and to soothe herself, went
• 2:46:54
  out to sit for a while on the summit of the Flagstaff Rock. When
• 2:46:58
  she arrived, she found that there a little group anxiously discussing the weather.
• 2:47:03
  The sea was calm and the sun bright, but across the sea with strange
• 2:47:07
  lines of darkness and light, and close into shore, the rocks were fringed
• 2:47:09
  with foam, which spread out in great white curves and circles. As the
• 2:47:13
  current drifted. The wind had backed and came in sharp cold puffs. The
• 2:47:20
  blowhole, which ran under the flagstaff rock from the rocky bay without to the
• 2:47:26
  harbor within, was booming at intervals, and the seagulls were screaming ceaselessly as
• 2:47:31
  they wheeled about the entrance of the port. It looks bad, she heard
• 2:47:37
  an old fisherman say to the coast guard. I seen it just like this
• 2:47:41
  once before, when the East Indiaman commandel went to preeces in Desert Bay.
• 2:47:46
  Sarah did not wait to hear more. She was of a timid nature where
• 2:47:50
  danger was concerned, and could not bear to hear of wrecks and disasters.
• 2:47:56
  She went home and resumed the completion of her dress, secretly determined to appease
• 2:48:01
  Eric when she should meet him with a sweet apology, and to take the
• 2:48:05
  earnest opportunity of being even with him after her marriage. The old fisherman's weather
• 2:48:11
  prophecy was justified that night, a dusk or wild storm came on the sea,
• 2:48:18
  rose and lashed the western coasts from Sky to Scilly, and left a
• 2:48:22
  tale of disaster everywhere. The sailors and fishermen of Pencastle all turned out on
• 2:48:28
  the rocks and cliffs and watched eagerly. Presently, by a flash of lightning,
• 2:48:33
  a ketch was seen drifting under only a jib about half a mile outside
• 2:48:37
  the port. All eyes and all glasses were concentrated on her, waiting for
• 2:48:43
  the next flash, And when it came, a chorus went up that it
• 2:48:46
  was the lovely Alice, trading between Bristol and Penzance, and touching at all
• 2:48:50
  the little ports between. God help them, said the harbor master, for
• 2:48:56
  nothing in this world can save them when they are between beudanted tadule and the
• 2:49:01
  wind on shore. The coastguards exerted themselves, and, aided by brave hearts
• 2:49:05
  and willing hands, they brought the rocket apparatus onto the summit of the flagstaff
• 2:49:09
  rock. Then they burned blue lights so that those on board might see the
• 2:49:15
  harbor opening in case they could make any effort to reach it. They worked
• 2:49:18
  gallantly enough on board, but no skill or strength of man could avail.
• 2:49:24
  Before many minutes were over, the lovely Alice rushed to her doom on the
• 2:49:28
  great island rock that guarded the mouth of the port. The screams of those
• 2:49:33
  on board were faintly borne on the tempest as they flung themselves into the sea
• 2:49:37
  in a last chance for life. The blue lights were kept burning, and
• 2:49:41
  eager eyes peered into the depths of the waters in case any face could be
• 2:49:46
  seen, and ropes were held ready to fling out in aid. But never
• 2:49:50
  a face was seen, and the willing arms rested idle. Eric was there
• 2:49:56
  amongst his fellows. His old Icelandic origin was never more you were apparent than
• 2:50:01
  in that wild hour. He took a rope and shouted in the ear of
• 2:50:03
  the harbour master. I shall go down on the rock over the seal cave.
• 2:50:07
  The tide is running up and someone may drift in there. Key bark
• 2:50:11
  Man, came the answer, are you mad? One slip on that rock
• 2:50:16
  and you were lost. No man could keep his feet in the dark on
• 2:50:20
  such a place, in such a tempest. Not a bit came the reply.
• 2:50:26
  You remember how able Bahn has saved me there on a night like this.
• 2:50:28
  When my boat went on the goal rock, he dragged me up from
• 2:50:31
  the deep water in the seal cave, and if someone may drift in there
• 2:50:33
  again, as I did, and he was gone into the darkness. The
• 2:50:39
  projecting rock hid the light on the flagstaff rock, but he knew his way
• 2:50:43
  too well to miss it, his boldness and sureeness of foot standing to him.
• 2:50:48
  He shortly stood on the great round top rock, cut away beneath by
• 2:50:52
  the action of the waves over the entrance of the seal cave, where the
• 2:50:54
  water was fathomless. There he stood in comparative safety, for the concave shape
• 2:51:01
  of the rock beat back the waves with their own force, and though the
• 2:51:03
  water below him seemed to boil like a seething caldron, just beyond the spot
• 2:51:09
  there was a space of almost calm. The rock, too, seemed here
• 2:51:13
  to shut off the sound of the gale, and he listened as well as
• 2:51:16
  watched as he stood there, ready with his coil of rope poised to throw,
• 2:51:20
  he thought he heard below him, just beyond the whirl of the water,
• 2:51:24
  a faint, despairing cry. He echoed it with a shout that rang
• 2:51:28
  into the night. Then he waited for the flash of lightning, and as
• 2:51:33
  it passed, flung his rope out into the darkness where he had seen a
• 2:51:35
  face rising through the swell of the foam. The rope was caught, for
• 2:51:39
  he felt upon on it, and he shouted again in his mighty voice,
• 2:51:45
  tie it round your waist and I shall pull you up. Then, when
• 2:51:48
  he felt that it was fast, he moved along the rock to the far
• 2:51:52
  side of the sea cave, where the water was something stiller, and where
• 2:51:54
  he could get footholds secure enough to drag the rescued man. On the overhanging
• 2:51:58
  rock. He began to pull, and surely he knew from the rope taken
• 2:52:03
  in that the man he was now rescuing must soon be closed to the top
• 2:52:05
  of the rock. He steadied himself for a moment and drew a long breath,
• 2:52:11
  that he might, at the next effort, complete the rescue. He
• 2:52:15
  had just bent his back to the work when a flash of lightning revealed to
• 2:52:18
  the other, each to the other. The two men, the rescuer and
• 2:52:22
  the rescued Eric Samson and Abel Behenna, were face to face, and none
• 2:52:28
  knew of the meeting save themselves and God. On the instant, a wave
• 2:52:33
  of passion swept through Eric's heart, all his hopes were shattered, and with
• 2:52:39
  the hatred of Cain his eyes looked out. He saw, in the instant
• 2:52:43
  of recognition the joy in Abel's face that his was the hand to succor him,
• 2:52:48
  and this intensified his hate. Whilst the passion was on him, he
• 2:52:52
  started back and the rope ran out between his hands. His moment of hate
• 2:52:58
  was followed by an impulse of his better manhood, but it was too late.
• 2:53:03
  Before he could recover himself, Abel, encumbered with a rope that should
• 2:53:07
  have aided him, was plunged with a despairing cry, back into the darkness
• 2:53:13
  of the devouring sea. Then, feeling all the madness and the doom of
• 2:53:18
  Cain upon him, Eric rushed back over the rocks, heedless of the danger
• 2:53:22
  and eager only for one thing to be amongst other people whose living noises would
• 2:53:28
  shut out that last cry, which seemed to ring still in his ears.
• 2:53:33
  When he regained the flagstaff rock, the men surrounded him, and through the
• 2:53:37
  fury of the storm, he heard the harbour master say, we feared you
• 2:53:41
  were last when we heard a cry, How white you were where as you
• 2:53:45
  wrote? Was there anyone drifted in? No one? He shouted in answer,
• 2:53:52
  for he felt that he could never explain that he had let his old
• 2:53:54
  comrade slip back into the sea, and at the very place, and under
• 2:53:58
  the very circumstances in which thou comrade had saved his own life. He hoped,
• 2:54:05
  by one bold lie, to set the matter at rest forever there was
• 2:54:09
  no one to bear witness, and he should have to carry that still white
• 2:54:15
  face in his eyes, and that despairing cry in his ears for ever more,
• 2:54:18
  at least none should know of it, no one, he cried more
• 2:54:24
  loudly. Still I slept on the rock, the rope fell into the sea,
• 2:54:30
  so saying, he left them, and, rushing down the steep path,
• 2:54:33
  gained his own cottage and locked himself within the remainder of That night,
• 2:54:37
  he passed lying on his bed, dressed and motionless, staring upwards and seeming
• 2:54:43
  to see through the darkness a pale face gleaming wet in the lightning, with
• 2:54:48
  its glad recognition turning to ghastly despair, and to hear a cry which never
• 2:54:52
  ceased to echo in his soul. In the morning, the storm was over,
• 2:54:58
  and all was smiling again, except that the sea was still boisterous with
• 2:55:01
  its unspent fury. Great pieces of wreck drifted into the port, and the
• 2:55:07
  sea around the island rock was strewn with others. Two bodies also drifted into
• 2:55:11
  the harbor, one the master of the wrecked catch, the other a strange
• 2:55:16
  seaman whom no one knew. Sarah saw nothing of Eric till the evening,
• 2:55:22
  and then he Ury looked in for a minute. He did not come into
• 2:55:26
  the house, but simply put his head in through the open window. Well,
• 2:55:31
  Sarah, he called out in a loud voice, though to her it
• 2:55:33
  did not ring truly. Is the wedding dress done? Sunday week? Mind
• 2:55:39
  Sunday week? Sarah was glad to have the reconciliation so easy but womanlike.
• 2:55:46
  When she saw the storm was over and her own fears groundless, she at
• 2:55:50
  once repeated the cause of offense Sunday. So be it, she said,
• 2:55:54
  without looking up. The fable isn't there on Saturday. Then she looked up,
• 2:55:58
  so though her heart was full of fear of another outburst on the part
• 2:56:03
  of her impetuous lover, but the window was empty. Eric had taken himself
• 2:56:07
  off, and with a pout she resumed her work. She saw Eric no
• 2:56:13
  more till Sunday. Afternoon, after the bands had been called the third time,
• 2:56:16
  when he came up to her before all the people, with an air
• 2:56:20
  of proprietorship, which half pleased and half annoyed her. Not yet, mister,
• 2:56:26
  she said, pushing him away, as the other girls giggled. Wait
• 2:56:28
  till Sunday next, if you please, day after Saturday, she added,
• 2:56:31
  looking at him saucily. The girls giggled again, and the young men go
• 2:56:37
  forward. They thought it was the snub that touched him, so that he
• 2:56:41
  became as white as a sheet as he turned away. But Sarah, who
• 2:56:45
  knew more than they did, laughed, for she saw triumph through the spasm
• 2:56:50
  of pain that overspread his face. The week passed underventfully, However, a
• 2:56:56
  Saturday, jun Sarah had occasional moments of the anxiety, and as to Eric,
• 2:57:01
  he went about at night time like a man possessed. He restrained himself
• 2:57:05
  when others were by, but now and again he went down amongst the rocks
• 2:57:09
  and caves and shouted aloud. This seemed to relieve him somewhat, and he
• 2:57:15
  was better able to restrain himself for some time after all. Saturday he stayed
• 2:57:20
  in his own house and never left it as he was to be married on
• 2:57:24
  the morrow. The neighbors thought it was shyness on his part and did not
• 2:57:28
  trouble or notice him. Only once was he disturbed, and that was when
• 2:57:33
  the chief boatman came to him and sat down, and after a pause said,
• 2:57:37
  Eric, I was over in Bristol yesterday. I was in the road
• 2:57:41
  makers getting a coil to replace the one you lost the night of the storm.
• 2:57:45
  And there are sair Michael, heavens of this place. He was a
• 2:57:46
  salesman there. He told me that Abel Brehenna had come home the week he
• 2:57:52
  were last on the Star of the Sea from Canton, and he had lodged
• 2:57:54
  a sigh money in the Bristol bank in the name of Sarah Bahenna. He
• 2:58:00
  told Michael so himself, and that he had taken passage on the lovely Alice
• 2:58:05
  to Pencastle. Bear up man, for Eric had, with a groan,
• 2:58:11
  dropped his head on his knees with his face between his hands. He was
• 2:58:16
  your comrade, I know, but we couldn't help him. Must have gone
• 2:58:20
  down with the rest that awful night. I thought I'd better tell you,
• 2:58:24
  lest it might come some other way and you might keep Sarah refusus from being
• 2:58:28
  frightened. They were good friends once and women take these things to heart.
• 2:58:33
  Would not do to let her be pained with such a thing on her wedding
• 2:58:37
  day. Then he rose and went away, leaving Eric still sitting disconstantly with
• 2:58:43
  his head on his knees. Poor fellow, murmured the chief bowman to himself,
• 2:58:48
  takes it to heart. Oh well, right enough. They were two
• 2:58:52
  comrades once, and Abel saved him. The afternoon of that day, when
• 2:58:58
  the children had left school, they strayed, as usual on half holidays,
• 2:59:01
  along the quay and the paths by the cliffs. Presently some of them came
• 2:59:07
  running in a state of great excitement to the harbor, where a few men
• 2:59:09
  were unloading a coal catch, and a great many were superintending the operation.
• 2:59:15
  One of the children called out, there was a poor poise in the harbor.
• 2:59:18
  Mouth saw it comes through the blow hole, had a long tail,
• 2:59:20
  and it was deep under the water. It was no pauperise, said another
• 2:59:24
  was a seal ran a long tail came out of the seal cave. Hither
• 2:59:30
  children bore various testimony, but on two points there were unanimous. It whatever
• 2:59:35
  it was, had come through the blow hole. Deep under the water and
• 2:59:39
  had a long, thin tail, a tail so long that they could not
• 2:59:43
  see the end of it. There was much a merciful chaffing of the children
• 2:59:48
  by the men on this point, but as it was evident that they had
• 2:59:52
  seen something, quite a number of persons, young and old, male and
• 2:59:56
  female went along the high paths on either side of the harbor mouth to catch
• 3:00:00
  glimpse of this new addition to the fauna of the sea. Along tailed Pauper
• 3:00:03
  saw seal. The tide was now coming in, there was a slight breeze,
• 3:00:09
  and the surface of the water was rippled, so that it was only
• 3:00:13
  at moments that anyone could see clearly into the deep water. After a spell
• 3:00:18
  of watching, a woman called out that she saw something moving up the channel
• 3:00:22
  just below where she was standing. There was a stampede to the spot,
• 3:00:28
  but by the time the crowd had gathered, the breeze had freshened and it
• 3:00:31
  was impossible to see with any distinctness below the surface of the water. And
• 3:00:35
  being questioned, the woman described what she had seen, but in such an
• 3:00:39
  incoherent way that the whole thing was put down as an effective imagination. Had
• 3:00:46
  it not been for the Children's Report, she would not have been credited at
• 3:00:48
  all. Her semi hysterical statement that what she saw was like a pig with
• 3:00:54
  the entrails out was only thought of anything by the old coast guard, who
• 3:01:00
  shook his head but did not make any remark. For the remainder of the
• 3:01:05
  daylight, this man was seen always on the bank, looking into the water,
• 3:01:09
  but always with disappointment manifest on his face. Erica rose early on the
• 3:01:15
  next morning. He had not slept all night, and it was a relief
• 3:01:18
  to him to move about in the light. He shaved himself with a hand
• 3:01:22
  that did not tremble, and dressed himself in his wedding clothes. There was
• 3:01:28
  a haggard look on his face, and he seemed as though he had grown
• 3:01:31
  years older in the last few days. Still, there was a wild,
• 3:01:35
  uneasy light of triumph in his eyes, and he kept murmuring to himself over
• 3:01:41
  and over again, this is my wedding day. Abel cannot labor a now,
• 3:01:46
  living or dead, living or dead, living or dead. He sat
• 3:01:50
  in his arm chair, waiting with an uncanny quietness for the church hour to
• 3:01:56
  arrive. When the bell began to arraing, he arose and passed out of
• 3:02:00
  his house, closing the door behind him. He looked at the river and
• 3:02:05
  saw the tide had just turned. In the church, she sat with Sarah
• 3:02:09
  and her mother, holding Sarah's hand tightly in his awd time, as though
• 3:02:13
  he feared to loose her. When the service was over, they stood up
• 3:02:18
  together and were married in the presence of the entire congregation, but no one
• 3:02:22
  left the church. Both made the responses clearly Eric's being even on the defiant
• 3:02:28
  side. When the wedding was over, Sarah took her husband's arm and they
• 3:02:33
  walked away together, the boys and younger girls being cuffed by their elders into
• 3:02:37
  a decorous behavior, for they would fain have followed close behind their heels.
• 3:02:43
  The way from the church led down to the back of Eric's cottage, a
• 3:02:46
  narrow passage being between it and that of his next neighbor. When the bridal
• 3:02:50
  couple had passed through this, the remainder of the congregation, who had followed
• 3:02:54
  them at a little distance, were startled by a long, shrill scream from
• 3:03:00
  the bride. They rushed through the passage and found her on the bank with
• 3:03:03
  wild eyes pointing to the river bed opposite Eric Samson's door. The falling tide
• 3:03:11
  had deposited there the body of abel Behenna Stark upon the broken rocks. The
• 3:03:16
  rope trailing from its waist had been twisted by the current round the mooring post
• 3:03:22
  and had held it back while the tide had ebbed away from it. The
• 3:03:26
  right elbow had fallen in a chink in the rock, leaving the hand out
• 3:03:28
  stretched towards Sarah, with the open palm upward as though it were extended to
• 3:03:33
  receive hers, the pale, drooping fingers opened to the clasp. All that
• 3:03:39
  happened afterwards was never quite known to Sarah Samson. Whenever she would try to
• 3:03:45
  recollect there had become a buzzing in her ears, and the dimness in her
• 3:03:50
  eyes an all would pass away. The only thing that she could remember of
• 3:03:54
  it all, and this she never forgot, was Eric's breathing heavily, with
• 3:04:00
  his face whiter than that of the dead man, as he muttered under his
• 3:04:03
  breath Devil's Help, Devil's faith, Table's Price. The End The Burial of
• 3:04:15
  the Rats by Bram Stoker. Leave in Paris by the Orleans Road, cross
• 3:04:20
  the Incent and turn to the right. You find yourself in a somewhat wild
• 3:04:24
  and not at all savory district. Right and left before you, and behind
• 3:04:30
  and on every side rise great heaps of dust and waste, accumulated by the
• 3:04:33
  process of time. Paris has its night as well as its day life,
• 3:04:39
  and the sojourner who enters his hotel in the Rue de Rivoli or the Rue
• 3:04:41
  Centenar late at night or leaves it early in the morning, can guess,
• 3:04:46
  in coming near Montrouge, if he has not done so already, the purpose
• 3:04:50
  of those great wagons that look like boilers on wheels, which he finds halting
• 3:04:52
  everywhere as he passes. Every city has its peculiar institutions created out of its
• 3:04:58
  own needs. One of the most notable institutions of Paris is its ragpicking population.
• 3:05:05
  In the early morning. In Parisian life commences at an early hour,
• 3:05:09
  may be seen in most streets, standing on the pathway opposite every courtin ally
• 3:05:13
  in between every few houses. As still in some American cities, even in
• 3:05:16
  parts of New York, large wooden boxes into which the domestics or tenement holders
• 3:05:22
  empty the accumulated dust of the past day. Around these boxes gather and pass
• 3:05:26
  on when the work is done to fresh fields of labor, and pastors new
• 3:05:31
  squalid, hungry looking men and women, the implements of whose craft consists of
• 3:05:35
  a coarse bag or basket slung over the shoulder, and a little rake with
• 3:05:39
  which they turn over and probe and examine in the minutest manner. The dustbins
• 3:05:45
  they pick up and deposit in their baskets, spy eight of their rakes whatever
• 3:05:48
  they may find, with the same facility as a chinaman uses his chopsticks.
• 3:05:54
  Paris is a city of centralization, and centralization and classification are closely a lie.
• 3:06:00
  In the early times, when centralization is becoming a fact, its forerunner
• 3:06:05
  is classification. All things which are similar or analogous become grouped together, and
• 3:06:11
  from the grouping of groups rises one whole or central point. We see radiating
• 3:06:16
  many long arms with innumerable tenticulae, and in the center rises a gigantic head
• 3:06:20
  with a comprehensive brain and keen eyes to look on every side, and ears
• 3:06:26
  sensitive to hear, and a voracious mouth to swallow. Other cities resemble all
• 3:06:31
  the birds and beasts and fishes whose appetites and digestions are normal. Paris alone
• 3:06:35
  is the analogical hypothesis of the octopus product of centralization, carried in an ad
• 3:06:41
  absurdum. It fairly represents the devilfish, and in no respects is the resemblance
• 3:06:46
  more curious than in the similarity of the digestive apparatus. Those intelligent tourists,
• 3:06:52
  who, having surrendered their individuality into the hands of sher's cook or goze,
• 3:06:58
  do Paris in three days, are often puzzled to know how it is that
• 3:07:01
  the dinner, which in London would cost about six shillings, can be had
• 3:07:05
  for three francs in a cafe at the Palais Royale. They need have no
• 3:07:09
  more wonder, if they will but consider the classification, which is a theoretic
• 3:07:13
  specialty of Parisian life, and adopt all round the fact from which the Schiffer
• 3:07:18
  has his genesis. The Paris of eighteen fifty was not like the Paris of
• 3:07:22
  today, and those who see the Paris of Napoleon and Baron Houssmann can hardly
• 3:07:26
  realize the existence of the state of things forty five years ago. Amongst other
• 3:07:31
  things, however, which have not changed are those districts where the waste is
• 3:07:35
  gathered. Dust is dust, all the world over in every age, and
• 3:07:39
  the family likeness of dust heaps is perfect. The traveler, therefore, who
• 3:07:43
  visits the environs of Montrouge, can go back and fancy without difficulty to the
• 3:07:48
  year eighteen fifty. In this year I was making a prolonged stay in Paris.
• 3:07:54
  I was very much in love with a young lady, who, though
• 3:07:56
  she returned my passion, so far yielded to the wishes of her parents that
• 3:08:01
  she had promised not to see me or to correspond with me for a year.
• 3:08:05
  I too, had been compelled to accede to these conditions under a vague
• 3:08:09
  hope of parental approval. During the term of probation, I had promised to
• 3:08:13
  remain out of the country and not to write to my dear one until the
• 3:08:16
  expiration of the year. Naturally, the time went heavily with me. There
• 3:08:20
  was not one of my own family or circle who could tell me of Alice,
• 3:08:24
  and none of her own folk had, i am sorry to say,
• 3:08:26
  sufficient generosity to send me even an occasional word of comfort regarding her health and
• 3:08:31
  well being. I spent six months wandering about Europe, but as I could
• 3:08:37
  find no satisfactory distraction in travel. I determined to come to Paris, where
• 3:08:41
  at least I would be with an easy hail of London, in case any
• 3:08:45
  good fortune should call me thither before the appointed time. That hope deferred maketh
• 3:08:50
  the heart sick was never better exemplified than in my case, For in addition
• 3:08:54
  to the perpetual longing to see the face I loved, there was always with
• 3:08:58
  me a heroine anxiety lest some accident should prevent me showing Alice in due time
• 3:09:03
  that I had, throughout the long period of probation, been faithful to her
• 3:09:07
  trust and my own love. Thus every adventure which I undertook had a fierce
• 3:09:11
  pleasure of its own, for it was fraught with possible consequences greater than it
• 3:09:15
  would have ordinarily borne. Like all travelers, I exhausted the places of most
• 3:09:20
  interest in the first month of my stay, and was driven in the second
• 3:09:22
  month to look for amusement whithersoever I might. Having made sundry journeys to the
• 3:09:28
  better known suburbs, I began to see that there was a terror incognita in
• 3:09:33
  so far as the guide book was concerned, in the social wilderness lying between
• 3:09:37
  these attractive points. Accordingly, I began to systematize my researches, and every
• 3:09:43
  day took up the thread of my exploration at the place where I had on
• 3:09:46
  the previous day dropped it. In the process of time, my wanderings led
• 3:09:50
  me near Montrouge, and I saw that hereabouts lay the ultimathula of social exploration,
• 3:09:56
  a country as little known as that round the source of the White Nile.
• 3:10:00
  And so I determined to investigate philosophically the chiffonier, his habitat, his
• 3:10:05
  life, and his means of life. The job was an unsavory one,
• 3:10:09
  difficult of accomplishment and with little hope of adequate reward. However, despite reason,
• 3:10:16
  obstinacy prevailed, and I entered into my new investigation with a keener energy
• 3:10:20
  than I could have summoned to aid me in any investigation leading to any end
• 3:10:24
  valuable or worthy. One day late, in a fine afternoon, toward the
• 3:10:28
  end of September, I entered the Holy of holies of the city of Dust.
• 3:10:31
  The place was evidently the recognized abode of a number of chiffoniers, for
• 3:10:37
  some sort of arrangement was manifested in the formation of the dust heaps near the
• 3:10:41
  road I passed among these heaps, which stood like orderly sentries, determined to
• 3:10:46
  penetrate further and trace dust to its ultimate location. As I passed along,
• 3:10:52
  I saw behind the dust heaps a few forms that flitted to and fro,
• 3:10:54
  evidently watching with great interest the advent of any stranger to such a place.
• 3:11:00
  The district was like a small Switzerland, and as I went forward, my
• 3:11:03
  torturous course shut out the path behind me. Presently I got into what seemed
• 3:11:07
  a small city or community of Chiffoniers. There were a number of shanties or
• 3:11:11
  huts such as may be met with in the remote parts of the bog of
• 3:11:15
  Allen, rude places with wattled walls plastered with mud, and roofs of rude
• 3:11:20
  thatch made from stable refuse, Such places as one would not like to enter
• 3:11:24
  for any consideration, and which even in water color, could only look picturesque
• 3:11:30
  if judiciously treated. In the midst of these huts was one of the strangest
• 3:11:33
  adaptations I cannot say habitations I had ever seen. An immense old wardrobe,
• 3:11:39
  a colossal remnant of some boudoir of Charles the seventh or Henry the second,
• 3:11:45
  had been converted into a dwelling house. The double doors lay open, so
• 3:11:50
  that the entire menage was open to public view. In the open half of
• 3:11:54
  the wardrobe was a common sitting room of some four feet by six in which
• 3:11:58
  SAPs smoking their pipes found a charcoal brazier. No fewer than six old soldiers
• 3:12:03
  of the First Republic, with their uniforms torn and worn threadbare. Evidently they
• 3:12:09
  were of the mauvais Suget class. Their bleary eyes and limp jaws told plainly
• 3:12:13
  of a common love of absinthe, and their eyes had that haggard worn look
• 3:12:18
  of slumber and ferocity which follows hard in the wake of drink. The other
• 3:12:22
  side stood as of old, with its shelves intact, save that they were
• 3:12:26
  cut to half their depth, and in each shelf, of which there were
• 3:12:28
  six, was a bed made with rags and straw. The aft dozen of
• 3:12:33
  worthies who inhabited this structure looked at me curiously as I passed, and when
• 3:12:37
  I looked back after going a little way, I saw their heads together in
• 3:12:41
  a whispered conference. I did not like the look of this at all,
• 3:12:43
  for the place was very lonely, and the men looked very, very villainous.
• 3:12:48
  However, I did not see any cause for fear, and went on
• 3:12:52
  my way, penetrating further and further into the Sahara. The way was torturous
• 3:12:56
  to a degree, and from going round in a series of semi circles as
• 3:13:00
  one goes in skating with the Dutch roll, I got rather confused with regard
• 3:13:05
  to the points of the compass. When I had penetrated a little way,
• 3:13:07
  I saw as I turned the corner of a half made heap, sitting on
• 3:13:11
  a heap of straw, an old soldier with threadbare coat. Hallo, said
• 3:13:16
  I to myself, the First Republic is well represented here in its soldiery.
• 3:13:20
  As I passed him, the old man never even looked up at me,
• 3:13:24
  but gazed on the ground with stolid persistency. Again, I remarked to myself,
• 3:13:28
  see what a life a rude warfare can do. This old man's curiosity
• 3:13:33
  is a thing of the past. When I had gone a few steps,
• 3:13:35
  however, I looked back suddenly and saw that curiosity was not dead. For
• 3:13:39
  the veteran had raised his head and was regarding me with a very queer expression.
• 3:13:45
  He seemed to me to look very like one of the six worthies in
• 3:13:48
  the press. When he saw me looking, he dropped his head, and
• 3:13:52
  without thinking further of him, I went on my way, satisfied that there
• 3:13:54
  was a strange likeness between these old warriors. Presently I met another in a
• 3:14:00
  similar manner. He too did not notice me whilst I was passing. By
• 3:14:05
  this time it was getting late in the afternoon, and I began to think
• 3:14:07
  of retracing my steps. Accordingly, I turned to go back, but could
• 3:14:11
  see a number of tracks leading between different mounds, and could not ascertain which
• 3:14:16
  of them I should take. In my perplexity, I wanted to see someone
• 3:14:20
  of whom to ask the way, but could see no one. I determined
• 3:14:24
  to go on a few mounds further, and so try to see someone not
• 3:14:26
  a veteran. I gained my object, for after a couple of hundred yards,
• 3:14:31
  I saw before me a single shanty such as I had seen before,
• 3:14:35
  with however, the difference that this was not one for living in, but
• 3:14:39
  merely a roof with three walls open in front. From the evidences which the
• 3:14:43
  neighborhood exhibited, I took it to be a place for sortin. Within it
• 3:14:46
  was an old woman, wrinkled and bent with age. I approached her to
• 3:14:50
  ask her the way. She rose as I came close, and I asked
• 3:14:52
  her my way. She immediately commenced a conversation, and it occurred to me
• 3:14:58
  that here, in the very center of the Kingdom of Dust was a place
• 3:15:01
  to gather details of the history of Parisian ragpicking, particularly as I could do
• 3:15:05
  so from the lips of one who looked like the oldest inhabitant. I began
• 3:15:09
  my inquiries, and the old woman gave me most interest in answers. She
• 3:15:13
  had been one of the Setosis who had sat daily before the guillotine, and
• 3:15:16
  had taken an active part among the women who signalized themselves by their violence in
• 3:15:20
  the revolution. While we were talking, she said suddenly, but Monsieur must
• 3:15:26
  be tad standing, and dusted a rickety old stool for me to sit down.
• 3:15:31
  I hardly liked to do so, for many reasons, but the poor
• 3:15:35
  old woman was so civil that I did not like to run the risk of
• 3:15:37
  hurting her by refusing. And moreover, the conversation of one who had been
• 3:15:41
  at the taking of the bas Steele was so interesting that I sat down,
• 3:15:45
  and so our conversation went on. While we were talking an old man,
• 3:15:48
  older and more bent and wrinkled even than the woman, appeared from behind the
• 3:15:52
  shanty. Here is Pierre, said she, Monsieur, Can he his studies
• 3:15:58
  now if he wishes? For Pierre was in everything from the Bastille to Waterloo.
• 3:16:03
  The old man took another stool at my request, and we plunged into
• 3:16:07
  a sea of revolutionary reminiscences. This old man, albeit clothed like a scarecrow,
• 3:16:11
  was like any one of the six veterans. I was now sitting in
• 3:16:16
  the center of the low hut, with the woman on my left hand and
• 3:16:18
  the man on my right, each of them being somewhat in front of me.
• 3:16:22
  The place was full of all sorts of curious objects of lumber, and
• 3:16:26
  of many things that I wished far away. In one corner was a heap
• 3:16:30
  of rags, which seemed to move from the number of vermin it contained,
• 3:16:33
  and in the other a heap of bones, whose odor was something shocking.
• 3:16:37
  Every now and then, glancing at the heaps, I could see the gleaming
• 3:16:41
  eyes of some of the rats which had vested the place. These loathsome objects
• 3:16:45
  were bad enough, but what looked even more dreadful was an old butcher's axe
• 3:16:48
  with an iron handle, staying with clots of blood leaning up against the wall
• 3:16:52
  on the right hand side. Still, these things did not give me much
• 3:16:56
  concern. The talk of the two old people was so fast that I stayed
• 3:17:00
  on and on till the evening came, and the dust heaps threw dark shadows
• 3:17:03
  over the veils between them. After a time I began to grow uneasy.
• 3:17:09
  I could not tell how or why, but somehow I did not feel satisfied.
• 3:17:13
  Uneasiness is an instinct in means warning. The psychic faculties are often the
• 3:17:18
  centuries of the intellect, and when they sound alarm, the reason begins to
• 3:17:22
  act, Although perhaps not consciously, this was so with me. I began
• 3:17:28
  to bethink me where I was and by what surrounded, and to wonder how
• 3:17:31
  I should fare in case I should be attacked. And then the thought suddenly
• 3:17:35
  burst upon me, although without any overt cause, that I was in danger.
• 3:17:41
  Prudence whispered, be still and make no sign. And so I was
• 3:17:43
  still and made no sign, for I knew that four cunning eyes were on
• 3:17:48
  me, four eyes, if not more. My God, what a horrible
• 3:17:52
  thought, oh shanty might be surrounded on three sides with villains. I might
• 3:17:56
  be in the midst of a band of such desperadoes as only half a century
• 3:18:01
  of periodic revolution can produce. With a sense of danger, my intellect and
• 3:18:05
  observation quickened, and I grew more watchful than was my wont I noticed that
• 3:18:09
  the old woman's eyes were constantly wondering toward my hands. I looked at them,
• 3:18:13
  too, and saw the cause. My rings. On my left little
• 3:18:18
  finger I had a large signet, and on the right a good diamond.
• 3:18:22
  I thought that if there was any danger, my first care was to avert
• 3:18:26
  suspicion. Accordingly, I began to work the conversation round to ragpickin to the
• 3:18:31
  drains of the things found there, and so by easy stages to jewels,
• 3:18:35
  then season a favorable opportunity. I asked the old woman if she knew anything
• 3:18:39
  of such things. She answered that she did a little. I held out
• 3:18:43
  my right hand, and, showing her the diamond, asked her what she
• 3:18:46
  thought of that. She answered that her eyes were bad, and stooped over
• 3:18:50
  my hand. I said, as nonchalantly as I could, pardon me,
• 3:18:54
  you'll see better, thus, and taking it off, handed it to her.
• 3:18:58
  An unholy light came into her withered old face. As she touched it,
• 3:19:03
  she stole one glance at me, swift and keen as a flash of
• 3:19:05
  lightning. She bent over the ring for a moment, her face quite concealed,
• 3:19:09
  as though examining it. The old man looked straight out in front of
• 3:19:13
  the shanty before him, at the same time fumbling in his pockets and producing
• 3:19:16
  the screw of tobacco in a paper and a pipe, which he proceeded to
• 3:19:20
  fill. I took advantage of the pause and the momentary rest from the searching
• 3:19:26
  eyes on my face to look carefully round the place, now dim and shadowy
• 3:19:30
  in the gloaming. There still lay all the heaps of very reeking foulness.
• 3:19:35
  There the terrible blood stained axe leaning against the wall in the right hand corner,
• 3:19:39
  and everywhere, despite the gloom, the baleful glitter of the eyes of
• 3:19:43
  the rats. I could see them, even through some of the chinks of
• 3:19:46
  the boards at the back, low down close to the ground. But stay,
• 3:19:50
  these latter eyes seemed more than usually large and bright and baleful. For
• 3:19:56
  an instant my heart stood still, and I felt in that whirl condition of
• 3:20:00
  mind in which one feels a sort of spiritual drunkenness, and as though the
• 3:20:05
  body is only maintained erect, and that there is no time for it to
• 3:20:07
  fall before recovery. Then in another second I was calm, coldly calm,
• 3:20:15
  with all my energies in full vigor, with the self control which I felt
• 3:20:18
  to be perfect, and with all my feeling and instincts alert. Now I
• 3:20:22
  knew the full extent of my danger. I was watched and surrounded by desperate
• 3:20:28
  people. I cannot even guess at how many of them were lying there on
• 3:20:31
  the ground behind the shanty, waiting for the moment to strike. I knew
• 3:20:35
  that I was big and strong, and they knew it too. They knew
• 3:20:39
  also as I did, that I was an Englishman and would make a fight
• 3:20:43
  for it. And so we waited. I had I felt gaining advantage in
• 3:20:48
  the last few seconds, for I knew my danger and understood the situation.
• 3:20:52
  Now, I thought, is the test of my courage, the enduring test,
• 3:20:56
  The fighting test may come later. The old woman raised her head and
• 3:21:01
  said to me in a satisfied kind of way, a very fine ring,
• 3:21:05
  indeed, a beautiful ring, Oh me, I've once had such rings,
• 3:21:09
  plenty of them, and bracelets and ear rings off. In those days I
• 3:21:13
  led the town a dance. But they've forgotten me. Now they've forgotten me.
• 3:21:18
  They why they never heard of me? Perhaps their grandfathers remember me,
• 3:21:24
  some of them. And she laughed, a hoarse, croaking laugh. And
• 3:21:28
  then I am bound to say that she astonished me, for she handed me
• 3:21:31
  back the ring with a certain suggestion of old fashioned grace, which was not
• 3:21:35
  without its pythos. The old man either with a sort of sudden ferocity,
• 3:21:39
  half rising from a stool, and said to me, suddenly and hoarsely,
• 3:21:43
  let me see it. I was about to hand him the ring when the
• 3:21:46
  old woman said, non, non, do not give it to Pierre.
• 3:21:50
  Pierre is eccentric, he loses things. And such a pretty ring, cat,
• 3:21:54
  said the old man savagely. Suddenly, the old woman said, rather
• 3:21:58
  more loudly than was necessary. Wait, I shall tell you something about a
• 3:22:03
  ring. There was something in the sound of a voice that jarred upon me.
• 3:22:07
  Perhaps it was my hypersensitiveness, brought up as I was to such a
• 3:22:11
  pitch of nervous excitement. But I seemed to think she was not addressing me.
• 3:22:16
  As I stole a glance around the place, I saw the eyes of
• 3:22:18
  the rats in the bone heaps, but missed the eyes along the back.
• 3:22:22
  But even as I looked, I saw them again appear. The old woman's
• 3:22:26
  white had given me a respite from attack, and the men had sunk back
• 3:22:31
  to their reclining posture. I once lost a ring, a beautiful diamond hoope
• 3:22:35
  that had belonged to a queen, and which was given to me by a
• 3:22:39
  farmer of Zetexis, who afterwards cut his throat because I sent him away.
• 3:22:45
  I thought it must have been stolen and taxed my people, but I could
• 3:22:48
  get no trace. The police came and suggested that it had found its way
• 3:22:52
  to the drain. We descended, I in my fine clothes, for I
• 3:22:58
  would not trust them with my beautiful ring. I know more of the drains
• 3:23:01
  since then, enough rats too, But I shall never forget the horror of
• 3:23:05
  that place, alive with blazing eyes, a wall of them just outside the
• 3:23:11
  light of our torches. Well, we got beneath my house. We searched
• 3:23:16
  the outlet of the drain, and there in the filth found my ring,
• 3:23:20
  and we came out. But we found something else also before we came.
• 3:23:24
  As we were coming toward the opening, a lot of sewer rats, human
• 3:23:30
  ones this time came towards us. They told the police that one of their
• 3:23:35
  number had gone into the drain and had not returned. He had gone in
• 3:23:39
  only shortly before we had, and if lost, could hardly be far off.
• 3:23:45
  They asked help to seek him. So we turned back. They tried
• 3:23:48
  to prevent me going, but I insisted it was a new excitement, and
• 3:23:52
  had I not recovered my ring. Not far did we go till we came
• 3:23:56
  on something. There was but a little water in the bottom of the drain
• 3:24:01
  was raised with brick, rubbish, and much matter of the kind. He
• 3:24:05
  had made a fight for it, even when his torch had gone out,
• 3:24:09
  but there were too many for him. They had not been long about it.
• 3:24:13
  The bones were still warm, but they were picked clean. They had
• 3:24:18
  even eaten their own dead ones, and there were bones of rats as well
• 3:24:22
  as of the man. They took it cool enough, those others, the
• 3:24:24
  human ones, and joked of their comrade when they found him dead, though
• 3:24:28
  they would have helped him living. Bah, what matters it life or death?
• 3:24:35
  And you had no fear, I asked her. Fear she said,
• 3:24:39
  with a laugh, of me have fear, ask Pierre but I was younger
• 3:24:43
  then, And as I came through that horrible drain, with its wall of
• 3:24:45
  greedy eyes, always moving with the circle of the light from the torches,
• 3:24:50
  I did not feel easy. I kept on before the men know it is
• 3:24:54
  a way I have. I never let the men get it before me.
• 3:24:56
  All I want is a chance and a mean. And they ate him up,
• 3:25:01
  took every twice away except the buns, And no one knew it.
• 3:25:05
  No one's sound of him ever was made. Here she broke into a chuckling
• 3:25:09
  fit of the ghastliest merriment, which it was ever my lot to hear and
• 3:25:13
  see. A great poetist describes her heroine singing, oh to see or hear
• 3:25:18
  her singing, Scarce, I know which is divinest, And I can apply
• 3:25:22
  the same idea to the old crone in all save the divinity. For I
• 3:25:26
  scarce could tell which was the most hellish, the harsh, malicious, satisfied,
• 3:25:31
  cruel laugh, or the leering grin and the horrible square opened into the
• 3:25:35
  mouth like a tragic mask, and the yellow gleam of a few discolored teeth,
• 3:25:39
  in the shapeless guns, in that laugh, and with that grin and
• 3:25:43
  the Chucklin's satisfaction. I knew, as well as if it had been spoken
• 3:25:46
  to me in words of thunder, that my murder was settled, and the
• 3:25:50
  murderers only bided the proper time for its accomplishment. I could read between the
• 3:25:54
  lines of her gruesome story the commands to her accomplices. Wait, she seemed
• 3:25:58
  to say, bide your time. I shall strike the first blow. Find
• 3:26:01
  the weapon for me, and I shall make the opportunity. He shall not
• 3:26:05
  escape. Keep him quiet, and then no one will be the wiser.
• 3:26:09
  There will be no outcry, and the rats will do their work. It
• 3:26:13
  was growing darker and darker. The night was coming. I stole a glance
• 3:26:16
  round the shanty, still all the same, the bloody axe in the corner,
• 3:26:20
  the heaps of filth, and the eyes on the bone heaps, and
• 3:26:22
  in the crannies of the floor. Pierre had been still ostensibly filling his pipe.
• 3:26:28
  He now struck a light and began to puff away at it. The
• 3:26:31
  old woman said, dear hat, how dark it is. Pierre, like
• 3:26:35
  a good lad, like the lamp. Pierre got up, and, with
• 3:26:37
  the lighted match in his hand, touched the wick of a lamp which hung
• 3:26:41
  at one side of the entrance to the shanty, and which had a reflector
• 3:26:43
  that threw the light all over the place. It was evidently that which was
• 3:26:48
  used for their sword in at night. Not that stupid, Not at the
• 3:26:52
  lantern, she called out to him. He immediately blew it out, saying,
• 3:26:56
  all right, mother, I'll find it, And he hustled about the
• 3:26:58
  left corner of the room, the old woman sanging through the darkness. The
• 3:27:03
  lentn the lenton. Oh, that is the light that is most useful to
• 3:27:07
  us, poor folks. The lantern was the friend of the revolution. It
• 3:27:11
  is the friend of the chiffonia. It helps us when all else fails.
• 3:27:16
  Hardly, she said the word, when there was a kind of creaking at
• 3:27:18
  the whole place, and something was steadily dragged over the roof. Again,
• 3:27:22
  I seemed to read between the lines of her words. I knew the lesson
• 3:27:26
  of the lantern. One of you get on the roof with a noose and
• 3:27:30
  strangle him as he passes out, if we file within. As I looked
• 3:27:33
  out of the opening, I saw a loop of rope outlined black against the
• 3:27:37
  lurid sky. I was now indeed the set. Pierre was not long in
• 3:27:43
  finding the lantern. I kept my eyes fixed through the darkness on the old
• 3:27:46
  woman. Pierre struck his light. By its flash, I saw the old
• 3:27:50
  woman raise from the ground beside her, where it had mysteriously appeared, and
• 3:27:54
  then hide in the folds of her gown a long sharp knife or dagger.
• 3:28:00
  It seemed to be like a butter's sharpening iron. Find a keen point.
• 3:28:03
  The lantern was lit. Bring it here, Pierre, she said, place
• 3:28:07
  it in the doorway where we can see it. See how nice it is.
• 3:28:13
  It shuts up the darkness from us. It is just right, just
• 3:28:16
  right for her and her purposes, and threw all its light on my face,
• 3:28:20
  leaving in gloom the faces of both Pierre and the woman who sat outside
• 3:28:24
  of me on each side. I felt that the time of action was approaching,
• 3:28:28
  but I knew now that the first signal and movement would come from the
• 3:28:31
  woman, and so watched her. I was all unarmed, but I had
• 3:28:35
  made up my mind what to do. At the first movement. I would
• 3:28:39
  seize the butcher's acte in the right hand corner and fight my way out.
• 3:28:43
  At least I would die hard. I stole a glance round to fix its
• 3:28:46
  exact locality, so I could not fail to seize it at the first effort,
• 3:28:50
  for then, if ever time and accuracy would be precious. Good God,
• 3:28:56
  it was gone. All the horror the situation burst upon me. But
• 3:29:01
  the bitterest thought of all was that if the issue of the terrible position should
• 3:29:05
  be against me, Alice would infallibly suffer. Either she would believe me false,
• 3:29:09
  and any lover or anyone who has ever been one can imagine the bitterness
• 3:29:13
  of the thought, or else she would go on loving long after I had
• 3:29:16
  been lost to her and to the world, so that her life would be
• 3:29:20
  broken and embittered, shattered with disappointment and despair. The very magnitude of the
• 3:29:24
  pain braced me up and nerved me to bear the dread scrutiny of the plotters.
• 3:29:28
  I think I did not betray myself. The old woman who was watching
• 3:29:33
  me as a cat does a mouse, and had her right hand hidden in
• 3:29:35
  the folds of her gown, clutching I knew that long, cruel looking dagger.
• 3:29:41
  Had she seen any disappointment in my face, she would, I felt
• 3:29:43
  have known that the moment had come, and would have sprung on me like
• 3:29:46
  a tigress. Certain of taking me unprepared. I looked out into the night,
• 3:29:50
  and there I saw a new cause for danger. Before and around the
• 3:29:56
  hut were at a little distance some shadowy forms, and they were quite still,
• 3:30:01
  but I knew that they were all alerting on guard. Small chance for
• 3:30:03
  me now in that direction again I stole a glance round the place. In
• 3:30:09
  moments of great excitement and of great danger. Which is excitement, the mine
• 3:30:13
  works very quickly, and the keenness of the faculties which depend on the mind
• 3:30:16
  grow in proportion. I now felt this in an instant I took in the
• 3:30:22
  whole situation. I saw that the axe had been taken through a small hole
• 3:30:26
  made in one of the rotten boards. How rotten they must be to allow
• 3:30:30
  such a thing being done without a particle of noise. The hut was a
• 3:30:33
  regular murder trap and was guarded all round. A garriter lay on the roof,
• 3:30:37
  ready to entangle me with his noose if I should escape. The dagger
• 3:30:41
  of the old hag in front the way was guarded by I know not how
• 3:30:45
  many watchers, and at the back was a row of desperate men. I
• 3:30:48
  had seen their eyes still through the crack on the boards of the floor when
• 3:30:52
  last I looked as I lay prone, waiting for the signal to start erect.
• 3:30:56
  If it was to be ever, now for it. End of The
• 3:31:01
  Burial of the Rats Part one. The Burial of the Rats by Bram Stoker,
• 3:31:07
  Part two. As nonchalately as I could, I turned slightly on my
• 3:31:11
  stool so as to get my right leg well under me. Then with a
• 3:31:15
  sudden jump, turning my head and garden it with my hands, and with
• 3:31:18
  a fighting instinct to the knights of old, I breathed my lady's name and
• 3:31:22
  hurled myself against the back wall of the hut. Watchful as they were,
• 3:31:28
  the suddenness of my movement surprised both Pierre and the old woman. As I
• 3:31:31
  crashed through the rotten timbers, I saw the old woman rise with a leap
• 3:31:35
  like a tiger, and heard her low gasp of baffled rage. My feet
• 3:31:39
  lit on something that moved, and as I jumped away, I knew that
• 3:31:43
  I had stepped on the back of one of the row of men lying on
• 3:31:46
  their faces outside the hut. I was torn with nails and splinters, but
• 3:31:50
  otherwise unhurt. Breathless, I rushed up the mound in front of me herein
• 3:31:54
  as I went the dull crash of the shanty, as it collapsed into a
• 3:31:58
  mass. It was un nice mere climb. The mound, though but low,
• 3:32:03
  was awfully steep, and with each step I took the mass of dust
• 3:32:07
  and cinders tore down with me and gave way. Under my feet the dust
• 3:32:11
  rose and choked me. It was sickening, fedid, awful, but my
• 3:32:15
  climb was. I felt for life or death, and I struggled on the
• 3:32:20
  second seemed hours. But the few moments I had and starting, combined with
• 3:32:24
  my youth and strength, gave me a great advantage. And though several forms
• 3:32:28
  struggled after me in deadly silence, which was more dreadful than any sound,
• 3:32:33
  I easily reached the top. Since then, I've climbed the cone of Vesuvius,
• 3:32:37
  and as I struggled up that dreary, steep amid the sulfurous fumes,
• 3:32:41
  the memory of that awful night at Montrouge came back to me so vividly that
• 3:32:46
  I almost drew faint. The mound was one of the tallest in the region
• 3:32:50
  of dust, and as I struggled to the top, patent for breath,
• 3:32:52
  with my heart beaten like a sledge hammer. I saw a way to my
• 3:32:56
  left, the dull, red gleam of the sky, and nearer still the
• 3:32:58
  flashing of lights. Thank god, I knew where I was now and where
• 3:33:03
  lay the road to Paris. For two or three seconds I paused and looked
• 3:33:07
  back. My pursuers were still well behind me, but struggling up resolutely and
• 3:33:11
  in deadly silence. Beyond the shanty was a wreck, a mass of timber
• 3:33:16
  and moving forms. I could see it well, for flames were already bursting
• 3:33:20
  out. The rags and straw had evidently caught fire from the lantern. Still
• 3:33:26
  silence, there not a sound. Those old wretches could die game anyhow,
• 3:33:31
  I had no time for more than a passing glance, for as I cast
• 3:33:35
  an eye round the mound preparatory to making my descent, I saw several dark
• 3:33:39
  forms rushing round on either side to cut me off on my way. It
• 3:33:43
  was now a race for life. They were trying to head me on my
• 3:33:46
  way to Paris, and with the instinct of the moment, I dashed down
• 3:33:50
  to the right hand side. I was just in time for though I came,
• 3:33:54
  as it seemed to me, down the steep in a few steps.
• 3:33:56
  The wary old men who were watching me turn back, and one, as
• 3:34:01
  I rushed by into the opening between the two mounds in front, almost struck
• 3:34:05
  me a blow with that terrible butcher's axe. There could surely not be two
• 3:34:09
  such weapons about. Then began a really horrible chase. I easily ran ahead
• 3:34:15
  of the old men, and even when some younger ones and a few women
• 3:34:18
  joined in the hunt, I easily distanced them. But I did not know
• 3:34:22
  the way, and I could not even guide myself by the light in the
• 3:34:24
  sky, for I was running away from it. I had heard that on
• 3:34:28
  less of conscious purpose, hunted men turn always to the left, and so
• 3:34:33
  I found it now. And so I suppose knew also my pursuers, who
• 3:34:37
  were more animals than men, and with cunning or instinct, had found out
• 3:34:41
  such secrets for themselves, For on finishing a quick spurt, after which I
• 3:34:46
  intended to take a moment's breathing space, I suddenly saw ahead of me two
• 3:34:50
  or three forms swiftly passing behind a mound to the right. I was in
• 3:34:54
  the spider's web now, indeed, But with a thought of this new danger
• 3:34:58
  came the resource of the hunted, and so I darted down the next turn
• 3:35:03
  into the right. I continued in this direction for some hundred yards, and
• 3:35:07
  then taking a turn to the left again, felt certain that I had,
• 3:35:11
  at any rate avoided the danger of being surrounded, but not of pursuit.
• 3:35:16
  For on came the rabble after me, steady, dogged, relentless and still
• 3:35:20
  in grim silence. In the greater darkness. The mound seemed now to be
• 3:35:24
  somewhat smaller than before, although for the night was closing, they looked bigger
• 3:35:28
  in proportion. I was now well ahead of my pursuers, so I made
• 3:35:33
  a dart up the mound in front. Oh, joy of joys, I
• 3:35:35
  was close to the edge of this inferno of dusteeps away behind me, the
• 3:35:39
  red light of Paris was in the sky, and towering up behind rose the
• 3:35:43
  heights of montmart a dim light, with here and there brilliant points like stars
• 3:35:50
  restored to vigor. In a moment, I ran over the few remaining mounds
• 3:35:52
  of decrease in size, and found myself on the level land beyond. Even
• 3:35:58
  then, however, the prospect was not inviting. All before me was dark
• 3:36:03
  and dismal, and I had evidently come on one of those dank low lion
• 3:36:07
  waste, places which are found here and there in the neighborhood of great cities,
• 3:36:11
  Places of waste and desolation, where the space is required for the ultimate
• 3:36:15
  agglomeration of all that is noxious, and the ground is so poor as to
• 3:36:18
  create no desire of occupancy even in the lowest squatter. With eyes accustomed to
• 3:36:24
  the gloom of the evening, and away now from the shadows of those dreadful
• 3:36:28
  dust heeps, I could see much more easily than I could a little while
• 3:36:31
  ago. It might have been, of course, that the glare in the
• 3:36:35
  sky of the lights of Paris, though the city was some miles away,
• 3:36:39
  was reflected here. Howsoever, it was I saw well enough to take barrens,
• 3:36:43
  for certainly, some little distance around me in front was a bleak,
• 3:36:48
  flat waste that seemed almost dead level with here and there the dark shimmering of
• 3:36:52
  stagnant pools. Seemingly far off. On the right, amid a small cluster
• 3:36:56
  of scattered lights, rose a dark mass of Fort Montrouge, and away to
• 3:37:01
  the left in the dim distance, pointed with stray gleams from cottage windows,
• 3:37:05
  the lights in the sky showed the locality of e Cetera, a moment's thought
• 3:37:11
  decided me to take to the right and try to reach Montrouge. There at
• 3:37:15
  least would be some sort of safety, and I might possibly long before come
• 3:37:18
  on some of the cross roads, which I knew somewhere not far off must
• 3:37:22
  lie the strategic road made to connect the outlying chain of forts circling the city.
• 3:37:26
  Then I looked back, coming over the mounds and outlying black against the
• 3:37:31
  glare of the Parisian horizon, I saw several moving figures, and still away
• 3:37:37
  to the right, several more deploying out between me and my destination. They
• 3:37:41
  evidently meant to cut me off in this direction, so my choice became constricted.
• 3:37:46
  It lay now between going straight ahead or turning to the left, stooping
• 3:37:50
  down to the ground so as to get the advantage of the horizon as a
• 3:37:52
  line of sight. I looked carefully in that direction, but could detect no
• 3:37:58
  sign in my enemies. I argued that as I had not guarded, or
• 3:38:01
  were not trying to guard, that point, there was evidently danger to me
• 3:38:05
  there already, So I made up my mind to go straight on. Before
• 3:38:09
  me, it was not an inviting prospect, and as I went on,
• 3:38:11
  the reality grew worse, The ground became soft and oozy, and now and
• 3:38:16
  again gave way beneath me in a sickening kind of way. I seemed somehow
• 3:38:20
  to be going down, for I saw around me places seemingly more elevated than
• 3:38:26
  where I was, and this in a place which, from a little way
• 3:38:28
  back seemed dead level. I looked around but could see none of my pursuers.
• 3:38:35
  This was strange, for all along these birds of the night had followed
• 3:38:37
  me through the darkness as well as though it were broad daylight. How I
• 3:38:41
  blame myself for coming out in my light colored tourists suit of tweed. The
• 3:38:46
  silence and my not being able to see my enemies whilst I felt that they
• 3:38:50
  were watching me, grew appalling, and, in the hope of someone not
• 3:38:54
  of this ghastly crew hearing me, I raised my voice and shouted several times.
• 3:38:58
  There was not the lightest response, not even an echo rewarded my efforts.
• 3:39:03
  For a while, I stood stock still and kept my eyes in one
• 3:39:07
  direction. On one of the rising places around me, I saw something dark
• 3:39:11
  move long, then another, and another. This was to my left and
• 3:39:16
  seemingly moving to head me off. I thought that again I might with my
• 3:39:22
  skill as a runner elude my enemies at this game. And so, with
• 3:39:24
  all my speed darted forward. Splash. My feet had given way in a
• 3:39:30
  mass of slimy rubbish, and I had fallen headlong into a raking, stagnant
• 3:39:35
  pool. The water and the mud in which my arms sank up to the
• 3:39:37
  elbows was filthy and nauseous beyond description. And in the suddenness of my fall,
• 3:39:43
  I had actually swallowed some of the filthy stuff, which nearly choked me
• 3:39:46
  and made me gasp for breath. Never shall I forget the moments during which
• 3:39:52
  I stood trying to recover myself, almost fainting from the fetid odor of that
• 3:39:56
  filthy pool, whose white mist rose ghost like around. Worst of all,
• 3:40:01
  with the acute despair of the hunted animal when he sees the pursuing pack closing
• 3:40:05
  on him. I saw before my eyes, whilst I stood helpless, the
• 3:40:09
  dark forms of my pursuers moving swiftly to surround me. It's curious how our
• 3:40:15
  minds work on odd matters, even when the energies of thought are seemingly concentrated
• 3:40:18
  on some terrible impressing need. I was in momentary peril of my life my
• 3:40:24
  safety depending on my action and my choice of alternatives coming now with almost every
• 3:40:28
  step I took. And yet I could not but think of the strange,
• 3:40:31
  dogged persistency of these old men, their silent resolution, their steadfast, grim
• 3:40:39
  persistency, even in such a cause commanded as well as fear, even a
• 3:40:43
  measure of respect. What must they have been in the vigor of their youth.
• 3:40:48
  I could understand now that whirlwind rush on the bridge of our cola,
• 3:40:52
  that scornful exclamation of the old guard at Waterloo. Unconscious celebration had its own
• 3:40:58
  pleasures even at such moments. But fortunately it does not in any way clash
• 3:41:01
  with the thought from which action springs. I realized at a glance that so
• 3:41:07
  far I was defeated my object, my enemies as yet had won. They
• 3:41:11
  had succeeded in surrounding me on three sides, and were bent on driving me
• 3:41:15
  off to the left hand, where there was already some danger for me,
• 3:41:18
  for they had left no guard. I accepted the alternative. It was a
• 3:41:22
  case of Hobson's choice and run. I had to keep the lower ground,
• 3:41:26
  for my pursuers were on the higher places. However, though the ooze and
• 3:41:31
  broken ground impeded me. My youth and training made me able to hold my
• 3:41:33
  ground, and by keeping a diagonal line, I not only kept them from
• 3:41:37
  gaining on me, but even began to distance them. This gave me new
• 3:41:41
  heart and strength, and by this time habitual training was beginning to tell,
• 3:41:46
  and my second wind had come before me. The ground rose slightly. I
• 3:41:50
  rushed up the slope and found before me a waste of watery slime, with
• 3:41:54
  a low dike or bank looking black and grim beyond. I felt that if
• 3:41:58
  I could but reach that diye and safety, I could there, with solid
• 3:42:01
  ground under my feet and some kind of path to guide me, find with
• 3:42:05
  comparative ease away out of my troubles. After a glance right and left,
• 3:42:09
  and seeing no one near, I kept my eyes for a few minutes to
• 3:42:13
  their rightful work of aiding my feet whilst I crossed the swamp. It was
• 3:42:16
  rough, hard work, but there was little danger, merely toil, and
• 3:42:20
  a short time took me to the dike. I rushed up the slope,
• 3:42:24
  exulting, but here again I meant a new shock. On either side of
• 3:42:28
  me rose a number of crouching figures. From right and left. They rushed
• 3:42:33
  at me. Each body held a rope. The cordon was nearly complete.
• 3:42:39
  I could pass on either side, and the end was near. There was
• 3:42:41
  only one chance, and I took it. I hurled myself across the dike,
• 3:42:46
  and, escaping out of the very clutches of my foes, threw myself
• 3:42:48
  into the stream. At any other time I should have thought that water foul
• 3:42:54
  and filthy, But now it was as welcome as the most crystal clear stream
• 3:42:58
  to the parched traveler. It was a highway of safety. My pursuers rushed
• 3:43:03
  after me. Had only one of them held the rope, it would have
• 3:43:05
  been all up with me, for it could have entangled me before I had
• 3:43:09
  time to swim a stroke. But the many hands holding it embarrassed and delayed
• 3:43:13
  them. And when the rope struck the water, I heard the splash well
• 3:43:16
  behind me. A few minutes hard swimming took me across the stream. Refreshed
• 3:43:20
  with the immersion and encouraged by the escape, I climbed the dike in comparative
• 3:43:24
  gayety of spirits. From the top, I looked back through the darkness.
• 3:43:28
  I saw my assailants scattering up and down along the dike. The pursuit was
• 3:43:33
  evidently not ended, and again I had to choose my course. Beyond the
• 3:43:37
  dike where I stood was a wild, swampy space very similar to that which
• 3:43:41
  I had crossed. I determined to shun such a place, and thought for
• 3:43:46
  a moment whether I would take up or down the dike. I thought I
• 3:43:48
  heard a sound, the muffled sound of oars, so I listened and then
• 3:43:52
  shouted no response, but the sound ceased. My enemies had evidently got a
• 3:43:58
  boat of some kind, as they were on the upside of me. I
• 3:44:03
  took the down path and began to run. As I passed to the left
• 3:44:05
  of where I had entered the water, I heard several splashes, soft and
• 3:44:09
  stealthy, like the sound of rat makes as he plunges into the stream,
• 3:44:13
  but vastly greater. And as I looked, I saw the dark sheen of
• 3:44:16
  the water broken by the ripples of several advancing heads. Some of my enemies
• 3:44:22
  were swimming the stream also, and now behind me up the stream, the
• 3:44:26
  silence was broken by the quick rattle and creak of oars. My enemies were
• 3:44:31
  in hot pursuit. I put my best leg foremost and ran on. After
• 3:44:35
  a break of a couple of minutes, I looked back, and by a
• 3:44:37
  gleam of light through the ragged clouds, I saw several dark forms climbing the
• 3:44:41
  bank behind me. The wind now wo had begun to rise, and the
• 3:44:46
  water beside me was ruffled and beginning to break in tiny waves on the bank.
• 3:44:50
  I had to keep my eyes pretty well on the ground before me lest
• 3:44:52
  I should stumble, for I knew that to stumble was death. After a
• 3:44:58
  few minutes, I looked back behind me. On the dike were only a
• 3:45:01
  few dark figures, but crossing the waste swampy ground were many more. What
• 3:45:07
  new danger this portended I did not know. Could only guess then. As
• 3:45:13
  I ran, it seemed to me that my track kept ever sloping away to
• 3:45:16
  the right. I looked up ahead and saw that the river was much wider
• 3:45:20
  than before, and that the dike on which I stood fell quite away,
• 3:45:24
  and beyond it was another stream on whose near bank I saw some of the
• 3:45:28
  dark forms. Now across the marsh, I was on an island of some
• 3:45:31
  kind. My situation was now indeed terrible, for on my enemies had hemmed
• 3:45:37
  me in on every side. Behind came the quickening roll of the oars as
• 3:45:43
  though my pursuers knew that the end was close around me. On every side
• 3:45:46
  was desolation. There was not a roof or light as far as I could
• 3:45:50
  see. Far off to the right rose some dark mass. But what it
• 3:45:54
  was I knew. Not for a moment I paused to think what I should
• 3:45:58
  do, Not for more, for my my pursuers were drawn closer. Then
• 3:46:01
  my mind was made up. I slipped down the bank and took to the
• 3:46:05
  water. I struck out straight ahead, so as to gain the current by
• 3:46:09
  clearing the backwater of the island. For such I presume it was. When
• 3:46:11
  I had passed into the stream, I waited till a cloud came, driving
• 3:46:16
  across the moon and leaving all in darkness. Then I took off my hat
• 3:46:20
  and laid it softly on the water, floating with the stream, And a
• 3:46:22
  second after dived to the right and struck out underwater with all my might.
• 3:46:28
  I was I suppose half a minute underwater, and when I rose, came
• 3:46:31
  up as softly as I could, and turning looked back, there went my
• 3:46:37
  light brown hat, floating merrily away. Close behind it came a rickety old
• 3:46:41
  boat, driven furiously by a pair of oars. The moon was still partly
• 3:46:46
  obscured by the drifting clouds, but in the partial light I could see a
• 3:46:50
  man in the boughs, holding aloft, ready to strike what appeared to me
• 3:46:54
  to be that same dreadful pull wax which I had before escaped. As I
• 3:47:00
  looked, the boat drew closer, closer, and the man struck savagely.
• 3:47:05
  The hat disappeared. The man fell forward, almost out of the boat.
• 3:47:09
  His comrades dragged him in, but without the axe. And then as I
• 3:47:11
  turned, with all my energies bent on reaching the further bank, I heard
• 3:47:16
  the fierce word of the muttered sakra, which marked the anger of my baffled
• 3:47:20
  pursuers. That was the first sound I had heard from human lips, daring
• 3:47:24
  all this dreadful chase, and full as it was of menace in danger.
• 3:47:28
  To me, it was a welcome sound, for it broke that awful silence
• 3:47:31
  which shrouded and appalled me. It was as though an overt sign that my
• 3:47:37
  opponents were men and not ghosts, and that with them I had at least
• 3:47:41
  the chance of a man, though but one against many. But now that
• 3:47:46
  the spell of silence was broken, the sounds came thick, and fast.
• 3:47:50
  From boat to shore and back from shore to boat came quick question and answer,
• 3:47:54
  all in the fiercest whispers. I looked back, a vital thing to
• 3:47:58
  do for in the instant someone caught sight of my face, which showed white
• 3:48:01
  on the dark water, and shouted Hans pointed to me, and in a
• 3:48:05
  moment or two the boat was under way and following hard after me. I
• 3:48:09
  had but a little way to go, but quicker and quicker came the boat
• 3:48:13
  after me. A few more strokes and I would be on the shore.
• 3:48:16
  But I felt the oncoming of the boat, and expected every second to feel
• 3:48:20
  the crash of an oar or other weapon on my head. Had I not
• 3:48:22
  seen that dreadful axe disappear in the water, I do not think I could
• 3:48:26
  have won the shore. I heard the muttered curses of those not rowing,
• 3:48:31
  and the labored breath of the rowers. With one supreme effort for life or
• 3:48:35
  liberty, I touched the bank and sprang up it. There was not a
• 3:48:37
  single second to spare for hard behind me, the boat grounded in several dark
• 3:48:41
  forms, sprang after me. I gained the top of the dike, and
• 3:48:45
  keeping to the left, ran on again. The boat put off and followed
• 3:48:48
  down the stream. Seeing this, I feared danger in this direction, and
• 3:48:52
  quickly turning, ran down the dike on the other side, and, after
• 3:48:56
  passing a short stretch of marshy ground, gained a wild, open flat country
• 3:49:01
  and sped on. Still behind me came my relentless pursuers. Far away below
• 3:49:07
  me, I saw the same dark mass as before, but now grown closer
• 3:49:11
  and greater. My heart gave a great thrill of delight, for I knew
• 3:49:16
  it must be the fortress of Besetch, and with my new courage, I
• 3:49:18
  ran on. I had heard that between each and all the protecting forts of
• 3:49:22
  Paris there are strategic ways, deep sunk roads, where soldiers march and should
• 3:49:28
  be sheltered from an enemy. I knew that if I could gain this road,
• 3:49:31
  i'd be safe. But in the darkness I could not see any sign
• 3:49:35
  of it, So in blind hope of striking it, I ran on Presently.
• 3:49:41
  I came to the edge of a deep cut and found that down below
• 3:49:43
  me ran a road guarded on each side by a ditch of water, fenced
• 3:49:46
  on either side by a straight high wall. Getting fainter and dizzier, I
• 3:49:52
  ran on the ground, got more, broken, more and more still,
• 3:49:56
  till I staggered and fell, and rose again, and ran on in the
• 3:49:58
  blow, anguished of the hunted again, the thought of Alice nerved me.
• 3:50:03
  I would not be lost and wreck her life. I would fight and struggle
• 3:50:07
  for life to the bitter end. With a great effort, I caught the
• 3:50:11
  top of the wall, as scrambling like a catamount, I drew myself up.
• 3:50:15
  I actually felt a hand touch the soul of my foot. I was
• 3:50:18
  now in a sort of causeway, and before me I saw a dim light.
• 3:50:22
  Blind and dizzy, I ran on, staggered and fell, rising covered
• 3:50:26
  with dust and blood. Haunt Lah. The words sounded like a voice from
• 3:50:31
  heaven. A blaze of light seemed to unwrap me, and I shouted with
• 3:50:35
  joy, kiev a la, the rattle of musketry, the flash of steel
• 3:50:39
  before my eyes. Instinctively I stopped the close behind me. Came a rush
• 3:50:43
  of my pursuers, another word or two, and out from a gateway poured,
• 3:50:46
  as it seemed to me, a tide of red and blue. As
• 3:50:50
  the guard turned out. All round seemed blazing with light and the flash of
• 3:50:54
  steel, the clink and rattle of arms, and a loud, harsh voices
• 3:50:58
  of command as I fell forward, utterly exhausted. As soldier caught me,
• 3:51:03
  I looked back in dreadful expectation and saw the mass of dark forms disappearing into
• 3:51:07
  the night. Then I must have finded. When I recovered my senses,
• 3:51:13
  I was in the guard room. They gave me brandy, and after a
• 3:51:16
  while I was able to tell them something of what had passed. Then a
• 3:51:18
  commissary of police appeared, apparently out of the empty air, as is the
• 3:51:22
  way of the Parisian police officer. He listened attentively and then had a moment's
• 3:51:28
  consultation with the officer in command. Apparently they were agreed, for they asked
• 3:51:33
  me if I were ready now to come with them? Where to? I
• 3:51:37
  asked, rising, to go back to the dust heaps. We shall perhaps
• 3:51:41
  catch them, yet I shall try, said I. He eyed me for
• 3:51:46
  a moment keenly, and said, suddenly, would you like to wait awhile
• 3:51:50
  or till tomorrow, young Englishman? This touched me to the quick as perhaps
• 3:51:54
  he intended, and I jumped to my feet. Come now, I said,
• 3:51:58
  now, now an Englishman is always ready for his duty. The commissary
• 3:52:03
  was a good fellow as well as a shrewd one. He slapped my shoulder
• 3:52:07
  kindly, brave garson, he said, forgive me, but I knew what
• 3:52:11
  would do you most good? The God is ready come. And so,
• 3:52:16
  passing right through the guard room and through a long vaulted passage, we were
• 3:52:20
  out into the night. A few of the men in front had powerful lanterns.
• 3:52:24
  Through courtyards and down a slope and way we passed out through a low
• 3:52:26
  archway to a sunken road, the same that I had seen in my flight.
• 3:52:31
  The order was given to get at the double, and with a quick
• 3:52:33
  springing stride, half run, half walk, the soldiers went swiftly along.
• 3:52:37
  I felt my strength renewed again. Such is the difference between hunter and hunted.
• 3:52:43
  A very short distance took us to a low lion pontoon bridge across the
• 3:52:46
  stream, and evidently very little higher up than I had struck it. Some
• 3:52:50
  effort had evidently been made to damage it, for the ropes had all been
• 3:52:54
  cut and one of the chains had been broken. I heard an officer say
• 3:52:58
  to the commissary, we all just in time. A few more minutes and
• 3:53:01
  they would have destroyed the bridge. Forward quicker still, and on we went
• 3:53:07
  again. We reached a pontoon on the winding stream. As we came up,
• 3:53:09
  we heard the hollow boom of the metal drums as the effort to destroy
• 3:53:13
  the bridge was again renewed. A word of command was given and several men
• 3:53:18
  raised their rifles fire. A volley rang out. There was a muffled cry,
• 3:53:22
  and the dark forms dispersed, but the evil was done, and we
• 3:53:26
  saw the far end of the pontoon swing into the stream. This was a
• 3:53:30
  serious delay, and it was nearly an hour before we had renewed ropes and
• 3:53:33
  restored the bridge sufficiently to allow us to cross. We renewed the chase,
• 3:53:39
  quicker, quicker. We went towards the dust heaps. After a time we
• 3:53:43
  came to a place that I knew where were the remains of a fire.
• 3:53:46
  A few smoldering wood ashes still cast a red glow, but the bulk of
• 3:53:50
  the ashes were cold. I knew the side of the hut and the hill
• 3:53:54
  behind it, up which I had rushed, and in the flickering glow,
• 3:53:56
  the eyes of the rats still shone with the so a phosphorescence. The commissary
• 3:54:01
  spoke a word to the officer, and he cried halt. The officers were
• 3:54:07
  ordered to spread around and watch, and then we commenced to examine the ruins.
• 3:54:11
  The Commissary himself began to lift away the charredboards in rubbish. These the
• 3:54:16
  soldiers took and piled together. Presently, he started back, then bent down
• 3:54:20
  and rising beckoned me. See, He said, it was a gruesome sight.
• 3:54:26
  There lay a skeleton, face downwards, a woman by the lines,
• 3:54:31
  an old woman by the coarse fiber of the bone. Between the ribs rode
• 3:54:35
  a long spike like dagger made from a butcher's sharpening knife, its keen point
• 3:54:39
  buried in the spine. You will observe, said the Commissary to the officer
• 3:54:45
  and to me, as he took out his notebook, that the woman must
• 3:54:48
  have fallen on her dagga. The rats are many here, see their eyes
• 3:54:52
  glistening among that heap of bones. You will also notice, I shuddered as
• 3:54:56
  he placed his hand on the skeleton, that but little time was lost by
• 3:55:01
  them, for the bones are scarcely cold. There was no other sign of
• 3:55:05
  anyone near, living or dead. And so deploying again into line, the
• 3:55:11
  soldiers passed on. Presently we came to the hut made of the old wardrobe
• 3:55:16
  we approached in five of the six compartments, was an old man sleeping,
• 3:55:20
  sleeping so soundly that even the glare of the lanterns did not wake them.
• 3:55:24
  Old and grim and grizzled, they looked at their gaunt, wrinkled, bronzed
• 3:55:28
  faces and their white mustaches. The officer called out harshly and loudly a word
• 3:55:33
  of command. In an instant, each one of them was on his feet
• 3:55:37
  before us and standing at attention. What do you do here? We sleep?
• 3:55:43
  Was the answer? Where are the other Schieffonias, asked the commissary,
• 3:55:48
  gone to work? And you we are on God pissed, laughed the officer
• 3:55:54
  grimly, as he looked at the old men, one after the other in
• 3:55:56
  the face, and added, with cool, deliberate cruelty, asleep on duty?
• 3:56:01
  Is this the manner of the old God? No wonder? Then,
• 3:56:05
  a waterloo boy, the gleam of the lantern, I saw the grim old
• 3:56:07
  faces grow deadly pale, and almost shuddered at the look in the eyes of
• 3:56:11
  the old man. As the laugh of the soldiers echoed the grim pleasantry of
• 3:56:15
  the officer. I felt, in that moment that I was in some measure
• 3:56:20
  avenged. For a moment, they looked as if they would throw themselves on
• 3:56:24
  the taunter, But years of their life had schooled them, and they remained
• 3:56:28
  still. You are but five, said the commissary. Where is the sixth?
• 3:56:33
  The answer came with a grim chuckle. He is there, and the
• 3:56:37
  speaker pointed to the bottom of the wardrobe. He died last night. You
• 3:56:41
  won't find much of him. The burial of the rats is quick. The
• 3:56:46
  commissary stooped and looked in, and he turned to the officer and said,
• 3:56:50
  calmly, we may as well go back. No trace here now, nothing
• 3:56:54
  to prove that the man was the one wounded by your soldier's bullets. Probably
• 3:56:58
  they murdered him to cover up the trace. See again, he stooped and
• 3:57:03
  placed his hands on the skeleton. The rats what quickly, and there are
• 3:57:07
  many. These bones are warm. I shuddered, and so did many more
• 3:57:11
  of those around me. Fum, said the officer. And so in march
• 3:57:16
  in order. With the lanterns swinging in front, and the manacled veterans in
• 3:57:18
  the midst with steady tramp, we took ourselves out of the dust heaps and
• 3:57:22
  turned backward to the fortress of Besetch. My year of probation has long since
• 3:57:28
  ended, and Alice is my wife. But when I look back upon that
• 3:57:33
  try and twelvemonth, one of the most vivid incidents that memory recalls is that
• 3:57:37
  associated with my visit to the city of Dust. End of the Burial of
• 3:57:43
  the Rats, Part two, A Dream of Red Hands by Bram Stoker.
• 3:57:52
  The first opinion given to me regarding Jacob Settle was a simple descriptive statement,
• 3:57:58
  he is a down the mouth chap. But I found that it embodied the
• 3:58:03
  thoughts and ideas of all his fellow workmen. There was in the phrase a
• 3:58:09
  certain easy tolerance, an absence of positive feeling of any kind, rather than
• 3:58:15
  any complete opinion, which marked pretty accurately the man's place in public esteem.
• 3:58:22
  Still, there was some dissimilarity between this and his appearance, which unconsciously set
• 3:58:28
  me thinking, and by degrees, as I saw more of the place and
• 3:58:33
  the workman, I came to have a special interest in him. He was
• 3:58:39
  I found forever doing kindnesses, not involving money expenses beyond his humble means,
• 3:58:46
  but in the manifold ways of forethought and forbearance and self repression, which are
• 3:58:52
  the truer charities of life. Women and children trusted him implicitly, though strangely
• 3:58:58
  enough, rather shunned them, except when anyone was sick, and then he
• 3:59:03
  made his appearance to help if he could. Timidly and awkwardly, he led
• 3:59:09
  a very solitary life, keeping house by himself in a tiny cottage or rather
• 3:59:15
  hut of one room, far on the edge of the moorland. His existence
• 3:59:20
  seemed so sad and solitary that I wished to cheer it up, and for
• 3:59:26
  the purpose took the occasion, when we had both been sitting up with the
• 3:59:31
  child injured by me through accident, to offer to lend him books. He
• 3:59:37
  gladly accepted, and as we parted in the gray of the dawn, I
• 3:59:41
  felt something of mutual confidence had been established between us. The books were always
• 3:59:48
  most carefully and punctually returned, and in time Jacob Settle and I became quite
• 3:59:54
  friends. Once or twice, as I crossed the moorland on Sundays I looked
• 4:00:01
  in on him, But on such occasions he was shy and ill at ease,
• 4:00:05
  so that I felt diffident about calling to see him. He would never,
• 4:00:11
  under any circumstances come into my own lodgings. One Sunday afternoon, I
• 4:00:16
  was coming back from a long walk beyond the moor, and as I passed
• 4:00:20
  Settle's cottage, stopped at the door to say how do you do to him?
• 4:00:26
  As the door was shut, I thought that he was out, and
• 4:00:28
  merely knocked for form's sake or through habit, not expecting to get any answer.
• 4:00:35
  To my surprise, I heard a feeble voice from within, though what
• 4:00:39
  was said I could not hear. I entered at once and found Jacob lying
• 4:00:45
  half dressed upon his bed. He was as pale as death, and the
• 4:00:50
  sweat was simply rolling off his face. His hands were unconsciously gripping the bedclothes,
• 4:00:56
  as a drowning man holds on to whatever he may. As I came
• 4:01:01
  in, he half arose with a wild, hunted look in his eyes,
• 4:01:05
  which were wide open and staring, as though something of horror had come before
• 4:01:11
  them. But when he recognized me, he sank back on the couch with
• 4:01:16
  a smothered sob of relief and closed his eyes. I stood by him for
• 4:01:20
  a while, quite a minute or two while he gasped. Then he opened
• 4:01:26
  his eyes and looked at me, but with such a despairing, woeful expression,
• 4:01:31
  that, as I am a living man, I would have rather seen
• 4:01:35
  that frozen look of horror. I sat down beside him and asked after his
• 4:01:41
  health. For a while he would not answer me, except to say that
• 4:01:46
  he was not ill. But then, after scrutinizing me closely, he half
• 4:01:50
  arose on his elbow and said, I thank you kindly, sir, but
• 4:01:56
  I am simply telling you the truth. I am not ill as men call
• 4:02:00
  it, though God knows whether there be not worse sicknesses than doctors know of.
• 4:02:05
  I'll tell you as you are so kind, but I trust that you
• 4:02:09
  won't even mention such a thing to a living soul, for it might welcome
• 4:02:13
  me more and greater woe. I am suffering from a bad dream, A
• 4:02:20
  bad dream, I said, hoping to cheer him. But dreams pass away
• 4:02:24
  with the light, even with waking. There I stopped, for before he
• 4:02:30
  spoke, I saw the answer in his desolate look round the little place.
• 4:02:35
  No, No, that's all well for people that live in comfort and with
• 4:02:39
  those they love around them. It is a thousand times worse for those who
• 4:02:45
  live alone and have to do so. What cheer is there for me?
• 4:02:48
  Waking here in the silence of the night, with a wide more around me,
• 4:02:52
  full of voices and full of faces that make my waking a worse dream
• 4:02:58
  than my sleep. Ah, young sir, you have no pass that can
• 4:03:01
  send its legions to people the darkness and the empty space, and I pray
• 4:03:09
  the Good God that you may never have. As he spoke, there was
• 4:03:13
  such an almost irresistible gravity of conviction in his manner that I abandoned my remonstrance
• 4:03:22
  about his solitary life. I felt that I was in the presence of some
• 4:03:26
  secret influence which I could not fathom, to my relief, for I knew
• 4:03:31
  not what to say. He went on. Two nights past, I have
• 4:03:35
  dreamt it. It was hard enough the first night, but I came through
• 4:03:41
  it last night. The expectation was in itself almost worse than the dream,
• 4:03:46
  until the dream came, and then it swept away every remembrance of lesser pain.
• 4:03:50
  I stayed awake till just before the dawn, and then it came again,
• 4:03:56
  and ever since I have been in such an agony as I am sure
• 4:04:00
  the dying feel, and with it all the dread of to night. Before
• 4:04:05
  he had got to the end of the sentence. My mind was made up,
• 4:04:09
  and I felt that I could speak to him more cheerfully. Try and
• 4:04:13
  get to sleep early tonight, In fact, before the evening has passed away.
• 4:04:18
  The sleep will refresh you, and I promise you there will not be
• 4:04:22
  any bad dreams after to night. He shook his head hopelessly. So I
• 4:04:26
  sat a little longer and then left him. When I got home, I
• 4:04:31
  made my arrangements for the night, for I had made up my mind to
• 4:04:35
  share Jacob Settle's lonely vigil in his cottage on the moor. I judged that
• 4:04:39
  if he got to sleep before sunset, he would wake well before midnight.
• 4:04:45
  And so, just as the bells of the city were striking eleven, I
• 4:04:48
  stood opposite his door, armed with a bag, in which were my supper,
• 4:04:52
  an extra large flask, a couple of candles, and a book.
• 4:04:58
  The moonlight it was bright and flooded the whole more till it was almost as
• 4:05:03
  light as day. But ever an anon black cloths drove across the sky and
• 4:05:09
  made a darkness which, by comparison seemed almost tangible. I opened the door
• 4:05:15
  softly and entered without waking Jacob, who lay asleep with his white face upward.
• 4:05:20
  He was still and again bathed in sweat. I tried to imagine what
• 4:05:24
  visions were passing before those closed eyes, which could bring with them the misery
• 4:05:31
  and woe which were stamped on the face. But fancy failed me, and
• 4:05:35
  I waited for the awakening. It came suddenly, and in a fashion which
• 4:05:39
  touched me to the quick, for the hollow groan that broke from the man's
• 4:05:45
  white lips as he half arose and sank back, was manifestly the realization or
• 4:05:52
  completion of some train of thought which had gone before. If this be dreaming,
• 4:05:58
  I said to myself that it must be based on some very terrible reality.
• 4:06:03
  What can have been that unhappy fact that he spoke of? While thus
• 4:06:09
  I spoke, he realized that I was with him. It struck me as
• 4:06:13
  strange that he had no period of that doubt as to whether dream or reality
• 4:06:20
  surrounded him, which commonly marks an expected environment of waking men. With a
• 4:06:26
  positive cry of joy, he seized my hand and held it in his two
• 4:06:31
  wet, trembling hands, as a frightened child clings on to some one whom
• 4:06:35
  it loves. I tried to soothe him. There there it is all right.
• 4:06:41
  I have come to stay with you to night, and together we will
• 4:06:43
  try to fight this evil dream. He let go my hand suddenly, and
• 4:06:50
  sank back on his bed and covered his eyes with his hands. Fight it,
• 4:06:56
  fight it, the evil dream. Ah, No, sir, No,
• 4:07:00
  no mortal power can fight that dream, for it comes from God and
• 4:07:03
  is burned in here. And he beat upon his forehead. Then he went
• 4:07:09
  on, it is the same dream, ever the same, and yet it
• 4:07:13
  groes in its power to torture me every time it comes. What is the
• 4:07:20
  dream? I asked, thinking that the speaking of it might give him some
• 4:07:24
  relief. But he shrank away from me, and, after a long pause,
• 4:07:28
  said, no, I had better not tell it. It may not
• 4:07:33
  come again. There was manifestly something to conceal from me, something that lay
• 4:07:41
  beyond the dream. So I answered, all right, I hope you have
• 4:07:46
  seen the last of it, But if it should come again, you will
• 4:07:50
  tell me, will you not? I ask not out of curiosity, but
• 4:07:54
  because I think it may relieve you to speak. He answered with what I
• 4:07:58
  thought was almost an undue amount of solemnity. If he comes again, I
• 4:08:05
  shall tell you all. Then I tried to get his mind away from the
• 4:08:11
  subject to more mundane things. So I produced supper and made him share it
• 4:08:16
  with me, including the contents of the flask. After a little he braced
• 4:08:20
  up, and when I lit my cigar, having given him another, we
• 4:08:26
  smoked a full hour and talked of many things. Little by little, the
• 4:08:31
  comfort of his body stole over his mind, and I could see sleep laying
• 4:08:35
  her gentle hands on his eyelids. He felt it too, and told me
• 4:08:41
  that now he felt all right and I might safely leave him. But I
• 4:08:46
  told him that right or wrong, I was going to see in the daylight.
• 4:08:50
  So I lit my other candle and began to read. As he fell
• 4:08:54
  asleep. By degrees, I got interested in my book, so interested that
• 4:09:01
  presently I was startled by its dropping out of my hands. I looked and
• 4:09:07
  saw that Jacob was still asleep, and I was rejoiced to see that there
• 4:09:11
  was on his face a look of unwonted happiness, while his lips seemed to
• 4:09:16
  move with unspoken words. Then I turned to my work again and again woke,
• 4:09:22
  but this time to feel chilled to my very marrow by hearing the voice
• 4:09:28
  from the bed beside me. Not with those red hands. Never, never,
• 4:09:33
  on looking at him, I found that he was still asleep. He
• 4:09:37
  woke, however, in an instant, and did not seem surprised to see
• 4:09:41
  me. There was again that strange apathy as to his surroundings. Then I
• 4:09:46
  said, settle, tell me your dream. You may speak freely, for
• 4:09:52
  I shall hold your confidence sacred while we both live. I shall never mention
• 4:09:56
  what you may choose to tell me. He replied, I said I would,
• 4:10:03
  but I had better tell you first what goes before the dream, that
• 4:10:09
  you may understand. I was a schoolmaster when I was a very young man.
• 4:10:13
  It was only a parish school in a little village in the west Country.
• 4:10:18
  No need to mention any names. Better not. I was engaged to
• 4:10:22
  be married to a young girl whom I loved and almost reverenced. It was
• 4:10:28
  the old story. While we were waiting for the time when we could afford
• 4:10:33
  to set up house together, another man came along. He was nearly as
• 4:10:37
  young as I was, and handsome and a gentleman, with all a gentleman's
• 4:10:41
  attractive ways for a woman of our class. He would go fishing, and
• 4:10:46
  she would meet him while I was at my work in school. I reasoned
• 4:10:52
  with her and implored to give him up. I offered to get married at
• 4:10:56
  once and go away and begin the world in this strange country. But she
• 4:11:01
  would not listen to anything I could say, and I could see that she
• 4:11:05
  was infatuated with him. Then I took it on myself to meet the man
• 4:11:11
  and asked him to deal well with the girl, for I thought he might
• 4:11:15
  mean honestly by her, so that there might be no talk or chance of
• 4:11:20
  talk on the part of the others. I went where I should meet him,
• 4:11:26
  with none by, and we met here. Jacob Settle had to pause
• 4:11:31
  for something seemed to rise in his throat, and he almost gasped for breath.
• 4:11:35
  Then he went on, sir, as God is above us, there
• 4:11:41
  was no selfish thought in my heart that day. I loved my pretty Mabel
• 4:11:46
  too well to be content with a part of her love. And I had
• 4:11:50
  thought of my own unhappiness too often not to have come to realize that whatever
• 4:11:54
  might come to her, my hope was gone. He was insolent to me.
• 4:12:00
  You, sir, who are a gentleman, cannot know perhaps how galling
• 4:12:05
  can be the insolence of one who is above you in station. But I
• 4:12:09
  bore with that. I implored him well with the girl, for what might
• 4:12:13
  be only a pastime of an idle hour with him might be the breaking of
• 4:12:18
  her heart. For I never had a thought of her truth, or that
• 4:12:24
  the worst of harm could come to her. It was only the unhappiness to
• 4:12:28
  her heart I feared. But when I asked him when he intended to marry
• 4:12:33
  her, his laughter galled me so that I had lost my temper and told
• 4:12:39
  him that I would not stand by and see her life made unhappy. Then
• 4:12:43
  he grew angry too, and in his anger said such cruel things of her
• 4:12:48
  that then and there I swore he should not live to do her harm.
• 4:12:54
  God knows how it came about, for in such moments of passion it is
• 4:12:58
  hard to remember the steps from a word to a blow. But I found
• 4:13:01
  myself standing over his dead body with my hands crimson, with a blood that
• 4:13:07
  welled from his torn throat. We were alone, and he was a stranger,
• 4:13:11
  with none of his ken to seek for him. And murder does not
• 4:13:15
  always out, not all at once. His bones may be whitening still,
• 4:13:20
  for all I know, in the pool of the river where I left him,
• 4:13:24
  no one suspected his absence, or why it was except my poor Mabel,
• 4:13:31
  and she dared not speak. But it was all in vain. For
• 4:13:35
  when I came back again after an absence of months, for I could not
• 4:13:39
  live in the place, I learned that her shame had come, and that
• 4:13:43
  she had died in it. Hitherto I had been borne up by the thought
• 4:13:48
  that my ill deed had saved her future. But now when I learned that
• 4:13:54
  I had been too late, and that my poor love was smirched with that
• 4:13:58
  man and sin, I fled away, with the sense of my useless guilt
• 4:14:03
  upon me more heavily than I could bear. Ah, Sir, you that
• 4:14:09
  have not done such a sin don't know what it is to carry it with
• 4:14:13
  you. You may think that custom makes it easy to you, but it
• 4:14:16
  is not so. It grows and grows with every hour, till it becomes
• 4:14:22
  intolerable, and with it growing too the feeling that you must forever stand outside
• 4:14:28
  Heaven. You don't know what it means, and I pray God that you
• 4:14:31
  never may. Ordinary men to whom all things are possible, don't often,
• 4:14:37
  if ever, think of Heaven. It is a name and nothing more,
• 4:14:41
  and they are content to wait and let things be. But to those who
• 4:14:46
  are doomed to be shut out forever. You cannot think what it means.
• 4:14:50
  You cannot guess or measure the terrible, endless longing to see the gates opened,
• 4:14:56
  and to be able to join the white figures within. And this brings
• 4:15:01
  me to my dream. It seemed that the portal was before me, with
• 4:15:07
  great gates of massive steel, with bars of the thickness of a mast,
• 4:15:11
  rising to the very clouds, and so close that between them was just a
• 4:15:16
  glimpse of a crystal grotto, on whose shining walls were figured many white clad
• 4:15:22
  forms, with faces radiant with joy. When I stood before the gate,
• 4:15:26
  my heart and soul were so full of rapture and longing that I forgot.
• 4:15:33
  And there stood at the gate two mighty angels, with sweeping wings, and
• 4:15:37
  oh so stern of countenance. They held each in one hand a flaming sword,
• 4:15:43
  and in the other the latchet, which moved to and fro at the
• 4:15:48
  lightest touch. Nearer were figures, all draped in black, with heads covered
• 4:15:52
  so that only the eyes were seen, and they handed to each who came
• 4:15:56
  white garments, such as the angels ware. A low murmur came that told
• 4:16:02
  that all should put on their own robes, and without soil or the angels
• 4:16:07
  would not pass them in, but would smite them down with the flaming swords.
• 4:16:11
  I was eager to don my own garment and hurriedly throw it over me.
• 4:16:17
  Then stepped swiftly to the gate, But it moved not, and the
• 4:16:21
  angels, loosing the latchet, pointed to my dress. I looked down and
• 4:16:26
  was aghast, for the whole robe was smeared with blood. My hands were
• 4:16:32
  red, they glittered with the blood that dripped from them, as on that
• 4:16:36
  day by the river bank. And then the angels raised the flaming swords to
• 4:16:41
  smite me down, and the horror was complete. I awoke again and again
• 4:16:48
  and again that awful dream comes to me. I never learned from the experience.
• 4:16:52
  I never remember, but at the beginning the hope is ever there to
• 4:16:57
  make the end more palling. And I know that the dream does not come
• 4:17:03
  out of the common darkness where the dreams abide, but that it is sent
• 4:17:07
  from God as a punishment. Never, never shall I be able to pass
• 4:17:11
  the gate, for the soil on the angel garments must ever come from these
• 4:17:15
  bloody hands. I listened as in a spell, as Jacob Settle spoke.
• 4:17:23
  There was something so far away in the tone of his voice, something so
• 4:17:27
  dreamy and mystic, in the eyes that looked as if through me at some
• 4:17:33
  spirit beyond, Something so lofty in his very diction, and in such marked
• 4:17:38
  contrast to his work worn clothes and his poor surroundings, that I wondered if
• 4:17:45
  the whole thing were not a dream. We were both silent for a long
• 4:17:49
  time. I kept looking at the man before me, and growing wonderment.
• 4:17:55
  Now that his confession had been made, his soul, which had been crushed
• 4:18:00
  to the very earth, seemed to leap back again to uprightness with some resilient
• 4:18:04
  force. I suppose I ought to have been horrified with his story, but
• 4:18:11
  strange to say I was not. It certainly is not pleasant to be made
• 4:18:15
  the recipient of the confidence of a murderer. But this poor fellow seemed to
• 4:18:22
  have had not only so much provocation, but so much self denying purpose in
• 4:18:26
  his deed of blood, that I did not feel called upon to pass judgment
• 4:18:30
  upon him. My purpose was to comfort, so I spoke out with what
• 4:18:37
  calmness I could, for my heart was beating fast and heavily. You need
• 4:18:42
  not despair, Jacob settle. God is very good, and his mercy is
• 4:18:48
  great. Live on and work on in the hope that some day you may
• 4:18:52
  feel that you have atoned for the past. Here, I paused, for
• 4:18:56
  I could see that deep natural seep this time was creeping upon him. Go
• 4:19:03
  to sleep, I said, I shall watch with you here, and we
• 4:19:07
  shall have no more evil dreams to night. He made an effort to pull
• 4:19:12
  himself together and answered, I don't know how to thank you for your goodness
• 4:19:18
  to me this night, but I think you had best leave me now.
• 4:19:22
  I'll try and sleep this out. I feel a weight off my mind since
• 4:19:26
  I have told you all, if there's anything of the man left in me,
• 4:19:30
  I must try and fight out life alone. I'll go to night as
• 4:19:36
  you wish it, I said, But take my advice and do not live
• 4:19:38
  in such a solitary way. Go among men and women, Live among them,
• 4:19:45
  share their joys and sorrows, and it will help you to forget this
• 4:19:49
  solitude will make you melancholy, mad I will, he answered, half consciously,
• 4:19:56
  for sleep was overmastering him. I turned, and he looked after me.
• 4:20:02
  When I had touched the latch, I dropped it and coming back to
• 4:20:06
  the bed, held out my hand. He grasped it with both his as
• 4:20:11
  he rose to a sitting posture, and I said my good night, trying
• 4:20:14
  to cheer him. Hartman heart, there is work in this world for you
• 4:20:19
  to do, Jacob Settle. You can wear those white robes yet and pass
• 4:20:23
  through that gate of steel. Then I left him. A week after I
• 4:20:30
  found his cottage deserted, and on asking at the works, was told that
• 4:20:34
  he had gone north. No one exactly knew whither. Two years afterwards,
• 4:20:41
  I was staying for a few days with my friend doctor Monroe in Glasgow.
• 4:20:47
  He was a busy man and could not spare much time for going about with
• 4:20:52
  me, so I spent my days in excursions to the Trussacs and Loch Katrine
• 4:20:56
  and down the Clyde. On the second last evening of my stay, I
• 4:21:02
  came back somewhat later than I had arranged, but found that my host was
• 4:21:07
  late too. The maid told me that he had been sent for to the
• 4:21:11
  hospital a case of accident at the gas works, and the dinner was postponed
• 4:21:15
  an hour, so, telling her I would stroll down to find her master
• 4:21:19
  and walk back with him, I went out at the hospital I found him
• 4:21:25
  washing his hands preparatory to starting for home. Casually, I asked him what
• 4:21:30
  his case was, Oh, the usual thing. A rotten rope and men's
• 4:21:36
  lives of no account. Two men were working in a gasometer when the rope
• 4:21:41
  that held their scaffolding broke. It must have occurred just before the dinner hour,
• 4:21:45
  for no one noticed their absence till the men had returned. There was
• 4:21:51
  about seven feet of water in the gessometer, so they had a hard fight
• 4:21:56
  for it. Poor fellows. However, one of them was alive, alive,
• 4:22:00
  but we have had a hard job to pull him through. It seems
• 4:22:04
  that he owes his life to his mate, for I have never heard of
• 4:22:07
  greater heroism. They swam together while their strength lasted. But at the end
• 4:22:12
  they were so done up that even the lights above and the men slung with
• 4:22:17
  ropes coming down to help them could not keep them up. But one of
• 4:22:22
  them stood on the bottom and held up his comrade over his head, and
• 4:22:26
  those few breaths made all the difference between life and death. They were a
• 4:22:32
  shocking sight when they were taken out, for that water is like a purple
• 4:22:36
  dye. With the gas and the tar, the man upstairs looked as if
• 4:22:41
  he had been washed in blood. Ugh and the other. Oh, he's
• 4:22:48
  worse still. But he must have been a very noble fellow. That struggle
• 4:22:52
  under the water must have been fearful. One can see that by the way
• 4:22:56
  the blood has been drawn from the extremity. It makes the idea of the
• 4:23:02
  stigmata possible. To look at him resolution like this, could you would think
• 4:23:08
  do anything in the world. I It might almost unbar the gates of heaven.
• 4:23:14
  Look here, old man. It is not a very pleasant sight,
• 4:23:18
  especially just before dinner. But you are our writer, and this is an
• 4:23:22
  odd case. Here is something you would not like to miss, for in
• 4:23:26
  all human probability, you will never see anything like it again. While he
• 4:23:32
  was speaking, he had brought me into the mortuary of the hospital. On
• 4:23:37
  the bier lay a body covered with a white sheet which was wrapped close around
• 4:23:41
  it. Looks like a chrysalis, don't it, I say, Jack.
• 4:23:45
  If there be anything in the old myth that a soul is typified by a
• 4:23:48
  butterfly, well, then the one that this chrysalis sent forth was a very
• 4:23:55
  noble specimen and took all the sunlight on its wings. See here he uncovered
• 4:24:00
  the face horrible. Indeed, it looked as though stained with blood, but
• 4:24:07
  I knew him at once. Jacob Settle, my friend, pulled the winding
• 4:24:11
  sheet further down. The hands were crossed on the purple breast, as they
• 4:24:15
  had been reverently placed by some tender hearted person. As I saw them,
• 4:24:21
  my heart throbbed with a great exultation, for the memory of his harrowing dream
• 4:24:26
  rushed across my mind. There was no stain now on those poor brave hands,
• 4:24:30
  for they were blanched white as snow. And somehow, as I looked,
• 4:24:36
  I felt that the evil dream was all over, that noble soul had
• 4:24:40
  won a way through the gate. At last, the white robe had now
• 4:24:44
  no stain from the hands that had put it on. End of a dream
• 4:24:51
  of red hands Crooked Sons by Brown Stoker. Mister Arthur Fairley Markham, who
• 4:24:57
  took what was known as the Red House above the mains of Crooken, was
• 4:25:00
  a London merchant, and, being essentially a Cockney, thought it necessary when
• 4:25:07
  he went for the summer holidays to Scotland, to provide an entire rig out
• 4:25:11
  as a Highland chieftain, as manifested in Cromo lithographs, and on the music
• 4:25:15
  hall stage. He had once seen in the Empire the great Prince, the
• 4:25:18
  Bounder King, bring down their house by appearing as the MC Slogan of that
• 4:25:25
  Ilk and singing the celebrated Scotch song There's nothing like Hagis to make your man
• 4:25:30
  dry. And he had ever since preserved in his mind a faithful image of
• 4:25:33
  the pictureresque and warlike appearance which he presented. Indeed, if the true inwardness
• 4:25:40
  of mister Markham's mind on the subject of his selection of Aberdeenshire as a summer
• 4:25:44
  resort, were known, it would be found that in the foreground of the
• 4:25:47
  holiday locality which his fancy painted stalked the many hued figure of the MC Slogan
• 4:25:52
  of that Ilk. However, be this as it may. A very kind
• 4:25:56
  fortune, certainly so far as external beauty was concerned, led him to the
• 4:26:00
  choice of crook and Bay. It is a lovely spot between Aberdeen and Peterhead,
• 4:26:04
  just under the rock bound headland. Whence the long dangerous reefs known as
• 4:26:08
  the Spurs, run out into the North Sea between this and the mains of
• 4:26:12
  Crookhan, a village sheltered by the northern cliffs lies the deep bay, backed
• 4:26:18
  with a multitude of bent grown dunes, where the rabbits are to be found
• 4:26:22
  in thousands. Thus, at either end of the bay is a rocky promontory,
• 4:26:26
  and when the dawn of the sunset falls on the rocks of red cyanite,
• 4:26:30
  the effect is very lovely. The bay itself is floored with level sand,
• 4:26:33
  and the tide runs far out, leaving a smooth waste of hard sand,
• 4:26:37
  on which are dotted here and there the stake nets and bagnets of the
• 4:26:41
  salmon fishers. At one end of the bay there is a little group of
• 4:26:45
  cluster of rocks whose heads are raised something above high water, except when in
• 4:26:49
  rough weather the waves come over them green. At low tide they are exposed
• 4:26:52
  down to sun devil, and here is perhaps the only little bit of dangerous
• 4:26:57
  sand on this part of the Eastern coast. Between the rocks, which are
• 4:27:02
  apart about some fifty feet, is a small quicksand which, like the good
• 4:27:07
  winds, is dangerous only with the incoming tide. It extends outwards till it
• 4:27:11
  is lost in the sea, and inwards till it fades away in the hard
• 4:27:15
  sound of the upper beach. On the slope of the hill which rises beyond
• 4:27:18
  the dunes midway between the spurs and the Port of Crooken is the Red House.
• 4:27:25
  It rises from the midst of a clump of fir trees which protect it
• 4:27:26
  on three sides, leaving the whole sea front open. A trim old fashioned
• 4:27:32
  garden stretches down to the roadway, on crossing which a grassy path which can
• 4:27:36
  be used for light vehicles, threads away to the shore, winding amongst the
• 4:27:40
  sand hills. When the Markham family arrived at the Red House after their thirty
• 4:27:45
  six hours of pitching on the Aberdeen steamer Van Rye from Blackwall, with a
• 4:27:48
  subsequent train to Yelln and drive of a dozen miles, they all agreed that
• 4:27:53
  they had never seen a more delightful spot. The general satisfaction was more marked
• 4:27:59
  as that every time none of the family were, for several reasons, inclined
• 4:28:03
  to find favorable anything or any place over the Scottish border. Though the family
• 4:28:08
  was a large one, the prosperity of the business allowed them all sorts of
• 4:28:12
  personal luxuries, amongst which was a wide latitude in the way of dress,
• 4:28:18
  the frequency of the Markham girl's new frocks was a source of envy to their
• 4:28:22
  bosom friends and of joy to themselves. Arthur Furley Markham had not taken his
• 4:28:26
  family into his confidence regarding his new costume. He was not quite certain that
• 4:28:30
  he should be free from ridicule, or at least from sarcasm, and as
• 4:28:34
  he was sensitive on the subject, he thought it better to be actually in
• 4:28:38
  the suitable environment before he allowed the full splendor to burst upon them. He
• 4:28:42
  had taken some pains to ensure the completeness of the Highland costume. For the
• 4:28:48
  purpose he had paid many visits to the scotch All Wool Tartan clothing mart which
• 4:28:53
  had been lately established in Cocktall Court by the masters McCallum More and Roderick mcdoo,
• 4:29:00
  axious consultations with the head of the firm, McCallum, as he called
• 4:29:03
  himself, resenting any such additions as mister or a squire. The known stock
• 4:29:07
  of buckles, button straps, brooches and ornaments of all kinds were examined in
• 4:29:11
  critical detail, and at last an eagle's feather of sufficiently magnificent proportions was discovered
• 4:29:18
  and the equipment was complete. It was only when he saw the finished costume,
• 4:29:23
  with the vivid hues of the tartan seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the
• 4:29:29
  multitude of silver fittings. The cair Goone brooches the Philli beg Dirk and Sparren
• 4:29:33
  that he was fully and absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had
• 4:29:37
  thought of the Royal Stewart dress Tartan, but had banded it on the McCallum,
• 4:29:42
  pointing out that if he should happen to be in the neighborhood of Balmoral,
• 4:29:47
  it might lead to complications. The macallum, who by the way spoke
• 4:29:51
  with a remarkable Cockney accent, suggested other plays in turn. But now that
• 4:29:56
  the other question of accuracy had been raised, mister Markham foresaw difficulties if he
• 4:30:02
  should by chance find himself in the locality of the clan whose colors he had
• 4:30:06
  usurped. The Macallum at last undertook to have at Markham's expense a special pattern
• 4:30:12
  woven, which would not be exactly the same as any existing tartan, though
• 4:30:17
  partaking of the characteristics of many. It was based on the Royal Stuart,
• 4:30:22
  but contained suggestions as to simplicity of pattern from the McAllister and Ogilvy clans,
• 4:30:26
  and as to neutrality of color from the clans of Buchanan, Macbeth, chief
• 4:30:30
  of Macintosh and MacLeod. When the specimen had been shown to Markham, he
• 4:30:34
  had feared somewhat lest it should strike the eye of his domestic circle as gaudy.
• 4:30:40
  But as Roderick McDow fell into perfect ecstasies over its beauty, he did
• 4:30:44
  not make any objection to the completion of the piece. He thought and wisely
• 4:30:49
  that if a genuine scotchman like McDow liked it, it must be right,
• 4:30:55
  especially as the junior partner was a man very much of his own build and
• 4:30:57
  appearance. When the McCallum was receiving his check, which by the way,
• 4:31:02
  was a pretty stiff one, he remarked, I've I've taken the liberty of
• 4:31:07
  having some more of the staff woven. O cay sir, you are any
• 4:31:10
  your friends shall want it. Markham was gratified and told him that he should
• 4:31:14
  be only too happy if the beautiful stuff which they had originated between them should
• 4:31:18
  become a favorite, as he had no doubt it would in time he might
• 4:31:22
  make him sell as much as he would Markham tried the dress on in his
• 4:31:26
  office one evening after the clerks had all gone home. He was pleased.
• 4:31:30
  They were a little frightened at the result. The Macallum had done his work
• 4:31:33
  thoroughly, and there was nothing omitted that could add to the martial dignity of
• 4:31:37
  the wearer. I shall not, of course take the claim or on the
• 4:31:41
  pistols with me on ord fromary occasions, said Markham to himself, as he
• 4:31:44
  began to undress. He determined that he would wear the dress for the first
• 4:31:48
  time on landing in Scotland, and accordingly, on the morning when the ban
• 4:31:51
  rye was hanging off the girl Nest Lighthouse waiting for the tie to enter the
• 4:31:55
  Port of Aberdeen, he emerged from his cabin in all the glaody splendor of
• 4:31:59
  his new costume. The first comment he heard was from one of his own
• 4:32:03
  sons, who did not recognize him at first. Here is a guy,
• 4:32:07
  Gray Scott. It's the governor. And the boy fled forthwith and tried to
• 4:32:11
  bury his laughter under a cushion in the saloon. Markham was a good sailor
• 4:32:17
  and had not suffered from the pitching of the boat, so that his naturally
• 4:32:19
  rubicund face was even more rosy by the conscious blush which suffused his cheeks.
• 4:32:23
  When he had found himself at once the sinusure of all eyes. He could
• 4:32:27
  have wished that he had not been so bold, for he knew from the
• 4:32:32
  cold that there was a big bear spot under one side of his jauntly worn
• 4:32:34
  Glengarry cap. However, he faced the group of strangers boldly. He was
• 4:32:41
  not outwardly upset, even when some of the comments reached his ears. He's
• 4:32:45
  off his blooming champ, said a cockney in a suit of exaggerated blood.
• 4:32:49
  There's flies on him, said a tall, thin Yankee, pale with sea
• 4:32:53
  sickness. He was on his way to take up his residence for a time,
• 4:32:56
  as close as he could get to the gates of Balmontquarrel. Happy thought,
• 4:33:00
  let us fill on moles. How's the chance, said a young Oxford
• 4:33:04
  man on his way home to Inverness. But presently mister Markham heard the voice
• 4:33:08
  of his eldest daughter, Where is he? Where is he? As she
• 4:33:12
  came tearing along the deck with a hat blown behind her, Her face shed
• 4:33:17
  signs of agitation, for her mother had just been telling her of her father's
• 4:33:19
  condition, but when she saw him, she instantly burst into laughter, so
• 4:33:23
  violent that it ended in a fit of hysterics. Something of the same kind
• 4:33:29
  happened to each of the other children. When they had all had their turn,
• 4:33:33
  mister Markham went to his cabin and sent his wife's maid to tell each
• 4:33:36
  member of the family that he wanted to see them at once. They all
• 4:33:40
  made their appearance, suppressing their feelings as well as they could. He said
• 4:33:44
  to them very quietly, my DearS, don't not provide you all with ample
• 4:33:48
  allowances? Yes, father, they all answered gravely. No one could be
• 4:33:53
  more generous. Don't not let you dresses you please? Yes, Father is
• 4:33:59
  a little evishly fair, muddy is Don't you think it will be naser and
• 4:34:03
  kinder of you not to try and make me feel uncomfortable, even if I
• 4:34:07
  do assume address, which is ridiculous in your eyes, but quite common enough
• 4:34:11
  in a country where we are back to Sir Jean, there was no answer
• 4:34:15
  except that which appeared in their hanging heads. He was a good father,
• 4:34:18
  and they all knew it. He was quite satisfied and went on there.
• 4:34:22
  Now run away and enjoy yourselves, which I don't have another word about it.
• 4:34:26
  Then he went on deck again and stood bravely the fire of ridicule,
• 4:34:30
  which he recognized around him, though nothing more was said within his hearing.
• 4:34:34
  The astonishment and the amusement which his yeto occasioned on the ban Rai was,
• 4:34:38
  however, nothing to that which it created in Aberdeen. The boys and loafers,
• 4:34:44
  women with babies who waited at the landing shed followed en mass as the
• 4:34:48
  Markam party took their way to the railway station. Even the porters, with
• 4:34:52
  their old fashioned knots and their new fashion barrows, who await the traveler at
• 4:34:56
  the foot of the gangplank, followed in wondering delight. The Peterhead train was
• 4:35:00
  just about to start, so that the martyrdom was not unnecessarily prolonged. In
• 4:35:06
  the carriage, the glorious Highland costume was unseen, and as there were but
• 4:35:08
  few persons at the station at Yellen, all went well there. When,
• 4:35:12
  however, the carriage drew near to the mains of crook And and the fisherfolk
• 4:35:15
  could run to their doors to see who it was that was passing, the
• 4:35:19
  excitement exceeded all bounds. The children, with one impulse, waved their bonnets
• 4:35:23
  and ran shouting behind the carriage. The men forsook their nets and their baiting
• 4:35:27
  and followed. The women cut their babies and followed also. The horses were
• 4:35:33
  tired after their long journey to Yelling and back, and the hill was steep,
• 4:35:37
  so that there was ample time for the crowd to gather and even to
• 4:35:40
  pass on ahead. Missus Markham and the elder girls would have liked to make
• 4:35:44
  some protest, or to do something to relieve their feelings of shagrin at the
• 4:35:48
  ridicule which they saw on all faces. But there was a look of fixed
• 4:35:51
  determination on the face of the seeming highlander, which awed them a little,
• 4:35:55
  and they were silent. It might have been that the eagles feather even when
• 4:35:59
  a rising a of the bald head, the care gone brooch even on the
• 4:36:03
  fat shoulder, and the clay or dirk, and pistols, even when belted
• 4:36:07
  round the extensive paunch and protruding from the stocking of the sturdy cough, fulfilled
• 4:36:11
  their existence as symbols of martial and terrifying import. When the party arrived at
• 4:36:17
  the gate of the Red House, there awaited them a crowd of crooken inhabitants,
• 4:36:21
  hatless and respectfully silent. The remainder of the population was painfully toiling up
• 4:36:25
  the hill. The silence was broken by only one sound, that of a
• 4:36:29
  man with the deep voice. Man, but he's forgotten their pipes. The
• 4:36:33
  servants has arrived some days before, and all things were in readiness. In
• 4:36:37
  the glow consequent on the good lunch after a hard journey, all the disagreeables
• 4:36:41
  of trouble, and all the shagrin consequent on the adoption of the obnoxious costume
• 4:36:45
  were forgotten. That afternoon, Markham, still clad in full array, walked
• 4:36:48
  through the mains of Crooking. He was all alone, for strange to say,
• 4:36:53
  His wife and both daughters had sick headaches, and were, as he
• 4:36:56
  was told, lying down to rest after the fatigue of the journey. His
• 4:37:00
  eldest son, who claimed to be a young man, had gone out by
• 4:37:04
  himself to explore the surroundings of the place, and one of the boys could
• 4:37:08
  not be found. The other boy, on being told that his father had
• 4:37:11
  sent for him to come for a walk, had managed, by accident,
• 4:37:15
  of course, to fall into the water butt and had to be dried and
• 4:37:18
  rigged out afresh, his clothes not having been as yet unpacked, this was,
• 4:37:22
  of course impossible without delay. Mister Markham was not quite satisfied with his
• 4:37:27
  walk. He could not meet any of his neighbors. It was not that
• 4:37:32
  there were not enough people about, for every house and cottage seemed to be
• 4:37:34
  full. But the people, when in the open, were either in their
• 4:37:38
  doorways some distance behind him, or on the roadway a long distance in front.
• 4:37:44
  As he passed, he could see the tops of heads and the whites
• 4:37:45
  of eyes in the windows or round the corners of doors. The only interview
• 4:37:49
  which he had was anything but a pleasant one. This was with an odd
• 4:37:53
  sort of old man who was hardly ever heard to speak, except to join
• 4:37:56
  in the amens in the meetinghouse. His sole occupation seemed to be to wait
• 4:38:02
  at the window of the post office from eight o'clock in the morning till the
• 4:38:06
  arrival of the mail at one, when he carried the letter back to a
• 4:38:08
  neighboring baronial castle. The remainder of his day was spent on a seat in
• 4:38:14
  a drafty part of the port, where the offal of the fish, the
• 4:38:17
  refuse of the bait, and the house of rubbish was thrown, and where
• 4:38:19
  the ducks were accustomed to hold high revel. When Saft Tammy beheld him coming,
• 4:38:25
  he raised his eyes, which were generally fixed on the nothing which lay
• 4:38:27
  on the roadway opposite his seat, and, seeming dazzled as if by a
• 4:38:32
  burst of sunshine, rubbed them and shaded them with his hand. Then he
• 4:38:36
  started up and raised his hand Aloft in a denunciatory manner as he spoke,
• 4:38:40
  Vanity of vanities, said the preacher, All is vanity, Mon be warned
• 4:38:45
  in time. Behold the lilies of the field. They toil, not neither
• 4:38:48
  did they spin. Yet Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed
• 4:38:52
  like one of these. Morn morn. Thy vanity is as the quicksand which
• 4:38:56
  swallows a poor which comes within its spell. Beware of vanity, Beware of
• 4:39:00
  the quicksand which you honor for thee, and which will swallow thee. Up,
• 4:39:06
  See thy self, learn mine own vanity, meet thyself face to face.
• 4:39:11
  And then in that moment, elle shalt learn the fatal force of thy
• 4:39:14
  vanity. Learn it, know it. Then repenty the quicksand swallow thee.
• 4:39:18
  Then, without another word, he went back to his seat and sat there,
• 4:39:22
  immovable in expressionless. As before. Malkham could not but feel a little
• 4:39:26
  upset by this tirade, only that it was spoken by a seeming badman.
• 4:39:30
  He would have put it down to some eccentric exhibition of Scottish humor or impudence,
• 4:39:34
  but the gravity of the message, for it seemed nothing else, made
• 4:39:38
  such a reading impossible. He was, however, determined not to give into
• 4:39:44
  ridicule, and although he had not yet seen anything in Scotland to remind him
• 4:39:47
  even of a kilt, he determined to wear his Highland dress. When he
• 4:39:51
  returned home in less than half an hour, he found that every member of
• 4:39:55
  the family was, despite the headaches, out taking a walk. He took
• 4:40:00
  the opportunity afforded by the absence of locking himself in his dressing room, took
• 4:40:03
  off the Highland dress, and, putting on a suit of flannels, lit
• 4:40:07
  a cigar and had a snooze. He was awakened by the noise of the
• 4:40:10
  family coming in, and at once, donning his dress, made his appearance
• 4:40:12
  in the drawing room for tea. He did not go out again that afternoon,
• 4:40:17
  but after dinner he put on his dress again. He had, of
• 4:40:19
  course dressed for dinner as usual, and went by himself for a walk on
• 4:40:23
  the sea shore. He had by this time come to the conclusion that he
• 4:40:27
  would get by degrees accustomed to the highland dress before making it his ordinary wear.
• 4:40:33
  The moon was up, and he easily followed the path through the sand
• 4:40:36
  hills and shortly struck the shore. The tide was out in the beach firm
• 4:40:38
  as a rock, so he strolled southwards to nearly the end of the bay.
• 4:40:42
  Here he was attracted by two isolated rocks some little way out from the
• 4:40:45
  edge of the dunes, so he strolled towards them. When he reached the
• 4:40:48
  nearest, when he climbed it, and, sitting there elevated some fifteen or
• 4:40:52
  twenty feet above the waste of sand, enjoyed the lovely, peaceful prospect.
• 4:40:56
  The moon was rising behind the headland of Pennifold, and its light was just
• 4:41:00
  touching the top of the furthest most rock of the spurs, some three quarters
• 4:41:03
  of a mile out. The rest of the rocks were in dark shadow.
• 4:41:07
  As the moon rose over the headland, the rocks of the spurs, and
• 4:41:10
  then the beach, by degrees, became flooded with light. For a good
• 4:41:12
  while mister Markham sat and looked at the rising moon and the growing light area
• 4:41:17
  of light which followed its rise. Then he turned and faced eastwards, and
• 4:41:21
  sat with his chin in his hand, looking seawards and reveling in the peace
• 4:41:23
  and beauty and freedom of the scene. The roar of London, the darkness
• 4:41:29
  and the strife and the weariness of London. Life seemed to have passed quite
• 4:41:33
  away, and he lived at the moment of freer and higher life. He
• 4:41:36
  looked at the glistening water as it stole its way over the flat waste of
• 4:41:38
  sand, coming closer and closer. Insensibly the tide had turned. Presently,
• 4:41:45
  he heard a distant shouting along the beach, very far off, fisherman calling
• 4:41:48
  to each other, he said to himself, and looked around. As he
• 4:41:52
  did so, he got a horrible shock, for though just then a cloud
• 4:41:56
  sailed across the moon. He saw, in spite of the sudden darkness around
• 4:42:00
  his own image for an instant on the top of the opposite rock, he
• 4:42:04
  could see the bald back of the head and the glengarry cap with the immense
• 4:42:07
  egull's feather. As he staggered back, his foot slipped and he began to
• 4:42:11
  slide down towards the sand Between the two rocks. He took no concern as
• 4:42:15
  to failing, for the sand was really only a few feet below him,
• 4:42:18
  and his mind was occupied with a figure or similar crum with himself, which
• 4:42:22
  had already disappeared as the easiest way of reaching Terra firma. He prepared to
• 4:42:27
  jump the remainder of the distance. All this had taken but a second,
• 4:42:30
  but the brain works quickly, and even as he gathered himself for the spring,
• 4:42:33
  he saw the sund below him lying so marbly level, shake and shiver
• 4:42:37
  in an odd way. A sudden fear overcame him. His knees failed,
• 4:42:41
  and instead of jumping, he slid miserably down the rock, scratching his beell
• 4:42:45
  legs as he went. His feet touched the sun and threw it like water,
• 4:42:49
  and he was down below his knees before he realized that he was in
• 4:42:52
  a quicksand wildly he gasped up the rock to keep himself from sinking further.
• 4:42:57
  Unfortunately, there was a jutting spur or edge, which he was able to
• 4:43:00
  grasp instinctively. To this he clung in grim desperation. He tried to shout,
• 4:43:06
  but his breath would not come till after a great effort. His voice
• 4:43:08
  rang out again. He shouted, and it seemed as if the sound of
• 4:43:11
  his own voice gave him new courage, for he was able to hold onto
• 4:43:14
  the rock for a longer time than he thought possible. Though he held on
• 4:43:18
  only in blind desperation. He was, however, beginning to find his grasp
• 4:43:22
  weakening, when joy of joys, his shout was answered by a rough voice
• 4:43:26
  from just above him. God be thank it. I'm laioll late, and
• 4:43:30
  a fisherman with great thigh boots came hurriedly climbing over the rock. In an
• 4:43:34
  instant he recognized the gravity of the danger, and with a cheering hood,
• 4:43:38
  fast on on and calming, scrambled down till he found a firm foothold.
• 4:43:42
  Then, with one strong hand holding the rock above, he leaned down and,
• 4:43:45
  catching Malcolm's wrist, called out to him, Hud to me, mom
• 4:43:48
  Hood to me, will the hunt. Then he lent his great strength and
• 4:43:52
  with the steady, sturdy pull, dragged him out of the hungry quicksand and
• 4:43:55
  placed him safe upon the rock. Hardly giving time to draw Beth, he
• 4:43:59
  pulled and pushed him, never letting him go for an instant over the rock
• 4:44:03
  into the firm sand beyond it, and finally deposited him, still shaking from
• 4:44:07
  the magnitude of his danger, high upon the beach. Then he began to
• 4:44:11
  speak on But I was just in time. If I had now laughed at
• 4:44:15
  you foolish lads, and begin to ruin at the first, you'd have been
• 4:44:18
  sinking into the bowels of the earth for the new will they bagriff fucked you
• 4:44:22
  was against and Tom McPhail swill he was only like a goblin on a puddick
• 4:44:26
  steel. Nah, said I yan's but the daft Englishman, that looney,
• 4:44:30
  that escape is for the waxworks. I was thinking that being strange and silly.
• 4:44:34
  If not a hole made feel he'd knock in the ways of the quicksand
• 4:44:37
  shouted alone you, and then ran to drag you half if need be God
• 4:44:41
  me thank it be a fool or only half daft? Were you vanity?
• 4:44:45
  I was not that late, And he reverently lifted his cap as he spoke.
• 4:44:48
  Mister Markham was deeply touched and thankful for his escape from a horrible death,
• 4:44:53
  But the sting of the charge of vanity thus made once more against him
• 4:44:57
  come through his humility. He was about to reply angrily, when suddenly a
• 4:45:03
  great awe fell upon him, as he remembered the warning words of the half
• 4:45:06
  crazy letter carrier, meet thyself face to face, and red pin ear they
• 4:45:11
  quicksand shall swallow thee. Here too, he remembered the image of himself that
• 4:45:15
  he had seen, and the sudden danger from the deadly quicksand that had followed.
• 4:45:19
  He was silent a full minute, and then said, my good fellow,
• 4:45:25
  I owe you my life. The answer came with the reverence from the
• 4:45:29
  hardy fisherman. Nah nah, you're that to God, prays to me.
• 4:45:32
  I'm only too glad to be the humble instrument of his mercy. But you
• 4:45:36
  will let me thank you, said mister Markham, taking both the great hands
• 4:45:38
  of his delivery in his and holding them tight. My heart is too full
• 4:45:42
  as yet, and my nerves are too much shaken to let me say much,
• 4:45:45
  but believe me, I am very, very grateful. It was quite
• 4:45:51
  evident that the poor old fellow was deeply touched, for the tears were running
• 4:45:55
  down his cheeks. The fisherman said, with a rough but true courtesy,
• 4:45:59
  Ay, sir, thank me, and you will if it'll do you poor
• 4:46:02
  heart good and I'm thinking that if it were me, I'd be thankful too.
• 4:46:06
  But so as for me, I need no thanks. I am glad.
• 4:46:08
  So I am that Arthur Furley Markham was really thankful and grateful was shown
• 4:46:12
  practically later on. Within a week's time, there sailed into Port Crooken.
• 4:46:17
  Their finest fishing smack had ever been seen in the harbor of Peterhead. She
• 4:46:22
  was fully found with sails and gear of all kinds, and with nets of
• 4:46:26
  the best. Her master and men went away by the coach after having left
• 4:46:30
  with the seven fisher's wife the papers which made her over to him. As
• 4:46:33
  mister Markham and the salmon fisher walked together along the shore, the former asked
• 4:46:37
  his companion not to mention the fact that he had been in such imminent danger,
• 4:46:41
  for that it would only distress his dear wife and children. He said
• 4:46:45
  that he would warn them all of the quicksand, and for that purpose he
• 4:46:48
  then and there asked questions about it till he felt that his information on the
• 4:46:52
  subject was complete. Before they parted, he asked his companion if he had
• 4:46:56
  happened to see a second figure dressed like himself on the other rock, because
• 4:47:00
  he'd approached to sucker him. Yeah, nah, came the answer. There'sny
• 4:47:03
  Sack, another fool in these parts now, as there been since the time
• 4:47:07
  of Jamie fleming him that were full to the Laird of Urbney, whim and
• 4:47:11
  sick of heathenish dress as you have on till he has nay seen in these
• 4:47:15
  pets with the memory of man. And I'm thinking that sick of dress was
• 4:47:18
  never for sitting on the code rock, as you've done beyond on, but
• 4:47:22
  being a fear of a rheumatism of the lumber game, a flopping doing on
• 4:47:23
  the cold stains with your bare flesh. I was thinking that it was daft
• 4:47:27
  you were when I see the moon and doing the pot. But it's full
• 4:47:32
  idiot, you won't be for the look at that. Mister Markham did not
• 4:47:37
  care to argue the point, and as they were now close to his own
• 4:47:40
  home, he asked the summon fisher to have a lot of whiskey, which
• 4:47:41
  he did, and they parted for the night. He took good care to
• 4:47:45
  warn all his family of the quicksand telling them that he had himself been in
• 4:47:51
  some danger from it. All that night he never slept. He heard the
• 4:47:56
  hour strike one after the other, Why how he would he could not get
• 4:48:00
  to sleep. Over and over again he went through the horrible episode of the
• 4:48:06
  quicksand from the time that saf Tami had broken his habitual silence to preach to
• 4:48:10
  him of the sin of vanity and to warn him, the question kept ever
• 4:48:15
  arising in his mind, are my friends so vain as to be in the
• 4:48:18
  ranks of the foolish? And the answer ever came in the words of the
• 4:48:22
  crazy prophet vanity of vanities, All is vanity, Meet thyself face to face
• 4:48:27
  and repent to other quicksand shall swallow thee. Somehow a feeling of doom began
• 4:48:33
  to shape itself in his mind, that he would yet perish in that same
• 4:48:37
  quicksand for there he had already met himself face to face in the grave of
• 4:48:41
  the morning, he dozed off, but it was evident that he continued the
• 4:48:45
  subject in his dreams, for he was fully awakened by his wife, who
• 4:48:48
  said, do sleep quietly, God blessed, all in a suit has gone
• 4:48:52
  your brin. Don't talk an you sleep if he can help it. He
• 4:48:55
  was somewhat conscious of a glad feeling, as if some terrible weight had been
• 4:48:57
  lifted from him, but he did not know any cause of it. He
• 4:49:02
  asked his wife for what he had said in his sleep, and she answered,
• 4:49:04
  he said it often enough. Godness knows for one to remember it,
• 4:49:08
  not face to face. I saw the eagle plume over the bald head.
• 4:49:11
  There is hope, yet not face to face. Go to sleep do?
• 4:49:15
  And then he did go to sleep, for he seemed to realize that the
• 4:49:18
  prophecy of the crazy man had not yet been fulfilled. He had not met
• 4:49:22
  himself face to face as yet at all events. He was awakened early by
• 4:49:26
  a maid who came to tell him that there was a fisherman at the door
• 4:49:30
  who wanted to see him. He dressed himself as quickly as he could,
• 4:49:33
  for he was not yet expert with the highland dress, and hurried down,
• 4:49:37
  not wishing to keep the sun official waiting. He was surprised and not altogether
• 4:49:41
  pleased, to find that his visitor was in another than soft Tammy, who
• 4:49:45
  at once opened fire on him. I'm on going about the post, but
• 4:49:48
  I thought they would waste an hour on you in Karn to see if you
• 4:49:51
  are still that foo with vanities on the Nichigumbay. And I see that you
• 4:49:55
  know learned the lesson. Well, time is coming sure enough. However,
• 4:50:00
  I have all the time in the minings to main sail, so I look
• 4:50:03
  ruined. Jest till I say, are ye gang ye, and get to
• 4:50:04
  the quicksand and then to the deal. I'm after my work. Thenoe and
• 4:50:08
  he went straight away, leaving mister Markham considerably vexed, for the maids with
• 4:50:14
  an earshot were vainly trying to conceal their giggles. He had fairly made up
• 4:50:17
  his mind to wear on that day ordinary clothes, but the visit of saft
• 4:50:21
  Tami reserved his decision. He would show them all that he was not a
• 4:50:25
  coward, and he would go on as he had begun, come what might.
• 4:50:29
  When he came to breakfast in full marshal panoply, the children one and
• 4:50:32
  all held down their heads, and the backs of their necks became very red.
• 4:50:36
  Indeed, as however, none of them laughed, except Titus, the
• 4:50:40
  youngest boy, who was seized with a fit of hysterical choking, and was
• 4:50:44
  promptly banished from the room. He could not reprove them, but began to
• 4:50:47
  break his egg with a sternly determined air. It was unfortunate that, as
• 4:50:51
  his wife was hunting him a cup of tea, one of the buttons of
• 4:50:53
  his sleeve caught in the lace of a morning wrapper, with the result that
• 4:50:56
  the hot tea was spilt over his bare knees. Not unnaturally, he made
• 4:51:00
  use of a swear word, whereupon his wife, somewhat nettled, spoke out,
• 4:51:04
  well, Arthur, if you will make such an idiot of yourself with
• 4:51:07
  that ridiculous costume, what else can you expect? You are not cast into
• 4:51:11
  it, and you never will be. In answer, he began an indignant
• 4:51:15
  speech with madam, but he got no further, for now that the subject
• 4:51:18
  was brot missus Markham intended to have her say out it was not a pleasant
• 4:51:22
  say, and truth to tell, it was not said in a pleasant manner.
• 4:51:26
  A wife's manner seldom is pleasant when she undertakes to tell what she considers
• 4:51:30
  truths to her husband. The result was that Arthur Ferley Markham undertook then and
• 4:51:34
  there that during his stay in Scotland he would wear no other costume than the
• 4:51:40
  one she abused. Woman like his wife had the last word given in this
• 4:51:45
  case with tears. Very well, Arthur, of course you will do as
• 4:51:49
  you choose, make me as ridiculous as you can, and spoil the poor
• 4:51:53
  girl's chances in life. Young men do seem to care as a general role
• 4:51:57
  for an idiot father in law. But I must warn you for your vanity,
• 4:52:00
  we someday get a rude shock if indeed you are not before then,
• 4:52:04
  and in a solemn or dead. It was manifest after a few days that
• 4:52:07
  mister Markham would have to take the major part of his outdoor exercise by himself.
• 4:52:12
  The girls now and again took a walk with him, chiefly in the
• 4:52:15
  early morning, or late at night, or on a wet day when there
• 4:52:18
  will be no one about. They professed to be willing to go out at
• 4:52:22
  all times, but somehow something always seemed to occur to prevent it. The
• 4:52:27
  boys could never be found at all on such occasions, and as to missus
• 4:52:30
  Markham, she sternly refused to go out with him on any consideration, so
• 4:52:34
  long as he should continue to make a fool of himself. On the Sunday
• 4:52:38
  he dressed himself in his habitual broadcloth, for he rightly felt that church was
• 4:52:42
  not a place for angry feelings. But on Monday morning he resumed his Highland
• 4:52:48
  garb. By this time he would have given a good deal if he had
• 4:52:52
  never thought of the dress, But his British officers in the sea was strong
• 4:52:55
  and he would not give in. Saftami called his house every morning, and,
• 4:52:59
  not being able to see him nor have any message to take into him,
• 4:53:02
  he used to call back in the afternoon when the letter bag had been
• 4:53:03
  delivered, and watched for his going out. On such occasions he never failed
• 4:53:08
  to warn him against his vanity in the same words which he had used at
• 4:53:11
  the first. Before many days were over, mister Markham had come to look
• 4:53:15
  upon him as a little short of a scourge. By the time the week
• 4:53:18
  was out, the enforced part of solitude, the constant shagrin, and the
• 4:53:22
  never ending brooding which was thus engendered, began to make mister Arkham quite ill.
• 4:53:26
  He was too proud to take any of his family into his confidence,
• 4:53:29
  since they had, in his view, treated him very badly. Then he
• 4:53:33
  did not sleep well at night, and when he did sleep he had constantly
• 4:53:37
  bad dreams. Merely to assure himself that his pluck was not feeling him,
• 4:53:40
  he made it to practice to visit the quicksand at least once every day,
• 4:53:42
  he hardly ever failed to go there the last thing at night. It was
• 4:53:45
  perhaps this habit that wrought the quicksand, with its terrible experience, so perpetually
• 4:53:49
  into his dreams. More and more vivid these became, till on waking at
• 4:53:53
  times he could hardly realize that he had not been actually in the flesh to
• 4:53:56
  visit the fatal spot. He sometimes thought that he might have been walking in
• 4:54:00
  his sleep. One night, his dream was so vivid that when he awoke
• 4:54:03
  he could not believe that he had only been a dream. He showed his
• 4:54:07
  eyes again and again, but each time the vision, if it was a
• 4:54:11
  vision, or the reality, if it was a reality, would rise before
• 4:54:14
  him. The moon was shining full and yellow over the quicksand as he approached
• 4:54:17
  it, he could see the expanse of light, shaken and disturbed and full
• 4:54:21
  of black shadows, as the liquid suand quivered and trembled and wrinkled and eddied,
• 4:54:25
  as was its wont between its pauses of marble calm. As he took
• 4:54:27
  close to it, another figure came towards it from the opposite side, with
• 4:54:30
  its equal footsteps. He saw that it was his own figure, his very
• 4:54:36
  self, and in silent terror, compelled by what force he knew not,
• 4:54:38
  he advanced, charmed as the birds by the snake, mesmerized or hypnotized to
• 4:54:44
  meet this other self. As he felt the yielding sand closing over him,
• 4:54:48
  he awoke in the agony of death, trembling with fear and strange to say,
• 4:54:52
  with the silly man's prophecy seeming to sound in his ears, the vanity
• 4:54:55
  of vanities, all his vanity, see their self, and repenti other quicksand
• 4:54:59
  swallowed. So convinced was he that this was no dream, that he arose
• 4:55:03
  early as it was, and, dressing himself without disturbing his wife, took
• 4:55:07
  his way to the shore. His heart fell when he came across a series
• 4:55:10
  of footsteps on the sands, which he at once recognized as his own.
• 4:55:14
  There was the same wide heel, the same square toe. He had no
• 4:55:18
  doubt now that he had actually been there, and half horrified and half in
• 4:55:22
  a state of dreamy stupor, he followed the footsteps. He found them lost
• 4:55:26
  in the edge of the yielding quicksand this gave him a terrible shock, for
• 4:55:32
  there were no return steps marked on the sand, and he felt that there
• 4:55:34
  was some dread mystery which he could not penetrate, and the penetration of which
• 4:55:38
  would he fear undo him. In this state of affairs, he took two
• 4:55:42
  wrong courses. Firstly, he kept his trouble to himself, and as none
• 4:55:47
  of his family had any clue to it, every innocent word or expression which
• 4:55:51
  they used supplied fuel to the consuming fire of his imagination. Secondly, he
• 4:55:55
  began to read books professing to bear upon the mysteries of dreaming and of mental
• 4:55:59
  feight nomanna generally, with the result that every wild imagination of every crank or
• 4:56:03
  half crazy philosopher became a living germ of unrest in the fertilizing soil of his
• 4:56:07
  disordered brain. Thus, negatively and positively, all things began to work to
• 4:56:11
  a common end. Not the least of his disturbing causes was saf Tamy,
• 4:56:15
  who would now become at certain times of the day of fixture at his gate.
• 4:56:18
  After a while, being interested in the previous state of this individual,
• 4:56:22
  he made inquiries regarding his past, with the following result. Saf Tamy was
• 4:56:26
  popularly believed to be the son of a lad in one of the counties around
• 4:56:30
  the Firth of Forth. He had been partially educated for the ministry, but
• 4:56:33
  for some cause which no one ever knew, threw up his prospects suddenly,
• 4:56:37
  and going to Peterhead, in its days of whaling prosperity, had there taken
• 4:56:41
  service on a whaler. Here After and on he had remained for some years,
• 4:56:45
  getting gradually more and more silent in his habits, till finally his shipmates
• 4:56:48
  protested against so taciturna mate, and he had found serviced amongst the fishing smacks
• 4:56:52
  of the Northern Fleet. He had worked for many years at the fishing,
• 4:56:56
  with always the reputation of being a wee bit daft, till at length he
• 4:57:00
  had gradually settled down at crookhn whether Lad, doubtless knowing something of his family
• 4:57:03
  history, had given him a job which practically made him a pensioner. The
• 4:57:07
  minister who gave the information to finish. Thus, it is a very strange
• 4:57:11
  thing, but the man seems to have some odd kind of gift, whether
• 4:57:14
  it be that second side which we Scotch people are so prone to believe in,
• 4:57:17
  or some other occult form of knowledgy, nor not. But nothing,
• 4:57:19
  ever, disasters tendency ever occurs in this place. But the men with whom
• 4:57:23
  he lives able to court after the events and saying of his which suddenly appears
• 4:57:27
  to have foretold it, he gets an easier excited wakes up in fact when
• 4:57:33
  death is in the air. This did not, in any way tend to
• 4:57:36
  lessen mister Markham's concern, but on the contrary, seemed to impress the prophecy
• 4:57:40
  more deeply on his mind. Of all the books which he had read on
• 4:57:42
  his new subject study, none interested in him so much as a German one,
• 4:57:47
  the Duppelganger by doctor Heinrich von Aschenberg family of Bond. Here he learned
• 4:57:52
  for the first time of Caty's where men had led a double existence, each
• 4:57:55
  nature being quite apart from the other, the body being always a reality with
• 4:57:59
  one spirit and a similar croom with the other. Needless to say that mister
• 4:58:03
  Markham realized this theory as exactly suiting his own case. The glimpse which he
• 4:58:07
  had had of his own back the night of his escape from the quicksand his
• 4:58:08
  own footmarks disappearing into the quicksand with no return steps of visible. The prophecy
• 4:58:14
  of saft Tammy about his meeting himself and perishing in the quicksand. All went
• 4:58:18
  aid to the conviction that he was, in his own person, an instance
• 4:58:22
  of the double ganger. Being then conscious of a double life, he took
• 4:58:25
  steps to prove his existence to his own satisfaction. To this end, when
• 4:58:29
  one night, before going to bed, he wrote his name and chalk on
• 4:58:32
  the soles of his shoes. That night he dreamed of the Quicksand and of
• 4:58:36
  his visiting it, dreamed so vividly that, on walking in the gray of
• 4:58:38
  the dawn, he could not believe that he had not been there. Arising,
• 4:58:42
  without disturbing his wife, he sought his shoes. The chalksingreatures were undisturbed.
• 4:58:48
  He dressed himself and stole out softly. This time the tide was in,
• 4:58:52
  so he crossed the dunes and struck ashore on the further side of the
• 4:58:55
  quicksand. There, Oh, horror of horrors, he saw his own footprints
• 4:59:00
  dying into the abyss. He went home a desperately sad man. It seemed
• 4:59:04
  incredible that he, an elderly commercial man who had passed a long and uneventful
• 4:59:08
  life in the pursuit of business in the midst of roaring practical London, should
• 4:59:12
  thus find himself enmeshed in mystery and horror, and that he should discover that
• 4:59:17
  he had two existences. He could not speak of his trouble even to his
• 4:59:21
  own wife, for well he knew that she would at once require the full
• 4:59:23
  as particular as of the other life, the one which she did not know,
• 4:59:27
  and that she would at the start not only imagine but charged him with
• 4:59:30
  all manner of infidelities on the head of it. And so his brooding grew
• 4:59:34
  deeper and deeper still one evening the tide then going out in the moon.
• 4:59:38
  Being at the full, he was sitting waiting for dinner when the maid announced
• 4:59:41
  that Saf Tammy was making a disturbance outside because he would not be let in
• 4:59:45
  to see him. He was very indignant, but did not like the maid
• 4:59:49
  to think that he had any fear on the subject, and so told her
• 4:59:52
  to bring him in. Tammy entered, walking more briskly than ever, with
• 4:59:56
  his head up and a look of vigorous decision in the eyes that were so
• 4:59:59
  generally cast down. As soon as he entered, he said, I have
• 5:00:02
  come to see you once again once again, and there you sit still,
• 5:00:06
  just like a cock of two on a pet wheel. Monna forgea mind you
• 5:00:10
  that I forgeliar, And without a word more, he turned and walked out
• 5:00:12
  of the house, leaving the Master in speechless indignation. After dinner, he
• 5:00:18
  determined to pay another visit to the quicksand he would not allow even to himself
• 5:00:22
  that he was afraid to go. And so about nine o'clock, in full
• 5:00:25
  array, he marched the beach, and, passing over the sand, sat
• 5:00:26
  on the skirt of the narrow rock. The full moon was behind him,
• 5:00:30
  and its light lit up the bay, so that its fringe of foam,
• 5:00:33
  the dark outline of the headland, and the stakes of the salmon nets were
• 5:00:36
  all emphasized in the brilliant lott glow. The lights in the windows of put
• 5:00:40
  Crooking, and in those of the distant castle of the Lead, trembled like
• 5:00:42
  stars through the sky. For a long time, he sat and drank in
• 5:00:45
  the beauty of the scene, and his soul seemed to feel a peace that
• 5:00:48
  he had not known for many days. All the pettiness and annoyance and silly
• 5:00:52
  fears of the past weeks seem blotted out, and a new holy calm took
• 5:00:56
  the vacant place. In this sweet and solemn mood, he reviewed his late
• 5:00:59
  action calmly, and felt ashamed of himself for his vanity and for the opposite
• 5:01:03
  sea which had followed it. And then and there he made up his mind
• 5:01:07
  that the present would be the last time he would wear the costume which had
• 5:01:10
  estranged him from those whom he loved, and which had caused him so many
• 5:01:12
  hours and days of shakerin vexation and pain. But almost as soon as he
• 5:01:17
  arrived at this conclusion, another voice seemed to speak within him, and mockingly
• 5:01:21
  to ask him if he should ever get the chance to wear the suit again.
• 5:01:25
  That it was too late. He had chosen his course and must now
• 5:01:26
  abide the issue. He's not too late, came the quick answer of his
• 5:01:30
  better self, And full of the thought, he rose up to go home
• 5:01:33
  and divest himself of the now hateful costume. Right away, he paused for
• 5:01:37
  one look at the beautiful scene. The light lay pale and mellow, softening
• 5:01:41
  every outline of rock and tree and house top, and deepening the shadows into
• 5:01:45
  velvety black, and lighting as with a pale flame, the incoming tide that
• 5:01:51
  now crept fringe like across the flat waste of sand. Then he left the
• 5:01:55
  rock and stepped out for the shore. But as he did so, a
• 5:01:56
  frgle spasm of horror shook him, and for an instant, the blood rushing
• 5:02:00
  to his head shut out all the light of the full moon. Once more
• 5:02:03
  he saw that fatal image of himself moving beyond the quicksand from the opposite rock
• 5:02:07
  to the shore. The shock was all the greater for the contrast with the
• 5:02:11
  spell of peace, which he had just enjoyed, and almost paralyzed in every
• 5:02:15
  sense. He stood and watched the fatal vision and the wrinkly crawl and quicksand
• 5:02:18
  that seemed to writhe and yearn for something that lay between. There could be
• 5:02:22
  no mistake this time, for though the moon behind threw the face into shadow,
• 5:02:26
  he could see there the same shaven cheeks as his own, and the
• 5:02:29
  small, stubby mustache of a few weeks growth. The light shone on the
• 5:02:33
  brilliant tartan and on the eagle's plume. Even the bald space at one side
• 5:02:36
  of the Glengarry cap glistened, as did the cairn gone brooch on the shoulder,
• 5:02:41
  and the tops of the silver buttons. As he looked, he felt
• 5:02:44
  his feet slightly sinking, for he was still near the edge of the belt
• 5:02:47
  of quicksand, and he stepped back. As he did so, the other
• 5:02:49
  figure stepped forward, so that the space between them was preserved. So the
• 5:02:53
  two stood facing each other, as though in some weird fascination, and in
• 5:02:57
  the rushing of the blood through his brain, markhams seem to hear the words
• 5:03:00
  of the prophecy, see their self face to face, and repent ere the
• 5:03:04
  quicksand swallow thee He did stand face to face with himself. He had repented,
• 5:03:11
  and now he was sinking in the quicksand the warning of prophecy were coming
• 5:03:15
  true. Above him, the seagulls screamed, circling round the fringe of the
• 5:03:18
  incoming tide, and the sound being entirely morsel, recalled him to himself.
• 5:03:22
  On the instant, he stepped back a few quick steps, for as yet
• 5:03:26
  only his feet were merged in the soft sand. As he did so,
• 5:03:29
  the other figure stepped forward, and, coming with him a deadly grip of
• 5:03:30
  the quicksand began to sink. It seemed to Markham that he was looking at
• 5:03:34
  himself, going down to his doom, and on the instant the anguish of
• 5:03:37
  his soul found vent in a terrible cry. There was at the same instance
• 5:03:41
  a terrible cry from the other figure, and as Markham threw up his hands,
• 5:03:45
  the figure did the same. With horror struck eyes, he saw him
• 5:03:48
  sink deeper into the quicksand, and then, impelled by what power he knew
• 5:03:52
  not, he advanced again towards the sun to meet his fate. But at
• 5:03:56
  his more forward foot began to sink. He hid again the cries of the
• 5:03:57
  seagulls, which seemed to restore his benumbed faculties. With a mighty effort,
• 5:04:03
  he drew his foot out of the sand, which seemed to clutch it,
• 5:04:04
  leaving his shoe behind, And then, in sheer terror, he turned and
• 5:04:07
  ran from the place, never stopping till his breath and strength failed him,
• 5:04:11
  and he sank half swimming on the grassy path through the sand hills. Arthur
• 5:04:15
  Markham made up his mind not to tell his family of his terrible adventure until
• 5:04:19
  at least such time as he should be complete master of himself. Now that
• 5:04:23
  the fatal double his other self, had been engulfed in the quicksand he felt
• 5:04:27
  something like his old peace of mind. That night, he slept soundly and
• 5:04:32
  did not dream at all, and in the morning was quite his old self.
• 5:04:34
  It really seemed as though his newer and worser self had disappeared forever.
• 5:04:38
  And strangely enough, Saft Tammy was absent from his post that morning and never
• 5:04:42
  appeared there again, but sat in his old place, watching nothing as of
• 5:04:45
  old, with lack luster eye. In accordance with his resolution, he did
• 5:04:48
  not wear his highland suits again, but one evening tied it up in a
• 5:04:52
  bundle play more Dirk philibeg and all, and bringing it secretly with him,
• 5:04:56
  threw it into the quicksand with a feeling of intense pleasure, he saw it
• 5:05:00
  sucked below the sand, which closed above it into marble smoothness. Then he
• 5:05:04
  went home and announced cheerily to his family, assembled for evening prayers. Well,
• 5:05:07
  my DearS, you'll be glad to hear I've abandoned my idea of wary,
• 5:05:11
  violent dress. See now what a vain old fool I was, an
• 5:05:15
  how ridiculous almy myself shall never see it again? Where is it? Father,
• 5:05:19
  asked one of the girls, wishing to say something so that such a
• 5:05:22
  self sacrificing announcement as her father's should not be passed In absolute silence. His
• 5:05:26
  answer was so sweetly given that the girl rose from her seat and came and
• 5:05:30
  kissed him. It was in the quicksand, my dear, and I hope
• 5:05:33
  that my worser self was very very along with it. Forever the remainder of
• 5:05:37
  the summer was pasted it crooking with delight by all the family, And on
• 5:05:41
  his return to town, mister Markham had almost forgotten the whole of the incident
• 5:05:45
  of the quicksand and all touching on it, when one day he got a
• 5:05:48
  letter from the McCallum more, which caused him much thought, though he said
• 5:05:52
  nothing of it to his family and left it for certain reasons unanswered. It
• 5:05:57
  ran as followed the mcallum more on Roderick McDow the scotch or Waltart and Clothing
• 5:06:03
  mart coptole Court, e c. Thirtieth of September eighteen ninety two. Dear
• 5:06:07
  Sir, I trust you will pardon the liberty which which I take in writing
• 5:06:11
  to you. But I am so desirous of making inquiry, and I am
• 5:06:15
  informed that you have been sojourning during the summer in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and
• 5:06:18
  b my partner, mister Roderick mcdo, as he appears with business reasons on
• 5:06:23
  our billheads and in our advertisements, his real name being Emmanuel Moses Marks of
• 5:06:27
  London, went early last month to Scotland and b for a tour. But
• 5:06:32
  as I have only once heard from him, shortly after his departure, I
• 5:06:36
  am anxious lest any misfortune may have befallen him. As I have been unable
• 5:06:40
  to obtain any news of him. On making all inquiries in my power,
• 5:06:42
  I venture to appeal to you. His letter was written in deep dejection of
• 5:06:47
  spirit, and mentioned that he feared a judgment had come upon him for wishing
• 5:06:51
  to appear as a scotchman on Scottish soil, as he had one moonlight night
• 5:06:55
  shortly after his arrival seen his wraith. He evidently alluded to the fact that
• 5:06:59
  before his depart he'd procured for himself a highland costume similar to that which we
• 5:07:03
  have the honor to supply to you, with which, as perhaps you will
• 5:07:06
  remember, he was much struck. He may however, never have worn it,
• 5:07:08
  as he was, to my own knowledge, diffident about putting it on,
• 5:07:12
  and even went so far as to tell me that he would at first
• 5:07:15
  only venture to wear it late at night or very early in the morning,
• 5:07:18
  and then only in remote places until such time as he should get accustomed to
• 5:07:22
  it. Unfortunately, he did not advise me of his route, so that
• 5:07:25
  I am in complete ignorance of his whereabouts. And I venture to ask if
• 5:07:29
  you may have seen or heard of a highland costume similar to your own having
• 5:07:32
  been seen anywhere in the neighborhood in which I am told you have recently purchased
• 5:07:34
  the estate which he temporarily occupied. I shall not expect in answers to this
• 5:07:38
  letter unless you can give me some information regarding my friend and partner, So
• 5:07:42
  pray do not trouble to reply unless there be cause. I am encouraged to
• 5:07:47
  think that he may have been in your neighborhood, as though his letter is
• 5:07:51
  not dated, the envelope is marked with a postmark of Yellen, which I
• 5:07:55
  find is in Aberdensha and not far from the mains of Crooken. I have
• 5:07:59
  the honor to be sir yours, very respectfully, Joshua Sheene Cohen, Benjamin
• 5:08:03
  the McCallum more End of Crooked Sand's, End of Dracula's Guests and other weird
• 5:08:11
  Tales by Bram Stoker