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Weird Tales Double Feature The Shadows The Projection of Armand Dubois - Henry S Whitehead · Mystery & Suspense Library

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  Speaker 1: Section one of Weird Tales Double Feature The Shadows and
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  Speaker 1: the Projection of armand du Bois. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read
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  Speaker 1: by Ben Tucker. Weird Tales Double Feature The Shadows and
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  Speaker 1: the Projection of armand Dubois by Henry S. Whitehead, The Shadows,
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  Speaker 1: Part one. I did not begin to see the shadows
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  Speaker 1: until I had lived in Old Morris's house for more
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  Speaker 1: than a week. Old Morris, dead and gone these many years,
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  Speaker 1: had been the scion of a still earlier Irish settler
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  Speaker 1: in Santa Cruz, of a family which had come into
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  Speaker 1: the island when the Danes, failing to colonize its rich acres,
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  Speaker 1: had opened it in the middle of the eighteenth century
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  Speaker 1: to colonists, and younger sons of Irish, Scottish and English
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  Speaker 1: gentry had taken up sugar estates and commenced that baronial life,
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  Speaker 1: which lasted for a century and which declined after the
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  Speaker 1: abolition of slavery and the German bounty on beech sugar,
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  Speaker 1: had started the long process of West Indian commercial decadence.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Morris's youth had been spent in the French Islands.
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  Speaker 1: The shadows were at first so vague that I attributed
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  Speaker 1: them wholly to this slight weakness which began to affect
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  Speaker 1: my eyes in early childhood, and which, while never materially
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  Speaker 1: interfering the enjoyment of life in general, had necessitated the
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  Speaker 1: use of glasses when I used my eyes to read write.
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  Speaker 1: My first experience of them was about one o'clock in
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  Speaker 1: the morning. I had been at a gentleman's party at
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  Speaker 1: Hacker's house, Emerald, as some poetic minded ancestor of Hackers
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  Speaker 1: had named the family estate, three miles out of Christianstead,
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  Speaker 1: the northerly town, built on the site of the ancient,
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  Speaker 1: abandoned French town of Bassan. I had come home from
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  Speaker 1: the party was undressing in my bedroom, which is one
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  Speaker 1: of two rooms on the westerly side of the house,
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  Speaker 1: which stands at the edge of the old Sunday Market.
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  Speaker 1: These two bedrooms open on the market place, and I
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  Speaker 1: had chosen them rather than the more airy rooms on
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  Speaker 1: the other side, because of the space outside. I liked
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  Speaker 1: to look out on the trees. In the early mornings
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  Speaker 1: whenever possible, and the ancient market place is overshadowed with
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  Speaker 1: the foliage of hundred year old mahogany trees and a
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  Speaker 1: few gnarled Ota heights and Chinese bean trees. I had
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  Speaker 1: nearly finished undressing, had noted that my servant had let
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  Speaker 1: down and properly fastened the mosquito netting, and had stepped
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  Speaker 1: into the other bedroom to open the jalousies so that
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  Speaker 1: I might get as much of the night breeze as
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  Speaker 1: possible circulating through the house. I was coming back through
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  Speaker 1: the doorway between the two bedrooms and taking off my
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  Speaker 1: dressing gown at the moment when the first faint perception
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  Speaker 1: of what I have called the shadows made itself apparent.
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  Speaker 1: It was very dark. Just after switching off the electric
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  Speaker 1: light in that front bedroom. I had, in fact to
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  Speaker 1: feel for the doorway, and this I experienced some difficulty,
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  Speaker 1: and my eyes had not fully adjusted themselves to the
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  Speaker 1: thin starlight seeping in through the slanted jalousies of my
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  Speaker 1: own room when I passed through the doorway and groped
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  Speaker 1: my way toward the great mahogany four poster in which
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  Speaker 1: I was about to lie down for my belated rest.
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  Speaker 1: I saw the nearest post looming before me, closer than
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  Speaker 1: I had expected. Putting out my hand, I grasped nothing.
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  Speaker 1: I winked in some surprise, and peered through the slightly
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  Speaker 1: increasing light as my eyes adjusted themselves to the sudden change. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: surely there was the corner of the bedstead just in
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  Speaker 1: front of my face. By now my eyes were sufficiently
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  Speaker 1: attuned to the amount of light from outside to see
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  Speaker 1: a little plainer. I was puzzled. The bed was not
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  Speaker 1: where I had supposed it to be. What could have
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  Speaker 1: happened That the servants should have moved my bed without
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  Speaker 1: orders to do so was incredible. Besides, I had undressed
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  Speaker 1: in full electric light in that room not more than
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  Speaker 1: a few minutes ago, and then the bed was standing
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  Speaker 1: exactly where it had been since I had had it
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  Speaker 1: moved into that room a week before. I kicked gently
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  Speaker 1: before me with a slippered foot against the place where
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  Speaker 1: that bed post appeared to be standing, and my foot
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  Speaker 1: met no resistance. I stepped over to the light in
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  Speaker 1: my own room and snapped the button. In the sudden glare,
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  Speaker 1: everything readjusted itself to normal. There stood my bed, and
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  Speaker 1: here and their accustomed places about the room were ranged
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  Speaker 1: the chairs, the polished wardrobe. We did not use cupboards
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  Speaker 1: in the West India Islands, the mahogany dressing table, even
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  Speaker 1: my clothes, which I had hung over a chair, where Albertina,
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  Speaker 1: my servant, would find them in the morning and put
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  Speaker 1: them they were of white drill, into the soiled clothes bag.
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  Speaker 1: In the morning, I shook my head light, and shadows
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  Speaker 1: in these islands seem somehow different from what they are
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  Speaker 1: like at home in the United States. The tricks they
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  Speaker 1: play are different tricks. Somehow, I snapped off the light again,
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  Speaker 1: and in the ensuing dead blackness, I crawled in under
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  Speaker 1: the loose edge of the mosquito netting, tucked it along
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  Speaker 1: under the edge of the mattress on that side, adjusted
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  Speaker 1: my pillows in the sheets, and settle myself for a
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  Speaker 1: good sleep. Even to a moderate man, these gentlemen's parties,
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  Speaker 1: or rather wearing sometimes they invariably last too long. I
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  Speaker 1: closed my eyes and was asleep before I could have
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  Speaker 1: put these last ideas into words. In the morning, the
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  Speaker 1: recollection of the experience with the bed being in the
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  Speaker 1: wrong place was gone. I jumped out of bed and
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  Speaker 1: into my shower bath at half past six, for I
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: had promised O'Brien, captain of the U. S Marines, to
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  Speaker 1: go out with him to the rifle range at Le
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  Speaker 1: Grand Princess that morning and look over the butts with him.
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  Speaker 1: I like O'Brien, and I am not uninterested in the
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  Speaker 1: efficiency of Uncle Sam's marines, But my chief objective was
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  Speaker 1: to watch the pelicans out there on the glorious beach
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  Speaker 1: of a state, Grand Princess, Big Princess, as the Black
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  Speaker 1: people call it, a colony of pelicans make their home,
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  Speaker 1: and it is a never ending source of amusement to
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  Speaker 1: me to watch them fish. A Caribbean pelican is probably
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  Speaker 1: the most graceful flier we have in these latitudes, barring
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  Speaker 1: not even the hurricane bird, that describer of noble arcs
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  Speaker 1: and parabolas, and the most insanely absurdly awkward creature on
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  Speaker 1: land that Providence has cared in a light hearted moment
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  Speaker 1: to create, I expressed my interest in Captain O'Brien's latest improvements,
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  Speaker 1: and while he was talking shop to one of his
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  Speaker 1: lieutenants and half a dozen enlisted men he had camped
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  Speaker 1: out there, I slipped down to the beach to watch
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  Speaker 1: the pelicans fish. Three or four of them were describing
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  Speaker 1: curves and turns of indescribable complexity and perfect grace over
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  Speaker 1: the green water of the reef enclosed white beach. Ever,
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  Speaker 1: and again one would stop short in the air, fold
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  Speaker 1: himself up like a jackknife, turn head downward, his great
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  Speaker 1: pouched bill extended like the head of a cruel spear,
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  Speaker 1: and drop like a plummet into the water, emerging an
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  Speaker 1: instant later, with the pouch distended with a fish. I
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  Speaker 1: stayed a trifle too long for my eyes. Driving back,
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  Speaker 1: I observed that I had picked up several sun spots,
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  Speaker 1: and when I arrived home, I polished a set of
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  Speaker 1: yellowish sun spectacles I keep for such emergencies, and put
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  Speaker 1: them on the east side of the house had been
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  Speaker 1: shaded against the pouring morning sunlight, and in this double
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  Speaker 1: shade I looked to see my eyes clear up. The
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  Speaker 1: sun spots persisted, however, in that annoying recurrent way they have,
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  Speaker 1: almost disappearing and then returning in undiminished kaleidoscopic grotesqueness, those
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  Speaker 1: strange blocks and parcels of pure color, changing as one
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  Speaker 1: winks from indigo to brown and from brown to orange,
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  Speaker 1: and then to a blinding turquoise blue, according to some
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  Speaker 1: eerie natural law of physics within the fluids of the
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  Speaker 1: eye itself. The sun spots were so persistent that morning
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  Speaker 1: that I decided to keep my eyes closed for some
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  Speaker 1: considerable time and see if that would allow them to
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  Speaker 1: run their course and wear themselves out. Blue and mauve
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  Speaker 1: grotesques of the vague general shape of diving pelicans swam
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  Speaker 1: and jumped inside my eyes. It was very annoying. I
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  Speaker 1: called to Albertina. Albertina said I, when she had come
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  Speaker 1: to the door, please go into my bedroom and close
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  Speaker 1: all the jalusies tight. Keep out all the light you can. Please.
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  Speaker 1: Ah rout, Sir, replied the obedient Albertina, and I heard
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  Speaker 1: her slapping the jalusy blinds together with sharp little clicks.
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  Speaker 1: Did jalusia all close, Sir, reported Albertina. I thanked her
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  Speaker 1: and proceeded with half shut eyes into the bedroom, which
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  Speaker 1: not yet invaded with afternoon sunlight, and closely shuddered, offered
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  Speaker 1: an appearance of deep twilight. I lay face down across
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  Speaker 1: the bed, a pillow under my face, and my eyes
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  Speaker 1: buried in darkness. Very gradually, the diving pelican faded out
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  Speaker 1: to a cube, to a dim, recurring blur to nothingness.
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  Speaker 1: I raised my head and rolled over on my side,
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  Speaker 1: placing the pillow back where it belonged, And as I
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  Speaker 1: opened my eyes on the dim room, there stood, in
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  Speaker 1: faint shadowy outline in the opposite corner of the room,
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  Speaker 1: away from the outside wall, on the market place side,
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  Speaker 1: the huge Danish bedstead I had vaguely noted the night before,
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  Speaker 1: or rather early that morning. It was the most curious
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  Speaker 1: sensation looking at that bed in the dimness of the room.
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  Speaker 1: I was reminded of those fourth dimensional tales which are
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  Speaker 1: so popular nowadays. For the bed impinged spatially on my
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  Speaker 1: large bureau, and the curious thing was that I could
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  Speaker 1: see the bureau at the same time. I rubbed my
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  Speaker 1: eyes a little unwisely, but not enough to bring back
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  Speaker 1: the pelican sun spots into them, for I remembered and
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  Speaker 1: desisted pretty promptly. I looked fixedly at the great bed,
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  Speaker 1: and it blurred and dimmed and faded out of my
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  Speaker 1: vision again. I was greatly puzzled, and I went over
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  Speaker 1: to where it seemed to stand and walked through it,
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  Speaker 1: it being no longer visible to my now restored vision,
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  Speaker 1: free of the effects of the sun spots. And then
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  Speaker 1: I went out into the hall, a West Indian drawing
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  Speaker 1: room is called the hall, and sat down to think
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  Speaker 1: over this strange phenomenon. I could not account for it
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  Speaker 1: if it had been poor Printice. Now Printice attended all
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  Speaker 1: the gentleman's parties to which he was invited with a
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  Speaker 1: kind of religious regularity, and had to be helped into
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  Speaker 1: his car with a similar regularity, a regularity which was
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  Speaker 1: verging on the monotonous nowadays, as the invitations became more
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  Speaker 1: and more strained. No, in my case, it was if
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  Speaker 1: there was anything certain about it, assuredly not the effects
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  Speaker 1: of strong liquors. For barring an occasional sociable swizzle, I
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  Speaker 1: retained here in my West Indian residence, my American convictions
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  Speaker 1: that moderation in such matters was a reasonable virtue. I
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  Speaker 1: reasoned out the matter of the phantom bedstead. For so
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  Speaker 1: I was already thinking of it. As far as I
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  Speaker 1: was able that it was a phantom of defective eyesight,
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  Speaker 1: I had no reasonable doubt. I had had my eyes
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  Speaker 1: examined in New York three months before, and the oculist
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  Speaker 1: had pleased me greatly by assuring me that there were
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  Speaker 1: no visible indications of deterioration. In fact, doctor Josserund had
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  Speaker 1: said at the time that my eyes were stronger, sounder
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  Speaker 1: than when he had made his last examination six months before.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps this conviction that the appearance was due to my
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  Speaker 1: own physical shortcoming accounts for the fact that I was not,
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  Speaker 1: what shall I say, disturbed by what I saw or
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  Speaker 1: thought I saw confront the most thorough going materialist with
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  Speaker 1: a ghost, and he will act precisely like any one else,
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  Speaker 1: like any normal human being who believes in the material
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  Speaker 1: world as the outward and visible sign of something which
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  Speaker 1: animates it. All normal human beings, it seems to me,
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  Speaker 1: are sacramentalists. I was, for this reason able to think
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  Speaker 1: clearly about the phenomenon. My mind was not clouded and
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  Speaker 1: bemused with fear in its known physiological effects. I can
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  Speaker 1: quite easily record what I saw In the course of
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  Speaker 1: the next few days. The bed was clearer to my
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  Speaker 1: vision and apprehension than it had been. It seemed to
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  Speaker 1: have grown invisibility in a kind of substantialness, if there
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  Speaker 1: is such a word. It appeared more material than it
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  Speaker 1: had been before, less shadowy. I looked about the room
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  Speaker 1: and saw other furniture, a huge old fashioned mahogany bureau
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  Speaker 1: with men's heads carved on the knuckles of the front
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  Speaker 1: legs Danish fashion. There is precisely such carving on pieces
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  Speaker 1: in the museum in Copenhagen, they tell me, those who
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  Speaker 1: have seen my drawing of it. I was actually able
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  Speaker 1: to do that, and had completed a kind of plan
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  Speaker 1: picture of the room, putting in all the shadow furniture
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  Speaker 1: and leaving my own actual furniture out. Thank the God
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  Speaker 1: in whom I devoutly believe and know to be more
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  Speaker 1: powerful than the powers of evil, I was able to
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  Speaker 1: finish that rather elaborate drawing before well, I must not
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  Speaker 1: run ahead of my story. End of section one. The Shadows,
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  Speaker 1: Part one Section two of Weird Tales double feature The
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  Speaker 1: Shadows and the Projection of armand Dubois by Henry S. Whitehead.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Ben Tucker, The Shadows, Part two. That night, when I
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  Speaker 1: was ready to retire, and had once more opened up
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  Speaker 1: the jalousies of the front bedroom and had switched off
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  Speaker 1: the night light, I looked naturally enough under the circumstances
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  Speaker 1: for the outlines of that ghostly furniture. They were much
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  Speaker 1: clearer now. I studied them with a certain sense of
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  Speaker 1: almost scientific detachment. It was even then apparent to me
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  Speaker 1: that no weakness of the strange complexity which is the
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  Speaker 1: human eye could reasonably account for the presence of a
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  Speaker 1: well defined set of mahogany furniture in a room already
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  Speaker 1: furnished with real furniture. But I was by now sufficiently
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  Speaker 1: accustomed to it to be able to examine it all
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  Speaker 1: without that always disturbing element of fear strange. I looked
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  Speaker 1: at the bedstead, and the roll back chairs, and the
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  Speaker 1: great bureau and a ghostly, huge and quaintly carved wardrobe,
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  Speaker 1: studying their outlines, noting their relative positions. It was on
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  Speaker 1: that occasion that it occurred to me that it would
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  Speaker 1: be of interest to make some kind of drawing of them.
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  Speaker 1: I looked the harder after that, fixing the details and
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  Speaker 1: the relations of them all in my mind, and then
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  Speaker 1: I went into the hall and got some paper and
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  Speaker 1: a pencil and set to work. It was hard work,
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  Speaker 1: this of reproducing something which I am well aware was
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: some kind of an apparition, especially after looking at the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: furniture in the dark bedroom, switching on the light in
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  Speaker 1: another room, and then trying to reproduce I could not,
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  Speaker 1: of course, make a direct comparison. I mean, it was
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  Speaker 1: impossible to look at my drawing and then look at
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  Speaker 1: the furniture. There was always a necessary interval between the
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  Speaker 1: two processes. I persisted through several evenings, and even for
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  Speaker 1: a couple of evenings fell into the custom of going
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  Speaker 1: into my bedroom in the evening's darkness, looking at what
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  Speaker 1: was there, and then attempting to reproduce it. After five
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  Speaker 1: or six days, I had a fair plan and considerable
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  Speaker 1: detail of the arrangement of this strange furniture in my bedroom,
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  Speaker 1: a planner drawing which would be recognizable if there were
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  Speaker 1: any one now alive who remembered such an arrangement of
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: such furniture. It will be apparent that a story had
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  Speaker 1: been growing up in my mind, or at least that
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I had come to some kind of conviction that what
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I saw was a reproduction of something that had once
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: existed in that same detail, in that same precise order.
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  Speaker 1: On the seventh night, there came an interruption. I had
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  Speaker 1: by that time finished my work pretty well I had
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  Speaker 1: drawn the room as it would have looked with that
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  Speaker 1: furniture in it, and had gone over the whole with
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: india ink very carefully as a drawing. The thing was finished,
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  Speaker 1: so far as my indifferent skill as a draftsman would permit.
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  Speaker 1: That seventh evening, I was looking over the appearance of
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the room, whom such calms as the eeriness of the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: situation might have otherwise produced, reduced to next to nothing,
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  Speaker 1: partly by my interest, in part by having become accustomed
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  Speaker 1: to it. All. I was making this evening as careful
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  Speaker 1: a comparison as possible between my remembered work on paper
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and the detailed appearance of the room. By now the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: furniture stood out clearly in a kind of light of
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  Speaker 1: its own, which I can roughly compare only to phosphorescence.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It was not quite that, but that will serve lame
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: as it is, and trite, perhaps to indicate what I mean,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: I suppose the appearance of the room was something like
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: what a cat sees when she arches her back, as
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Algernon Blackwood has pointed out in John's Silence and rubs
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: against the imaginary legs of some personage entirely invisible to
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the man in the arm chair, who idly wonders what
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: has taken possession of his house. Pet. I was, as
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I say, studying the detail. I could not find that
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  Speaker 1: I had left down to anything salient. The detail was
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  Speaker 1: too quite clear. Now. There were no blurred outlines as
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: there had been on the first few nights. My own
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: material furniture had, so to speak, sunk back into invisibility,
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  Speaker 1: which was sensible enough, seeing that I had put the
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  Speaker 1: room in as nearly perfect darkness as I could, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: there was no moon to interfere those nights. I had
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: run my eyes all around it, up and down the
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: twisted legs of the great bureau, along the carved ornamentation
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: at the top of the wardrobe, along the lines of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the chairs, and had come back to the bed. It
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was at this point of my checking up that I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: got what I must describe as the first shock of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the entire experience. Something moved beside the bed. I peered carefully,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: straining my eyes to catch what it might be. It
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: had been something bulky, a slow moving object on the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: far side of the bed, blurred somewhat, just as the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: original outline had been blurred in the beginning of my
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: week's experience. The now strong and clear outlines of the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: bed and what I might describe as its ethereal substance
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: stood between me and it. Besides, the vision of the
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: slow moving mass was further obscured by a ghostly mosquito
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: net which had been one of the last of the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: details to come into the scope of my strange night vision.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Those folds of the mosquito netting moved, waved before my eyes. Someone,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: it might almost be imagined, was getting into that bed.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I sat petrified. This was a bit too much for me.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I could feel the little chills run up and down
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  Speaker 1: my spine. My scalp prickled. I put my hands on
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: my knees and pressed hard. I drew several deep breaths
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: all overish, as an old New England expression, once much
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: used by spinsters, I believe resident in that intellectual section
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of the United States. Whatever the precise connotation of the term,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that was the way I felt. I could feel the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: reactive sensation I mean of that particular portion of the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: whole experience, in every part of my being, body, mind,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and soul. It was paralyzing. I reached up a hand
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that was trembling violently. I could barely control it in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the fingers when they touched the hard rubber button, felt numb,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and switched on the bed light and spent the next
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: ten minutes recovering. That night, when I came to retire,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I dreaded, actually dreaded, what might come to my vision
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: when I snapped off the light. This, however, I managed
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: to reason out with myself. I used several arguments. Nothing
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: had so far occurred to annoy or injure me. If
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: this were to be a cumulative experience. If something were
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to be revealed to me by this deliberate process of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: slow materialization, which had been progressing for the last week
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: or so, then it might as well be for some
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: go good and useful purpose. I might be, in a sense,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the agent of Providence. If it were otherwise, if it
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: were the evil work of some discarnate spirit or something
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of the sort. Well, every Sunday since my childhood and church,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I had recited the Creed and so admitted, along with
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the clergy and the rest of the congregation, that God,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: our Father had created all things visible and invisible. If
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: it were this part of his creation at work for
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: any purpose, then he was stronger than they. I said
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: a brief prayer before turning off that light, and put
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: my trust in him. It may appear to some bit
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: old fashioned, even victorian, but he does not change along
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: with the current fashions of human thought. About him, and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: this human thought and the modern mind and all the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: rest of it does not mean the vast, the overwhelming
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: majority of people. It involves only a few dozen prideful
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: intellectuals at best or worst. I switched off the light,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and already clearer, I saw what must have been Old
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Morris getting into bed. I had interviewed Old Bonesteele, the
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Chief Government Surveyor, a gentleman of parts and much experience,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a West Indian born on this island. Mister Bonsteele, in
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: response to my guarded enquiries for I had, of course
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: already suspected Old Morris was not my house, still called
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: his as stated that he remembered Old Morris well in
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: his own remote youth. His description of that personage in
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: this apparition tallied this undoubtedly was Old Morris. That it
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was some one was apparent. I felt, somehow rather relieved
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to realize that it was he. I knew something about him.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: You see, mister Bonesteele had given me a good description
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and many anecdotes, quite freely, and as though he enjoyed
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: being called on for some information about one of the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: old timers, like Morris, he had been more reticent guarded.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: In fact, when I pressed him for details of Morris's end,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: that there had been some obscurity, intentional or otherwise. I
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: could never ascertain about the old man. I had already known.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Such casual inquiries as I had made on other occasions
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: through natural interest in the person whose name still clung
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to my house sixty years or more since he had
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: lived in it, had never got me anywhere. I had
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: only gathered what mister Bonestell's more ample account corroborated that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Morrison had been eccentric in some ways, amusingly so that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: he had been extraordinarily well to do that. He gave
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: occasional large parties, which, contrary to the custom of the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: hospitable island of Saint Croix, were always required to come
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: to a conclusion well before midnight. Why there was a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: story of old Morris almost literally getting rid of a
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: few reluctant guests by one device or another. From these parties,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a circumstance on which hinged several of the amusing anecdotes
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of that eccentric person. Old Morris, as I knew, had
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: not always lived on Saint Croix. His youth had been
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: spent Martinique, in the then smaller and less important town
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: of Fort de France. That, of course, was many years
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: before the terrific calamity of the destruction of Saint Pierre
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: had taken place by the eruption of Mount Peley. Old Morris,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: coming to Saint Croix in young middle age forty five
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: or thereabouts, had already been accounted a rich man. He
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: had been engaged in no business. He was not a planter,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: not a store keeper, had no profession where he produced
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: His affluence was one of the local mysteries. His age,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: it seemed, was the other. I suppose mister bone Still
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: had said that Morris was nearer a hundred than ninety
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: when he died. I was a child of about eight
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: at that time. I shall be seventy next August month.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: That you see, would be about sixty two years ago,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: about eighteen sixty one, or about the time your Civil
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: War was beginning. Now, my father has told me he
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: died when I was nineteen. That old Morris looked exactly
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the same when he was a boy. Extra Ordinary, the
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: black people used to say. Mister Bonesteele fell silent in
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: his eyes, had an old man's dim, far away look.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: The black people have some very strange beliefs, mister Bonesteele said, I,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: attempting to prompt him. A good many of them I
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: have heard about myself, and they interest me very much.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: What particular? Mister Bonestele turned his mild blue eyes upon
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: me reflectively. You must drop in at my house one
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of these days, mister Stewart, said he mildly. I have
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: some rare old rum that i'd be glad to have
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you sample, sir. There's not much of it on the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: island these days since Uncle Sam turned his prohibition laws
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: loose on us in nineteen twenty two. Thank you very much, indeed,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: mister Bonesteele, I replied, I shall take the first occasion
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to do so, sir. Not that I care especially for
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: old rum, except a spoonful and a cup of tea
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: or in pudding sauce perhaps, But the pleasure of your company, sir,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: is always an inducement. Mister Bonesteele bowed to me gravely,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and I returned his bow from where I sat in
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: his airy office and government house. Would you object to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: mentioning what that belief was? Sir? A slightly pained expression
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: replaced my old friend's look of hospitality. Ah, that is
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of foolishness, said he, with something like asperity.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: He looked at me contemplatively. Not that I believe in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: such things. You must understand. Still a man sees a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: good many things in these islands in a lifetime, you know.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Well the black people. Mister Bonstell looked apprehensively about him,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: as though reluctant to have one of his clerks overhear
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: what he was about to say, and leaned toward me
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: from his chair, lowering his voice to a whisper. They say,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: it was a remark here in a kind of hint.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: There you must understand nothing definite that Morris had interfered
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: down there in Martinique with some of their queer doings,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: offended the zombie, something of the kind that Morris had
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: made some kind of condition. Oh, it was very vague
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and probably all mixed up, you know, whereby he was
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to have a long life and all the money he wanted.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Something like that, and afterward, well, mister Stewart. He just
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: asks somebody sometime about Morris's death. End of section two
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: The Shadows, Part two Section three of Weird Tales double
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: feature The Shadows and the Projection of armand Dubois by
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Henry S. Whitehead. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Read by Ben Tucker The Shadows, Part three. Not another
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: word about Old Morris could I extract out of mister Bonesteel,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But of course he had me aroused. I tried Despard,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: who lives on the other end of the island, a
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: man educated at the Sorbonne and who knows it is,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: said everything there is to know about the island and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: its affairs. It was much the same with mister Despard,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: who is an entirely different kind of person, younger, for
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: one thing, than my old friend, the government surveyor. Mister
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Despard smiled a kind of wry smile. Old Morris said
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he reflectively, and paused, Might I venture to ask no offense,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: my dear sir, why you wish to rake up such
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: an old matter as Old Morris's death. I was a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: bit nonplussed. I confess mister Despard had been perfectly courteous
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: as he always is. But somehow I had not expected
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: such an intervention on his part. Why, said I? I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: should find it hard to tell you precisely, mister Despard.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: It is not that I am averse to being frank
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: in the face of such an inquiry as yours, Sir.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I was not aware that there was anything important serious,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: as your tone implies about that matter. Put it down
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: to mere curiosity, if you will and answer or not
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: as you wish, Sir, I was perhaps a little nettled
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: at this unexpected and as it then seemed to me,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: finicky obstruction being placed in my way. What could there
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: be in such a case for this formal reticence, these
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: verbal safeguards. If it were a jumbie story, there was
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: no importance to it. If otherwise, well, I might be
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: regarded by Dispard as a person of reasonable discretion. Perhaps
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Disbard was some relative of old Morris, and there was
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: something a bit off color about his death that too,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: might account for mister Bonsteele's reticence. By the way, I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: inquired noting Despard's reticence, might I ask another question, mister
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Despard is certainly, mister Stewart, I do not wish to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: impress you as idly or unduly curious. But are you
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: and mister Bonesteele related in any way? No, sir, we
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: are not related in any way at all, sir, Thank you,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: mister Disbard, said I, and bowing to each other. After
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the fashion set here by the Danes, we departed. I
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: had not learned a thing about Old Morris's death. I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: went in to see Missus heiden Clung. Here, if anywhere,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I should find out what was intriguing me. Missus heiden
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Clung is an ancient creole lady, relict of a prosperous
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: store keeper, who lives surrounded by a certain state of
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: her own, propped up in bed, and an environment of
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a stupendous quantity of lacy things and gauzy ruffles. I
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: did not intend to mention Old Morris to her, but
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: only to get some information about the zombie, if that
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: should be possible. I found the old lady surrounded by
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: her ruffles and lace things in one of her good days.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Her health has been precarious for twenty years. It was
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: not difficult to get her talking about the zombie. It is,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: said Missus heiden Clung. It is extraordinary how the old
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: beliefs and the old words cling in their minds. Why,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: mister Stewart, I was hearing about a trial in the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: police court a few days ago, when old black woman
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: had summoned another forbusive language on the witness stand. The
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: complaining old woman said, they call me a worthless old Cottagean, Sir.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Now think of that carthage was destroyed way back in
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: the days of Cato the Elder. You know, mister Stuart,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the greatest town of all Africa. To be a Carthaginian
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: meant to be a sea robber, a pirate, that is,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a thief. One old woman on this island, more than
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: two thousand years afterward, wishes to call another a thief,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and the word Carthagean is the word she naturally uses.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I suppose that has persisted on in the West Coast
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: and throughout all those village dialects in Africa, without a break,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: all these centuries, the zombie of the French Islands. Yes,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: mister Stuart, there are some extraordinary beliefs. Why, perhaps you've
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: heard mention made of oh Morris, mister Stuart, he used
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: to live in your house. You know, I held my breath.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Here was a possible trove. I nodded my head. I
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: did not dare to speak. Well, Oh Morris, you see
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: live most of his earlier days in Martinique, and it
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: is safe he had a somewhat adventurous life there, mister Stuart.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Just what he did or how he got himself involved,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: seems never to have been made clear. But in some way,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: mister Stewart, the black people believe Morris got himself involved
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: with a very powerful jumbear. And that is where what
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I said about the persistence of ancient beliefs comes in.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Look on that table there, among those photographs, mister Stuart.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: There that's the place I wish I were able to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: get up and assist you. These maids. Everything askew you,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I have no doubt. Do you observe a kind of
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: fish headed thing about as big as the palm of
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: your hand? Yes, that is it. I found the fish
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: headed thing and carried it over to missus Heidenkling. She
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: took it in her hand and looked at it. It
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: lacked a nose, but otherwise it was intact a strange,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: uncouth looking little godling made of anciently polished volcanic stone,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: with huge protruding eyes, small human like ears and what
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: must have been an nose like a tortola jackfish were
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: a black witch bird with its parrot beak. Now that continued,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Missus Heidenkleing is one of the very ancient household gods
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of the Aborigines of Martinique. And you will observe the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: likeness in the idea to the lars and the pennates
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of your school Latin days. Whether this is a lar
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: or a pennate, I cannot tell. And the old lady
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: paused to smile at her little joke. But at any rate,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: he is a representation of something very powerful, a fish
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: god of the Karibs. There's something Egyptian about the idea too.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I've always suspected and mister Stewart a Karib or an
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Arawak Indian. They were both in these islands, you know,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: looked much like an ancient Egyptian, perhaps half like your
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Zuni or Aztec Indians and half Egyptian would be a
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: fair statement of his appearance. These fish gods had men's bodies,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: you see, Precissa, like the hawk headed and jackal headed
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: deities of ancient Egypt. It was one of those the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: black people say with which mister Morris got himself mixed up.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: God knows as they say how and mister Stewart, they
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: say his death was terrible. The particulars I've never heard,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: but my father knew that he was sick for several
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: days after seeing mister Morris's body. Extraordinary, isn't it? And
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: when are you come in this way again, mister Stewart?
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Do drop in and call on an old lady? I
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: felt that I was progressing. The next time I saw
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: mister Bonesteel, which was that very evening, I stopped him
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: on the street and asked for a word with him.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: What was the date or the approximate date, mister Bonesteele,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: of mister Morris's death. Could you recall that, sir? Mister
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Bonsteele paused and considered it was just before Christmas, said he,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I remember it not so much by Christmas as by
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: the races which always take place the day after Christmas.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Morris had entered his sorrel mare Saint Urce, and as
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: he left Noweres there was no one who owned sand Urce,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: and she had to be with drawn from the races.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: It affected the betting very materially, and a good many
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: persons were annoyed about it, but there wasn't anything that
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: could be done. I thanked mister Bonesteel, and not without reason,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: for his answer had fitted into something that had been
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: growing in my mind. Christmas was only eight days off.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: This drama of the furniture and Old Morris getting into bed,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I had thought, and not unnaturally, it seemed to me
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: might be a kind of re enactment of the tragedy
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of his death. If I had the courage to watch
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: night after night, I might be relieved of the necessity
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: of asking any questions. I might witness whatever had occurred,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and some weird reproduction engineered god knows how. For three
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: nights now I had seen the phenomenon of Old Morris
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: getting into bed repeated and each time it was clearer.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I had sketched him into my drawing, a short, squat figure,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: rather stooped and fat, but possessed of a strange, guerrilla
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: like energy. His movements as he walked toward the bed,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: seized the edge of the mosquito netting and climbed in,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: were somehow full of power, which was the more apparent.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Since these were ordinary motions, one could not help imagining
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that Old Morris would have been a tough customer to tackle,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: for all his alleged age. End of section three. The Shadows,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Part three Section four of Weird Tales double feature The
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Shadows and the Projection of armand Dubois by Henry S. Whitehead.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Ben Tucker The Shadows, Part four. This evening, at the
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: hour when this phenomenon was accustomed to enact itself, that is,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: about eleven o'clock, I watched again. The scene was very
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: much clearer, and I observed something I had not noticed before.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Old Morris's simulacrum paused just before seizing the edge of
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the netting, raised its eyes eyes, and began with its
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: right hand a motion precisely like the one who was
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: about to sign himself of the cross. The motion was
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: abruptly arrested, however, only the first of the four touches
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: on the body being made. I saw too something of
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: the expression of the face that night for the first time,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: at that moment of making the arresting sign, it was
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: one of despairing horror. Immediately afterward, as this motion appeared
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to be abandoned for the abrupt clutching of the lower
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: edge of the mosquito net. It changed into a look
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: of ferocious stubbornness, of almost savage self confidence. I lost
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the facial expression as the appearance sank down upon the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: bed and pulled the ghostly bedclothes over itself. Three nights later,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: when all this had become as greatly intensified as had
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the clearing up process that had effected the furniture, I
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: observed another motion, or what might be taken for the
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: faint foreshadowing of another motion. This was not on the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: part of old Morris. It made itself apparent as lightly
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and elusively as the swift flight of a moth across
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: the reflection of a lamp over near the bedroom door.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: The doors in my house are more than ten feet
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: high and fourteen foot high walls. A mere flicker of something,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: something entering the room. I looked and peered at that corner,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: straining my eyes. But nothing could I see, save what
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I might describe as an intensification of the black shadow
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in that corner near the door, vaguely formed like a
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: slim human figure, though grossly out of all human proportion.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: The vague shadow looked purple against the black. It was
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: about ten feet high and otherwise as though cast by
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: an incredibly tall, thin human being. I made nothing of
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it then and again, despite all this cumulative experience with
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the strange shadows of my bedroom, attributed this last phenomenon
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: to my eyes. It was too vague to be at
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that time accounted otherwise then as a mere subjective effect.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: But the night following I watched for it at the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: proper moment, in the sequence of old Morris's movements as
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: he got into bed, and this time it was distinctly
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: clearer the shadow. It was of some monstrous shape ten
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: feet tall, long, angular, a vaguely human appearance, though even
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: in its merely shadowed form, somehow cruelly strangely inhuman. I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: couldnot describe the cold horror of its realization. The head
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: part was, relatively to the proportions of the body, short
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and broad, like a pumpkin head of a man made
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of sticks by boys to frighten passers by on Halloween.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: The next evening, I was out again to an entertainment
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: at the residence of one of my hospitable friends, and
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: arrived home after midnight. There stood the ghostly furniture there
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: on the bed was the form of the apparently sleeping
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Old Morris, and there in the corner stood the shadow,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: little changed from last night's appearance. The next night would
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: be pretty close to the date of Old Morris's death.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: It would be that night or the next at latest.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: According to mister Bonsteele's statement, the next day, I could
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: not avoid the sensation of something impending. I entered my
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: room and turned off the light a little before eleven,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: seated myself and waited. The furniture to night was to
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: my vision absolutely indistinguishable from reality. This statement may sound
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: somewhat strange, for it will be remembered that I was
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: sitting in the dark. Approximating terms again, I may say, however,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: that the furniture was visible in a light of its own,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: a kind of phosphorescence which apparently emanated from it. Certainly
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: there was no natural source of light. Perhaps I may
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: express the matter thus that light and darkness were reversed
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: in the case of this ghostly bed, bureau, wardrobe, and chairs.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: When actual light was turned on, they disappeared, and darkness,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: which of course is the absence of physical light, they emerged.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: That is the nearest I can get to it at
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: any rate. To night, the furniture was entirely perfectly visible
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to me. Old Morris came in at the usual time.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: I could see him with a clarity exactly comparable to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: what I have said about the furniture. He made his
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: slight pause, his arrested motion of the right hand, and then,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: as usual, cast from him according to his expression the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: desire for that protective gesture, and reached a hard looking,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: gnarled fist out to take hold of the mosquito netting.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: As he did so, a fearful thing leaped upon him,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a thing out of the corner by the high doorway,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the dreadful purplish shadow thing. I had not been looking
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: in that direction, and while I had not forgotten this
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: newest of the strange items in this phantasmagoria, which had
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: been repeating itself before my eyes for many nights, I
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: was wholly unprepared for its sudden appearance and malignant activity.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I have said the shadow was purplish against black. Now
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: that it had taken form, as the furniture in Old
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Morris himself had taken form, I observed that this purplish
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: coloration was actual. It was a glistening human like almost
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: metallic appearing, the thing certainly ten feet high, completely covered
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: with great iridescent fish scales, each perhaps four inches in area,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: which shimmered as it leaped across the room. I saw
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: it for only a matter of a second or two.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I saw it clutch surely and with a deadly malignity,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the hunched body of old Morris from behind, just as
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: you will remember, as the old man was about to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: climb into his bed, the dreadful thing turned him about
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: as a wasp turns a fly, in great flail like
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: glistening arms. And never to the day of my death
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: do I ever expect to be free of the look
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: on Old Morris's face, a look of a lost soul
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: who knows that there is no hope for him in
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: this world or the next. As the great squat rounded
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: head ahead, precisely like that of missus Heidenklung's little fish Jumbie, descended,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: revealing to my horrified sight one glimpse of a huge,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: scythelike parrot beak, which it used, with the nodding motion
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: of the ugly head, to plunge into its writhing victim's
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: breast with a tearing motion like the Barracoota when it
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: attacks in tears. I fainted then, for that was the
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: last of the fearful picture which I can remember. I
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: awakened a little after one o'clock in a dark and
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: empty room, peopled by no ghosts, and with my own
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: more commonplace mahogany furniture, thinly outlined in the faint light
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: of the new moon, which was shining cleanly in a
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: starry sky. The fresh night wind stirred the netting of
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: my bed. I rose shakily and went and leaned out
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of the window, and lit and puffed rapidly at a cigarette,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: which perhaps did something to settle my jangling nerves. The
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: next more, with a feeling of loathing which has gradually
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: worn itself out in the course of the months which
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: have now elapsed since my dreadful experience, I took up
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: my drawing again and added as well as I could
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the fearful scene I had witnessed. The complete picture was
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a horror crude, as is my work in this direction.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I wanted to destroy it, but I did not, and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I laid it away under some unused clothing in one
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of the large drawers of my bedroom wardrobe. Three days later,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: just after Christmas, I observed mister Desbard's car driving through
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: the streets, the driver being alone. I stopped the boy
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and asked him where mister Desbard was at the moment.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: The driver told me mister Desbard was having breakfast the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: West Indian midday meal with mister Bonesteel at that gentleman's
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: house on the Prince's Cross Street. I thanked him and
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: went home. I took out the drawing, folded it and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: placed it in the inside breast pocket of my coat,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and started for Bonsteel's house. I arrived fifteen minutes or
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: so before the breakfast hour and was pleasantly received by
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: my old friend and his guest. Mister Bonsteele pressed me
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to join them at breakfast, but I declined. Mister Bonesteele
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: brought in a swizzle compounded of his very old rum,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and after partaking of this in ceremonious fashion, I engaged
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the attention of both gentlemen. Gentlemen, said, I I trust
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: that you will not regard me as too much of
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a bore, but I have I believe a legitimate reason
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: for asking you if you will tell me the manner
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: in which the gentleman known as old Morris, who once
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: occupied my house met his death. I stopped there and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: immediately discovered that I had thrown my kind old host
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: into a state of embarrassed confusion. Glancing at mister Despard,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I saw at once that if I had not actually
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: offended him, I had, by my question at least put
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: him on his dignity. He was looking at me severely rather,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and I confess that for a moment I felt a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: bit like a schoolboy. Mister Bonstele caught something of this
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: atmosphere and looked helplessly at Desbarred. Both men shifted uneasily
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: in their chairs. Each waited for the other to speak.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Despard at last cleared his throat. You will excuse me,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: mister Stuart, said he slowly. But you have asked a
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: question which, for certain reasons, no one, aware of the circumstances,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: would desire to answer. The reasons are briefly, that mister Morris,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: in certain respects was what shall I say not to
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: do the matter an injustice. Well, perhaps I might say
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: he was abnormal. I do not mean that he was crazy.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: He was, though eccentric. His end was such that stating
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: it would open up a considerable argument one which agitated
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: this island for a long time after he was found
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: dead by a kind of general consent. That matter is
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: taboo on the island. That will explain to you why
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: no one wishes to answer your question. I am free
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: to say that mister Bonstell here, in considerable distress, told
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: me that you had asked it of him, also asked
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: me about it not long ago. I can add only
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: that the manner of mister Morris's end was such that
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: mister Despard hesitated and looked down a frown on his brow,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: at a shoe which he tapped nervously on the tiled
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: floor of the gallery where we were seated. Old Morris,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: mister Stuart, he resumed, after a moment's reflection in which
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I imagined he was carefully choosing his words, was, to
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: put it plainly, murdered. There was much discussion over the
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: identity of the murderer, but the most of it, the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: unpleasant part of the discussion, was rather whether he was
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: killed by human agency or not. Perhaps you will see now, sir,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the difficulty of the matter to admit that he was
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: murdered by an ordinary murderer is to mine mind and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: impossibility to assert that some other agency, something ab human
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: killed him opens up the question of one's belief, one's credulity.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Magic and occult agencies are as you are aware, strongly
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: entrenched in the minds of the ignorant people of these islands.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: None of us cares to admit a similar belief. Does
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: that satisfy you, mister Stewart? And will you let the
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: matter rest there? Sir? I drew out the picture, and
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: without unfolding it, laid it across my knees. I nodded
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: to mister Despard, and, turning to our host, asked as
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a child, mister Bonsteele, were you familiar with the arrangement
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of mister Morris's bedroom. Yes, Sir, replied mister Bonsteele, and added,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: everybody was persons who had never been in the old
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: man's house crowded in. When I intercepted a kind of
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: warning look passing from Despard to the speaker. Mister Bonsteele,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: looking much embarrassed, looked at me in that helpless fashion
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: I have already mentioned, and remarked that it was hot
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: weather these days, then said I perhaps you will recognize
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: its arrangement in even some of the details of its furnishing,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and I unfolded the picture and handed it to mister Bone.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: If I had anticipated its effect upon the old man,
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I would have been more discreet, But I confess I
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: was nettled by their attitude. By handing it to mister
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: bone Steel, I could not give it both of them
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: at once. I did the natural thing, for he was
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: our host. The old man looked at what I had
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: handed him, and this is the only way I can
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: describe what happened. Became suddenly, as though petrified, His eyes
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: bulged out of his head. His lower jaw dropped and
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: hung open. The paper slipped from his nerveless grasp and
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: fluttered and zigzagged to the floor, landing at Despard's feet.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Despard stooped and picked it up, ostensibly to restore it
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to me, but in doing so he glanced at it
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: and had his reaction. He leaped frantically to his feet
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: and positively goggled at the picture than at me. Oh,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I was having my little revenge for their reticence. Right enough,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: my God, shouted Despard, My God, mister Stewart, where did
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you get such a thing? Mister Bonstell drew in a
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: deep breath. The first, it seemed for sixty seconds and
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: added his word, Oh my God, muttered the old man shakily.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Mister Stuart, mister Stewart, what is it? What is it? Where?
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: It is a Martinique fish zombie? What is known to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: professional occult investigators like Eliot O'Donnell and William Hope Hodgson
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: as an elemental? I explained, calmly, it is a representation
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of how poor mister Morris actually met his death until now,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: as I understand it, a purely conjectural matter. Christian instead
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: is built on the ruins of French Bassant, you will remember,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I added, it is a very likely spot for an elemental.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: But but almost shouted mister Despard, mister Stewart, where did
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: you get this? It's I made, it, said I, quietly,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: folding up the picture and placing it back in my
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: inside pocket. But how this from both disbarred and bone
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Steel speaking in unison. I saw it happen, you see,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I replied, taking my hat, bowing formally to both gentlemen,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: and murmuring my regret at not being able to remain
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: for breakfast. I departed, and as I reached the bottom
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: of mister Bonsteel's gallery steps and turned along the street
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in the direction of Old Morris's house, where I live.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I could hear their voices speaking together. But how how
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: this was bone steel? Why? Why? And that was disbarred?
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: End of the Shadows, Section five of Weird Tales Double
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: feature The Shadows and the Projection of armand du Bois
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: by Henry S. Whitehead. This LibriVox recording is and the
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: poeublic domain read by Ben Tucker. The Projection of armand
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Dubois Part one. Some time before my marriage, when I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: was living in Marlborough House, the old mansion on the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: hill back of the town of Frederickstead on the West
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Indian island of Saint Croix, that is to say, before
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I became a landed proprietor as I did later, and
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: was still making a variable living by the production and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: sale of my tales. I had a next door neighbor
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: by the name of Missus Minerva du Chalieu. I do
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: not know whether the late Monsieur du Chalieu, of whom
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: this good lady was the relict, was related or not
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: to the famous Paul of that name, that slaughterer of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: wild animals in the far corners of the earth, who
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: was and may still be, for all I know, the
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: greatest figure of all the big game hunters. But her husband,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Monsieur Placid du Chalieux, had been for many years a
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: clergyman of the English Church. On that strange island of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Saint Martin, with its two flat towns, Philipsbourg, capital of
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: the Dutch side, and Marago, capital of the French side.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: The English Church was and still is existent only among
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the Dutch residents, Marago being without an English church. Therefore,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Missus Duchailleu's acquaintance, even after many years residence on Saint Martin,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: was almost entirely confined to the Dutch side, where curiously
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: enough English and French rather than Dutch are spoken, and which,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: although only eight miles from the French capital, has only
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: slight communication therewith because of the execrable quality of the
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: connecting roads. This old lady, well past seventy at the time,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: used to sit on her gallery late afternoons, when the
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: fervor of the afternoon sun had somewhat abated, and rock
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: herself steadily to and fro and fan in the same
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: indefatigable fashion as ancient Mistress Desmond. My landlady occasionally I
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: would step across and exchange the time of day with her.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: I had known her for several years before she got
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: her courage up to the point of asking me if
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: some day I would not allow her to see something
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I had written. Such a request is always a compliment
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: In this I told her to relieve her obvious embarrassment.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: A day or so later, I took over to Missus
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: Douchelleux a selection of three or four manuscript carbons and
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: a couple of magazines containing my stories, and I could
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: see her from time to time afternoons reading them. I
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: could even guess which ones she had finished in which
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: she was currently engaged in perusing by the expression of
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: her kindly face as she read. Four or five days later,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: she sent for me, and when I had gone across
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: her gallery, she thanked me very formally, as a finely
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: bred gentlewoman of several generations of West Indian background might
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: be expected to do, handed back the stories, and with
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: much hesitation and almost blushingly intimated that she could tell
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: me a story herself if I cared to use it.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Of course, added Missus Douschaux, you'd have to change it
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: about and embellish it. A great deal, mister Canevan. To this,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I said nothing except to urge my old friend to proceed,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: and this she did forthwith hesitating at first and becoming
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: intrigued by the memories of the tale, with the flare
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of a quite unexpected narrative gift. During the first few
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: minutes of the then halting recital, I interrupted occasionally for
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the purpose of getting this or that point clear. But
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: as the story progressed, I quieted down, and before it
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: was finished, I was sitting listening as though to catch
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: my pearls, for here was my simon pure West Indian
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Jumbie story, a gem, a perfect example, and told you
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: may believe me or not, sir or madam, with every
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: possible indication of authenticity, unless there is something hitherto unsuspected,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: even by his best friends, those keenest of critics with
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the understanding apparatus of Gerald Canavan, that story as Missus
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Duschayoux told it to him, had happened, just as she
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: said it had to her. I will add only that
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I have not, to my knowledge changed a word of it.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: It is not only not embellished or glorified, as the
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: black people would say, but it is as nearly verbatim
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: as I can manage it, and I believe it implicitly.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: It fits in with much that is known scientifically and
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: verified by occult investigators and suchlike personages. It is typically
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: utterly West Indian, and Missus deus Challieux would as soon
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: vary one jotter little from the strict truth in this
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: or any other matter, as to attempt to stand on
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: her head. And that if you knew the dear old
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: soul as I do, with the rheumatism in her seventy
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: six years and her impeccable life long respectability, is as
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: much as to say impossible, for the convenience of any
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: possible readers, I will tell her story for her as
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: nearly as possible, in her own words, without quotation marks.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I have been living in Philippsbourg about two years, perhaps
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: slightly longer, said Missus Deuschalloux, when one morning I had
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: occasion to go into my husband's study or office. Monsieur
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Ur Duchellieu, as he was generally called, of course, even
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: though he was a clergyman of the Church of England,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: was at the moment of my arrival opening one of
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: the two strong boxes or old fashioned iron safes which
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: he had standing side by side, and in which he
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: kept his own money and the various parish funds of
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: which he had charge. The occasion of my going into
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: his office where he received the parishioners. You know, in
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: these West Indian parishes, the black people come in streams
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: to consult gods and knunted about every conceivable matter, from
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: a family row to a stolen papaya, was on account
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: of Julie. Julie was a very good and very reliable servant,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: a young woman whose health was not very good, and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: whom I was keeping in one of the spare rooms
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of our house. The rectory was a large residence just
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: next door to the government house. And poor Julie did better,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: we thought, inside, than in one of the servants rooms
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: in the yard. Every day I would give Julie a
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: little brandy. She had come for her brandy a few
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: minutes before. It was about four thirty in the afternoon,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: and I discovered that I would have to get a
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: fresh bottle. Monsieur de Chalieux was in the office and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: had the key of the big sideboard, and I had
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: stepped in to get the key from him. As I say,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: he was just opening one of the safes. I said, pleased,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? It was one of those meaningless questions.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: I could see clearly what he was doing. He was
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: opening his safe, the one in which he kept his
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: own private belongings. And I need not have asked so
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: obvious a question. My husband straightened up, however, not annoyed,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: you understand, but somewhat surprised because I never entered his
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: office as a rule, and remarked that he was getting
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: some money out because he had a bill to pay
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: that afternoon. I asked him for the key to the
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: sideboard and came and stood beside him as he reached
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: down into the safe, which was the kind that opened
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: with a great heavy lid on top, like a cigar
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: box or the cover for a cistern. He reached into
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: his pocket with his left hand after the sideboard key,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: his right hand full of currency, and I looked into
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the safe. There on top lay a paper which I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: took to be a kind of promissory note. I read
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: it hastily. I was his wife. There was I conceived
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: nothing secret about it. What is this plus, ed? I inquired.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: My husband handed me the key of the sideboard what
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: is what, my dear Minerva, he asked, this note or
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, it seems as though you had loaned
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: three hundred dollars a good while ago and never got
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: it back. That is correct, said my husband. I have
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: never felt that I wished to push the matter. He
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: picked up the note with his now free left hand
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: in a ruminating kind of manner, and I saw there
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: was another note underneath. I picked that one up myself,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: my husband making no objection to my doing so, and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: glanced through it. That too, was for three hundred dollars.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: Both were dated between seventeen and eighteen years previously, that is,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: in the year eighteen sixty three, although they were of
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: different months and days, and both were signed by men
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: at that time living in Philippsbourg, both prosperous men, one
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: a white gentleman planter in a small way, the other
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: colored man with a not very good reputation, but one
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: who had prospered and was accounted well to do well.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: My husband stood there with one note in his hand,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: and I stood beside him holding the other. I did
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a rough som and mental arithmetic. The notes were demand
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: notes at eight percent simple interest, representing the two together
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: six hundred dollars eighteen years of interest at eight percent
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: added on, it seemed to me would cause these notes
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: to amount to a great deal more than twice six
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars, something around fifteen hundred. In fact, we were
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: far from rich. But my dear Placide, you should collect these,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: I cried, I've never wished to press them, replied my husband,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: allow me, if you please to take them. I begged him,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Do as you wishmen irv, my dear, replied Monsieur de Chateau.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: But I beg of you no law suits. Very well,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: said I, and carrying the two notes, walked out of
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: the office to get Julia Brandy out of the sideboard
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: in the dining room. I will admit you, mister Canevan,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: that I was a little put out about my dear
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: husband's carelessness in connection with those notes. At the same time,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I could not avoid seeing very clearly that the notes,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: if still collectible, constituted a kind of windfall. As you
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: say in the United States, it has to do with
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: a variety of apple, does it not. And I decided
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: at once to set about a kind of investigation. As
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: soon as I had supplied Julie with the brandy which
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: doctor Duchesney had prescribed for her. I sent our house
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: boy after Monsieur Hinks, the notary of our town of Philipsburg.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Monsieur Hinks came within the hour. He stayed for tea,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I remember, and he assured me that the notes, not
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: yet being twenty years old, were still collectible. I placed
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: them in his hands and paid him in advance, as
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: the custom is on Saint Martin, and I dare say
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: in Kurokawa and the other possessions, his fee of fifty
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: dollars for collection, instructing him that it was my husband's
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: desire that there should be no actual lawsuit. I will
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: shorten my story as much as possible by telling you
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: that the note which had been given by the gentleman
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: planter was paid in six months and two equal installments,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: and with my husband's permission, I invested the money and
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: some shares in one of our Saint Martin salt ponds,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: salts you know as the chief export from Saint Martin.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: The other note, the one which had been given by
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: the colored man armand du Bois, did not go through
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: so easily here in the West Indies, as you have
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: surely observed our colored people, as distinct from the black
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: laboring class, are commonly estimable persons who conduct themselves like
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: US Caucasians. Du Bois, however, was exceptional. He was only
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: about one quarter African, a quadroon or thereabouts, but his leanings,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: as sometimes happens, were to the black side of his heredity.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Many persons in Philippsbourg regarded him as a rascal, a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: person of no character at all. It seems he had
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: heard far back in the days when my husband accommodated
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: his friend, the planter of that transaction, and had come
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: almost at once to ask for a similar accommodation. That
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: is why the two notes were so nearly of the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: same date, And perhaps it accounts for the fact that
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: the two notes were both for three hundred dollars. Negroes
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: and those persons of mixed blood whose black side predominates
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: are not very inventive, it would be quite characteristic for
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: such a person to ask for the same sum as
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: had been given to the former applicant. Dubois made a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: great pother about paying of this. I heard only rumors.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Of course, Monsieur Hinks did not trouble us in the matter.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Once the collection of the notes had been placed in
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: his hands. It was, of course a perfectly clear case.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: The note had been signed by Duois, and it had
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: more than two years to run before it would be outlawed.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Limited is I believe the legal term. So Armand Dubois
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: paid as he was well able to do, but as
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: I say, with a very bad grace. Presumably he expected
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: never to pay the impudence of the man. Shortly after
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I had placed the notes in the hands of Monsieur
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Hanks for collection, Julie came to me one afternoon, quite
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: gray in the face, as negroes looked when they are
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: badly frightened. On Saint Martin. Perhaps you know, mister Canevan
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: servants have a custom similar to what I have read
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: about in your south. That is to say, they invariably
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: addressed their mistresses as miss with the Christian name. Why
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I cannot say it is their custom. Julie came to me,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: as I say, very frightened, very much upset, quite terrified.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: In fact, she said to me Miss Minerva, on no account, ma'am, monsieur,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: go to the door, if yo please, ma'am. One armandu
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: bois come, ma'am and is even now cloyman as step
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: of de goruy Hoyd. Yourself, ma'am, I beg of you
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: in the name of God. Julie's distress and state of fright,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: which the girl could not conceal, impressed me more than
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: her words. I said, Julie, go to the door yourself.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: Say please to this Dubois that I have nothing to
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: say to him. For anything whatever, he must address himself
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: to Monsieur Hanks. Yes, ma'am, replied Julie, and almost pushed
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: me into my bedroom and shut the door smartly behind me.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: I stood there and listened as Dubois, who had now
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: mounted the gallery steps, knocked very truculently. It seemed to
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: me the creature had no manners on the door. I
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: could hear him ask for me in the murmur of
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Julie's voice as she delivered my message. Dubois was reluctant
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: to leave. It seemed he stood in parleyed, but forcing
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: his way into a house like the rectory of the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: English Church, was beyond him, and at last he went.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Several other persons, blackfellows, Julie told me, had accompanied him
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: for what purpose I cannot imagine. It was most unusual
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: that he should come to trouble me at all. And
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: these all walked down the street as I could see
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: through the slanted jalousies of my bedroom window, Dubois gesticulating
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: and orating to his followers. Julie told me something else too,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: something which quite made my blood run cold. Armand Dubois
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: said Julie had half concealed in his hand as he
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: stood talking to her, a small vial. Julie was sure
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: it contained vitriol. I was almost afraid to venture out
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: to the street after that, and it was a long
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: time before I recovered from the shock of it. Vitriol.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Think of it, mister Canevan, if indeed that were what
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: he had in the vial, and what else could he
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: have had? Of course, I did not dare tell my husband.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: It would have distressed that dear kind man most atrociously.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: And besides, the collection of the notes was, so to speak,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: a venture of mine carried out, if not exactly against
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: his will, at least without any enthusiasm on his part.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: So I kept quiet and commanded Julie to say nothing
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: whatever about it. I was sure too, that even a
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: person like armand Dubois would in a short time get
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: over the condition of rage in which Monsieur Hinks's visit
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: to him must have left him to induce him to
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: come to me at all. That or something similar actually
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: proved to be the case. I had no further annoyance
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: from Dubois, and in the course of a few weeks,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: probably pressed by Monsieur Hanks, he settled a note paying
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: seven hundred and twenty four dollars to be exacted with
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: seventeen years and eight months interest at eight percent. Of course,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: mister canevan All that portion of the story, except perhaps
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: for armand Dubois's unpleasant visit, is merely commonplace, the mere
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: narrative of the collection of two demand notes. Note though,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: what followed end of the Projection of armand Dubois Part one,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Section six of Weird Tales Double feature The Shadows and
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: the Projection of armand Dubois by Henry S. Whitehead. The
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: The Projection of armand Dubois, Part two. It was perhaps
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: two months after the day when I had gone into
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: my husband's office and discovered those notes, and about a
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: month after Dubois had paid what he owed Monsieur de Chalieu,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: that I had gone to bed a trifle earlier, perhaps
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: than usual, about half past nine, to be exact. My
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: aunt was staying with us in the rectory at the time,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: and she was far from well, and I had been
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: reading to her and fanning her, and I was somewhat tired.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I fell asleep, I suppose immediately after retiring. I awakened
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: and found myself sitting bolt upright in my bed, and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the clock in the town striking twelve. I counted the
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: strokes as I finished, and the bell ceased its striking.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I felt, rather than saw, for I was looking in
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: an abstracted kind of fashion, straight before me, my elbows
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: on my knees, and a sitting posture. As I have said,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: something at the left, just outside the mosquito netting, there
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: was a dim night light, such as I always kept
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: in the corner of the room, on the edge of
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: my bureau, and by its light the objects in the
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: room were faintly visible through the white net. I turned
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: suddenly under the impulse of that feeling, and there mister Canovan,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: just beside the bed and almost pressing against the net,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: though not quite touching it was a face. The face
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: was that of a mulatto, and as I looked at it,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: frozen speechless, I observed that it was armand dubois, and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: that he was glaring at me with an expression of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the most horrible malignancy that could be imagined. The lips
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: were drawn back like an animal's, mister Canevan. But the
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: most curious, and perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: situation was the fact that the face was on a
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: level with the bed. That is, the chin seemed to
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: rest against the edge of the mattress, so that, as
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: it occurred to me, the man must be sitting on
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the floor, his legs placed under the bed, so as
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: to bring his horrible, leering face in that position I
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: have described. I have tried to scream, and my voice
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: was utterly dried up. Then, moved by what impulse I
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: cannot describe, I plunged toward the face, tore loose the
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: netting on that side, and looked directly at it, Mister Canevan.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: There was nothing there, but as I moved abruptly toward it,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: I saw a vague, dim hand and arm swing up
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: from below, and there was the strangest sensation. It was
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: as though over my face and shoulders and breast, hot
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: and stinging drops had been cast. There was, just for
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: a passing instant, the most dreadful, burning, searing sensation, and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: then it was gone. I half sat, half lay a
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: handful of the netting in my hands, where I had
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: torn it loose from where it had been tucked under
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: the edge of the mattress. And there was nothing there,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: nothing whatever. I passed my hand over my face and next,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing, no burns, nothing. I do not
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: know how I managed to do it, but I climbed
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: out of the bed and looked underneath mister Canevan. There
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: was nothing, no man nor anything there. I walked over
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: and turned up the night light and looked all about
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: the room. Nothing. The jalusies were all fastened as usual,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the door was locked. There were no other means of
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: ingress or egress. I went back to bed, convinced that
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: I must have been dreaming, or sleep walking, or something
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: of the sort. Although I had never walked in my sleep,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: and almost never dreamed or remembered any dream, I could
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: not sleep, and it occurred to me that I would
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: do well to get up again, put on my bath
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: robe and go out to the dining room for a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: drink of water. The water stood in earthenware guglets, just
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: beside a doorway that led out to a small gallery
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: at the side of the house, which stood on the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: corner in the wind, so as to keep cool. You've
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: seen that a gun many times, even here, of course,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: on Saint Martin, we had no ice plant in those days,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: nor yet so far as I know, and everybody kept
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the drinking water in guglets and set the guglets where
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: the wind would blow on them and cool the water.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I took a glass from the sideboard, filled it and
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: drank the water. Then I opened the door just beside
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: me and stood looking out for a few minutes. The
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: town was absolutely silent at that hour. There was no moon,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: and the streets were lighted, just as they were here
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: in Frederick's Stead before we had electricity, with occasional hurricane
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: lanterns at the corners. The one on our corner was
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: burning steadily, and except for the howling of a dog
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the town, everything was absolutely quiet and peaceful.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Mister Kenevan, I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: At any rate. I have no recollection of lying there
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: hoping for sleep. Then immediately afterward it seemed I was
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: awakened a second time. This time I was not sitting
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: up when I came to my wakings senses. But it
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: did not take me very long to sit up, I
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: can assure you, For the most extraordinary thing was happening
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: in my bedroom. In the exact center of the room,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: there stood a round mahogany table. Around and around that table,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: a small goat was running from right to left. That is,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: as I looked toward the table, the goat was running
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: away from me and round to the right, and coming
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: back at the left. I could hear the clatter of
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: its little hard hoofs on the pitch pine floor, occasionally
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: muffled in the queerest, eeriest way. It sounds like nothing
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: in the telling, of course, When the goat would step
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: on the small rug on which the table stood, I
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: could see its great shining eyes like green moons. Every
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: time it came around to the left, I watched the
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: thing fascinated, and the slow horror began to grow upon me.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I think I swooned. For the last thing I remember
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: is my senses leaving me. But it must have been
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: a very light fainting fit, mister Canevan, for I aroused
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: myself and the room was absolutely silent. I was shaking
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: all over, as though I had been having an attack
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: of the court and agueux. But I managed once more
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: to slip under the netting, reach for my bath robe,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: and go over and turn up the night light. I
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: observed that the door of my bedroom was standing open,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: and I went through it and back to the dining room,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: as I had done the first time. I felt very uncomfortable,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: shaken and nervous, as you may well imagine. But there
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: in the next room, I knew my husband was sleeping,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: and my poor old aunt on the other side of
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the hall, and I plucked up my courage. I knew
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: that he would never be afraid of anything man or
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: anything else, Mister Kennevan. I found that I must have
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: been more upset than nights posed, for the door out
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: on to the small gallery from the dining room, where
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I had stood the other time, was unfastened and half open,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: and I realized that I had left it in that condition.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: And I saw clearly that the young goat had simply
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: wandered in Goats and dogs and other animals roamed the
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: streets there, even pigs, much as they do here, although
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: all the islands have police regulations, and on Saint Martin
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: these were not enforced nearly as well as they are
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: here on Saint Croix. So I laughed at myself in
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: my fears, although I think I had a right at
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: least to be startled by that goat dancing about my
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: bedroom table. And I fastened the door leading outside, and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: came back into my bedroom and fastened that door too,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: and went back to bed once more. My last waking
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: sensation was of that dog or some other howling somewhere
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: in the town. Well, that was destined to be a
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: bad night, mister Canavan. I remember one of my husband's sermons,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: mister Canavan, on the text A Good Day. I do
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: not remember what portion of the scriptures it comes from,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: but I remember the text and the sermon too. Afterward,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: it occurred to me that night, that bad night, was
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: the direct opposite a mere whimsy of mine. But I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: always think of that night as the bad night. Somehow,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: for mister Canavan, that was not all. No. I had
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: noticed the time before I returned to bed that time,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: and it was a little past one o'clock. I slept
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: for an hour. You see, after the first interruption. When
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I was awakened again, it was five o'clock in the morning. Remember,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: I had deliberately, in a state of full wakefulness, closed
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: and fastened both the door from that side gallery into
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: the dining room and the bedroom door. The jaluses had
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: not been touched at any time, and all of them
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: were fastened. I awoke with the most terrible impression of
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: evil and horror. It was as though I stood alone
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: in the midst of a hostile world bent upon my destruction.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: It was the most dreadful feeling, a feeling of complete,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: of unrecoverable depression. And there coming through my bedroom door,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: through the door mister Canevan, which remained shut and locked,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: was armand du bois. He was a tall, slim man,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: and he stalked in, looking taller and slimmer than ever
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: because he was wearing one of those old fashioned long
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: white night shirts which fell to his ankles. He walked,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: as I say, through the closed door and straight toward
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: me and mister Canevan. The expression on his face was
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: the expression of one of the demons from hell. I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: half sat up, utterly horrified, incapable of speech or even
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: of thought beyond that numbing horror. And as I sat
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: up armand du Bois seemed to pause, his advance slowed abruptly,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the expression of malignant hatred seemed to become intensified. And
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: then he slowly turned to his left, and keeping his
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: face turned toward me, walked very slowly, now straight through
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: the side wall of my bedroom, and was gone, mister Canavan.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: Then I screamed again and again, and Plasid my husband,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: bursting the door, rushed in and over his shoulder, and
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: through the broken door I could see Julie's terrified face,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: and my poor old aunt, a Shetland shawl, huddled about
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: her poor shoulders, coming gropingly out of her room. That
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: was the last I remembered. Then when I came to
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: it was broad daylight in past seven, and doctor Duchesney
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: was there holding his fingers against my wrist, counting the pulse,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: I suppose, and there was a strong taste of brandy
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: in my mouth. They made me stay in bed all
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: through the morning, and doctor Duchesney would not allow me
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: to talk. I had wanted to tell Placide in him
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: all that had happened to me through the night. But
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the afternoon, when I was allowed
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: to get up at last, after having eaten some broth,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I had had time to think, and I never mentioned
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: what I had heard and seen that night. No, mister Canevan,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: my dear husband, never heard it, never knew what had
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: cast me into that condition of nerves. After he died,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: I told Doctor Duchesney, and Doctor Duchesney made no particular comment.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Like all doctors and the clergy here in the West Indies,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: such matters were an old story to him. It was
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: fortunate for us that he happened to be passing the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: house and came in. Because he saw the lights and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: could hear Julie weeping hysterically. He realized that something extraordinary
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: had happened or was happening in the rectory, and that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: he might be needed. He was on his way home
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: from the residence of armand Dubois there in town. Dubois
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: had been attacked by some obscure tropical fever just before
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: midnight and had died at five o'clock that morning. Mister Canevan,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: doctor Duchesney told me later about Dubois's case which interested
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: him very much from his professional viewpoint. Doctor Duchesney said
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: that there were still strange fevers, not only in obscure
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: places in the world, but right here in our civilized islands.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Think of it. He said that he could not tell
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: so much as the name of the fever that had
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: taken Dubois away. But he said the most puzzling of
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: the symptoms was that just at midnight Dubois had fallen
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: into a state of coma unconsciousness, you know, which had
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: lasted only a minute or two. Quite extraordinary, the doctor said,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: And that a little later, soon after one o'clock, he
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: had shut his eyes and quieted down. He had been raving, muttering,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: and tossing about, as fever patients do you know, And
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: that there had come over his face the most wicked
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: and dreadful grimace, and that he had drummed with his
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: fingers against his own forehead, an regular kind of drumming,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: a beat, the doctor said, not unlike the scampering footfalls
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: of some small four footed animal. He died, as I
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: told you, at five, quite suddenly. And doctor Duchesney said
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: that just as he was going there came over his
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: face the most horrible, the most malignant expression that he
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: had ever seen. He said, it caused him to shudder,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: although he knew, of course, that it was only the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: muscles of the man's face contracting rigor mortis. It is called,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I think, mister Canavan. Doctor Duchesney said too, that there
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: was a scientific word which described the situation, that is,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: the possible connection between Dubois as he lay dying with
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: that queer fever and the appearances. To me, it was
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: not telepathy, mister Canavan, of that I am certain. I
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: wish I could remember the word, but I fear it
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: has escaped my poor old memory. Was it projection, I
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: asked Missus Duchadeu. I think that was it, mister Canavan,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: said Missus Duchaleu, and nodded her head at me. Wisely.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: End of the Projection of armand Dubois, Part two. End
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: of Weird Tales double feature The Shadows and the Projection
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: of armand Dubois.