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Man with a Thousand Legs - Frank Belknap Long · Melmoth The Wanderer

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of the Man with a Thousand Legs by
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  Speaker 1: Frank Belknap Long. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one, statement of Horace Randall, psychoanalyst. Some one rapped
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  Speaker 1: loudly on the door of my bedroom. It was past midnight,
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  Speaker 1: but I had been unable to sleep, and I welcomed
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  Speaker 1: the disturbance. Who's there, I asked, A young man? What
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  Speaker 1: insists on being admitted? Sir, replied the raucous voice of
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  Speaker 1: my housekeeper, A young man and very thin and pale.
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  Speaker 1: He is, sir, What says? He's business? What won't waite?
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  Speaker 1: He's in bed, I says, But then he says, as
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  Speaker 1: how you're the only doctor. What can help him? Now,
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  Speaker 1: he says, is how he hasn't slipped or right for
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  Speaker 1: a week and he ain't nothin But a boy, Sir,
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  Speaker 1: tell him he can come in, I replied, as I
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  Speaker 1: slid into my dressing gown and reached for a cigar.
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  Speaker 1: The door opened to admit a thin shaft of light
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  Speaker 1: and a young man. So incredibly emaciated that I stared
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  Speaker 1: at him in horror. He was six feet tall and
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  Speaker 1: extremely broad shouldered, but I don't think he weighed one
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  Speaker 1: hundred pounds. As he approached me, he staggered and leaned
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  Speaker 1: against the wall for support. His eyes fairly blazed. It
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  Speaker 1: was obvious that some tremendous idea swayed him. I gently
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  Speaker 1: indicated a chair, and he collapsed into it. For a moment,
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  Speaker 1: he sat and surveyed me. When I offered him a cigar,
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  Speaker 1: he brushed it aside with a gesture of contempt. Why
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  Speaker 1: should I poison my body with such things, he snapped.
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  Speaker 1: Tobacco is for weaklings and children. I studied him curiously.
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  Speaker 1: He was apparently an extraordinary young man. His forehead was
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  Speaker 1: high and broad, his nose was curved like a scimitar,
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  Speaker 1: and his lips were so tightly compressed that only a
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  Speaker 1: thin line indicated it mouth. I waited for him to speak,
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  Speaker 1: but silence enveloped him like a rubber jacket. I shall
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  Speaker 1: have to break the ice, somehow, I reflected, And then
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  Speaker 1: suddenly I heard myself asking, you have something to tell me,
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  Speaker 1: some confession perhaps that you wish to make to me.
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  Speaker 1: My question aroused him. His shoulders jerked and he leaned forward,
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  Speaker 1: gripping both arms of his chair. I have been robbed
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  Speaker 1: of my birthright, he said. I am a man of genius,
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  Speaker 1: and once, for a brief moment, I had power, tremendous power.
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  Speaker 1: Once I projected my personality before vast multitudes of people,
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  Speaker 1: and every word that I uttered increased my fame and
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  Speaker 1: flattered my vanity. He was trembling and shaking so violently
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  Speaker 1: that I was obliged to rise and lay a restraining
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  Speaker 1: hand upon his shoulder. Delusions of magnificence, I murmured, undoubtedly
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  Speaker 1: induced by a malignant inferiority complex. It is not that
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  Speaker 1: he snapped. I am a poet, an artist, and I
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  Speaker 1: have within me a tremendous force that must be expanded.
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  Speaker 1: The world has denied me self expression through legitimate channels,
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  Speaker 1: and now I am justified in hating the world. Let
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  Speaker 1: society beware. He threw back his head and laughed. His
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  Speaker 1: hilarity seemed to increase the tension that had somehow crept
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  Speaker 1: into the room. Call me a madman, if you will,
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  Speaker 1: he exclaimed, But I crave power. I cannot rest until
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  Speaker 1: my name is on a million lips a conservative course
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  Speaker 1: of treatment, I began, I want no treatment, he shouted,
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  Speaker 1: and then, in a less agitated voice, you would be surprised,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps if I told you my name. What is your name?
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  Speaker 1: I asked, Arthur Saint amand he replied and stood up.
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  Speaker 1: I was so astonished that I dropped my cigar. I
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  Speaker 1: may even add that I was momentarily awed. Arthur Saint
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  Speaker 1: amand Arthur Saint amant, he repeated. You are natural amazed
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  Speaker 1: to discover that the pale, harassed and half insane youth
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  Speaker 1: that you see before you was once called the peer
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  Speaker 1: of Newton and Leonardo da Vinci. You are amazed to
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  Speaker 1: discover that the starving lad with an inferiority complex was
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  Speaker 1: once fetted by kings and praised by men whose lightest
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  Speaker 1: words will go thundering down time. It is all so
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  Speaker 1: amazing and so uproariously funny, but the tragedy remains. Like
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  Speaker 1: doctor Faustus, I once looked upon the face of God,
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  Speaker 1: and now I'm less than any schoolboy. You are still
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  Speaker 1: very young, I gasped. You can't be more than twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: I am twenty three, he said. It was precisely three
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  Speaker 1: years ago. That I published my brochure on ethic vibrations.
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  Speaker 1: For six months I lived in a blaze of glory.
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  Speaker 1: I was the marvelous boy of the scientific world. And
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  Speaker 1: then that Frenchman advanced his theory. I suppose you mean,
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur Paul Rundo Lee, I interrupted. I recall the sensation
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  Speaker 1: his startling refutation made. At the time, he completely eclipsed
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  Speaker 1: you in the popular mind, and later the scientific world
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  Speaker 1: declared you a fraud. Your star set very suddenly, but
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  Speaker 1: it will rise again, exclaimed my young visitor. The world
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  Speaker 1: will discuss me again, and this time I shall not
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  Speaker 1: be forgotten. I shall prove my theory. I shall demonstrate
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  Speaker 1: that the effect of etheric vibration on single cells is
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  Speaker 1: to change, to change. He hesitated, and then suddenly shouted,
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  Speaker 1: but no, I shall not tell you. I shall tell
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  Speaker 1: no one. I came here tonight to unburden my mind
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  Speaker 1: to you. At first I thought of going to a priest.
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  Speaker 1: It is necessary that I should confess to someone. When
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  Speaker 1: my thoughts are driven in upon themselves, they become monstrous.
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  Speaker 1: I have an active and terrible brain, and I must
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  Speaker 1: speak out occasionally. I chose you because you are a
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  Speaker 1: man of intelligence and discrimination. And you have heard many confessions,
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  Speaker 1: but I shall not discuss etheric vibrations with you. When
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  Speaker 1: you see it, you will understand. He turned abruptly and
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  Speaker 1: walked out of the room and out of my house,
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  Speaker 1: without once looking back. I never saw him again. End
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  Speaker 1: of chapter one Chapter two of The Man with a
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  Speaker 1: Thousand Legs by Frank Belknap Long. This LibriVox recording is
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  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter two,
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  Speaker 1: Diary of Thomas Schiel, novelist and short story writer, July
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  Speaker 1: twenty first. This is my fourth day at the beach.
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  Speaker 1: I've already gained three pounds, and I am so sun
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  Speaker 1: baked that I frightened a little girl when I went
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  Speaker 1: swimming this morning. She was building sand castles, and when
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  Speaker 1: she saw me, she dropped her shovel and ran shrieking
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  Speaker 1: to her mother. Horrible black man, she shouted. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: she thought I was a genie out of the Arabian nights.
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  Speaker 1: It's pleasant here. I've almost got the evil taste of
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  Speaker 1: New York out of my mouth. Elsie's coming down for
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  Speaker 1: the weekend. July twenty second. The little girl I frightened
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  Speaker 1: yesterday has disappeared. The police are searching for her, and
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  Speaker 1: it is generally believed that she has been kidnapped. The
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  Speaker 1: unfortunate occurrence has depressed every one at the beach. All
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  Speaker 1: bathing parties have been abandoned, and even the children sit
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  Speaker 1: about sad eyed and dejected. No footprints were found on
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  Speaker 1: the sands near the spot where the child was last seen.
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  Speaker 1: July twenty third, another child has disappeared, and this time
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  Speaker 1: the abductor left a clue. A young man's walking stick
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  Speaker 1: and hat were found near the scene of a violent struggle.
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  Speaker 1: The sand for yards around was stained with blood. Several
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  Speaker 1: mothers left the New Beach Hotel this morning with their children.
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  Speaker 1: July twenty fourth, Elsie came this morning. A new crime
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  Speaker 1: occurred at the very moment of her arrival, and I
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  Speaker 1: scarcely had the heart to explain the situation to her.
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  Speaker 1: My paleness evidently frightened her. What is the matter? She asked,
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  Speaker 1: you look ill, I am ill, I replied, I saw
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  Speaker 1: something dreadful on the beach this morning. Good heavens, she exclaimed,
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  Speaker 1: have they found one of the children. It was a
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  Speaker 1: great relief to me that she had read about the
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  Speaker 1: children in the New York papers. No, I said. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't find the children, but they found the body of
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  Speaker 1: a man, and he didn't have a drop of blood
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  Speaker 1: in him. He had been drained dry, and all about
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  Speaker 1: his body the investigators found curious little mounds of yellowish
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  Speaker 1: slime of ooze. When the sunlight struck this substance, it glittered.
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  Speaker 1: Has it been examined under a microscope? Asked Elsie. They
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  Speaker 1: are examining it now, I explained. We shall know the
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  Speaker 1: results by this evening. God pity us, all, said Elsie,
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  Speaker 1: and she staggered and nearly fell. I was obliged to
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  Speaker 1: support her as we entered the hotel. July twenty fifth,
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  Speaker 1: too curious developments. The chemists who examined the jellyfish substance
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  Speaker 1: found near the body of the beach declares that it
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  Speaker 1: is a living protoplasm, and he has sent it to
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  Speaker 1: the Department of Health for classification by one of their
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  Speaker 1: expert biologists. And a deep pool some eight yards in
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  Speaker 1: diameter has been discovered in a rock fissure about a
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  Speaker 1: mile from the New Beach Hotel, which evidently harbors some
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  Speaker 1: queer denizens. The water in this pool is as black
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  Speaker 1: as ink and strongly saline. The pool is eight or
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  Speaker 1: ten feet from the ocean, but it is affected by
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  Speaker 1: the tides and descends afoot for every night and morning.
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  Speaker 1: This morning, one of the guests of the hotel, a
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  Speaker 1: young lady named Clara Phillips, had come upon the pool
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  Speaker 1: quite by accident, and being fascinated by its sinister appearance,
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  Speaker 1: had decided to sketch it. She had seated herself on
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  Speaker 1: the rim of the rock fissure, and was in the
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  Speaker 1: act of sketching in several large boulders and a strip
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  Speaker 1: of beach, when something made a curious noise beneath her.
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  Speaker 1: Oop it said oop. She gave a little cry and
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  Speaker 1: jumped up, just in time to escape a long, golden
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  Speaker 1: tentacle which slithered towards her over the rocks. The tentacle
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  Speaker 1: protruded from the very center of the pool, out of
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  Speaker 1: the black water, and had filled her with unutterable loathing.
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  Speaker 1: She stepped quickly forward and stamped upon it, and her
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  Speaker 1: attack was so sudden that the thing was unable to
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  Speaker 1: flip away from her and escape back into the water.
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  Speaker 1: And Miss Phillips was an amazingly strong young woman. She
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  Speaker 1: ground the end of the tentacle into a bloody pulp
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  Speaker 1: with her heel. Then she turned and ran. She ran
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  Speaker 1: as she had not run since her prep school days.
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  Speaker 1: But as she raced across the soft beach, she fancied
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  Speaker 1: she could hear a monstrous, lumbering something pursuing her. It
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  Speaker 1: is to her credit that she did not look back.
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  Speaker 1: And this is the story of Little Hairy Doughty. I
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  Speaker 1: offered him a beautiful new dime, but he told it
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  Speaker 1: to me. Grottis I give it in his own words? Yes, sir,
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  Speaker 1: I've always known about that pool. I used to fish
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  Speaker 1: for crabs and sea cucumbers and big purple anemonies in it, sir,
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  Speaker 1: But until last week, I all us know what I'd
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  Speaker 1: bring up. Once twice I used to get something a
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  Speaker 1: bit out at an ordinary such as bleeding toothshell, or
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  Speaker 1: a headless worm with green suckers and its tail and
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  Speaker 1: looking like the devil on a Sunday out an' or
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  Speaker 1: a no one looking skate what a glare and glare
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  Speaker 1: at me, sir, But never nothing like this thing, sir.
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  Speaker 1: I caught it on the top of its head, and
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  Speaker 1: it had the most human looking eyes I ever saw.
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  Speaker 1: They were blue and soulless, sir. It spat at me,
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  Speaker 1: and I throws down my line and beats it. I've
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  Speaker 1: beats it, sir. Then I hears it lumbering after me
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  Speaker 1: over the beach. It made a funny gulping noise, as
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  Speaker 1: if it was a lick in its chops. July twenty
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  Speaker 1: sixth Elsie and I are leaving tomorrow. I'm on the
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  Speaker 1: verge of a lethal collapse. Elsie stutters whenever she tries
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  Speaker 1: to talk. I don't blame her for stuttering, but I
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  Speaker 1: can't understand why she wants to talk at all. After
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  Speaker 1: what we've seen. There are some things that can only
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  Speaker 1: be expressed by silence. The local chemist got a report
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  Speaker 1: this morning from the Board of Health. The stuff found
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  Speaker 1: on the beach consisted of hundreds of cells, very much
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  Speaker 1: like the cells that compose the human body, and yet
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  Speaker 1: they weren't human cells. The biologists were completely mystified by them,
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  Speaker 1: and a small culture is now on its way to Washington,
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  Speaker 1: and another is being sent to the American Museum of
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  Speaker 1: Natural History. This morning, the local authorities investigated the curious
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  Speaker 1: blackpool in the rocks. Elsie and I and most of
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  Speaker 1: the other vacationists were on hand to watch operations. Thomas Wilshire,
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  Speaker 1: a member of the New Jersey Constabulary, threw a plummet
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  Speaker 1: line into the pool, and we all watched it eagerly
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  Speaker 1: as it paid out a hundred feet, murmured Elsie. As
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  Speaker 1: the police looked at one another in amazement. Probably went
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  Speaker 1: into the sea, someone exclaimed, I don't think the pool
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  Speaker 1: itself is that deep. Thomas Wilshire shook his head. There's
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  Speaker 1: queer things in that pool, he said. I don't like
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  Speaker 1: the looks of it. The diver was a bristling, bravo
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  Speaker 1: little man with some obscure nervous affliction that made him
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  Speaker 1: tremble violently. You all have to go down at once,
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  Speaker 1: said will Shire. The diver shook his head and shuffled
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  Speaker 1: his feet. Get him into a suit, boys, ordered will Shire,
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  Speaker 1: and the poor wretch was lifted bodily upon strong shoulders
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  Speaker 1: and transformed into a loathsome goggle eyed monster. In a moment,
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  Speaker 1: he had advanced to the pool and vanished into its
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  Speaker 1: sinister black deaths. Two men worked valiantly at the pumps,
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  Speaker 1: while Willshire nodded sleepily and scratched it chin. I wonder
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  Speaker 1: what he'll find he mused personally, I don't think he's
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  Speaker 1: got much chance of her coming up. I wouldn't be
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  Speaker 1: in his shoes for all the money in the United
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  Speaker 1: States men. After several minutes, the rubber tubing began to
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  Speaker 1: jerk violently. The poor lad muttered Wilshire. I knew he
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  Speaker 1: didn't have a chance. Pull, boys, pull. The tubing was
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  Speaker 1: rapidly pulled in. There was nothing attached to it, but
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  Speaker 1: the lower portion was covered with glittering golden slime. Wilshire
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  Speaker 1: picked up the severed end and examined it casually, neatly clipped,
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  Speaker 1: he said, the poor devil. The rest of us looked
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  Speaker 1: at one another in horror. Elsie grew so pale that
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  Speaker 1: I thought she was about to faint. Wilshire was speaking again.
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  Speaker 1: We've made one momentous discovery, he said. We crammed eagerly forward.
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  Speaker 1: Wilshire paused for the fraction of a second, and a
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  Speaker 1: faint smile of tryump umph curled his lips. There's something
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  Speaker 1: in that pool, he finished. Our friend's life has not
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  Speaker 1: been given in vain. I had an absurd desire to
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  Speaker 1: punch his fat, triumphant face, and might have done so,
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  Speaker 1: but a scream from the others quelled the impulse. Look,
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  Speaker 1: cried Elsie. She was pointing at the black surface of
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  Speaker 1: the pool. It was changing color slowly. It was assuming
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  Speaker 1: a reddish hue, and then a hellish something shot up
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  Speaker 1: and bobbed for a moment on its surface. A human arm.
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  Speaker 1: Groaned Elsie and hid her face in her hands. Will
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  Speaker 1: Shire whistled softly. Two more objects joined the first, and
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  Speaker 1: then something round, which made Elsie stare and stare through
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  Speaker 1: the spaces between her fingers. Come away, I commanded, come away.
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  Speaker 1: At once. I seized her by the arm and was
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  Speaker 1: in the act of forcefully leading her from the edge
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  Speaker 1: of that dreadful Charnel for charnal it had become when
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  Speaker 1: I was arrested by a shout from Wilshire. Look at it,
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  Speaker 1: Look at it, he yelled, that's the horrid thing. God,
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  Speaker 1: it isn't human. We turned back and stared. There are
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  Speaker 1: blasphemies of creation that cannot be described, and the thing
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  Speaker 1: which rose up to claim the escaping fragments of its
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  Speaker 1: dismantled prey was of that order. I remember, vaguely, as
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  Speaker 1: in a nightmare of Tartarus, that it had long golden arms,
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  Speaker 1: which shone and sparkled in the sunlight, and a monstrous
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  Speaker 1: curved beak below two piercing black eyes, in which I
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  Speaker 1: saw nothing but unutterable malice. The idea of standing there
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  Speaker 1: and watching it munch the fragmentary remains of the poor
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  Speaker 1: little diver was intolerable to me, and in spite of
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the loud protests of Wilshire, who wanted us I suppose
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  Speaker 1: to try and do something about it, I turned and ran,
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  Speaker 1: literally dragging Elsie with me. This was, as it turned out,
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  Speaker 1: the wisest thing I could have done, because the thing
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  Speaker 1: later emerged from the pool and nearly got several of
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  Speaker 1: the vacationists. Wiltshire fired at it twice with a pistol,
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  Speaker 1: but the thing flopped back into the water, apparently unharmed,
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  Speaker 1: and submerged triumphantly. End of chapter two, Chapter three of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The Man with a Thousand Legs, My frank boke napped
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: long this LibriVox recordings in the public Domain read by
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Ben Tucker. Chapter three statement of Henry Grebb prescription Druggist.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I usually shut up shop at ten o'clock, but at
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: closing time that evening I was leaning over the counter
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: reading a ghost story, and it was so extremely interesting
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: that I couldn't walk out on it. My nose was
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: very close to the page, and I didn't notice anything
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  Speaker 1: that was going on about me, when suddenly I happened
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  Speaker 1: to look up, and there he was standing Why me.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen some pale people in my time, Most people
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that come with prescriptions are pale, and I've seen some
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  Speaker 1: skinny people, but I never have seen any one as
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  Speaker 1: thin and pale as the young man that stood before me.
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  Speaker 1: Good heavens, I said, and shut the book. The young
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: man's lips were twisted into a sickly smile. Sorry to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: bother you, he says, But I am in a bad way.
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  Speaker 1: I'm in desperate need of medical attention. What can I
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  Speaker 1: do to help you, I says. He looked at me,
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  Speaker 1: very solemnly, as if he were making up his mind
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  Speaker 1: whether he could trust me. This is really a case
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: for a physician, he says. It's against the law for
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: us to handle such cases. I told him. Suddenly he
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: held out his hand. I gasped. The fingers were smashed
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: into a bloody pulp, and blood was running down his wrist.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Do something to stop the bleeding, he says. I'll see
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: a physics later. Well, I got out some gauze and
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: bound the hand up as best I could see you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: doctor at once, I told him blood poisoning will set
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  Speaker 1: in if you're not careful. Luckily none of the bones
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  Speaker 1: are fractured. He nodded, and for a moment his eyes flashed.
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  Speaker 1: Damn that woman, he muttered, damn her. What's that? I asked,
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  Speaker 1: But he had got himself together again and merely smiled.
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  Speaker 1: I'm all upset, he said, didn't know just what I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: was saying. You must pardon me. By the way, I've
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: got a little gash on my scalp, which you might
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: look at. He removed his cap, and I noticed that
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: his hair was dripping wet. He parted it with his
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  Speaker 1: hand and revealed a nasty abrasion about an inch wide.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I examined it carefully. Your friend wasn't very careful when
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: he cast that plug, I says, at length. I never
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: believe in fly fishing when there's two in the boat.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine lost an eye that way. It
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was made by a fishoe. He confessed. You're something of
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: a Sherlock Holmes, aren't you. I brushed aside his compliment
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: with a careless gesture, and turned for the bottle of
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: carbolic acid, which rested on the shelf behind me. It
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: was then that I heard something between a growl and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: a gulp from the young man. I wheeled abruptly and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: caught him in the act of springing upon me. He
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: was foaming at the mouth and his eyes bulged. I
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: reached forward and seized him by the shoulders, and in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: a moment we engaged in a desperate struggle upon the floor.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He bit and scratched and kicked at me, and I
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: was obliged to silence him by pummeling his face. It
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: was at that moment that I noticed a peculiar fishy
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: odor in the room, as if a breeze from the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: sea had entered through the open door. For several moments,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I struggled and fought and strained, and then something seemed
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to give. Suddenly beneath me, the young man slipped from
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: my grasp and made for the door. I endeavored to follow,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but I stumbled over something slippery and fell flat upon
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: my face. When I got up, the young man was gone,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and in my hand I held something so weird that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I could scarcely believe that it was real, and later
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I flung it from me with a cry of disgust.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: It was a reddish rubbery substance about five inches long,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and its under edge was lined with little golden suckers
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: that opened and closed. While I stared at them. I
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: was still laboring under a fearful strain. When Harry Morton
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: entered the shop. He was trembling violently, and I noticed
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: that he gazed fearfully behind him as he approached the counter.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: What's the bustling you have for high flutin actin nerves,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he asks bromides, I says, I can mix y some.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But what's the trouble with your nerves, Harry? Hallucinations? He groans,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: limb and other things. Well, tell me about it, I says.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I was leaning against the lip post, he says, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I sees a big, lumbering yellowish thing walkin along the
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: street like a man. It wasn't natural, Henry. I'm not superstitious,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: but that their thing wasn't natural. And then it flops
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: into the gutter and runs like a streak of lightning.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: It made a funny noise, too, it said gulp. I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: mixed the bromides and handed him the glass over the counter.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I understand, Harry, I says, but don't go about blowing
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: your head off. No one wouldn't believe you. End of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: chapter three. Chapter four of The Man with a Thousand
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Legs by A. Frank Belknap Long. This LibriVox recording is
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter four
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: statement of Helen Bowen. I was sitting on the porch
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: knitting when a young man with a bag stops in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: front of the house and looks up at me. Good morning, madam,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: He says, have you a room with bath? Look at
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: this sign, young man? I says to him, I have
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: a nice light room on the second floor that should
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: just suit you up. He comes and smiles at me,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But as soon as I saw him close, I didn't
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: like him. He was so terribly thin, and his hand
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: was bandaged, and he looked as if he had been
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in a fight. How much do you want for the room,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: he asks? Twelve dollars. I told him I wanted to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: get rid of him, and I thought the high rate
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: would scare him off. But his hand goes suddenly into
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: his pocket and he brings out a roll of bills
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and begins counting them. I get up very quickly and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: bows politely to him, and takes his grip away from
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: him and rushes into the hall with it. I didn't
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: want to lose a prospect like that. Cousin Hiram has
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a game which he plays with shells, and I knew
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: that the young man would be Cousin Hiram's oyster. I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: takes him upstairs and shows him the room, and he
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: seems quite pleased with it. But when he sees the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: bath tub, he begins jumping up and down like a
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: schoolboy and clapping his hands and acting so odd that
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I begins to suspect that he is going out of
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: his mind. It's just the right size, he shouts. I
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: hope you won't mind my keeping it filled all day.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I bathed quite often, but I must have some salt
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: to put into it. I can't bathe in fresh water.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: He's certainly a queer one, I thought, but I ain't complaining.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: It isn't off an higrum, and I land a fish
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: as rich as this one. Finally he calms down and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: pushes me out of the room. Everything's all right, he says,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to be disturbed when you get
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the salt, put it down in the hall, and knock
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: on the door. Under no circumstances must anyone enter this room.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: He closed the door in my face, and I heard
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the key grate in the lock. I didn't like it,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and I didn't like the sounds that began to come
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: from behind that door. First I heard a great size
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: if somehow he had got something disagreeable off his chest,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and then I heard a funny gulping sound I didn't like.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: He didn't waste any time in turning on the water either.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I heard a great spl lashing and wallowing, and then
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: after about fifteen minutes, everything became quiet as death. We
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: didn't hear anything more from him until that evening, when
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I sent Lizzie up with the salt. At first, she
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: tried the door, but it was locked, and she was
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: obliged to put the bag down in the hall, but
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: she didn't go away. She squeezed up close against the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: wall and waited. After about ten minutes, the door opened
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: slowly and a long, thin arm shot out and took
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in the bag. Lizzie said that the arm was yellow
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and dripping wet, and the thinnest arm she'd ever seen,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: but he's a thin young man, Lizzie. I explained to her, Well,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: that may be, she says, but I never saw a
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: human being with an arm like that before. Later, long,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: about ten o'clock, I should say, I was sitting in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the parlor sewing when I felt something wet land on
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: my hand. I look up and the ceiling was dripping red.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I mean just what I say. The ceiling was all
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: moist and dripping red. I jumped up and ran out
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: into the hall. I wanted to scream, but I bit
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: my lips until the blood begins running down my chin.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And that makes me sober and determined. That young man
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: must go, I says to myself. I can't have anything
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that isn't proper going on in this house. I climbed
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the stairs, looking as grim as death, and pounce on
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the young man's door. I won't stand for whatever's going
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: on in there. I shouted open that door. I heard
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: something flopping about inside, and then the young man speaking
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to himself in a very low voice. Yes, demands are insatiable.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: The vile, hungry beast. Why doesn't it think of something
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: besides its stomach. I didn't want it to come then,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't need the rain now, when its appetite
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: is aroused, it changes without the ray God. But I
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: had a hard time getting back, longer and longer between.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he seemed to hear the pounding. His queer chattering stops,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and I hear the key turn in the lock. The
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: door opens ever so slightly, and his face looks out
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: at me. He is horrible to look at. His cheeks
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: are sunken, and there are big, horrid rings under his eyes.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: There is a bandage tied about his head. I want
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: you to leave it once, I tells him. There's queer
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: things going on in here, and I can't stand for
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: queer things. You've got to leave. He sighed and nodded.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It's just as well, perhaps, he says, I was thinking
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of going anyway. There are rats here, rats, I gasped,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: but I wasn't really surprised. I knew there were rats
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in the house. They made life miserable for me. I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: was never able to get rid of them. Even the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: cats feared them. I can't stand rats, he continues, I'm
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: packing up, clearing out now. He shuts the door in
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: my face, and I hears him throwing his things into
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: a bag then the door opens again and he comes
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: out on the landing. He is terribly pale, and he
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: leans against the wall to catch himself, and then he
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: starts descending the stairs. I watch him as he goes down,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and when he reaches the first landing, he staggers and
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: leans against the wall. Then he seems to grow shorter,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and he goes down the last flight three steps at
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a time. Then he makes a running leap toward the door.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I never saw anyone get through a door so quick,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and I begins to suspect that he's done something that
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: he's ashamed of. So I turns about and goes into
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the room. When I looks at the floor, I nearly faints.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: It's all slippery and wet, and seven dead rats are
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: lying on their backs in the center of the room.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And they are the palest looking rats I've ever seen.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Their noses and tails are pure white, and they looks
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: as if they didn't have a drop of blood in them.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: And then I goes into the alcove and looks at
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the bath tub. I won't tell you what I see there,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: but you remember what I says about the ceiling downstairs.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Huh says it was drippin' red, and the alcove wasn't
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: so very different. I gets out of that room as
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: quick as I can, and I shuts and locks the door,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and then I goes downstairs and telles to cousin Hiram,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: come right over, Hiram. I says, something terrible has been here.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: End of chapter four Chapter five of The Man with
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: a Thousand Legs by Frank Belknap Long. This LibriVox recording
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter five,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: statement of walter Ney's lighthouse keeper. I was pretty well
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: done up. I'd been polishing the lamps all afternoon, and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: there were callises on my hands as big as hen's eggs.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I went up into the tower and shut myself in
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and got out a book that I'd been reading off
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and on for a week. It was a translation of
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the Arabian Nights by a fellow name Laying imaginative stuff
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: like that is a great comfort to a chap when
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: he's shut up by himself, away off on the rim
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: of the world. And I always enjoyed reading about Shumsulnior
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and Dairyabar and the young King of the Black Isles.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I was reading the first part of the King of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the Black Isles, and had reached the sentence. And then
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the youth drew away his robe, and the Sultan perceived
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: with horror that he was a man only to his waist,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and from thence to his feet he had changed into marble.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: When I happened to look toward the window, an icy
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: south wind was driving the rein furiously against the panes,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and at first I saw nothing but a translucent glitter
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: on the wet glass, and vaguely beyond that the gleaming
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: turmoil of dark, enormous waves. Then a dazzling and indescribable
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: shape flattened itself against the window and blotted out the
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: black sea and sky. I gasped and jumped up a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: monstrous squid. I muttered, the storm must have blown it ashore.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: That tentacle smashed the glass. I don't do something. I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: reached for my slicker and hat, and in a moment
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I was descending the spiral stairway three steps at a time,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: before emerging into the store. My awe myself for the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: revolver and the contents of a tumbler of strong Jamaican rum.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: I paused for a moment in the doorway and stared
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: about me. But from where I stood I could see
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: nothing but the tall gray boulders fringing the southern extremity
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: of the island, and a stretch of heaving and rolling water.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: The rain beat against my face and nearly blinded me,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and a deep murmur arose from the intolerable wash of
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the waves. Before me lay only a furious and tortured immensity.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Behind my back was the warpth and security of my
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: miniature castle, a mellow pipe, and a book of valiant movies.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: But I couldn't ignore the menace of the loathsome shape
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: that had pressed itself against the glass. I descended three
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: short steps to the rocks and made my way rapidly
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: toward the rear of the lighthouse. Drops of rain more
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: acrid than tears, ran down my cheeks and into my mouth,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: and dripped from the corners of my mustache. The overpowering
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: darkness clung like a leech to my clothes. I hadn't
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: gone twenty paces before I came upon a motionless figure.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: At first I saw nothing but the head and shoulders
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: of a well shaped man. But as I drew cautiously nearer,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I collided with something that made me cry out in terror.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: A hideous tentacle shot out and wound itself about my leg.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: With a startled cry. I turned and attempted to run,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: but out of the macrocarpuss darkness leaped another slight me
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: arm in another. My fingers tightened on the revolver in
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: my pocket. I whipped it out and opened fire on
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the writhing brutes. The report of my gun echoed from
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the surrounding boulders. A sudden, shrill scream of agony broke
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the comparative quiet that followed. Then there came a voluble,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: passionate pleading don't shoot again, Please don't. I'm done up.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I was done up when I came here, and I
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: wanted help. I didn't intend to harm you before. God,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't intend that they should attack you. But I
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: can't control them now. They're too much for me. It's
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: too much for me. Pity me. For a moment, I
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: was too dazed to think. I stared stupidly at the
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: smoking revolver in my head, and then my eyes sought
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the cataclysmic ocean. The enormous waves calmed me slowly. I
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: brought my eyes to bear on the thing before me.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: But even as I stared at it, my brain reeled again,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and a deadly nause that came upon me. And then
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the youth drew away his robe, and the Sultan perceived
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that he was a man only to his waist. Several
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: feet from where I stood, a monstrous jelly spread itself
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: loathsomely over the dripping rocks, and from its vain central
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: mass a thousand tentacles depended and writhed like the serpents
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: on the head of Medusa. And growing from the middle
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: of this obscenity was the torso and head of a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: naked young man. His hair was matted and covered with seaweed,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and there were blood stains upon his high white forehead.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: His nose was so sharp that it reminded me of
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a sword, and momentarily expected to see it glitter in
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the dim, mysterious light. His teeth chattered so loudly that
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I could hear them from where I stood, and as
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: A stare and stared at him, he coughed violently and
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: foamed at the lips whiskey. He muttered, I'm all done up.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I ran into a ship. I was unable to speak,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: but I believe I made some strange noises in my throat.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: The young man nodded hysterically. I knew you'd understand, he muttered.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I'm up against it, but I knew you'd helped me
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: pull through at last. Whiskey, how did that thing get you?
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I shrieked. I'd found my voice at last and was
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: determined to fight my way back to sanity. How did
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that thing get its loathsome coils on you? It didn't
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: get me, groaned the young man. I'm it, you're what
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a part of it? Replied the young man. Is it
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that thing swallowing you? I screamed at him. Aren't you
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: going down into its belly at this moment? The young
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: man sadly shook his head. It's part of me, said again,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and then more wildly. I must have something to brace
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: me up. I'm all in. I was swimming on the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: surface and a ship came and cut off six of
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: my legs. I'm weak from loss of blood and I
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: can't stand. A leaden hand went up and brushed the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: water from battered eyes. A few of them are still lively,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: he said, and I can't control them. They nearly got you,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: but the others are all in I can't walk on them.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Well as much boldness as I can muster, I raised
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: my revolver and advanced upon the thing. I don't know
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about, I cried, but I'm going to
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: blow this monster to atoms. For Heaven's sake, don't, he shrieked.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: That would be murder. We're a human being. A flash
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: of scarlet fire answered him. Almost unconsciously, I pressed upon
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the trigger. Now my weapon was speaking again. I'll blow
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: it to tatters, I muttered between my teeth. The vial
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: crawling devil. Don't don't, shrieked the young man, and then
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: an unearthly yell made the night obscene. I saw the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: thing before me quiver in all its folds, and then
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: it suddenly rose up and towered above me. Blood spurted
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: from its huge, bloated body, and a crimson shower descended
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: upon me. High above me, a hundred feet in the air,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I saw the pale agonized face of the young man.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: He was screaming blasphemies. He appeared to be walking on stilts.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: You can't kill me, he yelled. I'm stronger than I thought.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I'll win out. Yet I raised my revolver to fire again,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: but before I could take aim, the thing swept by
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: me and plunged into the sea. It was perhaps fortunate
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: for me that I did not attempt to follow it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: My knees gave way beneath me, and I fell flat
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: upon my face. When I came to so far as
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to be able to speak, I found myself between clean
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: white sheets and staring into the puzzled blue eyes of
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: a government inspector. You've had a nasty time of it, lad,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: he said, we had to give you stimulants. Did you
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: have a shock of sort of a sort, yes, I replied,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: but it came out of the Arabian nights. End of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: chapter five chapter six of The Man with a Thousand
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Legs by Frank Belknap Long. This LibriVox recording is in
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter six, The
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Marvelous Boy, curious manuscript found in a bottle. I was
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the marvelous boy. My genius amazed the world, a magnificent mind,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: a sublime destiny. My enemies combined to ruin me. Punctured
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: balloon a little box, and I put a dog under it.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: He changed jelly a thrick vibration generates curious changes in
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: living cells. Process starts and nothing can stop it. Growth.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Enormous growth keeps sending out shoots, legs, arms, marvelous growth.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Human being. Next put a little girl under it. She
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: changed beautiful jellyfish. It kept getting larger than it mice.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Then I destroyed it so interesting. Must try it on myself.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I know how to get back will power. A child's
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: will is too weak, but a man can get it back.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: No actual change in cell content, a tremendous experience. I
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: picked out a deep pool where I can hide hunger
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: saw man on beach. The police suspect I must be
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: more careful. Why didn't I take the body out to sea?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Horrible incident young lady artist. I almost caught her, but
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: she stamped on a leg smashed it. Horrible pain. I
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: certainly must be more careful. Great humiliation. Little boy hooked me,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: but I gave him a scare the varmint. I glared
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: and glared at him. I tried to catch him, but
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: he ran too fast. I wanted to eat him. He
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: had very red cheeks. I hate women and children. Of course,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: they suspect little boy is always babble. I wanted to
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: eat him, but I gave them all a good scare,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and I got a man. He came down after me
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: in a diver's suit, but I got him. I took
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: him to pieces. I mean that literally, to pieces. Then
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I let the fragments float up. I wanted to scare them.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I think I did. They ran for their lives. The
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: authorities are fools. I got back, but it wasn't easy.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: The thing fought and fought. I'm master, I said, And
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: it gulped, gulped and gulped and gulped, and and I
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: got back, but my hand was smashed and bleeding. A
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: fool clerk. Why did he take so long? But he
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: didn't know how hungry his red face made me. The
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: thing came back without the ray. I was standing before
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the counter, and it came back. I sprang at him.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I was lucky to get away. Terrible trouble. I can't
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: keep it from coming back. I wake up in the
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: night and find it spread out on the bed and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: all over the floor. Its arms writhe and rise, and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: its demands are insatiable. Every waking moment it demands food.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it completely absorbs me. But now as I write,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the upper portion of my body is human. This afternoon
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I moved to furnished room near beach. Salt water has
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: become a necessity. Change comes on more rapidly now I
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: can't keep it off. My will is powerless. I filled
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the tub with water and put in some salt. Then
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I wallowed in it. Great comfort, great relief, hunger, dreadful,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: insatiable hunger. I am all beast, all animal rats. I've
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: caught six rats, delicious, great comfort. But I've messed up
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the room. What if the old idiot downstairs should suspect
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: she does suspect, wants me to get out. I shall
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: get out. There is only one refuge for me, now,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the sea. I shall go to the sea. I can't
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: pretend I'm human any longer. I'm all animal, all beast.
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: What a shock I must have given the old hag.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I could hear her teeth chattering as she came up
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the stairs. Well I could do to keep from springing
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: at her into the sea. At last, Great relief, great joy, freedom,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: at last a ship. I ran head on into it,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: six arms gone, terrible agony, flopped about for hours. Land
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I climbed over the rocks and collapsed, and I managed
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: to get back part of me got back. I called
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: for help. A crazy fool came out of the lighthouse
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and stared at me. Five of my tentacles sprang at him.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I couldn't control them. They got him about the leg.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: He lost his head, got out a revolver and shot
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: at them. I got them under control, tremendous effort. Pleaded
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: with him, trying to explain. He would not listen. Shots,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: many shots, white hot fire in my body and my
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: arms and legs. Strength returned to me. I rose up
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: and went back into the sea. I hate human beings.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I am growing larger, and I shall make myself felt
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: in the world. Arthur Saint Amand end of chapter six.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Chapter seven of The Man with a Thousand Legs by
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Frank Belknap Long This LibriVox recordings in the public domain
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: read by Ben Tucker. Chapter seven The salmon fisherman statement
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of William Gamwell. There were five of us in the boat,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Simms, Tom Snodgrass, Harry O'Brien, Bill Sampson, and myself. Jimmy,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I said, we may as well open the lunch. I'm
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: not particularly hungry, but the salmon all have their noses
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: stuck in the mud. They sure ain't bitten, said Jimmy,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I never seen such bomb run in the lazy critters.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Don't go complaining, Harry piped up. We've only been here
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: five hours. We were drifting toward the east shore, and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I yelled the Bill to pull on the oars, but
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: he ignored me. We'll drifted in with the shipping. I warned,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: by the way, what's that queer looking tug with a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: broken smokestack came out this morning, said Jim. Looks like
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: a rum runner to me, they're taking an awful Harry
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: put in the revenue cutters. Do by here any minute.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: There she is now, said Bill, and pointed toward the flats.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, there was the government boat skirting the shore
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and looking like a lean wasp on the war path.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: She's headed the tug off as shere as you're born,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: said Bill. I'll say we're in for a hot time
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: back water. I shouted, do you want to get between them? Tom?
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And Bill pulled sturdily on the oars, and our boat
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: swung out in the direction of the west shore, and
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: then the current took us and carried us downstream. A
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: signal flash flashed for a moment on the deck of
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the cutter. Jimmy translated it for us, stand to or
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: we'll fire, he exclaimed, Now let's see what the tug's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: got to say that. The tug apparently decided to ignore
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the command. It rose on a tremorless swell and plunged
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: doggedly forward. A vast black column ascended from its broken smokestack.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: They're putting on steam, cried Bill. But they haven't a
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: chance in the world at a chance, confirmed Tom. One broadside,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'll blow them to storms. Bell stood up and clapped
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: his hands to his ears. The rest of us were
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: nearly deafened by the thunderous report. Why do I tell you,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: shouted Tom. We look at the tug. The smokestack was
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: gone and she was wallowing in a heavy swell. That
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: was only a single shot across her bows, said Bill,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: But it did a lot of damage. Wait until they
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: opened fire with the big guns. We waited, expecting to
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: see something interesting, but we saw something that nearly frightened
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: us out of our shoes. Between the cutter and the tug,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a gigantic, yellowish obscenity shot up from the water and
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: towered thirty feet in the air. It thrashed wildly about
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and made a horrible gulping noise. We could hear the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: frenzied shrieks of the men on the hug, and from
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: the deck of the cutter, someone yelled, look at it,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: look at it. Oh my God, mercy in heaven, groaned Bill,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Why are in for it? Sobbed Tom. For a moment,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the things simply towered and vibrated between the two boats,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and then it made for the cutter. It had at
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: least a thousand legs, and they waved loathsomely in the sunlight.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: It had a hooked beak and a gray mouth that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: opened and closed and gulped. And it was larger than
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: a whale. It was horribly hideously large. It towered to
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the mountain zenith, and in its mepitic, blasphemous immensity, it
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: dwarfed the two boats and all the tangled shipping in
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the harbor. Are we alive? Shrieked Bill? And is that
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: there shore? Really long island? I don't believe it. We're
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: in the Indian Ocean or the Persian Gulfer in the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: middle of the Hopperborian Sea. Not there thing is a
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Jorman gander lots of Yorman gonder, yelled Tom. He was
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: at the end of his rope and clutching valiantly at
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the straws. Them things what live on the bottom of
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: the Arctic seas, groaned Bill. They comes up for air
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: once in a hundred years. I'll take my oath there
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: things a Jorman gander, Jorman gander or not. It was
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: apparent to all of us that the monster meant business.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: It was bearing down upon the cutter with incredible ferocity.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: The water boiled and bubbled in its wake. On the
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: other boat's men rushed hysterically to the rails and stared
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: with wide eyes. The officers of the cutter had recovered
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: from their momentary astonishment and were gesticulating furiously and running
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: back and forth on the decks. Three guns were lowered
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: into position and directed at the on rushing horror. A
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: little man with gilt braid on his sleeves danced about
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: absurdly on his toes and shouted out commands the top
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of his voice. Don't fire until you can look into
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: his eyes, he yelled. We can't afford to missing. We'll
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: give him a broadside. He won't forget it. As a
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: human sire, someone yelled, There never was nothing like it
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: before in this world. The men aboard the tug were
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: obviously rejoicing. Caps and pipes ascended into the air, and
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: loud shouts of triumphissued from a hundred drunken throats. Fire
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: shouted the blue coated midget on the cutter. It won't
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: do them no good, shouted Bill, as the thunder of
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the gun smote our ears. It won't do him a
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: bit of good. As it turned out, Bill was right.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: The tremendous discharge failed to arrest the progress of the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: obscene monster. It rose like a cloud from the water
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and flew with the cutter like a flying fish. Furiously.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: It stretched forth its enormous arms and embraced the cutter.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: It wrenched the little vessel from the trough of the
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: wave in which it wallowed, and lifted it violently into
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the air. Its great golden sides shone like the morning star,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: but red blood trickled from a gaping hole in its throat.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Yet it ignored its wounds. It lifted the small steel
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: ship into the air in its gigantic weaving arms. I
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: shall never forget that moment. I have but to shut
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: my eyes and it is before me. Now I see
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: again that Brobdingnagian horror, from measureless abysses, that twisting, fantastic monstrosity,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: from sinister depths of blackest night, And in its colossal
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: arms and legs, I see a tiny ship from whose
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: deck a hundred little men fall, shrieking and screaming into
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the black maelstrom. Beneath its churning maws, yards and yards.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: It towered, and its glittering bulk hid the sun. It
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: towered to the zenith, and its weaving arms twisted the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: cutter into a shapeless mass glistening steel, where next muttered Bill,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: there ain't nothin can save us. Now, a man ain't
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: got a chance when he runs head on against the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Jerman gander. That ain't no doorman gander, piped Tom. That's
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: a human ben, what's been out all night? But I
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: ain't saying we're not in for it. My other companions
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: fell upon their knees, and little Harry O'Brien turned yellow
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: under the gills. But the thing did not attack us. Instead,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: with a heart breaking scream that seemed outrageously human, it
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: sank beneath the waves, carrying with it the flattened, absurd
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: remains of the valiant little cutter, and the crushed and
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: battered bodies of innumerable men. And as it sank loathsomely
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: from sight the water about it flattened out into a
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: tremorless plateau and turned the color of blood. Bill was
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: at the oars now, shouting and cursing. To encourage the
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: rest of us pull boys, he commanded, let's try to
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: make the south shore before that their fish comes up
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: for breath. There ain't one of us here what wants
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to live for the rest of his life on the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: bottom of the sea. There ain't one of us here
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: what'd care to have it out with a German. Gonder.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: In a moment, we had swung the boat about and
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: were making for the shore men on the other ships
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: were crying and waving to us, but we didn't stop
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: to hand in any reports. We weren't thinking of anything
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: but a huge monstrosity that we would see towering and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: towering into the sky as long as our brains hung
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: together in our foolish little heads. End of chapter seven
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight of The Man with a Thousand Legs by
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Frank Belknap Long. This LibriVox Recordings in the public Domain,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: read by Ben Tucker. Chapter eight, news item in the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: Long Island Gazette of a young man about twenty five
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: years old was found this morning on a deserted beach
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: near Northport. The body was horribly emaciated, and the coroner,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: mister E. Thomas Bogart, discovered three small wounds on the
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: young man's thigh. The edges of the wounds were stained
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: as though from gunpowder. The body scarcely weighed one hundred pounds.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: It is thought that the youth was the victim of
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: foul play, and enquiries are being made in the vicinity.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: End of chapter eight. Chapter nine of The Man with
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: a Thousand Legs by Frank Belknap Long This LibriVox Recordings
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: in the public Domain, read by Ben Tucker, Chapter nine,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: The Box of Horror, statement of Harry Olsen. I hadn't
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: had a thing to be for three days, and I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: was driven to the cans. Sometimes you find something valuable
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: in the cans, and sometimes you don't. But anyhow, I
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: was workin em systematically. I'd gone up the street and
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: down the street and hadn't found a thing for my
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: panes except an old pair of suspenders and a tennis salmon.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: But when I came to the last house, I stopped
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and stared. Then I stretched out a lean arm and
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: picked up the box. It was a funny looking box,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: with queer glass sides and little peak holes in the
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: side of it, and a metal compartment about three inches
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: square and back of it, and a slide underneath large
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: enough to hold a man's hand. I looked up at
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: the windows of the house, but there wasn't any one
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: watching me, and so I slipped a box under my
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: coat and made off down the street. It's somethin expensive.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: You can bet your life on that, I thought. Probably
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: some old doctor's croaked and his widow threw the thing
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: away without consulting any one. This is a real scientific affair,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: this is, and I ought to get a week's board
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: out of it. I wanted to examine the thing better,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and so I made for a vacant lot where I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be interrupted. Once there, I sat myself down behind
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: a signboard and took the contraption from under my coat
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and looked at it. Well, sir, it interested me. There
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: was a little lever on top of it. You pressed
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: and the slide fell down and something clicked in the
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: metal box and back of it, and the thing lighted up.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I realized at once that something was meant to go
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: on the slide. I didn't know just what, but my
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: curiosity was aroused. That light isn't there for nothing. I thought,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: this box means business. I began to wonder what would
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: happen if something alive were put on the slide. There
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: was a clump of bushes near where I was sitting,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and I got up and made for it. It took
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: me some time to get what I was after, but
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: when I caught it, I held it firmly between my
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: thumb and forefinger so it couldn't escape, and then I
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: talked to it, grasshopper, I said, I haven't any grudge
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: against you personally, but the scientific mind is no respector
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: of persons. The infernal varment wriggled and wriggled, and covered
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: my thumb with molasses. But I didn't let up on him.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I held him firmly and pushed him onto the slide.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Then I turned on the lever and peeped through the holes.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: The poor devil squirmed and fluttered for several minutes, and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: then he began to dissolve. He got flabbier and flabbier,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and soon I could see right through him. When he
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: was nothing but ooze, he began to wriggle. I dumped
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: him on the ground, and he scurried away faster than
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: a centipede. I'm deluding myself, I thought, I'm seeing things
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: that never happened. Then I did a very foolish thing.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I thrust my hand into the box and turned on
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the lever. For several moments, nothing happened, and then my
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: hand began to get cold. I peeped through the holes,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: and what I saw made me scream and scream and
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: draw my hand out and go running about the lot
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: like a madman. My hand was a massive, writhing, twisting snakes.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Least wise, they looked like snakes at first, but later
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: I saw they were soft and yellow and rubber, and
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: much worse than snakes. But even then I didn't altogether
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: lose my head. Leastwise, I didn't lose it for long.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: This is a sheer hallucination, I said to myself, and
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to argue myself out of it. I sat
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: down on a big boulder and held my hand up
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: and looked at it. It had a thousand fingers, and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: they dripped. But I made myself look at him. I
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: did some tall arguing. Snap out of it, I said,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: you're imagining things, I thought. The fingers began to shorten
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: and stiffen a little. You're imagining all this, I continued.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: It's the sheerest bunk. That box isn't anything out of
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: the ordinary. Well, sir, you may not believe it, But
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: I argued myself back into sanity. I argued my hand
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: back to normal. The wriggling, twisting things got shorter and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: fatter and joined together, and before very long I had
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: a hand with fingers. Then I stood up and shouted.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Luckily no one heard me, and there wasn't anyone to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: watch me dancing about on my toes either. When I
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: got out of breath, I picked the in front box
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: up and walked away with it. I made directly for
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the river. You've had your day, I said, you won't
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: turn any more poor critters into jellyfish. Well sir, I
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: threw the vile thing into the river, but first I
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: smashed it against the planks on the wharf until it
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: looked like nothing on earth under the stars. An, that's
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the end of you. I shouted as it sank. I
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: ought to have got a medal for that, but I
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: ain't complaining. It isn't every man has the pleasure of
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: calling himself a disinterested benefactor of humanity. End of chapter nine.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: End of The Men with a Thousand Legs by Frank
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: bolknap Long