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The Lock and Key Library

Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

July, 1999  [Etext #1831]


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Please note:  This edition does not contain the second chapter of
the first story, "The Haunted House", by Dickens.  It can be found
in 3ghst10.txt or 3ghst10.zip, 1998, "Three Ghost Stories by
Charles Dickens."





The Lock and Key Library

Classic Mystery and Detective Stories - Old Time English

Edited by Julian Hawthorne




Table of Contents


CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70)

The Haunted House
No. I Branch Line: The Signal Man


BULWER-LYTTON (1803-73)

The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain
The Incantation


THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859)

The Avenger


CHARLES ROBERT MATURIN (1782-1824)

Melmoth the Wanderer


LAURENCE STERNE (1713-68)

A Mystery with a Moral


WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-63)

On Being Found Out
The Notch on the Ax


ANONYMOUS

Bourgonef
The Closed Cabinet




THE HAUNTED HOUSE

IN TWO CHAPTERS


THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE


Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed
by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make
acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas
piece.  I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it.  There was
no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted
circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect.  More than that:
I had come to it direct from a railway station:  it was not more
than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood
outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could
see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the
valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace,
because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly
commonplace people--and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take
it on myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it,
any fine autumn morning.

The manner of my lighting on it was this.

I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop
by the way, to look at the house.  My health required a temporary
residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and
who had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to
suggest it as a likely place.  I had got into the train at
midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat
looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky,
and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to find the
night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me that I
hadn't been to sleep at all;--upon which question, in the first
imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would
have done wager by battle with the man who sat opposite me.  That
opposite man had had, through the night--as that opposite man
always has--several legs too many, and all of them too long.  In
addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be
expected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had
been perpetually listening and taking notes.  It had appeared to me
that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the
carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them,
under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering
way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head
whenever he listened.  He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a
perplexed aspect, and his demeanor became unbearable.

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I
had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country,
and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the
stars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller
and said:

"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in
me?"  For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my
travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.

The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if
the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a
lofty look of compassion for my insignificance:

"In you, sir?--B."

"B, sir?" said I, growing warm.

"I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman; "pray
let me listen--O."

He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down.

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication
with the guard, is a serious position.  The thought came to my
relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a
Rapper: one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest
respect, but whom I don't believe in.  I was going to ask him the
question, when he took the bread out of my mouth.

"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I am
too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all
about it.  I have passed the night--as indeed I pass the whole of
my time now--in spiritual intercourse."

"O!" said I, somewhat snappishly.

"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman,
turning several leaves of his note-book, "with this message:  'Evil
communications corrupt good manners.'"

"Sound," said I; "but, absolutely new?"

"New from spirits," returned the gentleman.

I could only repeat my rather snappish "O!" and ask if I might be
favored with the last communication.

"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry
with great solemnity, "'is worth two in the Bosh.'"

"Truly I am of the same opinion," said I; "but shouldn't it be
Bush?"

"It came to me, Bosh," returned the gentleman.

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had
delivered this special revelation in the course of the night.  "My
friend, I hope you are pretty well.  There are two in this railway
carriage.  How do you do?  There are seventeen thousand four
hundred and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them.
Pythagoras is here.  He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes
you like travelling."  Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this
scientific intelligence.  "I am glad to see you, amico.  Come sta?
Water will freeze when it is cold enough.  Addio!"  In the course
of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred.  Bishop
Butler had insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which
offence against orthography and good manners he had been dismissed
as out of temper.  John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification)
had repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced,
as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively
named Grungers and Scadgingtone.  And Prince Arthur, nephew of King
John of England, had described himself as tolerably comfortable in
the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under
the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favored me with
these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the
sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent
Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them.  In a word,
I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at
the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapors for the
free air of Heaven.

By that time it was a beautiful morning.  As I walked away among
such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and
russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation,
and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which
they are sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse seemed to
me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw.  In
which heathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and
stopped to examine it attentively.

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a
pretty even square of some two acres.  It was a house of about the
time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as
bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer
of the whole quartet of Georges.  It was uninhabited, but had,
within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable;
I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner,
and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the
colors were fresh.  A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall,
announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms, well
furnished."  It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees,
and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front
windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which
had been extremely ill chosen.

It was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that was
shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church
spire some half a mile off--a house that nobody would take.  And
the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a
haunted house.

No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so
solemn to me, as the early morning.  In the summer-time, I often
rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before
breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by
the stillness and solitude around me.  Besides that there is
something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep--
in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we
are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive
state, anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are
all tending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the
deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned
occupation, all are images of Death.  The tranquillity of the hour
is the tranquillity of Death.  The color and the chill have the
same association.  Even a certain air that familiar household
objects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of
the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be
long ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of
maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look.  Moreover, I
once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour.  He was alive
and well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the
daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood
beside my bed.  His head was resting on his hand, and whether he
was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern.  Amazed to see him
there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched
him.  As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once.  As he did
not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder,
as I thought--and there was no such thing.

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly
statable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time.  Any
house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning;
and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage
than then.

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon
my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his
door-step.  I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the
house.

"Is it haunted?" I asked.

The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, "I say
nothing."

"Then it IS haunted?"

"Well!" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had
the appearance of desperation--"I wouldn't sleep in it."

"Why not?"

"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to
ring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang
'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why,
then," said the landlord, "I'd sleep in that house."

"Is anything seen there?"

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former
appearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for "Ikey!"

The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red
face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a
turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with
mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to
be in a fair way--if it were not pruned--of covering his head and
overrunning his boots.

"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if anything's
seen at the Poplars."

"'Ooded woman with a howl," said Ikey, in a state of great
freshness.

"Do you mean a cry?"

"I mean a bird, sir."

"A hooded woman with an owl.  Dear me!  Did you ever see her?"

"I seen the howl."

"Never the woman?"

"Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together."

"Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?"

"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots."

"Who?"

"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots."

"The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his
shop?"

"Perkins?  Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place.  No!"
observed the young man, with considerable feeling; "he an't
overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as THAT."

(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's knowing
better.)

"Who is--or who was--the hooded woman with the owl?  Do you know?"

"Well!" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he
scratched his head with the other, "they say, in general, that she
was murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while."

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn,
except that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I
see, had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the
hooded woman.  Also, that a personage, dimly described as "a hold
chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,
unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not?
and even if so, mind your own business,'" had encountered the
hooded woman, a matter of five or six times.  But, I was not
materially assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was
in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed
by the landlord), Anywheres.

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the
mysteries, between which and this state of existence is interposed
the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the
things that live; and although I have not the audacity to pretend
that I know anything of them; I can no more reconcile the mere
banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such-
like insignificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading
analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand,
than I had been able, a little while before, to yoke the spiritual
intercourse of my fellow- traveller to the chariot of the rising
sun.  Moreover, I had lived in two haunted houses--both abroad.  In
one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore the reputation of
being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice
abandoned on that account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly
and pleasantly: notwithstanding that the house had a score of
mysterious bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one
large room in which I sat reading, times out of number at all
hours, and next to which I slept, a haunted chamber of the first
pretensions.  I gently hinted these considerations to the landlord.
And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned with
him, Why, how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy
it was to give bad names, and did he not think that if he and I
were persistently to whisper in the village that any weird-looking
old drunken tinker of the neighborhood had sold himself to the
Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that commercial
venture!  All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the
landlord, I am bound to confess, and was as dead a failure as ever
I made in my life.

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted
house, and was already half resolved to take it.  So, after
breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and
harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission
to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel
persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and
by Ikey.

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal.  The
slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were
doleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built,
ill-planned, and ill-fitted.  It was damp, it was not free from dry
rot, there was a flavor of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim
of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's
hands whenever it's not turned to man's account.  The kitchens and
offices were too large, and too remote from each other.  Above
stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between
patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy
old well with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap,
near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells.
One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white
letters, MASTER B.  This, they told me, was the bell that rang the
most.

"Who was Master B.?" I asked.  "Is it known what he did while the
owl hooted?"

"Rang the bell," said Ikey.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young
man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself.  It was a
loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound.  The
other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to
which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room," "Double Room,"
"Clock Room," and the like.  Following Master B.'s bell to its
source I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent
third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-
loft, with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been
exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a
corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for
Tom Thumb.  The papering of one side of the room had dropped down
bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost
blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual
condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down.  Neither
the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of
himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top,
I made no other discoveries.  It was moderately well furnished, but
sparely.  Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the
house; the rest was of various periods within the last half-
century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of
the county town to treat for the house.  I went that day, and I
took it for six months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden
sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very
handsome, sensible, and engaging).  We took with us, a deaf stable-
man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person
called an Odd Girl.  I have reason to record of the attendant last
enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female
Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a
raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house
was most depressing.  The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak
turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and
requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her
sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the
event of anything happening to her from the damp.  Streaker, the
housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr.  The
Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and
made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the
scullery window, and rearing an oak.

We went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to
supernatural--miseries incidental to our state.  Dispiriting
reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and
descended from the upper rooms.  There was no rolling-pin, there
was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know
what it is), there was nothing in the house; what there was, was
broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the
meaning of the landlord be?  Through these distresses, the Odd Girl
was cheerful and exemplary.  But within four hours after dark we
had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen
"Eyes," and was in hysterics.

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to
ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left
Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or
any one of them, for one minute.  Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd
Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from
her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar
applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under
these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master
B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk
howled until the house resounded with his lamentations!

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as
the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the
memory of Master B.  Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or
bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by
one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't
know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three,
until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in
other words, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young
gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever.

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers
of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very
inconvenient disorder.  She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes
endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions.  I would
address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I
had painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master
B.'s bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose
that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with
no better behavior than would most unquestionably have brought him
and the sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance
in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also
suppose a mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those
contemptible means of counteracting and limiting the powers of the
disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would
become emphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such
an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd
Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among
us like a parochial petrifaction.

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most
discomfiting nature.  I am unable to say whether she was of an
usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with
her, but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the
production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met
with.  Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity
of hold in those specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon
her face and nose.  In this condition, and mildly and deplorably
shaking her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the
Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a
purse of money.  Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion
as with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the
protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating
her last wishes regarding her silver watch.

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was
among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky.  Hooded
woman?  According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of
hooded women.  Noises?  With that contagion downstairs, I myself
have sat in the dismal parlor, listening, until I have heard so
many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood
if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries.  Try
this in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own
comfortable fire-side, in the life of the night.  You can fill any
house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every
nerve in your nervous system.

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and
there is no such contagion under the sky.  The women (their noses
in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always
primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-
triggers.  The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions
that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established
the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic.  If
Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should
presently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so
constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go
about the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe
is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.

It was in vain to do anything.  It was in vain to be frightened,
for the moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show
the owl.  It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental
discord on the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes
and combinations.  It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the
bells, and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it
down inexorably and silence it.  It was in vain to fire up
chimneys, let torches down the well, charge furiously into
suspected rooms and recesses.  We changed servants, and it was no
better.  The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no
better.  At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so
disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my
sister: "Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on
with us here, and I think we must give this up."

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John,
don't give it up.  Don't be beaten, John.  There is another way."

"And what is that?" said I.

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this
house, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or
me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely
into our own hands."

"But, the servants," said I.

"Have no servants," said my sister, boldly.

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the
possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions.  The
notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very
doubtful.

"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another,
and we know they are frightened and do infect one another," said my
sister.

"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative tone.

(The deaf stable-man.  I kept him in my service, and still keep
him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles.  And what
does that go to prove?  Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody
unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever
given, or taken?  None."

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired,
every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with
no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water.  That the
pail of water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through
me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after
that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth
remembering.  Neither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of
any of our many uproars.  An imperturbable and speechless man, he
had sat at his supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the
Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his cheek, or
profited by the general misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles.  And considering,
John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be
kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast
about among our friends for a certain selected number of the most
reliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait
upon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and
see what happens."

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot,
and went into her plan with the greatest ardor.

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our
measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in
whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month
unexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and
mustered in the haunted house.

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while
my sister and I were yet alone.  It occurring to me as not
improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because
he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside,
but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who
came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his
own throat.  I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a
gun?  On his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees
her," I begged the favor of his stepping up to the house and
looking at mine.

"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double-
barrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago.  "No
mistake about HER, sir."

"Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in this
house."

"No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.  "'Ooded lady,
sir?"

"Don't be frightened," said I.  "It was a figure rather like you."

"Lord, sir?"

"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly, I may say
affectionately; "if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the
greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure.  And I
promise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I
see it again!"

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little
precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.  I imparted my
secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his
cap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed
something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one
night when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked
that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening
to comfort the servants.  Let me do Ikey no injustice.  He was
afraid of the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he
would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an
opportunity. The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar.  She went
about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously
and wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made
many of the sounds we heard.  I had had my eye on the two, and I
know it.  It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this
preposterous state of mind; I content myself with remarking that it
is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair
medical, legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well
established and as common a state of mind as any with which
observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements,
above all others, rationally to be suspected in, and strictly
looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind.

To return to our party.  The first thing we did when we were all
assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.  That done, and every
bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely
examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household
duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or
a hunting party, or were shipwrecked.  I then recounted the
floating rumors concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.:
with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our
occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female
gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table;
and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to
catch.  Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had
communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying
them in words.  We then gravely called one another to witness, that
we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive--which we
considered pretty much the same thing--and that, with a serious
sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one another,
and would strictly follow out the truth.  The understanding was
established, that any one who heard unusual noises in the night,
and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door; lastly, that
on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our
individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming
together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the
good of all; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till
then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence.

We were, in number and in character, as follows:

First--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were we
two.  In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I
drew Master B.'s.  Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel,
so called after the great astronomer: than whom I suppose a better
man at a telescope does not breathe.  With him, was his wife: a
charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous
spring.  I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to
bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may
do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and
I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left
her endearing and bright face behind.  They drew the Clock Room.
Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-
twenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room;
mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-
room within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no
wedges I was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any
weather, wind or no wind.  Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to
be "fast" (another word for loose, as I understand the term), but
who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would
have distinguished himself before now, if his father had not
unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year,
on the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to
spend six.  I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or
that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty
per cent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his
fortune is made.  Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a
most intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture
Room.  She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real
business earnestness, and "goes in"--to use an expression of
Alfred's--for Woman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and
everything that is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to
be, or is and ought not to be.  "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and
Heaven prosper you!" I whispered to her on the first night of my
taking leave of her at the Picture-Room door, "but don't overdo it.
And in respect of the great necessity there is, my darling, for
more employments being within the reach of Woman than our
civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don't fly at the
unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your way,
as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me,
Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and
daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play
is, really, not ALL Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts
in it."  However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room.  We had
but three other chambers: the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and
the Garden Room.  My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his
hammock," as he called it, in the Corner Room.  I have always
regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed.  He is
gray now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--
nay, handsomer.  A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-
shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a
rich dark eyebrow.  I remember those under darker hair, and they
look all the better for their silver setting.  He has been wherever
his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of
his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the
Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of
his name, and have cried, "You know Jack Governor?  Then you know a
prince of men!"  That he is!  And so unmistakably a naval officer,
that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in
seal's skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in full naval
uniform.

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it
fell out that he married another lady and took her to South
America, where she died.  This was a dozen years ago or more.  He
brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt
beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own
pickling, is mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London,
packs a piece in his portmanteau.  He had also volunteered to bring
with him one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a
merchantman.  Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure,
and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an
intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and
great practical knowledge.  At times, there was a curious
nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old
illness; but, it seldom lasted many minutes.  He got the Cupboard
Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor:
who came down, in an amateur capacity, "to go through with it," as
he said, and who plays whist better than the whole Law List, from
the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end.

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal
feeling among us.  Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful
resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever
ate, including unapproachable curries.  My sister was pastry cook
and confectioner.  Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn
about, and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr.
Beaver.  We had a great deal of outdoor sport and exercise, but
nothing was neglected within, and there was no ill-humor or
misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were so delightful that
we had at least one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.

We had a few night alarms in the beginning.  On the first night, I
was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his
hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me
that he "was going aloft to the main truck," to have the
weathercock down.  It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but
Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of
despair, and said somebody would be "hailing a ghost" presently, if
it wasn't done.  So, up to the top of the house, where I could
hardly stand for the wind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and
there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up
to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and
stood upon nothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off,
until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the
height, that I thought they would never come down.  Another night,
they turned out again, and had a chimney-cowl off.  Another night,
they cut a sobbing and gulping water-pipe away.  Another night,
they found out something else.  On several occasions, they both, in
the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective
bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to
"overhaul" something mysterious in the garden.

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed
anything.  All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one
looked the worse for it.



The foregoing story is particularly interesting as illustrating the
leaning of Dickens's mind toward the spiritualistic and mystical
fancies current in his time, and the counterbalance of his common
sense and fun.

"He probably never made up his own mind," Mr. Andrew Lang declares
in a discussion of this Haunted House story.  Mr. Lang says he once
took part in a similar quest, and "can recognize the accuracy of
most of Dickens's remarks.  Indeed, even to persons not on the
level of the Odd Girl in education, the temptation to produce
'phenomena' for fun is all but overwhelming.  That people
communicate hallucinations to each other 'in some diseased way
without words,' is a modern theory perhaps first formulated here by
Dickens."

"The Signal Man's Story," which follows, is likewise, Mr. Lang
believes, "probably based on some real story of the kind, some
anecdote of premonitions.  There are scores in the records of the
Society for Psychical Research."--The Editor.



NO. 1 BRANCH LINE: THE SIGNAL-MAN


"Halloa!  Below there!"

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the
door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short
pole.  One would have thought, considering the nature of the
ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice
came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the
steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and
looked down the Line.  There was something remarkable in his manner
of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what.  But I
know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his
figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and
mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset,
that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.

"Halloa!  Below!"

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and,
raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.

"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him
without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle
question.  Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and
air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming
rush that caused me to start back, as though it had a force to draw
me down.  When such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid
train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I
looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown
while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry.  After a pause, during which he seemed to
regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag
towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards
distant.  I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that
point.  There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough
zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.  It was
made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I
went down.  For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give
me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with
which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him
again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by
which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were
waiting for me to appear.  He had his left hand at his chin, and
that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.
His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I
stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the
railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow
man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.  His post was in
as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.  On either side, a
dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip
of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this
great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction
terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a
black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous,
depressing, and forbidding air.  So little sunlight ever found its
way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much
cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I
had left the natural world.

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him.
Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one
step, and lifted his hand.

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my
attention when I looked down from up yonder.  A visitor was a
rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped?  In me,
he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all
his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened
interest in these great works.  To such purpose I spoke to him; but
I am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not
happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man
that daunted me.

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the
tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were
missing from it, and then looked it me.

That light was part of his charge?  Was it not?

He answered in a low voice,--"Don't you know it is?"

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed
eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.  I
have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his
mind.

In my turn, I stepped back.  But in making the action, I detected
in his eyes some latent fear of me.  This put the monstrous thought
to flight.

"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread
of me."

"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before."

"Where?"

He pointed to the red light he had looked at.

"There?" I said.

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes."

"My good fellow, what should I do there?  However, be that as it
may, I never was there, you may swear."

"I think I may," he rejoined.  "Yes; I am sure I may."

His manner cleared, like my own.  He replied to my remarks with
readiness, and in well-chosen words.  Had he much to do there?
Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but
exactness and watchfulness were what was required of him, and of
actual work--manual labor--he had next to none.  To change that
signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and
then, was all he had to do under that head.  Regarding those many
long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could
only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that
form, and he had grown used to it.  He had taught himself a
language down here,--if only to know it by sight, and to have
formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called
learning it.  He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and
tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor
hand at figures.  Was it necessary for him when on duty always to
remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into
the sunshine from between those high stone walls?  Why, that
depended upon times and circumstances.  Under some conditions there
would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held
good as to certain hours of the day and night.  In bright weather,
he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower
shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by his
electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled
anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an
official book in which he had to make certain entries, a
telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the
little bell of which he had spoken.  On my trusting that he would
excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I
might say without offence) perhaps educated above that station, he
observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would
rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had
heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that
last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more
or less, in any great railway staff.  He had been, when young (if I
could believe it, sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a
student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he
had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen
again.  He had no complaint to offer about that.  He had made his
bed, and he lay upon it.  It was far too late to make another.

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his
grave dark regards divided between me and the fire.  He threw in
the word, "Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred
to his youth,--as though to request me to understand that he
claimed to be nothing but what I found him.  He was several times
interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and
send replies.  Once he had to stand without the door, and display a
flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the
driver.  In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be
remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a
syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done.

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of
men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that
while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen color,
turned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring,
opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the
unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the
mouth of the tunnel.  On both of those occasions, he came back to
the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked,
without being able to define, when we were so far asunder.

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I
have met with a contented man."

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which
he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."

He would have recalled the words if he could.  He had said them,
however, and I took them up quickly.

"With what?  What is your trouble?"

"It is very difficult to impart, sir.  It is very, very difficult
to speak of.  If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell
you."

"But I expressly intend to make you another visit.  Say, when shall
it be?"

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-
morrow night, sir."

"I will come at eleven."

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me.  "I'll show my
white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you
have found the way up.  When you have found it, don't call out!
And when you are at the top, don't call out!"

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said
no more than, "Very well."

"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out!  Let me
ask you a parting question.  What made you cry, 'Halloa!  Below
there!' to-night?"

"Heaven knows," said I.  "I cried something to that effect--"

"Not to that effect, sir.  Those were the very words.  I know them
well."

"Admit those were the very words.  I said them, no doubt, because I
saw you below."

"For no other reason?"

"What other reason could I possibly have?"

"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any
supernatural way?"

"No."

He wished me good-night, and held up his light.  I walked by the
side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation
of a train coming behind me) until I found the path.  It was easier
to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any
adventure.

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of
the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.
He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on.  "I
have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may I
speak now?"  "By all means, sir."  "Good-night, then, and here's my
hand."  "Good-night, sir, and here's mine."  With that we walked
side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down
by the fire.

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as
we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a
whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me.
I took you for some one else yesterday evening.  That troubles me."

"That mistake?"

"No.  That some one else."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Like me?"

"I don't know.  I never saw the face.  The left arm is across the
face, and the right arm is waved,--violently waved.  This way."

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm
gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, "For God's
sake, clear the way!"

"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I
heard a voice cry, 'Halloa!  Below there!'  I started up, looked
from that door, and saw this Someone else standing by the red light
near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you.  The voice seemed
hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out!  Look out!'  And
then attain, 'Halloa!  Below there!  Look out!'  I caught up my
lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling,
'What's wrong?  What has happened?  Where?'  It stood just outside
the blackness of the tunnel.  I advanced so close upon it that I
wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes.  I ran right up
at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when
it was gone."

"Into the tunnel?" said I.

"No.  I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards.  I stopped, and
held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured
distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and
trickling through the arch.  I ran out again faster than I had run
in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I
looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up
the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again,
and ran back here.  I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been
given.  Is anything wrong?'  The answer came back, both ways, 'All
well.'"

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I
showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of
sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate
nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to
have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of
the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by
experiments upon themselves.  "As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do
but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while
we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph
wires."

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for
a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,--
he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and
watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not finished.

I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my
arm--

"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on
this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were
brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had
stood."

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it.
It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable
coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.  But it was
unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur,
and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject.
Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that
he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common
sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary
calculations of life.

He again begged to remark that he had not finished.

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing
over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago.  Six or
seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and
shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at
the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again."
He stopped, with a fixed look at me.

"Did it cry out?"

"No.  It was silent."

"Did it wave its arm?"

"No.  It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands
before the face.  Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes.  It was an action of
mourning.  I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.

"Did you go up to it?"

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly
because it had turned me faint.  When I went to the door again,
daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone."

"But nothing followed?  Nothing came of this?"

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving
a ghastly nod each time:-

"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a
carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands
and heads, and something waved.  I saw it just in time to signal
the driver, Stop!  He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train
drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more.  I ran after
it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries.  A
beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the
compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor
between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards
at which he pointed to himself.

"True, sir.  True.  Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you."

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was
very dry.  The wind and the wires took up the story with a long
lamenting wail.

He resumed.  "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is
troubled.  The spectre came back a week ago.  Ever since, it has
been there, now and again, by fits and starts."

"At the light?"

"At the Danger-light."

"What does it seem to do?"

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that
former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear the way!"

Then he went on.  "I have no peace or rest for it.  It calls to me,
for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there!
Look out!  Look out!'  It stands waving to me.  It rings my little
bell--"

I caught at that.  "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I
was here, and you went to the door?"

"Twice."

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you.  My eyes
were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a
living man, it did NOT ring at those times.  No, nor at any other
time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical
things by the station communicating with you."

He shook his head.  "I have never made a mistake as to that yet,
sir.  I have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's.  The
ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives
from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to
the eye.  I don't wonder that you failed to hear it.  But I heard
it."

"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?"

"It WAS there."

"Both times?"

He repeated firmly:  "Both times."

"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?"

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but
arose.  I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in
the doorway.  There was the Danger-light.  There was the dismal
mouth of the tunnel.  There were the high, wet stone walls of the
cutting.  There were the stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face.
His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so,
perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly
towards the same spot.

"No," he answered.  "It is not there."

"Agreed," said I.

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats.  I was
thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called
one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course
way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact
between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what
troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre
mean?"

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes
on the fire, and only by times turning them on me.  "What is the
danger?  Where is the danger?  There is danger overhanging
somewhere on the Line.  Some dreadful calamity will happen.  It is
not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before.  But
surely this is a cruel haunting of ME.  What can I do?"

He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated
forehead.

"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can
give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands.
"I should get into trouble, and do no good.  They would think I was
mad.  This is the way it would work,--Message:  'Danger!  Take
care!'  Answer:  'What Danger?  Where?'  Message:  'Don't know.
But, for God's sake, take care!'  They would displace me.  What
else could they do?"

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see.  It was the mental
torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an
unintelligible responsibility involving life.

"When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on, putting
his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward
across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress,
"why not tell me where that accident was to happen,--if it must
happen?  Why not tell me how it could be averted,--if it could have
been averted?  When on its second coming it hid its face, why not
tell me, instead, 'She is going to die.  Let them keep her at
home'?  If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that
its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not
warn me plainly now?  And I, Lord help me!  A mere poor signal-man
on this solitary station!  Why not go to somebody with credit to be
believed, and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake,
as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was
to compose his mind.  Therefore, setting aside all question of
reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever
thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it
was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not
understand these confounding Appearances.  In this effort I
succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his
conviction.  He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post
as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his
attention: and I left him at two in the morning.  I had offered to
stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended
the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should
have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason
to conceal.  Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and
the dead girl.  I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I
to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure?  I had
proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact;
but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind?  Though in a
subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and
would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of
his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something
treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his
superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself
and proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to
offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the
present) to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in
those parts, and to take his opinion.  A change in his time of duty
would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be
off an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset.
I had appointed to return accordingly.

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy
it.  The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path
near the top of the deep cutting.  I would extend my walk for an
hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and
it would then be time to go to my signal-man's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically
looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him.  I
cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the
mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left
sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a
moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and
that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short
distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.
The Danger-light was not yet lighted.  Against its shaft, a little
low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports
and tarpaulin.  It looked no bigger than a bed.

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,--with a
flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my
leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or
correct what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the
speed I could make.

"What is the matter?" I asked the men.

"Signal-man killed this morning, sir."

"Not the man belonging to that box?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not the man I know?"

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who
spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising
an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"Oh, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning
from one to another as the hut closed in again.

"He was cut down by an engine, sir.  No man in England knew his
work better.  But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail.  It
was just at broad day.  He had struck the light, and had the lamp
in his hand.  As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was
towards her, and she cut him down.  That man drove her, and was
showing how it happened.  Show the gentleman, Tom."

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former
place at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him at
the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass.  There was
no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful.  As he
didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were
running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Below there!  Look out!  Look out!  For God's sake, clear
the way!'"

I started.

"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir.  I never left off calling to him.
I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to
the last; but it was no use."


Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious
circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point
out the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included,
not only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to
me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had
attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had
imitated.



Bulwer Lytton


The Haunted and the Haunters;
Or, The House and the Brain


A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said
to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we
last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."

"Really haunted,--and by what?--ghosts?"

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks
ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment.  Passing
a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill,
'Apartments, Furnished.'  The situation suited us; we entered the
house, liked the rooms, engaged them by the week,--and left them
the third day.  No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to
stay longer; and I don't wonder at it."

"What did you see?"

"Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious
dreamer,--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my
affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the
evidence of your own senses.  Let me only say this, it was not so
much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that
we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of
imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an indefinable
terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a
certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard
anything.  And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my
life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be,--and
allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a
fourth in that house.  Accordingly, on the fourth morning I
summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told
her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out
our week.  She said dryly, 'I know why; you have stayed longer than
any other lodger.  Few ever stayed a second night; none before you
a third.  But I take it they have been very kind to you.'

"'They,--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are.  I don't mind
them.  I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house,
not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day.
I don't care,--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall
be with them, and in this house still.'  The woman spoke with so
dreary a calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented
my conversing with her further.  I paid for my week, and too happy
were my wife and I to get off so cheaply."

"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better
than to sleep in a haunted house.  Pray give me the address of the
one which you left so ignominiously."

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked
straight toward the house thus indicated.

It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but
respectable thoroughfare.  I found the house shut up,--no bill at
the window, and no response to my knock.  As I was turning away, a
beer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to
me, "Do you want any one at that house, sir?"

"Yes, I heard it was to be let."

"Let!--why, the woman who kept it is dead,--has been dead these
three weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J----
offered ever so much.  He offered mother, who chars for him, one
pound a week just to open and shut the windows, and she would not."

"Would not!--and why?"

"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead
in her bed, with her eyes wide open.  They say the devil strangled
her."

"Pooh!  You speak of Mr. J----.  Is he the owner of the house?"

"Yes."

"Where does he live?"

"In G---- Street, No. --."

"What is he?  In any business?"

"No, sir,--nothing particular; a single gentleman."

I gave the potboy the gratuity earned by his liberal information,
and proceeded to Mr. J---- , in G---- Street, which was close by
the street that boasted the haunted house.  I was lucky enough to
find Mr. J---- at home,--an elderly man with intelligent
countenance and prepossessing manners.

I communicated my name and my business frankly.  I said I heard the
house was considered to be haunted, that I had a strong desire to
examine a house with so equivocal a reputation; that I should be
greatly obliged if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a
night.  I was willing to pay for that privilege whatever he might
be inclined to ask.  "Sir," said Mr. J----, with great courtesy,
"the house is at your service, for as short or as long a time as
you please.  Rent is out of the question,--the obligation will be
on my side should you be able to discover the cause of the strange
phenomena which at present deprive it of all value.  I cannot let
it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep it in order or answer
the door.  Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may use that
expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the
disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more
alarming character.  The poor old woman who died in it three weeks
ago was a pauper whom I took out of a workhouse; for in her
childhood she had been known to some of my family, and had once
been in such good circumstances that she had rented that house of
my uncle.  She was a woman of superior education and strong mind,
and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in the house.
Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner's
inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood, I have so
despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house, much
more a tenant, that I would willingly let it rent free for a year
to anyone who would pay its rates and taxes."

"How long is it since the house acquired this sinister character?"

"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since.  The old
woman I spoke of, said it was haunted when she rented it between
thirty and forty years ago.  The fact is, that my life has been
spent in the East Indies, and in the civil service of the Company.
I returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an
uncle, among whose possessions was the house in question.  I found
it shut up and uninhabited.  I was told that it was haunted, that
no one would inhabit it.  I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a
story.  I spent some money in repairing it, added to its old-
fashioned furniture a few modern articles,--advertised it, and
obtained a lodger for a year.  He was a colonel on half pay.  He
came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five
servants: they all left the house the next day; and, although each
of them declared that he had seen something different from that
which had scared the others, a something still was equally terrible
to all.  I really could not in conscience sue, nor even blame, the
colonel for breach of agreement.  Then I put in the old woman I
have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in
apartments.  I never had one lodger who stayed more than three
days.  I do not tell you their stories,--to no two lodgers have
there been exactly the same phenomena repeated.  It is better that
you should judge for yourself, than enter the house with an
imagination influenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to
see and to hear something or other, and take whatever precautions
you yourself please."

"Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that
house?"

"Yes.  I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight
alone in that house.  My curiosity is not satisfied, but it is
quenched.  I have no desire to renew the experiment.  You cannot
complain, you see, sir, that I am not sufficiently candid; and
unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually
strong, I honestly add, that I advise you NOT to pass a night in
that house.

"My interest IS exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a
coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to
him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger
that I have the right to rely on them,--even in a haunted house."

Mr. J---- said very little more; he took the keys of the house out
of his bureau, gave them to me,--and, thanking him cordially for
his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off
my prize.

Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned
my confidential servant,--a young man of gay spirits, fearless
temper, and as free from superstitious prejudice as anyone I could
think of.

F----," said I, "you remember in Germany how disappointed we were
at not finding a ghost in that old castle, which was said to be
haunted by a headless apparition?  Well, I have heard of a house in
London which, I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted.  I mean
to sleep there to-night.  From what I hear, there is no doubt that
something will allow itself to be seen or to be heard,--something,
perhaps, excessively horrible.  Do you think if I take you with me,
I may rely on your presence of mind, whatever may happen?"

"Oh, sir, pray trust me," answered F----, grinning with delight.

"Very well; then here are the keys of the house,--this is the
address.  Go now,--select for me any bedroom you please; and since
the house has not been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire,
air the bed well,--see, of course, that there are candles as well
as fuel.  Take with you my revolver and my dagger,--so much for my
weapons; arm yourself equally well; and if we are not a match for a
dozen ghosts, we shall be but a sorry couple of Englishmen.

I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I
had not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I
had plighted my honor.  I dined alone, and very late, and while
dining, read, as is my habit.  I selected one of the volumes of
Macaulay's Essays.  I thought to myself that I would take the book
with me; there was so much of healthfulness in the style, and
practical life in the subjects, that it would serve as an antidote
against the influences of superstitious fancy.

Accordingly, about half-past nine, I put the book into my pocket,
and strolled leisurely toward the haunted house.  I took with me a
favorite dog: an exceedingly sharp, bold, and vigilant bull
terrier,--a dog fond of prowling about strange, ghostly corners and
passages at night in search of rats; a dog of dogs for a ghost.

I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened with a cheerful
smile.

We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms,--in fact, they felt so
damp and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire upstairs.  We
locked the doors of the drawing-rooms,--a precaution which, I
should observe, we had taken with all the rooms we had searched
below.  The bedroom my servant had selected for me was the best on
the floor,--a large one, with two windows fronting the street.  The
four-posted bed, which took up no inconsiderable space, was
opposite to the fire, which burned clear and bright; a door in the
wall to the left, between the bed and the window, communicated with
the room which my servant appropriated to himself.  This last was a
small room with a sofa bed, and had no communication with the
landing place,--no other door but that which conducted to the
bedroom I was to occupy.  On either side of my fireplace was a
cupboard without locks, flush with the wall, and covered with the
same dull-brown paper.  We examined these cupboards,--only hooks to
suspend female dresses, nothing else; we sounded the walls,--
evidently solid, the outer walls of the building.  Having finished
the survey of these apartments, warmed myself a few moments, and
lighted my cigar, I then, still accompanied by F----, went forth to
complete my reconnoiter.  In the landing place there was another
door; it was closed firmly.  "Sir," said my servant, in surprise,
"I unlocked this door with all the others when I first came; it
cannot have got locked from the inside, for--"

Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us
then was touching, opened quietly of itself.  We looked at each
other a single instant.  The same thought seized both,--some human
agency might be detected here.  I rushed in first, my servant
followed.  A small, blank, dreary room without furniture; a few
empty boxes and hampers in a corner; a small window; the shutters
closed; not even a fireplace; no other door but that by which we
had entered; no carpet on the floor, and the floor seemed very old,
uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and there, as was shown by the
whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no visible
place in which a living being could have hidden.  As we stood
gazing round, the door by which we had entered closed as quietly as
it had before opened; we were imprisoned.

For the first time I felt a creep of indefinable horror.  Not so my
servant.  "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break
that trumpery door with a kick of my foot."

"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the
vague apprehension that had seized me, "while I unclose the
shutters and see what is without."

I unbarred the shutters,--the window looked on the little back yard
I have before described; there was no ledge without,--nothing to
break the sheer descent of the wall.  No man getting out of that
window would have found any footing till he had fallen on the
stones below.

F----, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door.  He now
turned round to me and asked my permission to use force.  And I
should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from
evincing any superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even
gayety amidst circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my
admiration, and made me congratulate myself on having secured a
companion in every way fitted to the occasion.  I willingly gave
him the permission he required.  But though he was a remarkably
strong man, his force was as idle as his milder efforts; the door
did not even shake to his stoutest kick.  Breathless and panting,
he desisted.  I then tried the door myself, equally in vain.  As I
ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror came over me;
but this time it was more cold and stubborn.  I felt as if some
strange and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of
that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a venomous
influence hostile to human life.  The door now very slowly and
quietly opened as of its own accord.  We precipitated ourselves
into the landing place.  We both saw a large, pale light--as large
as the human figure, but shapeless and unsubstantial--move before
us, and ascend the stairs that led from the landing into the
attics.  I followed the light, and my servant followed me.  It
entered, to the right of the landing, a small garret, of which the
door stood open.  I entered in the same instant.  The light then
collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid,
rested a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished.  We
approached the bed and examined it,--a half-tester, such as is
commonly found in attics devoted to servants.  On the drawers that
stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the
needle still left in a rent half repaired.  The kerchief was
covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who
had last died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping
room.  I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers: there were a
few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with
a narrow ribbon of faded yellow.  I took the liberty to possess
myself of the letters.  We found nothing else in the room worth
noticing,--nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as
we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor, just before us.
We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still
preceding us.  Nothing to be seen,--nothing but the footfall heard.
I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending the stairs I
distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint, soft effort made to
draw the letters from my clasp.  I only held them the more tightly,
and the effort ceased.

We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then
remarked that my dog had not followed us when we had left it.  He
was thrusting himself close to the fire, and trembling.  I was
impatient to examine the letters; and while I read them, my servant
opened a little box in which he had deposited the weapons I had
ordered him to bring, took them out, placed them on a table close
at my bed head, and then occupied himself in soothing the dog, who,
however, seemed to heed him very little.

The letters were short,--they were dated; the dates exactly thirty-
five years ago.  They were evidently from a lover to his mistress,
or a husband to some young wife.  Not only the terms of expression,
but a distinct reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer
to have been a seafarer.  The spelling and handwriting were those
of a man imperfectly educated, but still the language itself was
forcible.  In the expressions of endearment there was a kind of
rough, wild love; but here and there were dark unintelligible hints
at some secret not of love,--some secret that seemed of crime.  "We
ought to love each other," was one of the sentences I remember,
"for how everyone else would execrate us if all was known."  Again:
"Don't let anyone be in the same room with you at night,--you talk
in your sleep."  And again: "What's done can't be undone; and I
tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could come to
life."  Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a
female's), "They do!"  At the end of the letter latest in date the
same female hand had written these words: "Lost at sea the 4th of
June, the same day as--"

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might
unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit
state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might
bring forth.  I roused myself; laid the letters on the table;
stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering; and
opened my volume of Macaulay.  I read quietly enough till about
half past eleven.  I then threw myself dressed upon the bed, and
told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep
himself awake.  I bade him leave open the door between the two
rooms.  Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my
bed head.  I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed
my Macaulay.  Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the
hearth rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog.  In about twenty minutes
I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden
draught.  I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the
landing place, must have got open; but no,--it was closed.  I then
turned my glance to my left, and saw the flame of the candles
violently swayed as by a wind.  At the same moment the watch beside
the revolver softly slid from the table,--softly, softly; no
visible hand,--it was gone.  I sprang up, seizing the revolver with
the one hand, the dagger with the other; I was not willing that my
weapons should share the fate of the watch.  Thus armed, I looked
round the floor,--no sign of the watch.  Three slow, loud, distinct
knocks were now heard at the bed head; my servant called out, "Is
that you, sir?"

"No; be on your guard."

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving
quickly backward and forward.  He kept his eyes fixed on me with a
look so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself.
Slowly he rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly
rigid, and with the same wild stare.  I had no time, however, to
examine the dog.  Presently my servant emerged from his room; and
if ever I saw horror in the human face, it was then.  I should not
have recognized him had we met in the street, so altered was every
lineament.  He passed by me quickly, saying, in a whisper that
seemed scarcely to come from his lips, "Run, run! it is after me!"
He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and rushed
forth.  I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him
to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs,
clinging to the balusters, and taking several steps at a time.  I
heard, where I stood, the street door open,--heard it again clap
to.  I was left alone in the haunted house.

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to
follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a
flight.  I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and
proceeded cautiously into the interior chamber.  I encountered
nothing to justify my servant's terror.  I again carefully examined
the walls, to see if there were any concealed door.  I could find
no trace of one,--not even a seam in the dull-brown paper with
which the room was hung.  How, then, had the THING, whatever it
was, which had so scared him, obtained ingress except though my own
chamber?

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon
the interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared.
I now perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall,
and was pressing himself close against it, as if literally striving
to force his way into it.  I approached the animal and spoke to it;
the poor brute was evidently beside itself with terror.  It showed
all its teeth, the slaver dropping from its jaws, and would
certainly have bitten me if I had touched it.  It did not seem to
recognize me.  Whoever has seen at the Zoological Gardens a rabbit,
fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a corner, may form some idea
of the anguish which the dog exhibited.  Finding all efforts to
soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his bite might be as
venomous in that state as in the madness of hydrophobia, I left him
alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the fire, seated
myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.

Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or
rather a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I
may be pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical
remarks.

As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be
precisely proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that
lead to it, so I should say that I had been long sufficiently
familiar with all experiments that appertain to the marvelous.  I
had witnessed many very extraordinary phenomena in various parts of
the world,--phenomena that would be either totally disbelieved if I
stated them, or ascribed to supernatural agencies.  Now, my theory
is that the supernatural is the impossible, and that what is called
supernatural is only a something in the laws of Nature of which we
have been hitherto ignorant.  Therefore, if a ghost rise before me,
I have not the right to say, "So, then, the supernatural is
possible;" but rather, "So, then, the apparition of a ghost is,
contrary to received opinion, within the laws of Nature,--that is,
not supernatural."

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the
wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a
material living agency is always required.  On the Continent you
will find still magicians who assert that they can raise spirits.
Assume for the moment that they assert truly, still the living
material form of the magician is present; and he is the material
agency by which, from some constitutional peculiarities, certain
strange phenomena are represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit manifestation in
America,--musical or other sounds; writings on paper, produced by
no discernible hand; articles of furniture moved without apparent
human agency; or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no
bodies seem to belong,--still there must be found the MEDIUM, or
living being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of
obtaining these signs.  In fine, in all such marvels, supposing
even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like
ourselves by whom, or through whom, the effects presented to human
beings are produced.  It is so with the now familiar phenomena of
mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the person operated on is
affected through a material living agent.  Nor, supposing it true
that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a
mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned
by a material being; it may be through a material fluid--call it
Electric, call it Odic, call it what you will--which has the power
of traversing space and passing obstacles, that the material effect
is communicated from one to the other.  Hence, all that I had
hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this strange house,
I believed to be occasioned through some agency or medium as mortal
as myself; and this idea necessarily prevented the awe with which
those who regard as supernatural things that are not within the
ordinary operations of Nature, might have been impressed by the
adventures of that memorable night.

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or
would be presented to my senses, must originate in some human being
gifted by constitution with the power so to present them, and
having some motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which,
in its way, was rather philosophical than superstitious.  And I can
sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as
any practical experimentalist could be in awaiting the effects of
some rare, though perhaps perilous, chemical combination.  Of
course, the more I kept my mind detached from fancy, the more the
temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and I therefore
riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the page of
my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and
the light,--the page was overshadowed.  I looked up, and I saw what
I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very
undefined outline.  I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it
had more resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to
anything else.  As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air
and the light around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit
nearly touching the ceiling.  While I gazed, a feeling of intense
cold seized me.  An iceberg before me could not more have chilled
me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have been more purely
physical.  I feel convinced that it was not the cold caused by
fear.  As I continued to gaze, I thought--but this I cannot say
with precision--that I distinguished two eyes looking down on me
from the height.  One moment I fancied that I distinguished them
clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a pale-
blue light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height
on which I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the
eyes.

I strove to speak,--my voice utterly failed me; I could only think
to myself, "Is this fear?  It is NOT fear!"  I strove to rise,--in
vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force.  Indeed,
my impression was that of an immense and overwhelming Power opposed
to my volition,--that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a
force beyond man's, which one may feel PHYSICALLY in a storm at
sea, in a conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild
beast, or rather, perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt MORALLY.
Opposed to my will was another will, as far superior to its
strength as storm, fire, and shark are superior in material force
to the force of man.

And now, as this impression grew on me,--now came, at last, horror,
horror to a degree that no words can convey.  Still I retained
pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, "This is horror;
but it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason
rejects this thing; it is an illusion,--I do not fear."  With a
violent effort I succeeded at last in stretching out my hand toward
the weapon on the table; as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I
received a strange shock, and my arm fell to my side powerless.
And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly to wane from
the candles,--they were not, as it were, extinguished, but their
flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the
fire,--the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few minutes the
room was in utter darkness.  The dread that came over me, to be
thus in the dark with that dark Thing, whose power was so intensely
felt, brought a reaction of nerve.  In fact, terror had reached
that climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must
have burst through the spell.  I did burst through it.  I found
voice, though the voice was a shriek.  I remember that I broke
forth with words like these, "I do not fear, my soul does not
fear"; and at the same time I found strength to rise.  Still in
that profound gloom I rushed to one of the windows; tore aside the
curtain; flung open the shutters; my first thought was--LIGHT.  And
when I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost
compensated for the previous terror.  There was the moon, there was
also the light from the gas lamps in the deserted slumberous
street.  I turned to look back into the room; the moon penetrated
its shadow very palely and partially--but still there was light.
The dark Thing, whatever it might be, was gone,--except that I
could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed the shadow of that shade,
against the opposite wall.

My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was
without cloth or cover,--an old mahogany round table) there rose a
hand, visible as far as the wrist.  It was a hand, seemingly, as
much of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person,
lean, wrinkled, small too,--a woman's hand.  That hand very softly
closed on the two letters that lay on the table; hand and letters
both vanished.  There then came the same three loud, measured
knocks I had heard at the bed head before this extraordinary drama
had commenced.

As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate
sensibly; and at the far end there rose, as from the floor, sparks
or globules like bubbles of light, many ,--green, yellow,
fire-red, azure.  Up and down, to and fro, hither, thither as tiny
Will-o'-the-Wisps, the sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own
caprice.  A chair (as in the drawing-room below) was now advanced
from the wall without apparent agency, and placed at the opposite
side of the table.  Suddenly, as forth from the chair, there grew a
shape,--a woman's shape.  It was distinct as a shape of life,--
ghastly as a shape of death.  The face was that of youth, with a
strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare, the
rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white.  It began
sleeking its long, yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its
eyes were not turned toward me, but to the door; it seemed
listening, watching, waiting.  The shadow of the shade in the
background grew darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes
gleaming out from the summit of the shadow,--eyes fixed upon that
shape.

As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another
shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly,--a man's shape, a young
man's.  It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a
likeness of such dress (for both the male shape and the female,
though defined, were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable,--
simulacra, phantasms); and there was something incongruous,
grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast between the elaborate
finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned garb, with its
ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpselike aspect and
ghostlike stillness of the flitting wearer.  Just as the male shape
approached the female, the dark Shadow started from the wall, all
three for a moment wrapped in darkness.  When the pale light
returned, the two phantoms were as if in the grasp of the Shadow
that towered between them; and there was a blood stain on the
breast of the female; and the phantom male was leaning on its
phantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles
from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate Shadow
swallowed them up,--they were gone.  And again the bubbles of light
shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and thicker and
more wildly confused in their movements.

The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from
the aperture there came the form of an aged woman.  In her hand she
held letters,--the very letters over which I had seen THE Hand
close; and behind her I heard a footstep.  She turned round as if
to listen, and then she opened the letters and seemed to read; and
over her shoulder I saw a livid face, the face as of a man long
drowned,--bloated, bleached, seaweed tangled in its dripping hair;
and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse; and beside the corpse
there cowered a child, a miserable, squalid child, with famine in
its cheeks and fear in its eyes.  And as I looked in the old
woman's face, the wrinkles and lines vanished, and it became a face
of youth,--hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted
forth, and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the
last.

Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were
intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow,--malignant,
serpent eyes.  And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in
their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan
moonlight.  And now from these globules themselves, as from the
shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled
with them: larvae so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way
describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life
which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of
water,--things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other,
devouring each other; forms like naught ever beheld by the naked
eye.  As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were
without order.  In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they
came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming
over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in
involuntary command against all evil beings.  Sometimes I felt
myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me.  Once
I felt the clutch as of cold, soft fingers at my throat.  I was
still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in
bodily peril; and I concentered all my faculties in the single
focus of resisting stubborn will.  And I turned my sight from the
Shadow; above all, from those strange serpent eyes,--eyes that had
now become distinctly visible.  For there, though in naught else
around me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and will of intense,
creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the
air of some near conflagration.  The larvae grew lurid as things
that live in fire.  Again the room vibrated; again were heard the
three measured knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in
the darkness of the dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had
come, into that darkness all returned.

As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone.  Slowly, as it
had been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the
table, again into the fuel in the grate.  The whole room came once
more calmly, healthfully into sight.

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the
servant's room still locked.  In the corner of the wall, into which
he had so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog.  I called to
him,--no movement; I approached,--the animal was dead: his eyes
protruded; his tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round
his jaws.  I took him in my arms; I brought him to the fire.  I
felt acute grief for the loss of my poor favorite,--acute self-
reproach; I accused myself of his death; I imagined he had died of
fright.  But what was my surprise on finding that his neck was
actually broken.  Had this been done in the dark?  Must it not have
been by a hand human as mine; must there not have been a human
agency all the while in that room?  Good cause to suspect it.  I
cannot tell.  I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the
reader may draw his own inference.

Another surprising circumstance,--my watch was restored to the
table from which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had
stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn, nor, despite all
the skill of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since,--that is, it
will go in a strange, erratic way for a few hours, and then come to
a dead stop; it is worthless.

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night.  Nor, indeed, had I
long to wait before the dawn broke.  Not till it was broad daylight
did I quit the haunted house.  Before I did so, I revisited the
little blind room in which my servant and myself had been for a
time imprisoned.  I had a strong impression--for which I could not
account--that from that room had originated the mechanism of the
phenomena, if I may use the term, which had been experienced in my
chamber.  And though I entered it now in the clear day, with the
sun peering through the filmy window, I still felt, as I stood on
its floors, the creep of the horror which I had first there
experienced the night before, and which had been so aggravated by
what had passed in my own chamber.  I could not, indeed, bear to
stay more than half a minute within those walls.  I descended the
stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened
the street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh.  I
gained my own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there; but
he had not presented himself, nor did I hear more of him for three
days, when I received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to
this effect:--


"HONORED SIR,--I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely
hope that you will think that I deserve it, unless--which Heaven
forbid!--you saw what I did.  I feel that it will be years before I
can recover myself; and as to being fit for service, it is out of
the question.  I am therefore going to my brother-in-law at
Melbourne.  The ship sails to-morrow.  Perhaps the long voyage may
set me up.  I do nothing now but start and tremble, and fancy it is
behind me.  I humbly beg you, honored sir, to order my clothes, and
whatever wages are due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at
Walworth,--John knows her address."


The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent,
and explanatory details as to effects that had been under the
writer's charge.

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to
go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed
up with the events of the night.  I say nothing in refutation of
that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to
many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences.
My belief in my own theory remained unshaken.  I returned in the
evening to the house, to bring away in a hack cab the things I had
left there, with my poor dog's body.  In this task I was not
disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall me, except that
still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard the same
footfall in advance.  On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J----'s.
He was at home.  I returned him the keys, told him that my
curiosity was sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate
quickly what had passed, when he stopped me, and said, though with
much politeness, that he had no longer any interest in a mystery
which none had ever solved.

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as
well as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared;
and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the
woman who had died in the house, and if there were anything in her
early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to
which the letters gave rise.  Mr. J---- seemed startled, and, after
musing a few moments, answered, "I am but little acquainted with
the woman's earlier history, except as I before told you, that her
family were known to mine.  But you revive some vague reminiscences
to her prejudice.  I will make inquiries, and inform you of their
result.  Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition
that a person who had been either the perpetrator or the victim of
dark crimes in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene
in which those crimes had been committed, I should observe that the
house was infested by strange sights and sounds before the old
woman died--you smile--what would you say?"

"I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the
bottom of these mysteries, we should find a living human agency."

"What! you believe it is all an imposture?  For what object?"

"Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word.  If suddenly I
were to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me,
but in that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I
could not pretend to when awake,--tell you what money you had in
your pocket, nay, describe your very thoughts,--it is not
necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily
supernatural.  I should be, unconsciously to myself, under a
mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being
who had acquired power over me by previous rapport."

"But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you
suppose that a mesmerizer could also affect inanimate objects: move
chairs,--open and shut doors?"

"Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects,--we never
having been en rapport with the person acting on us?  No.  What is
commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a
power akin to mesmerism, and superior to it,--the power that in the
old days was called Magic.  That such a power may extend to all
inanimate objects of matter, I do not say; but if so, it would not
be against Nature,--it would be only a rare power in Nature which
might be given to constitutions with certain peculiarities, and
cultivated by practice to an extraordinary degree.  That such a
power might extend over the dead,--that is, over certain thoughts
and memories that the dead may still retain,--and compel, not that
which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which is far beyond
human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most earth-
stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses, is a very
ancient though obsolete theory upon which I will hazard no opinion.
But I do not conceive the power would be supernatural.  Let me
illustrate what I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus
describes as not difficult, and which the author of the
'Curiosities of Literature' cites as credible: A flower perishes;
you burn it.  Whatever were the elements of that flower while it
lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never
discover nor re-collect them.  But you can, by chemistry, out of
the burned dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower,
just as it seemed in life.  It may be the same with the human
being.  The soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements
of the flower.  Still you may make a spectrum of it.  And this
phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be the
soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it
is but the eidolon of the dead form.  Hence, like the best-attested
stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the
absence of what we hold to be soul,--that is, of superior
emancipated intelligence.  These apparitions come for little or no
object,--they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak, they
utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth.
American spirit seers have published volumes of communications, in
prose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of the
most illustrious dead: Shakespeare, Bacon,--Heaven knows whom.
Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of
higher order than would be communications from living persons of
fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what
Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth.  Nor,
what is more noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not
on the earth before.  Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may
be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may
question, nothing that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny,--
namely, nothing supernatural.  They are but ideas conveyed somehow
or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal
brain to another.  Whether, in so doing, tables walk of their own
accord, or fiendlike shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless
hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of Darkness,
such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood,--still am I
persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric
wires, to my own brain from the brain of another.  In some
constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions
may produce chemic wonders,--in others a natural fluid, call it
electricity, and these may produce electric wonders.  But the
wonders differ from Normal Science in this,--they are alike
objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous.  They lead on to no
grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true
sages have not cultivated them.  But sure I am, that of all I saw
or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I
believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced,
for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that
they experienced exactly the same thing.  Well, observe, no two
persons ever experience exactly the same dream.  If this were an
ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results
that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency
permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite
end.  These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is,
that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain
had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does
occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain
put into action and invested with a semisubstance.  That this brain
is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it
is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must
have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have
sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the
dog,--had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing
resistance in my will."

"It killed your dog,--that is fearful!  Indeed it is strange that
no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat.
Rats and mice are never found in it."

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to
their existence.  Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it
has a resisting power more supreme.  But enough; do you comprehend
my theory?"

"Yes, though imperfectly,--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the
word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of
ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries.  Still, to my
unfortunate house, the evil is the same.  What on earth can I do
with the house?"

"I will tell you what I would do.  I am convinced from my own
internal feelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles
to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point
or receptacle for the influences which haunt the house; and I
strongly advise you to have the walls opened, the floor removed,--
nay, the whole room pulled down.  I observe that it is detached
from the body of the house, built over the small backyard, and
could be removed without injury to the rest of the building."

"And you think, if I did that--"

"You would cut off the telegraph wires.  Try it.  I am so persuaded
that I am right, that I will pay half the expense if you will allow
me to direct the operations."

"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest allow me to
write to you."

About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J---- telling me
that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had
found the two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from
which I had taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like
my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman
to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written.  It seemed
that thirty-six years ago (a year before the date of the letters)
she had married, against the wish of her relations, an American of
very suspicions character; in fact, he was generally believed to
have been a pirate.  She herself was the daughter of very
respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of a
nursery governess before her marriage.  She had a brother, a
widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about
six years old.  A month after the marriage the body of this brother
was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some
marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemed
sufficient to warrant the inquest in any other verdict that that of
"found drowned."

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the
deceased brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of
his only child,--and in event of the child's death the sister
inherited.  The child died about six months afterwards,--it was
supposed to have been neglected and ill-treated.  The neighbors
deposed to have heard it shriek at night.  The surgeon who had
examined it after death said that it was emaciated as if from want
of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises.  It
seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape; crept
out into the back yard; tried to scale the wall; fallen back
exhausted; and been found at morning on the stones in a dying
state.  But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was
none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate
cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of
the child, who was declared to be half-witted.  Be that as it may,
at the orphan's death the aunt inherited her brother's fortune.
Before the first wedded year was out, the American quitted England
abruptly, and never returned to it.  He obtained a cruising vessel,
which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterwards.  The widow was
left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen her:
a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business
and became insolvent; then she entered into service, sinking lower
and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work,--never long
retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was
ever alleged.  She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly
quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her.  And so she
had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J---- had taken her,
to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as
mistress in the first year of her wedded life.

Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished
room which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of
dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor
seen anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the
floors removed as I had suggested.  He had engaged persons for the
work, and would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed.  I repaired to the haunted house,--
we went into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then
the floors.  Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a
trapdoor, quite large enough to admit a man.  It was closely nailed
down, with clamps and rivets of iron.  On removing these we
descended into a room below, the existence of which had never been
suspected.  In this room there had been a window and a flue, but
they had been bricked over, evidently for many years.  By the help
of candles we examined this place; it still retained some moldering
furniture,--three chairs, an oak settle, a table,--all of the
fashion of about eighty years ago.  There was a chest of drawers
against the wall, in which we found, half rotted away, old-
fashioned articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn
eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly
steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court dresses, a
handsome court sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with
gold lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found
five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for
some place of entertainment long since passed away.  But our main
discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of
which it cost us much trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers.  Ranged on
the shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically
stopped.  They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the
nature of which I shall only say that they were not poisons,--
phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them.  There were also
some very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron,
with a large lump of rock crystal, and another of amber,--also a
loadstone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold,
and retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably,
considering the length of time it had probably been there.  The
portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle
life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight.  It was a remarkable
face,--a most impressive face.  If you could fancy some mighty
serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments
the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that
countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and
flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising
the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye,
glittering and green as the emerald,--and withal a certain ruthless
calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of
it, and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the
pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by
the date 1765.  Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring;
this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid.
Within-side the lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee.  Be faithful
in life and in death to ----."  Here follows a name that I will not
mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me.  I had heard it spoken of
by old men in my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling
charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a year or
so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder
within his own house,--that of his mistress and his rival.  I said
nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whom reluctantly I resigned the
miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the
iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was
not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the
chinks the edge of a chisel.  When we had thus drawn it forth, we
found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order.  Upon a small,
thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this
saucer was filled with a clear liquid,--on that liquid floated a
kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead
of the usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not
very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets.  A
peculiar but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer,
which was lined with a wood that we afterwards discovered to be
hazel.  Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material
effect on the nerves.  We all felt it, even the two workmen who
were in the room,--a creeping, tingling sensation from the tips of
the fingers to the roots of the hair.  Impatient to examine the
tablet, I removed the saucer.  As I did so the needle of the
compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a
shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer
on the floor.  The liquid was spilled; the saucer was broken; the
compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the
walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by
which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing
more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red
leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick
vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle,
words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated
thus: "On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or
inanimate, living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will!
Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers therein."

We found no more.  Mr. J---- burned the tablet and its anathema.
He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the
secret room with the chamber over it.  He had then the courage to
inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-
conditioned house could not be found in all London.  Subsequently
he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.



A drowning man clutching at a straw--such is Dr. Fenwick, hero of
Bulwer-Lytton's "Strange Story" when he determines to lend himself
to alleged "magic" in the hope of saving his suffering wife from
the physical dangers which have succeeded her mental disease.  The
proposition has been made to him by Margrave, a wanderer in many
countries, who has followed the Fenwicks from England to Australia.
Margrave declares that he needs an accomplice to secure an "elixir
of life" which his own failing strength demands.  His mysterious
mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs. Fenwick had in former days
been marked; and on the basis of this undeniable fact, he has
endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs. Fenwick's are, in
some occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in
some extraordinary experiment can the physician snatch his beloved
Lilian from her impending doom.

As the first chapter opens, Fenwick is learning his wife's
condition from his friend, Dr. Faber.



Bulwer-Lytton


The Incantation


I


"I believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change
in her state.  I believe also that if she recover from it, calm and
refreshed, as from a sleep, the danger of death will have passed
away."

"And for twelve hours my presence would be hurtful?"

"Rather say fatal, if my diagnosis be right."

I wrung my friend's hand, and we parted.

Oh, to lose her now; now that her love and her reason had both
returned, each more vivid than before!  Futile, indeed, might be
Margrave's boasted secret; but at least in that secret was hope.
In recognized science I saw only despair.

And at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished--
all anxiety to question more of his attributes or his history.  His
life itself became to me dear and precious.  What if it should fail
me in the steps of the process, whatever that was, by which the
life of my Lilian might be saved!

The shades of evening were now closing in.  I remembered that I had
left Margrave without even food for many hours.  I stole round to
the back of the house, filled a basket with elements more generous
than those of the former day; extracted fresh drugs from my stores,
and, thus laden, hurried back to the hut.  I found Margrave in the
room below, seated on his mysterious coffer, leaning his face on
his hand.  When I entered, he looked up, and said:

"You have neglected me.  My strength is waning.  Give me more of
the cordial, for we have work before us tonight, and I need
support."

He took for granted my assent to his wild experiment; and he was
right.

I administered the cordial.  I placed food before him, and this
time he did not eat with repugnance.  I poured out wine, and he
drank it sparingly, but with ready compliance, saying, "In perfect
health, I looked upon wine as poison; now it is like a foretaste of
the glorious elixir."

After he had thus recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy
that startlingly contrasted with his languor the day before; the
effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible; the color came back
to his cheeks; his bended frame rose elastic and erect.

"If I understood you rightly," said I, "the experiment you ask me
to aid can be accomplished in a single night?"

"In a single night--this night."

"Command me.  Why not begin at once?  What apparatus or chemical
agencies do you need?"

"Ah!" said Margrave.  "Formerly, how I was misled!  Formerly, how
my conjectures blundered!  I thought, when I asked you to give a
month to the experiment I wish to make, that I should need the
subtlest skill of the chemist.  I then believed, with Van Helmont,
that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in
the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered.  But now,
all that I need is contained in this coffer, save one very simple
material--fuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours.  I see
even that is at hand, piled up in your outhouse.  And now for the
substance itself--to that you must guide me."

"Explain."

"Near this very spot is there not gold--in mines yet undiscovered--
and gold of the purest metal?"

"There is.  What then?  Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one
discovery, gold and life?"

"No.  But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man
produces gold, that the substance from which the great pabulum of
life is extracted by ferment can be found.  Possibly, in the
attempts at that transmutation of metals, which I think your own
great chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, allowed might be possible, but
held not to be worth the cost of the process--possibly, in those
attempts, some scanty grains of this substance were found by the
alchemists, in the crucible, with grains of the metal as niggardly
yielded by pitiful mimicry of Nature's stupendous laboratory; and
from such grains enough of the essence might, perhaps, have been
drawn forth, to add a few years of existence to some feeble
graybeard--granting, what rests on no proofs, that some of the
alchemists reached an age rarely given to man.  But it is not in
the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of Nature herself, that
we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principle--life.
As the loadstone is rife with the magnetic virtue, as amber
contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we yet want a
name, is found the bright life-giving fluid.  In the old gold mines
of Asia and Europe the substance exists, but can rarely be met
with.  The soil for its nutriment may there be well nigh exhausted.
It is here, where Nature herself is all vital with youth, that the
nutriment of youth must be sought.  Near this spot is gold; guide
me to it."

"You cannot come with me.  The place which I know as auriferous is
some miles distant, the way rugged.  You cannot walk to it.  It is
true I have horses, but--"

"Do you think I have come this distance and not foreseen and
forestalled all that I want for my object?  Trouble yourself not
with conjectures how I can arrive at the place.  I have provided
the means to arrive at and leave it.  My litter and its bearers are
in reach of my call.  Give me your arm to the rising ground, fifty
yards from your door."

I obeyed mechanically, stifling all surprise.  I had made my
resolve, and admitted no thought that could shake it.

When we reached the summit of the grassy hillock, which sloped from
the road that led to the seaport, Margrave, after pausing to
recover breath, lifted up his voice, in a key, not loud, but shrill
and slow and prolonged, half cry and half chant, like the
nighthawk's.  Through the air--so limpid and still, bringing near
far objects, far sounds--the voice pierced its way, artfully
pausing, till wave after wave of the atmosphere bore and
transmitted it on.

In a few minutes the call seemed re-echoed, so exactly, so
cheerily, that for the moment I thought that the note was the
mimicry of the shy mocking lyre bird, which mimics so merrily all
that it hears in its coverts, from the whir of the locust to the
howl of the wild dog.

"What king," said the mystical charmer, and as he spoke he
carelessly rested his hand on my shoulder, so that I trembled to
feel that this dread son of Nature, Godless and soulless, who had
been--and, my heart whispered, who still could be--my bane and mind
darkener, leaned upon me for support, as the spoiled younger-born
on his brother--"what king," said this cynical mocker, with his
beautiful boyish face--"what king in your civilized Europe has the
sway of a chief of the East?  What link is so strong between mortal
and mortal as that between lord and slave?  I transport you poor
fools from the land of their birth; they preserve here their old
habits--obedience and awe.  They would wait till they starved in
the solitude--wait to hearken and answer my call.  And I, who thus
rule them, or charm them--I use and despise them.  They know that,
and yet serve me!  Between you and me, my philosopher, there is but
one thing worth living for--life for oneself."

Is it age, is it youth, that thus shocks all my sense, in my solemn
completeness of man?  Perhaps, in great capitals, young men of
pleasure will answer, "It is youth; and we think what he says!"
Young friends, I do not believe you.


II


Along the grass track I saw now, under the moon, just risen, a
strange procession--never seen before in Australian pastures.  It
moved on, noiselessly but quickly.  We descended the hillock, and
met it on the way; a sable litter, borne by four men, in unfamiliar
Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed, with
yataghans and silver-hilted pistols in their belts, preceded this
somber equipage.  Perhaps Margrave divined the disdainful thought
that passed through my mind, vaguely and half-unconsciously; for he
said with a hollow, bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal
of his once melodious mirth:

"A little leisure and a little gold, and your raw colonist, too,
will have the tastes of a pasha."

I made no answer.  I had ceased to care who and what was my
tempter.  To me his whole being was resolved into one problem: had
he a secret by which death could be turned from Lilian?

But now, as the litter halted, from the long, dark shadow which it
cast upon the turf, the figure of a woman emerged and stood before
us.  The outlines of her shape were lost in the loose folds of a
black mantle, and the features of her face were hidden by a black
veil, except only the dark-bright, solemn eyes.  Her stature was
lofty, her bearing majestic, whether in movement or repose.

Margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me.  She replied
in what seemed to me the same tongue.  The tones of her voice were
sweet, but inexpressibly mournful.  The words that they uttered
appeared intended to warn, or deprecate, or dissuade; but they
called to Margrave's brow a lowering frown, and drew from his lips
a burst of unmistakable anger.  The woman rejoined, in the same
melancholy music of voice.  And Margrave then, leaning his arm upon
her shoulder, as he had leaned it on mine, drew her away from the
group into a neighboring copse of the flowering eucalypti--mystic
trees, never changing the hues of their pale-green leaves, ever
shifting the tints of their ash-gray, shedding bark.  For some
moments I gazed on the two human forms, dimly seen by the glinting
moonlight through the gaps in the foliage.  Then turning away my
eyes, I saw, standing close at my side, a man whom I had not
noticed before.  His footstep, as it stole to me, had fallen on the
sward without sound.  His dress, though Oriental, differed from
that of his companions, both in shape and color--fitting close to
the breast, leaving the arms bare to the elbow, and of a uniform
ghastly white, as are the cerements of the grave.  His visage was
even darker than those of the Syrians or Arabs behind him, and his
features were those of a bird of prey: the beak of the eagle, but
the eye of the vulture.  His cheeks were hollow; the arms, crossed
on his breast, were long and fleshless.  Yet in that skeleton form
there was a something which conveyed the idea of a serpent's
suppleness and strength; and as the hungry, watchful eyes met my
own startled gaze, I recoiled impulsively with that inward warning
of danger which is conveyed to man, as to inferior animals, in the
very aspect of the creatures that sting or devour.  At my movement
the man inclined his head in the submissive Eastern salutation, and
spoke in his foreign tongue, softly, humbly, fawningly, to judge by
his tone and his gesture.

I moved yet farther away from him with loathing, and now the human
thought flashed upon me: was I, in truth, exposed to no danger in
trusting myself to the mercy of the weird and remorseless master of
those hirelings from the East--seven men in number, two at least of
them formidably armed, and docile as bloodhounds to the hunter, who
has only to show them their prey?  But fear of man like myself is
not my weakness; where fear found its way to my heart, it was
through the doubts or the fancies in which man like myself
disappeared in the attributes, dark and unknown, which we give to a
fiend or a specter.  And, perhaps, if I could have paused to
analyze my own sensations, the very presence of this escort--
creatures of flesh and blood--lessened the dread of my
incomprehensible tempter.  Rather, a hundred times, front and defy
those seven Eastern slaves--I, haughty son of the Anglo-Saxon who
conquers all races because he fears no odds--than have seen again
on the walls of my threshold the luminous, bodiless shadow!
Besides: Lilian--Lilian! for one chance of saving her life, however
wild and chimerical that chance might be, I would have shrunk not a
foot from the march of an army.

Thus reassured and thus resolved, I advanced, with a smile of
disdain, to meet Margrave and his veiled companion, as they now
came from the moonlit copse.

"Well," I said to him, with an irony that unconsciously mimicked
his own, "have you taken advice with your nurse?  I assume that the
dark form by your side is that of Ayesha!"*


* Margrave's former nurse and attendant.


The woman looked at me from her sable veil, with her steadfast,
solemn eyes, and said, in English, though with a foreign accent:
"The nurse born in Asia is but wise through her love; the pale son
of Europe is wise through his art.  The nurse says, 'Forbear!'  Do
you say, 'Adventure'?"

"Peace!" exclaimed Margrave, stamping his foot on the ground.  "I
take no counsel from either; it is for me to resolve, for you to
obey, and for him to aid.  Night is come, and we waste it; move
on."

The woman made no reply, nor did I.  He took my arm and walked back
to the hut.  The barbaric escort followed.  When we reached the
door of the building, Margrave said a few words to the woman and to
the litter bearers.  They entered the hut with us.  Margrave
pointed out to the woman his coffer, to the men the fuel stowed in
the outhouse.  Both were borne away and placed within the litter.
Meanwhile I took from the table, on which it was carelessly thrown,
the light hatchet that I habitually carried with me in my rambles.

"Do you think that you need that idle weapon?" said Margrave.  "Do
you fear the good faith of my swarthy attendants?"

"Nay, take the hatchet yourself; its use is to sever the gold from
the quartz in which we may find it imbedded, or to clear, as this
shovel, which will also be needed, from the slight soil above it,
the ore that the mine in the mountain flings forth, as the sea
casts its waifs on the sands."

"Give me your hand, fellow laborer!" said Margrave, joyfully.  "Ah,
there is no faltering terror in this pulse!  I was not mistaken in
the man.  What rests, but the place and the hour?--I shall live, I
shall live!"


III


Margrave now entered the litter, and the Veiled Woman drew the
black curtains round him.  I walked on, as the guide, some yards in
advance.  The air was still, heavy, and parched with the breath of
the Australasian sirocco.

We passed through the meadow lands, studded with slumbering flocks;
we followed the branch of the creek, which was linked to its source
in the mountains by many a trickling waterfall; we threaded the
gloom of stunted, misshapen trees, gnarled with the stringy bark
which makes one of the signs of the strata that nourish gold; and
at length the moon, now in all her pomp of light, mid-heaven among
her subject stars, gleamed through the fissures of the cave, on
whose floor lay the relics of antediluvian races, and rested in one
flood of silvery splendor upon the hollows of the extinct volcano,
with tufts of dank herbage, and wide spaces of paler sward,
covering the gold below--gold, the dumb symbol of organized
Matter's great mystery, storing in itself, according as Mind, the
informer of Matter, can distinguish its uses, evil and good, bane
and blessing.

Hitherto the Veiled Woman had remained in the rear, with the white-
robed, skeletonlike image that had crept to my side unawares with
its noiseless step.  Thus, in each winding turn of the difficult
path at which the convoy following behind me came into sight, I had
seen, first, the two gayly dressed, armed men, next the black,
bierlike litter, and last the Black-veiled Woman and the White-
robed Skeleton.

But now, as I halted on the tableland, backed by the mountain and
fronting the valley, the woman left her companion, passed by the
litter and the armed men, and paused by my side, at the mouth of
the moonlit cavern.

There for a moment she stood, silent, the procession below mounting
upward laboriously and slow; then she turned to me, and her veil
was withdrawn.

The face on which I gazed was wondrously beautiful, and severely
awful.  There was neither youth nor age, but beauty, mature and
majestic as that of a marble Demeter.

"Do you believe in that which you seek?" she asked in her foreign,
melodious, melancholy accents.

"I have no belief," was my answer.  "True science has none.  True
science questions all things, takes nothing upon credit.  It knows
but three states of the mind--denial, conviction, and that vast
interval between the two which is not belief but suspense of
judgment."

The woman let fall her veil, moved from me, and seated herself on a
crag above that cleft between mountain and creek, to which, when I
had first discovered the gold that the land nourished, the rain
from the clouds had given the rushing life of the cataract; but
which now, in the drought and the hush of the skies, was but a dead
pile of stones.

The litter now ascended the height: its bearers halted; a lean hand
tore the curtains aside, and Margrave descended leaning, this time,
not on the Black-veiled Woman, but on the White-robed Skeleton.

There, as he stood, the moon shone full on his wasted form; on his
face, resolute, cheerful, and proud, despite its hollowed outlines
and sicklied hues.  He raised his head, spoke in the language
unknown to me, and the armed men and the litter bearers grouped
round him, bending low, their eyes fixed on the ground.  The Veiled
Woman rose slowly and came to his side, motioning away, with a mute
sign, the ghastly form on which he leaned, and passing round him
silently, instead, her own sustaining arm.  Margrave spoke again a
few sentences, of which I could not even guess the meaning.  When
he had concluded, the armed men and the litter bearers came nearer
to his feet, knelt down, and kissed his hand.  They then rose, and
took from the bierlike vehicle the coffer and the fuel.  This done,
they lifted again the litter, and again, preceded by the armed men,
the procession descended down the sloping hillside, down into the
valley below.

Margrave now whispered, for some moments, into the ear of the
hideous creature who had made way for the Veiled Woman.  The grim
skeleton bowed his head submissively, and strode noiselessly away
through the long grasses--the slender stems, trampled under his
stealthy feet, relifting themselves as after a passing wind.  And
thus he, too, sank out of sight down into the valley below.  On the
tableland of the hill remained only we three--Margrave, myself, and
the Veiled Woman.

She had reseated herself apart, on the gray crag above the dried
torrent.  He stood at the entrance of the cavern, round the sides
of which clustered parasital plants, with flowers of all colors,
some among them opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance
only in the hours of night; so that, as his form filled up the jaws
of the dull arch, obscuring the moonbeam that strove to pierce the
shadows that slept within, it stood now--wan and blighted--as I had
seen it first, radiant and joyous, literally "framed in blooms."


IV


"So," said Margrave, turning to me, "under the soil that spreads
around us lies the gold which to you and to me is at this moment of
no value, except as a guide to its twin-born--the regenerator of
life!"

"You have not yet described to me the nature of the substance which
we are to explore, nor the process by which the virtues you impute
to it are to be extracted."

"Let us first find the gold, and instead of describing the life-
amber, so let me call it, I will point it out to your own eyes.  As
to the process, your share in it is so simple that you will ask me
why I seek aid from a chemist.  The life-amber, when found, has but
to be subjected to heat and fermentation for six hours; it will be
placed in a small caldron which that coffer contains, over the fire
which that fuel will feed.  To give effect to the process, certain
alkalies and other ingredients are required; but these are
prepared, and mine is the task to commingle them.  From your
science as chemist I need and ask naught.  In you I have sought
only the aid of a man."

"If that be so, why, indeed, seek me at all?  Why not confide in
those swarthy attendants, who doubtless are slaves to your orders?"

"Confide in slaves, when the first task enjoined to them would be
to discover, and refrain from purloining gold!  Seven such
unscrupulous knaves, or even one such, and I, thus defenseless and
feeble!  Such is not the work that wise masters confide to fierce
slaves.  But that is the least of the reasons which exclude them
from my choice, and fix my choice of assistant on you.  Do you
forget what I told you of the danger which the Dervish declared no
bribe I could offer could tempt him a second time to brave?"

"I remember now; those words had passed away from my mind."

"And because they had passed away from your mind, I chose you for
my comrade.  I need a man by whom danger is scorned."

"But in the process of which you tell me I see no possible danger
unless the ingredients you mix in your caldron have poisonous
fumes."

"It is not that.  The ingredients I use are not poisons."

"What other danger, except you dread your own Eastern slaves?  But,
if so, why lead them to these solitudes; and, if so, why not bid me
be armed?"

"The Eastern slaves, fulfilling my commands, wait for my summons,
where their eyes cannot see what we do.  The danger is of a kind in
which the boldest son of the East would be more craven, perhaps,
that the daintiest Sybarite of Europe, who would shrink from a
panther and laugh at a ghost.  In the creed of the Dervish, and of
all who adventure into that realm of Nature which is closed to
philosophy and open to magic, there are races in the magnitude of
space unseen as animalcules in the world of a drop.  For the tribes
of the drop science has its microscope.  Of the host of yon azure
Infinite magic gains sight, and through them gains command over
fluid conductors that link all the parts of creation.  Of these
races, some are wholly indifferent to man, some benign to him, and
some deadly hostile.  In all the regular and prescribed conditions
of mortal being, this magic realm seems as blank and tenantless as
yon vacant air.  But when a seeker of powers beyond the rude
functions by which man plies the clockwork that measures his hours,
and stops when its chain reaches the end of its coil, strives to
pass over those boundaries at which philosophy says, 'Knowledge
ends'--then, he is like all other travelers in regions unknown; he
must propitiate or brave the tribes that are hostile--must depend
for his life on the tribes that are friendly.  Though your science
discredits the alchemist's dogmas, your learning informs you that
all alchemists were not ignorant impostors; yet those whose
discoveries prove them to have been the nearest allies to your
practical knowledge, ever hint in their mystical works at the
reality of that realm which is open to magic--ever hint that some
means less familiar than furnace and bellows are essential to him
who explores the elixir of life.  He who once quaffs that elixir,
obtains in his very veins the bright fluid by which he transmits
the force of his will to agencies dormant in Nature, to giants
unseen in the space.  And here, as he passes the boundary which
divides his allotted and normal mortality from the regions and
races that magic alone can explore, so, here, he breaks down the
safeguard between himself and the tribes that are hostile.  Is it
not ever thus between man and man?  Let a race the most gentle and
timid and civilized dwell on one side a river or mountain, and
another have home in the region beyond, each, if it pass not the
intervening barrier, may with each live in peace.  But if ambitious
adventurers scale the mountain, or cross the river, with design to
subdue and enslave the population they boldly invade, then all the
invaded arise in wrath and defiance--the neighbors are changed into
foes.  And therefore this process--by which a simple though rare
material of Nature is made to yield to a mortal the boon of a life
which brings, with its glorious resistance to Time, desires and
faculties to subject to its service beings that dwell in the earth
and the air and the deep--has ever been one of the same peril which
an invader must brave when he crosses the bounds of his nation.  By
this key alone you unlock all the cells of the alchemist's lore; by
this alone understand how a labor, which a chemist's crudest
apprentice could perform, has baffled the giant fathers of all your
dwarfed children of science.  Nature, that stores this priceless
boon, seems to shrink from conceding it to man--the invisible
tribes that abhor him oppose themselves to the gain that might give
them a master.  The duller of those who were the life-seekers of
old would have told you how some chance, trivial, unlooked-for,
foiled their grand hope at the very point of fruition; some doltish
mistake, some improvident oversight, a defect in the sulphur, a
wild overflow in the quicksilver, or a flaw in the bellows, or a
pupil who failed to replenish the fuel, by falling asleep by the
furnace.  The invisible foes seldom vouchsafe to make themselves
visible where they can frustrate the bungler as they mock at his
toils from their ambush.  But the mightier adventurers, equally
foiled in despite of their patience and skill, would have said,
'Not with us rests the fault; we neglected no caution, we failed
from no oversight.  But out from the caldron dread faces arose, and
the specters or demons dismayed and baffled us.'  Such, then, is
the danger which seems so appalling to a son of the East, as it
seemed to a seer in the dark age of Europe.  But we can deride all
its threats, you and I.  For myself, I own frankly I take all the
safety that the charms and resources of magic bestow.  You, for
your safety, have the cultured and disciplined reason which reduces
all fantasies to nervous impressions; and I rely on the courage of
one who has questioned, unquailing, the Luminous Shadow, and
wrested from the hand of the magician himself the wand which
concentered the wonders of will!"

To this strange and long discourse I listened without interruption,
and now quietly answered:

"I do not merit the trust you affect in my courage; but I am now on
my guard against the cheats of the fancy, and the fumes of a vapor
can scarcely bewilder the brain in the open air of this mountain
land.  I believe in no races like those which you tell me lie
viewless in space, as do gases.  I believe not in magic; I ask not
its aids, and I dread not its terrors.  For the rest, I am
confident of one mournful courage--the courage that comes from
despair.  I submit to your guidance, whatever it be, as a sufferer
whom colleges doom to the grave submits to the quack who says,
'Take my specific and live!'  My life is naught in itself; my life
lives in another.  You and I are both brave from despair; you would
turn death from yourself--I would turn death from one I love more
than myself.  Both know how little aid we can win from the
colleges, and both, therefore, turn to the promises most
audaciously cheering.  Dervish or magician, alchemist or phantom,
what care you and I?  And if they fail us, what then?  They cannot
fail us more than the colleges do!"


V


The gold has been gained with an easy labor.  I knew where to seek
for it, whether under the turf or in the bed of the creek.  But
Margrave's eyes, hungrily gazing round every spot from which the
ore was disburied, could not detect the substance of which he alone
knew the outward appearance.  I had begun to believe that, even in
the description given to him of this material, he had been
credulously duped, and that no such material existed, when, coming
back from the bed of the watercourse, I saw a faint, yellow gleam
amidst the roots of a giant parasite plant, the leaves and blossoms
of which climbed up the sides of the cave with its antediluvian
relics.  The gleam was the gleam of gold, and on removing the loose
earth round the roots of the plant, we came on--  No, I will not, I
dare not, describe it.  The gold digger would cast it aside; the
naturalist would pause not to heed it; and did I describe it, and
chemistry deign to subject it to analysis, could chemistry alone
detach or discover its boasted virtues?

Its particles, indeed, are very minute, not seeming readily to
crystallize with each other; each in itself of uniform shape and
size, spherical as the egg which contains the germ of life, and
small as the egg from which the life of an insect may quicken.

But Margrave's keen eye caught sight of the atoms upcast by the
light of the moon.  He exclaimed to me, "Found!  I shall live!"
And then, as he gathered up the grains with tremulous hands, he
called out to the Veiled Woman, hitherto still seated motionless on
the crag.  At his word she rose and went to the place hard by,
where the fuel was piled, busying herself there.  I had no leisure
to heed her.  I continued my search in the soft and yielding soil
that time and the decay of vegetable life had accumulated over the
pre-Adamite strata on which the arch of the cave rested its mighty
keystone.

When we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a
man might hold in his hand, we seemed to have exhausted their bed.
We continued still to find gold, but no more of the delicate
substance to which, in our sight, gold was as dross.

"Enough," then said Margrave, reluctantly desisting.  "What we have
gained already will suffice for a life thrice as long as legend
attributes to Haroun.  I shall live--I shall live through the
centuries."

"Forget not that I claim my share."

"Your share--yours!  True--your half of my life!  It is true."  He
paused with a low, ironical, malignant laugh, and then added, as he
rose and turned away, "But the work is yet to be done."


VI


While we had thus labored and found, Ayesha had placed the fuel
where the moonlight fell fullest on the sward of the tableland--a
part of it already piled as for a fire, the rest of it heaped
confusedly close at hand; and by the pile she had placed the
coffer.  And, there she stood, her arms folded under her mantle,
her dark image seeming darker still as the moonlight whitened all
the ground from which the image rose motionless.  Margrave opened
his coffer, the Veiled Woman did not aid him, and I watched in
silence, while he as silently made his weird and wizard-like
preparations.


VII


On the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped
apparently with sponge saturated with some combustible naphtha-like
fluid, so that a pale, lambent flame followed the course of the rod
as Margrave guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played,
and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our lovely native
fable talk, we call the "Fairy's ring," but yet more visible
because marked in phosphorescent light.  On the ring thus formed
were placed twelve small lamps, fed with the fluid from the same
vessel, and lighted by the same rod.  The light emitted by the
lamps was more vivid and brilliant than that which circled round
the ring.

Within the circumference, and immediately round the woodpile,
Margrave traced certain geometrical figures, in which--not without
a shudder, that I overcame at once by a strong effort of will in
murmuring to myself the name of "Lilian"--I recognized the
interlaced triangles which my own hand, in the spell enforced on a
sleepwalker, had described on the floor of the wizard's pavilion.
The figures were traced like the circle, in flame, and at the point
of each triangle (four in number) was placed a lamp, brilliant as
those on the ring.  This task performed, the caldron, based on an
iron tripod, was placed on the woodpile.  And then the woman,
before inactive and unheeding, slowly advanced, knelt by the pile
and lighted it.  The dry wood crackled and the flame burst forth,
licking the rims of the caldron with tongues of fire.

Margrave flung into the caldron the particles we had collected,
poured over them first a liquid, colorless as water, from the
largest of the vessels drawn from his coffer, and then, more
sparingly, drops from small crystal phials, like the phials I had
seen in the hand of Philip Derval.

Having surmounted my first impulse of awe, I watched these
proceedings, curious yet disdainful, as one who watches the
mummeries of an enchanter on the stage.

"If," thought I, "these are but artful devices to inebriate and
fool my own imagination, my imagination is on its guard, and reason
shall not, this time, sleep at her post!"

"And now," said Margrave, "I consign to you the easy task by which
you are to merit your share of the elixir.  It is my task to feed
and replenish the caldron; it is Ayesha's to feed the fire, which
must not for a moment relax in its measured and steady heat.  Your
task is the lightest of all: it is but to renew from this vessel
the fluid that burns in the lamps, and on the ring.  Observe, the
contents of the vessel must be thriftily husbanded; there is
enough, but not more than enough, to sustain the light in the
lamps, on the lines traced round the caldron, and on the farther
ring, for six hours.  The compounds dissolved in this fluid are
scarce--only obtainable in the East, and even in the East months
might have passed before I could have increased my supply.  I had
no months to waste.  Replenish, then, the light only when it begins
to flicker or fade.  Take heed, above all, that no part of the
outer ring--no, not an inch--and no lamp of the twelve, that are to
its zodiac like stars, fade for one moment in darkness."

I took the crystal vessel from his hand.

"The vessel is small," said I, "and what is yet left of its
contents is but scanty; whether its drops suffice to replenish the
lights I cannot guess--I can but obey your instructions.  But, more
important by far than the light to the lamps and the circle, which
in Asia or Africa might scare away the wild beasts unknown to this
land--more important than light to a lamp is the strength to your
frame, weak magician!  What will support you through six weary
hours of night watch?"

"Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his old dazzling style.
"Hope!  I shall live--I shall live through the centuries!"


VIII


One hour passed away; the fagots under the caldron burned clear in
the sullen, sultry air.  The materials within began to seethe, and
their color, at first dull and turbid, changed into a pale-rose
hue; from time to time the Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after
she had done so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her head
bowed over her knees, and her face hid under her veil.

The lights in the lamps and along the ring and the triangles now
began to pale.  I resupplied their nutriment from the crystal
vessel.  As yet nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond
the rim of the circle--nothing audible, save, at a distance, the
musical wheel-like click of the locusts, and, farther still, in the
forest, the howl of the wild dogs that never bark; nothing visible,
but the trees and the mountain range girding the plains silvered by
the moon, and the arch of the cavern, the flush of wild blooms on
its sides, and the gleam of dry bones on its floor, where the
moonlight shot into the gloom.

The second hour passed like the first.  I had taken my stand by the
side of Margrave, watching with him the process at work in the
caldron, when I felt the ground slightly vibrate beneath my feet,
and looking up, it seemed as if all the plains beyond the circle
were heaving like the swell of the sea, and as if in the air itself
there was a perceptible tremor.

I placed my hand on Margrave's shoulder and whispered, "To me earth
and air seem to vibrate.  Do they seem to vibrate to you?"

"I know not, I care not," he answered impetuously.  "The essence is
bursting the shell that confined it.  Here are my air and my earth!
Trouble me not.  Look to the circle--feed the lamps if they fail!"

I passed by the Veiled Woman as I walked toward a place in the ring
in which the flame was waning dim; and I whispered to her the same
question which I had whispered to Margrave.  She looked slowly
around and answered, "So is it before the Invisible make themselves
visible!  Did I not bid him forbear?"  Her head again drooped on
her breast, and her watch was again fixed on the fire.

I advanced to the circle and stooped to replenish the light where
it waned.  As I did so, on my arm, which stretched somewhat beyond
the line of the ring, I felt a shock like that of electricity.  The
arm fell to my side numbed and nerveless, and from my hand dropped,
but within the ring, the vessel that contained the fluid.
Recovering my surprise or my stun, hastily with the other hand I
caught up the vessel, but some of the scanty liquid was already
spilled on the sward; and I saw with a thrill of dismay, that
contrasted indeed the tranquil indifference with which I had first
undertaken my charge, how small a supply was now left.

I went back to Margrave, and told him of the shock, and of its
consequence in the waste of the liquid.

"Beware," said he, that not a motion of the arm, not an inch of the
foot, pass the verge of the ring; and if the fluid be thus
unhappily stinted, reserve all that is left for the protecting
circle and the twelve outer lamps!  See how the Grand Work
advances, how the hues in the caldron are glowing blood-red through
the film on the surface!

And now four hours of the six were gone; my arm had gradually
recovered its strength.  Neither the ring nor the lamps had again
required replenishing; perhaps their light was exhausted less
quickly, as it was no longer to be exposed to the rays of the
intense Australian moon.  Clouds had gathered over the sky, and
though the moon gleamed at times in the gaps that they left in blue
air, her beam was more hazy and dulled.  The locusts no longer were
heard in the grass, nor the howl of the dogs in the forest.  Out of
the circle, the stillness was profound.

And about this time I saw distinctly in the distance a vast Eye.
It drew nearer and nearer, seeming to move from the ground at the
height of some lofty giant.  Its gaze riveted mine; my blood
curdled in the blaze from its angry ball; and now as it advanced
larger and larger, other Eyes, as if of giants in its train, grew
out from the space in its rear--numbers on numbers, like the
spearheads of some Eastern army, seen afar by pale warders of
battlements doomed to the dust.  My voice long refused an utterance
to my awe; at length it burst forth shrill and loud:

"Look, look!  Those terrible Eyes!  Legions on legions.  And hark!
that tramp of numberless feet; THEY are not seen, but the hollows
of earth echo the sound of their march!"

Margrave, more than ever intent on the caldron, in which, from time
to time, he kept dropping powders or essences drawn forth from his
coffer, looked up, defyingly, fiercely:

"Ye come," he said in a low mutter, his once mighty voice sounding
hollow and laboring, but fearless and firm--"ye come--not to
conquer, vain rebels!--ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet
in the tomb where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first
human master, the Chaldee!  Earth and air have their armies still
faithful to me, and still I remember the war song that summons them
up to confront you!  Ayesha, Ayesha! recall the wild troth that we
pledged among the roses; recall the dread bond by which we united
our sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen, though my scepter
is broken, my diadem reft from my brows!"

The Veiled Woman rose at this adjuration.  Her veil now was
withdrawn, and the blaze of the fire between Margrave and herself
flushed, as with the rosy bloom of youth, the grand beauty of her
softened face.  It was seen, detached, as it were, from her dark-
mantled form; seen through the mist of the vapors which rose from
the caldron, framing it round like the clouds that are yieldingly
pierced by the light of the evening star.

Through the haze of the vapor came her voice, more musical, more
plaintive than I had heard it before, but far softer, more tender:
still in her foreign tongue; the words unknown to me, and yet their
sense, perhaps, made intelligible by the love, which has one common
language and one common look to all who have loved--the love
unmistakably heard in the loving tone, unmistakably seen in the
loving face.

A moment or so more and she had come round from the opposite side
of the fire pile, and bending over Margrave's upturned brow, kissed
it quietly, solemnly; and then her countenance grew fierce, her
crest rose erect: it was the lioness protecting her young.  She
stretched forth her arm from the black mantle, athwart the pale
front that now again bent over the caldron--stretched it toward the
haunted and hollow-sounding space beyond, in the gesture of one
whose right hand has the sway of the scepter.  And then her voice
stole on the air in the music of a chant, not loud yet far-
reaching; so thrilling, so sweet and yet so solemn that I could at
once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment
with the power of song.  All that I recalled of the effects which,
in the former time, Margrave's strange chants had produced on the
ear that they ravished and the thoughts they confused, was but as
the wild bird's imitative carol, compared to the depth and the art
and the soul of the singer, whose voice seemed endowed with a charm
to inthrall all the tribes of creation, though the language it used
for that charm might to them, as to me, be unknown.  As the song
ceased, I heard from behind sounds like those I had heard in the
spaces before me--the tramp of invisible feet, the whir of
invisible wings, as if armies were marching to aid against armies
in march to destroy.

"Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha.  "Look, like him, on
the caldron below.  The circle and the lamps are yet bright; I will
tell you when the light again fails."

I dropped my eyes on the caldron.

"See," whispered Margrave, "the sparkles at last begin to arise,
and the rose hues to deepen--signs that we near the last process."


IX


The fifth hour had passed away, when Ayesha said to me, "Lo! the
circle is fading; the lamps grow dim.  Look now without fear on the
space beyond; the eyes that appalled thee are again lost in air, as
lightnings that fleet back into cloud."

I looked up, and the specters had vanished.  The sky was tinged
with sulphurous hues, the red and the black intermixed.  I
replenished the lamps and the ring in front, thriftily, heedfully;
but when I came to the sixth lamp, not a drop in the vessel that
fed them was left.  In a vague dismay, I now looked round the half
of the wide circle in rear of the two bended figures intent on the
caldron.  All along that disk the light was already broken, here
and there flickering up, here and there dying down; the six lamps
in that half of the circle still twinkled, but faintly, as stars
shrinking fast from the dawn of day.  But it was not the fading
shine in that half of the magical ring which daunted my eye and
quickened with terror the pulse of my heart; the Bush-land beyond
was on fire.  From the background of the forest rose the flame and
the smoke--the smoke, there, still half smothering the flame.  But
along the width of the grasses and herbage, between the verge of
the forest and the bed of the water creek just below the raised
platform from which I beheld the dread conflagration, the fire was
advancing--wave upon wave, clear and red against the columns of
rock behind; as the rush of a flood through the mists of some Alp
crowned with lightnings.

Roused from my stun at the first sight of a danger not foreseen by
the mind I had steeled against far rarer portents of Nature, I
cared no more for the lamps and the circle.  Hurrying hack to
Ayesha I exclaimed: "The phantoms have gone from the spaces in
front; but what incantation or spell can arrest the red march of
the foe speeding on in the rear!  While we gazed on the caldron of
life, behind us, unheeded, behold the Destroyer!"

Ayesha looked and made no reply, but, as by involuntary instinct,
bowed her majestic head, then rearing it erect, placed herself yet
more immediately before the wasted form of the young magician (he
still, bending over the caldron, and hearing me not in the
absorption and hope of his watch)--placed herself before him, as
the bird whose first care is her fledgling.

As we two there stood, fronting the deluge of fire, we heard
Margrave behind us, murmuring low, "See the bubbles of light, how
they sparkle and dance--I shall live, I shall live!"  And his words
scarcely died in our ears before, crash upon crash, came the fall
of the age-long trees in the forest, and nearer, all near us,
through the blazing grasses, the hiss of the serpents, the scream
of the birds, and the bellow and tramp of the herds plunging wild
through the billowy red of their pastures.

Ayesha now wound her arms around Margrave, and wrenched him,
reluctant and struggling, from his watch over the seething caldron.
In rebuke of his angry exclamations, she pointed to the march of
the fire, spoke in sorrowful tones a few words in her own language,
and then, appealing to me in English, said:

"I tell him that, here, the Spirits who oppose us have summoned a
foe that is deaf to my voice, and--"

"And," exclaimed Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with
the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and
of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below--"and this
witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring
my death than my life.  She thinks that in life I should scorn and
forsake her, that in death I should die in her arms!  Sorceress,
avaunt!  Art thou useless and powerless now when I need thee most?
Go!  Let the world be one funeral pyre!  What to ME is the world?
My world is my life!  Thou knowest that my last hope is here--that
all the strength left me this night will die down, like the lamps
in the circle, unless the elixir restore it.  Bold friend, spurn
that sorceress away.  Hours yet ere those flames can assail us!  A
few minutes more, and life to your Lilian and me!"

Thus having said, Margrave turned from us, and cast into the
caldron the last essence yet left in his empty coffer.

Ayesha silently drew her black veil over her face, and turned, with
the being she loved, from the terror he scorned, to share in the
hope that he cherished.

Thus left alone, with my reason disinthralled, disenchanted, I
surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual peril with which we
were threatened, and the peril seemed less, so surveyed.

It is true all the Bush-land behind, almost up to the bed of the
creek, was on fire; but the grasses, through which the flame spread
so rapidly, ceased at the opposite marge of the creek.  Watery
pools were still, at intervals, left in the bed of the creek,
shining tremulous, like waves of fire, in the glare reflected from
the burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course
of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against the march of the
conflagration.  Thus, unless the wind, now still, should rise, and
waft some sparks to the parched combustible herbage immediately
around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet be
achieved.

I whispered to Ayesha the conclusion to which I came.

"Thinkest thou," she answered without raising her mournful head,
"that the Agencies of Nature are the movements of chance?  The
Spirits I invoked to his aid are leagued with the hosts that
assail.  A mightier than I am has doomed him!"

Scarcely had she uttered these words before Margrave exclaimed,
"Behold how the Rose of the alchemist's dream enlarges its blooms
from the folds of its petals!  I shall live, I shall live!"

I looked, and the liquid which glowed in the caldron had now taken
a splendor that mocked all comparisons borrowed from the luster of
gems.  In its prevalent color it had, indeed, the dazzle and flash
of the ruby; but out from the mass of the molten red, broke
coruscations of all prismal hues, shooting, shifting, in a play
that made the wavelets themselves seem living things, sensible of
their joy.  No longer was there scum or film upon the surface; only
ever and anon a light, rosy vapor floating up, and quick lost in
the haggard, heavy, sulphurous air, hot with the conflagration
rushing toward us from behind.  And these coruscations formed, on
the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a rose, its
leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks of emerald and
diamond and sapphire.

Even while gazing on this animated liquid luster, a buoyant delight
seemed infused into my senses; all terrors conceived before were
annulled; the phantoms, whose armies had filled the wide spaces in
front, were forgotten; the crash of the forest behind was unheard.
In the reflection of that glory, Margrave's wan cheek seemed
already restored to the radiance it wore when I saw it first in the
framework of blooms.

As I gazed, thus enchanted, a cold hand touched my own.

"Hush!" whispered Ayesha, from the black veil, against which the
rays of the caldron fell blunt, and absorbed into Dark.  "Behind
us, the light of the circle is extinct; but there, we are guarded
from all save the brutal and soulless destroyers.  But, before!--
but, before!--see, two of the lamps have died out!--see the blank
of the gap in the ring!  Guard that breach--there the demons will
enter."

"Not a drop is there left in this vessel by which to replenish the
lamps on the ring."

"Advance, then; thou hast still the light of the soul, and the
demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless and guiltless.
If not, Three are lost!--as it is, One is doomed."

Thus adjured, silently, involuntarily, I passed from the Veiled
Woman's side, over the sear lines on the turf which had been traced
by the triangles of light long since extinguished, and toward the
verge of the circle.  As I advanced, overhead rushed a dark cloud
of wings--birds dislodged from the forest on fire, and screaming,
in dissonant terror, as they flew toward the farthermost mountains;
close by my feet hissed and glided the snakes, driven forth from
their blazing coverts, and glancing through the ring, unscared by
its waning lamps; all undulating by me, bright-eyed, and hissing,
all made innocuous by fear--even the terrible Death-adder, which I
trampled on as I halted at the verge of the circle, did not turn to
bite, but crept harmless away.  I halted at the gap between the two
dead lamps, and bowed my head to look again into the crystal
vessel.  Were there, indeed, no lingering drops yet left, if but to
recruit the lamps for some priceless minutes more?  As I thus
stood, right into the gap between the two dead lamps strode a
gigantic Foot.  All the rest of the form was unseen; only, as
volume after volume of smoke poured on from the burning land
behind, it seemed as if one great column of vapor, eddying round,
settled itself aloft from the circle, and that out from that column
strode the giant Foot.  And, as strode the Foot, so with it came,
like the sound of its tread, a roll of muttered thunder.

I recoiled, with a cry that rang loud through the lurid air.

"Courage!" said the voice of Ayesha.  "Trembling soul, yield not an
inch to the demon!"

At the charm, the wonderful charm, in the tone of the Veiled
Woman's voice, my will seemed to take a force more sublime than its
own.  I folded my arms on my breast, and stood as if rooted to the
spot, confronting the column of smoke and the stride of the giant
Foot.  And the Foot halted, mute.

Again, in the momentary hush of that suspense, I heard a voice--it
was Margrave's.

"The last hour expires--the work is accomplished!  Come! come!  Aid
me to take the caldron from the fire; and, quick!--or a drop may be
wasted in vapor--the Elixir of Life from the caldron!"

At that cry I receded, and the Foot advanced.

And at that moment, suddenly, unawares, from behind, I was stricken
down.  Over me, as I lay, swept a whirlwind of trampling hoofs and
glancing horns.  The herds, in their flight from the burning
pastures, had rushed over the bed of the water course, scaled the
<DW72>s of the banks.  Snorting and bellowing, they plunged their
blind way to the mountains.  One cry alone, more wild than their
own savage blare, pierced the reek through which the Brute
Hurricane swept.  At that cry of wrath and despair I struggled to
rise, again dashed to earth by the hoofs and the horns.  But was it
the dreamlike deceit of my reeling senses, or did I see that giant
Foot stride past through the close-serried ranks of the maddening
herds?  Did I hear, distinct through all the huge uproar of animal
terror, the roll of low thunder which followed the stride of that
Foot?


X


When my sense had recovered its shock, and my eyes looked dizzily
round, the charge of the beasts had swept by; and of all the wild
tribes which had invaded the magical circle, the only lingerer was
the brown Death-adder, coiled close by the spot where my head had
rested.  Beside the extinguished lamps which the hoofs had
confusedly scattered, the fire, arrested by the water course, had
consumed the grasses that fed it, and there the plains stretched
black and desert as the Phlegraean Field of the Poet's Hell.  But
the fire still raged in the forest beyond--white flames, soaring up
from the trunks of the tallest trees, and forming, through the
sullen dark of the smoke reck, innumerable pillars of fire, like
the halls in the city of fiends.

Gathering myself up, I turned my eyes from the terrible pomp of the
lurid forest, and looked fearfully down on the hoof-trampled sward
for my two companions.

I saw the dark image of Ayesha still seated, still bending, as I
had seen it last.  I saw a pale hand feebly grasping the rim of the
magical caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod by the rush
of the beasts, yards away from the dim, fading embers of the
scattered wood pyre.  I saw the faint writhings of a frail, wasted
frame, over which the Veiled Woman was bending.  I saw, as I moved
with bruised limbs to the place, close by the lips of the dying
magician, the flash of the rubylike essence spilled on the sward,
and, meteor-like, sparkling up from the torn tufts of herbage.

I now reached Margrave's side.  Bending over him as the Veiled
Woman bent, and as I sought gently to raise him, he turned his
face, fiercely faltering out, "Touch me not, rob me not!  YOU share
with me!  Never, never!  These glorious drops are all mine!  Die
all else!  I will live, I will live!"  Writhing himself from my
pitying arms, he plunged his face amidst the beautiful, playful
flame of the essence, as if to lap the elixir with lips scorched
away from its intolerable burning.  Suddenly, with a low shriek, he
fell back, his face upturned to mine, and on that face unmistakably
reigned Death.

Then Ayesha tenderly, silently, drew the young head to her lap, and
it vanished from my sight behind her black veil.

I knelt beside her, murmuring some trite words of comfort; but she
heeded me not, rocking herself to and fro as the mother who cradles
a child to sleep.  Soon the fast-flickering sparkles of the lost
elixir died out on the grass; and with their last sportive diamond-
like tremble of light, up, in all the suddenness of Australian day,
rose the sun, lifting himself royally above the mountain tops, and
fronting the meaner blaze of the forest as a young king fronts his
rebels.  And as there, where the bush fires had ravaged, all was a
desert, so there, where their fury had not spread, all was a
garden.  Afar, at the foot of the mountains, the fugitive herds
were grazing; the cranes, flocking back to the pools, renewed the
strange grace of their gambols; and the great kingfisher, whose
laugh, half in mirth, half in mockery, leads the choir that welcome
the morn--which in Europe is night--alighted bold on the roof of
the cavern, whose floors were still white with the bones of races,
extinct before--so helpless through instincts, so royal through
Soul--rose MAN!

But there, on the ground where the dazzling elixir had wasted its
virtues--there the herbage already had a freshness of verdure
which, amid the duller sward round it, was like an oasis of green
in a desert.  And, there, wild flowers, whose chill hues the eye
would have scarcely distinguished the day before, now glittered
forth in blooms of unfamiliar beauty.  Toward that spot were
attracted myriads of happy insects, whose hum of intense joy was
musically loud.  But the form of the life-seeking sorcerer lay
rigid and stark; blind to the bloom of the wild flowers, deaf to
the glee of the insects--one hand still resting heavily on the rim
of the emptied caldron, and the face still hid behind the Black
Veil.  What! the wondrous elixir, sought with such hope and well-
nigh achieved through such dread, fleeting back to the earth from
which its material was drawn to give bloom, indeed--but to herbs;
joy indeed--but to insects!

And now, in the flash of the sun, slowly wound up the <DW72>s that
led to the circle, the same barbaric procession which had sunk into
the valley under the ray of the moon.  The armed men came first,
stalwart and tall, their vests brave with crimson and golden lace,
their weapons gayly gleaming with holiday silver.  After them, the
Black Litter.  As they came to the place, Ayesha, not raising her
head, spoke to them in her own Eastern tongue.  A wail was her
answer.  The armed men bounded forward, and the bearers left the
litter.

All gathered round the dead form with the face concealed under the
Black Veil; all knelt, and all wept.  Far in the distance, at the
foot of the blue mountains, a crowd of the savage natives had risen
up as if from the earth; they stood motionless leaning on their
clubs and spears, and looking toward the spot on which we were--
strangely thus brought into the landscape, as if they too, the wild
dwellers on the verge which Humanity guards from the Brute, were
among the mourners for the mysterious Child of mysterious Nature!
And still, in the herbage, hummed the small insects, and still,
from the cavern, laughed the great kingfisher.  I said to Ayesha,
"Farewell! your love mourns the dead, mine calls me to the living.
You are now with your own people, they may console you--say if I
can assist."

"There is no consolation for me!  What mourner can be consoled if
the dead die forever?  Nothing for him is left but a grave; that
grave shall be in the land where the song of Ayesha first lulled
him to sleep.  Thou assist ME--thou, the wise man of Europe!  From
me ask assistance.  What road wilt thou take to thy home?"

"There is but one road known to me through the maze of the
solitude--that which we took to this upland."

"On that road Death lurks, and awaits thee!  Blind dupe, couldst
thou think that if the grand secret of life had been won, he whose
head rests on my lap would have yielded thee one petty drop of the
essence which had filched from his store of life but a moment?  Me,
who so loved and so cherished him--me he would have doomed to the
pitiless cord of my servant, the Strangler, if my death could have
lengthened a hairbreadth the span of his being.  But what matters
to me his crime or his madness?  I loved him, I loved him!"

She bowed her veiled head lower and lower; perhaps under the veil
her lips kissed the lips of the dead.  Then she said whisperingly:

"Juma the Strangler, whose word never failed to his master, whose
prey never slipped from his snare, waits thy step on the road to
thy home!  But thy death cannot now profit the dead, the beloved.
And thou hast had pity for him who took but thine aid to design thy
destruction.  His life is lost, thine is saved!"

She spoke no more in the tongue that I could interpret.  She spoke,
in the language unknown, a few murmured words to her swarthy
attendants; then the armed men, still weeping, rose, and made a
dumb sign to me to go with them.  I understood by the sign that
Ayesha had told them to guard me on my way; but she gave no reply
to my parting thanks.


XI


I descended into the valley; the armed men followed.  The path, on
that side of the water course not reached by the flames, wound
through meadows still green, or amidst groves still unscathed.  As
a turning in the way brought in front of my sight the place I had
left behind, I beheld the black litter creeping down the descent,
with its curtains closed, and the Veiled Woman walking by its side.
But soon the funeral procession was lost to my eyes, and the
thoughts that it roused were erased.  The waves in man's brain are
like those of the sea, rushing on, rushing over the wrecks of the
vessels that rode on their surface, to sink, after storm, in their
deeps.  One thought cast forth into the future now mastered all in
the past: "Was Lilian living still?"  Absorbed in the gloom of that
thought, hurried on by the goad that my heart, in its tortured
impatience, gave to my footstep, I outstripped the slow stride of
the armed men, and, midway between the place I had left and the
home which I sped to, came, far in advance of my guards, into the
thicket in which the Bushmen had started up in my path on the night
that Lilian had watched for my coming.  The earth at my feet was
rife with creeping plants and many- flowers, the sky
overhead was half hid by motionless pines.  Suddenly, whether
crawling out from the herbage or dropping down from the trees, by
my side stood the white-robed and skeleton form--Ayesha's attendant
the Strangler.

I sprang from him shuddering, then halted and faced him.  The
hideous creature crept toward me, cringing and fawning, making
signs of humble goodwill and servile obeisance.  Again I recoiled--
wrathfully, loathingly, turned my face homeward, and fled on.  I
thought I had baffled his chase, when, just at the mouth of the
thicket, he dropped from a bough in my path close behind me.
Before I could turn, some dark muffling substance fell between my
sight and the sun, and I felt a fierce strain at my throat.  But
the words of Ayesha had warned me; with one rapid hand I seized the
noose before it could tighten too closely, with the other I tore
the bandage away from my eyes, and, wheeling round on the dastardly
foe, struck him down with one spurn of my foot.  His hand, as he
fell, relaxed its hold on the noose; I freed my throat from the
knot, and sprang from the copse into the broad sunlit plain.  I saw
no more of the armed men or the Strangler.  Panting and breathless,
I paused at last before the fence, fragrant with blossoms, that
divided my home from the solitude.

The windows of Lilian's room were darkened; all within the house
seemed still.

Darkened and silenced home, with the light and sounds of the jocund
day all around it.  Was there yet hope in the Universe for me?  All
to which I had trusted Hope had broken down; the anchors I had
forged for her hold in the beds of the ocean, her stay from the
drifts of the storm, had snapped like the reeds which pierce the
side that leans on the barb of their points, and confides in the
strength of their stems.  No hope in the baffled resources of
recognized knowledge!  No hope in the daring adventures of Mind
into regions unknown; vain alike the calm lore of the practiced
physician, and the magical arts of the fated Enchanter!  I had fled
from the commonplace teachings of Nature, to explore in her
Shadowland marvels at variance with reason.  Made brave by the
grandeur of love, I had opposed without quailing the stride of the
Demon, and my hope, when fruition seemed nearest, had been trodden
into dust by the hoofs of the beast!  And yet, all the while, I had
scorned, as a dream, more wild than the word of a sorcerer, the
hope that the old man and the child, the wise and the ignorant,
took from their souls as inborn.  Man and fiend had alike failed a
mind, not ignoble, not skill-less, not abjectly craven; alike
failed a heart not feeble and selfish, not dead to the hero's
devotion, willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something
more dear than an animal's life for itself!  What remained--what
remained for man's hope?--man's mind and man's heart thus
exhausting their all with no other result but despair!  What
remained but the mystery of mysteries, so clear to the sunrise of
childhood, the sunset of age, only dimmed by the clouds which
collect round the noon of our manhood?  Where yet was Hope found?
In the soul; in its every-day impulse to supplicate comfort and
light, from the Giver of soul, wherever the heart is afflicted, the
mind is obscured.

Then the words of Ayesha rushed over me: "What mourner can be
consoled, if the dead die forever?"  Through every pulse of my
frame throbbed that dread question; all Nature around seemed to
murmur it.  And suddenly, as by a flash from heaven, the grand
truth in Faber's grand reasoning shone on me, and lighted up all,
within and without.  Man alone, of all earthly creatures, asks,
"Can the dead die forever?" and the instinct that urges the
question is God's answer to man.  No instinct is given in vain.

And born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the
soul from the seen to the unseen, from time to eternity, from the
torrent that foams toward the Ocean of Death, to the source of its
stream, far aloft from the Ocean.

"Know thyself," said the Pythian of old.  "That precept descended
from Heaven."  Know thyself!  Is that maxim wise?  If so, know thy
soul.  But never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of
soul but what he acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer.
In my awe, in my rapture, all my thoughts seemed enlarged and
illumed and exalted.  I prayed--all my soul seemed one prayer.  All
my past, with its pride and presumption and folly, grew distinct as
the form of a penitent, kneeling for pardon before setting forth on
the pilgrimage vowed to a shrine.  And, sure now, in the deeps of a
soul first revealed to myself, that the Dead do not die forever, my
human love soared beyond its brief trial of terror and sorrow.
Daring not to ask from Heaven's wisdom that Lilian, for my sake,
might not yet pass away from the earth, I prayed that my soul might
be fitted to bear with submission whatever my Maker might ordain.
And if surviving her--without whom no beam from yon material sun
could ever warm into joy a morrow in human life--so to guide my
steps that they might rejoin her at last, and in rejoining, regain
forever!

How trivial now became the weird riddle, that, a little while
before, had been clothed in so solemn an awe!  What mattered it to
the vast interests involved in the clear recognition of Soul and
Hereafter, whether or not my bodily sense, for a moment, obscured
the face of the Nature I should one day behold as a spirit?
Doubtless the sights and the sounds which had haunted the last
gloomy night, the calm reason of Faber would strip of their magical
seemings; the Eyes in the space and the Foot in the circle might be
those of no terrible Demons, but of the wild's savage children whom
I had seen, halting, curious and mute, in the light of the morning.
The tremor of the ground (if not, as heretofore, explicable by the
illusory impression of my own treacherous senses) might be but the
natural effect of elements struggling yet under a soil unmistakably
charred by volcanoes.  The luminous atoms dissolved in the caldron
might as little be fraught with a vital elixir as are the splendors
of naphtha or phosphor.  As it was, the weird rite had no magic
result.  The magician was not rent limb from limb by the fiends.
By causes as natural as ever extinguished life's spark in the frail
lamp of clay, he had died out of sight--under the black veil.

What mattered henceforth to Faith, in its far grander questions and
answers, whether Reason, in Faber, or Fancy, in me, supplied the
more probable guess at a hieroglyph which, if construed aright, was
but a word of small mark in the mystical language of Nature?  If
all the arts of enchantment recorded by Fable were attested by
facts which Sages were forced to acknowledge, Sages would sooner or
later find some cause for such portents--not supernatural.  But
what Sage, without cause supernatural, both without and within him,
can guess at the wonders he views in the growth of a blade of
grass, or the tints on an insect's wing?  Whatever art Man can
achieve in his progress through time, Man's reason, in time, can
suffice to explain.  But the wonders of God?  These belong to the
Infinite; and these, O Immortal! will but develop new wonder on
wonder, though thy sight be a spirit's, and thy leisure to track
and to solve an eternity.

As I raised my face from my clasped hands, my eyes fell full upon a
form standing in the open doorway.  There, where on the night in
which Lilian's long struggle for reason and life had begun, the
Luminous Shadow had been beheld in the doubtful light of a dying
moon and a yet hazy dawn; there, on the threshold, gathering round
her bright locks the aureole of the glorious sun, stood Amy, the
blessed child!  And as I gazed, drawing nearer and nearer to the
silenced house, and that Image of Peace on its threshold, I felt
that Hope met me at the door--Hope in the child's steadfast eyes,
Hope in the child's welcoming smile!

"I was at watch for you," whispered Amy.  "All is well."

"She lives still--she lives!  Thank God, thank God!"

"She lives--she will recover!" said another voice, as my head sunk
on Faber's shoulder.  "For some hours in the night her sleep was
disturbed, convulsed.  I feared, then, the worst.  Suddenly, just
before the dawn, she called out aloud, still in sleep:

"'The cold and dark shadow has passed away from me and from Allen--
passed away from us both forever!'

"And from that moment the fever left her; the breathing became
soft, the pulse steady, and the color stole gradually back to her
cheek.  The crisis is past.  Nature's benign Disposer has permitted
Nature to restore your life's gentle partner, heart to heart, mind
to mind--"

"And soul to soul," I cried in my solemn joy.  "Above as below,
soul to soul!"  Then, at a sign from Faber, the child took me by
the hand and led me up the stairs into Lilian's room.

Again those dear arms closed around me in wifelike and holy love,
and those true lips kissed away my tears--even as now, at the
distance of years from that happy morn, while I write the last
words of this Strange Story, the same faithful arms close around
me, the same tender lips kiss away my tears.



Thomas De Quincey


The Avenger


"Why callest thou me murderer, and not rather the wrath of God
burning after the steps of the oppressor, and cleansing the earth
when it is wet with blood?"


That series of terrific events by which our quiet city and
university in the northeastern quarter of Germany were convulsed
during the year 1816, has in itself, and considered merely as a
blind movement of human tiger-passion ranging unchained among men,
something too memorable to be forgotten or left without its own
separate record; but the moral lesson impressed by these events is
yet more memorable, and deserves the deep attention of coming
generations in their struggle after human improvement, not merely
in its own limited field of interest directly awakened, but in all
analogous fields of interest; as in fact already, and more than
once, in connection with these very events, this lesson has
obtained the effectual attention of Christian kings and princes
assembled in congress.  No tragedy, indeed, among all the sad ones
by which the charities of the human heart or of the fireside have
ever been outraged, can better merit a separate chapter in the
private history of German manners or social life than this
unparalleled case.  And, on the other hand, no one can put in a
better claim to be the historian than myself.

I was at the time, and still am, a professor in that city and
university which had the melancholy distinction of being its
theater.  I knew familiarly all the parties who were concerned in
it, either as sufferers or as agents.  I was present from first to
last, and watched the whole course of the mysterious storm which
fell upon our devoted city in a strength like that of a West Indian
hurricane, and which did seriously threaten at one time to
depopulate our university, through the dark suspicions which
settled upon its members, and the natural reaction of generous
indignation in repelling them; while the city in its more
stationary and native classes would very soon have manifested THEIR
awful sense of things, of the hideous insecurity for life, and of
the unfathomable dangers which had undermined their hearths below
their very feet, by sacrificing, whenever circumstances allowed
them, their houses and beautiful gardens in exchange for days
uncursed by panic, and nights unpolluted by blood.  Nothing, I can
take upon myself to assert, was left undone of all that human
foresight could suggest, or human ingenuity could accomplish.  But
observe the melancholy result: the more certain did these
arrangements strike people as remedies for the evil, so much the
more effectually did they aid the terror, but, above all, the awe,
the sense of mystery, when ten cases of total extermination,
applied to separate households, had occurred, in every one of which
these precautionary aids had failed to yield the slightest
assistance.  The horror, the perfect frenzy of fear, which seized
upon the town after that experience, baffles all attempt at
description.  Had these various contrivances failed merely in some
human and intelligible way, as by bringing the aid too tardily--
still, in such cases, though the danger would no less have been
evidently deepened, nobody would have felt any further mystery than
what, from the very first, rested upon the persons and the motives
of the murderers.  But, as it was, when, in ten separate cases of
exterminating carnage, the astounded police, after an examination
the most searching, pursued from day to day, and almost exhausting
the patience by the minuteness of the investigation, had finally
pronounced that no attempt apparently had been made to benefit by
any of the signals preconcerted, that no footstep apparently had
moved in that direction--then, and after that result, a blind
misery of fear fell upon the population, so much the worse than any
anguish of a beleaguered city that is awaiting the storming fury of
a victorious enemy, by how much the shadowy, the uncertain, the
infinite, is at all times more potent in mastering the mind than a
danger that is known, measurable, palpable, and human.  The very
police, instead of offering protection or encouragement, were
seized with terror for themselves.  And the general feeling, as it
was described to me by a grave citizen whom I met in a morning walk
(for the overmastering sense of a public calamity broke down every
barrier of reserve, and all men talked freely to all men in the
streets, as they would have done during the rockings of an
earthquake), was, even among the boldest, like that which sometimes
takes possession of the mind in dreams--when one feels oneself
sleeping alone, utterly divided from all call or hearing of
friends, doors open that should be shut, or unlocked that should be
triply secured, the very walls gone, barriers swallowed up by
unknown abysses, nothing around one but frail curtains, and a world
of illimitable night, whisperings at a distance, correspondence
going on between darkness and darkness, like one deep calling to
another, and the dreamer's own heart the center from which the
whole network of this unimaginable chaos radiates, by means of
which the blank PRIVATIONS of silence and darkness become powers
the most POSITIVE and awful.

Agencies of fear, as of any other passion, and, above all, of
passion felt in communion with thousands, and in which the heart
beats in conscious sympathy with an entire city, through all its
regions of high and low, young and old, strong and weak; such
agencies avail to raise and transfigure the natures of men; mean
minds become elevated; dull men become eloquent; and when matters
came to this crisis, the public feeling, as made known by voice,
gesture, manner, or words, was such that no stranger could
represent it to his fancy.  In that respect, therefore, I had an
advantage, being upon the spot through the whole course of the
affair, for giving a faithful narrative; as I had still more
eminently, from the sort of central station which I occupied, with
respect to all the movements of the case.  I may add that I had
another advantage, not possessed, or not in the same degree, by any
other inhabitant of the town.  I was personally acquainted with
every family of the slightest account belonging to the resident
population; whether among the old local gentry, or the new settlers
whom the late wars had driven to take refuge within our walls.

It was in September, 1815, that I received a letter from the chief
secretary to the Prince of M----, a nobleman connected with the
diplomacy of Russia, from which I quote an extract: "I wish, in
short, to recommend to your attentions, and in terms stronger than
I know how to devise, a young man on whose behalf the czar himself
is privately known to have expressed the very strongest interest.
He was at the battle of Waterloo as an aide-de-camp to a Dutch
general officer, and is decorated with distinctions won upon that
awful day.  However, though serving in that instance under English
orders, and although an Englishman of rank, he does not belong to
the English military service.  He has served, young as he is, under
VARIOUS banners, and under ours, in particular, in the cavalry of
our imperial guard.  He is English by birth, nephew to the Earl of
E., and heir presumptive to his immense estates.  There is a wild
story current, that his mother was a gypsy of transcendent beauty,
which may account for his somewhat Moorish complexion, though,
after all, THAT is not of a deeper tinge than I have seen among
many an Englishman.  He is himself one of the noblest looking of
God's creatures.  Both father and mother, however, are now dead.
Since then he has become the favorite of his uncle, who detained
him in England after the emperor had departed--and, as this uncle
is now in the last stage of infirmity, Mr. Wyndham's succession to
the vast family estates is inevitable, and probably near at hand.
Meantime, he is anxious for some assistance in his studies.
Intellectually he stands in the very first rank of men, as I am
sure you will not be slow to discover; but his long military
service, and the unparalleled tumult of our European history since
1805, have interfered (as you may suppose) with the cultivation of
his mind; for he entered the cavalry service of a German power when
a mere boy, and shifted about from service to service as the
hurricane of war blew from this point or from that.  During the
French anabasis to Moscow he entered our service, made himself a
prodigious favorite with the whole imperial family, and even now is
only in his twenty-second year.  As to his accomplishments, they
will speak for themselves; they are infinite, and applicable to
every situation of life.  Greek is what he wants from you;--never
ask about terms.  He will acknowledge any trouble he may give you,
as he acknowledges all trouble, en prince.  And ten years hence you
will look back with pride upon having contributed your part to the
formation of one whom all here at St. Petersburg, not soldiers
only, but we diplomates, look upon as certain to prove a great man,
and a leader among the intellects of Christendom."

Two or three other letters followed; and at length it was arranged
that Mr. Maximilian Wyndham should take up his residence at my
monastic abode for one year.  He was to keep a table, and an
establishment of servants, at his own cost; was to have an
apartment of some dozen or so of rooms; the unrestricted use of the
library; with some other public privileges willingly conceded by
the magistracy of the town; in return for all which he was to pay
me a thousand guineas; and already beforehand, by way of
acknowledgment for the public civilities of the town, he sent,
through my hands, a contribution of three hundred guineas to the
various local institutions for education of the poor, or for
charity.

The Russian secretary had latterly corresponded with me from a
little German town, not more than ninety miles distant; and, as he
had special couriers at his service, the negotiations advanced so
rapidly that all was closed before the end of September.  And, when
once that consummation was attained, I, that previously had
breathed no syllable of what was stirring, now gave loose to the
interesting tidings, and suffered them to spread through the whole
compass of the town.  It will be easily imagined that such a story,
already romantic enough in its first outline, would lose nothing in
the telling.  An Englishman to begin with, which name of itself,
and at all times, is a passport into German favor, but much more
since the late memorable wars that but for Englishmen would have
drooped into disconnected efforts--next, an Englishman of rank and
of the haute noblesse--then a soldier covered with brilliant
distinctions, and in the most brilliant arm of the service; young,
moreover, and yet a veteran by his experience--fresh from the most
awful battle of this planet since the day of Pharsalia,--radiant
with the favor of courts and of imperial ladies; finally (which
alone would have given him an interest in all female hearts), an
Antinous of faultless beauty, a Grecian statue, as it were, into
which the breath of life had been breathed by some modern
Pygmalion;--such a pomp of gifts and endowments settling upon one
man's head, should not have required for its effect the vulgar
consummation (and yet to many it WAS the consummation and crest of
the whole) that he was reputed to be rich beyond the dreams of
romance or the necessities of a fairy tale.  Unparalleled was the
impression made upon our stagnant society; every tongue was busy in
discussing the marvelous young Englishman from morning to night;
every female fancy was busy in depicting the personal appearance of
this gay apparition.

On his arrival at my house, I became sensible of a truth which I
had observed some years before.  The commonplace maxim is, that it
is dangerous to raise expectations too high.  This, which is thus
generally expressed, and without limitation, is true only
conditionally; it is true then and there only where there is but
little merit to sustain and justify the expectation.  But in any
case where the merit is transcendent of its kind, it is always
useful to rack the expectation up to the highest point.  In
anything which partakes of the infinite, the most unlimited
expectations will find ample room for gratification; while it is
certain that ordinary observers, possessing little sensibility,
unless where they have been warned to expect, will often fail to
see what exists in the most conspicuous splendor.  In this instance
it certainly did no harm to the subject of expectation that I had
been warned to look for so much.  The warning, at any rate, put me
on the lookout for whatever eminence there might be of grandeur in
his personal appearance; while, on the other hand, this existed in
such excess, so far transcending anything I had ever met with in my
experience, that no expectation which it is in words to raise could
have been disappointed.

These thoughts traveled with the rapidity of light through my
brain, as at one glance my eye took in the supremacy of beauty and
power which seemed to have alighted from the clouds before me.
Power, and the contemplation of power, in any absolute incarnation
of grandeur or excess, necessarily have the instantaneous effect of
quelling all perturbation.  My composure was restored in a moment.
I looked steadily at him.  We both bowed.  And, at the moment when
he raised his head from that inclination, I caught the glance of
his eye; an eye such as might have been looked for in a face of
such noble lineaments--


     "Blending the nature of the star
      With that of summer skies;"


and, therefore, meant by nature for the residence and organ of
serene and gentle emotions; but it surprised, and at the same time
filled me more almost with consternation than with pity, to observe
that in those eyes a light of sadness had settled more profound
than seemed possible for youth, or almost commensurate to a human
sorrow; a sadness that might have become a Jewish prophet, when
laden with inspirations of woe.

Two months had now passed away since the arrival of Mr. Wyndham.
He had been universally introduced to the superior society of the
place; and, as I need hardly say, universally received with favor
and distinction.  In reality, his wealth and importance, his
military honors, and the dignity of his character, as expressed in
his manners and deportment, were too eminent to allow of his being
treated with less than the highest attention in any society
whatever.  But the effect of these various advantages, enforced and
recommended as they were by a personal beauty so rare, was somewhat
too potent for the comfort and self-possession of ordinary people;
and really exceeded in a painful degree the standard of pretensions
under which such people could feel themselves at their ease.  He
was not naturally of a reserved turn; far from it.  His disposition
had been open, frank, and confiding, originally; and his roving,
adventurous life, of which considerably more than one half had been
passed in camps, had communicated to his manners a more than
military frankness.  But the profound melancholy which possessed
him, from whatever cause it arose, necessarily chilled the native
freedom of his demeanor, unless when it was revived by strength of
friendship or of love.  The effect was awkward and embarrassing to
all parties.  Every voice paused or faltered when he entered a
room--dead silence ensued--not an eye but was directed upon him, or
else, sunk in timidity, settled upon the floor; and young ladies
seriously lost the power, for a time, of doing more than murmuring
a few confused, half-inarticulate syllables, or half-inarticulate
sounds.  The solemnity, in fact, of a first presentation, and the
utter impossibility of soon recovering a free, unembarrassed
movement of conversation, made such scenes really distressing to
all who participated in them, either as actors or spectators.
Certainly this result was not a pure effect of manly beauty,
however heroic, and in whatever excess; it arose in part from the
many and extraordinary endowments which had centered in his person,
not less from fortune than from nature; in part also, as I have
said, from the profound sadness and freezing gravity of Mr.
Wyndham's manner; but still more from the perplexing mystery which
surrounded that sadness.

Were there, then, no exceptions to this condition of awestruck
admiration?  Yes; one at least there was in whose bosom the spell
of all-conquering passion soon thawed every trace of icy reserve.
While the rest of the world retained a dim sentiment of awe toward
Mr. Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only heard of such a feeling to
wonder that it could exist toward HIM.  Never was there so
victorious a conquest interchanged between two youthful hearts--
never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy.  I did not
witness the first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this
magnificent Margaret, and do not know whether Margaret manifested
that trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so many of her
youthful co-rivals; but, if she did, it must have fled before the
first glance of the young man's eye, which would interpret, past
all misunderstanding, the homage of his soul and the surrender of
his heart.  Their third meeting I DID see; and there all shadow of
embarrassment had vanished, except, indeed, of that delicate
embarrassment which clings to impassioned admiration.  On the part
of Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned upon her that
she had not so much as suspected among the capacities of human
experience.  Like some bird she seemed, with powers unexercised for
soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and that never
until now had found an element of air capable of sustaining her
wings, or tempting her to put forth her buoyant instincts.  He, on
the other hand, now first found the realization of his dreams, and
for a mere possibility which he had long too deeply contemplated,
fearing, however, that in his own case it might prove a chimera, or
that he might never meet a woman answering the demands of his
heart, he now found a corresponding reality that left nothing to
seek.

Here, then, and thus far, nothing but happiness had resulted from
the new arrangement.  But, if this had been little anticipated by
many, far less had I, for my part, anticipated the unhappy
revolution which was wrought in the whole nature of Ferdinand von
Harrelstein.  He was the son of a German baron; a man of good
family, but of small estate who had been pretty nearly a soldier of
fortune in the Prussian service, and had, late in life, won
sufficient favor with the king and other military superiors, to
have an early prospect of obtaining a commission, under flattering
auspices, for this only son--a son endeared to him as the companion
of unprosperous years, and as a dutifully affectionate child.
Ferdinand had yet another hold upon his father's affections: his
features preserved to the baron's unclouded remembrance a most
faithful and living memorial of that angelic wife who had died in
giving birth to this third child--the only one who had long
survived her.  Anxious that his son should go through a regular
course of mathematical instruction, now becoming annually more
important in all the artillery services throughout Europe, and that
he should receive a tincture of other liberal studies which he had
painfully missed in his own military career, the baron chose to
keep his son for the last seven years at our college, until he was
now entering upon his twenty-third year.  For the four last he had
lived with me as the sole pupil whom I had, or meant to have, had
not the brilliant proposals of the young Russian guardsman
persuaded me to break my resolution.  Ferdinand von Harrelstein had
good talents, not dazzling but respectable; and so amiable were his
temper and manners that I had introduced him everywhere, and
everywhere he was a favorite; and everywhere, indeed, except
exactly there where only in this world he cared for favor.
Margaret Liebenheim, she it was whom he loved, and had loved for
years, with the whole ardor of his ardent soul; she it was for
whom, or at whose command, he would willingly have died.  Early he
had felt that in her hands lay his destiny; that she it was who
must be his good or his evil genius.

At first, and perhaps to the last, I pitied him exceedingly.  But
my pity soon ceased to be mingled with respect.  Before the arrival
of Mr. Wyndham he had shown himself generous, indeed magnanimous.
But never was there so painful an overthrow of a noble nature as
manifested itself in him.  I believe that he had not himself
suspected the strength of his passion; and the sole resource for
him, as I said often, was to quit the city--to engage in active
pursuits of enterprise, of ambition, or of science.  But he heard
me as a somnambulist might have heard me--dreaming with his eyes
open.  Sometimes he had fits of reverie, starting, fearful,
agitated; sometimes he broke out into maniacal movements of wrath,
invoking some absent person, praying, beseeching, menacing some
air-wove phantom; sometimes he slunk into solitary corners,
muttering to himself, and with gestures sorrowfully significant, or
with tones and fragments of expostulation that moved the most
callous to compassion.  Still he turned a deaf ear to the only
practical counsel that had a chance for reaching his ears.  Like a
bird under the fascination of a rattlesnake, he would not summon up
the energies of his nature to make an effort at flying away.
"Begone, while it is time!" said others, as well as myself; for
more than I saw enough to fear some fearful catastrophe.  "Lead us
not into temptation!" said his confessor to him in my hearing (for,
though Prussians, the Von Harrelsteins were Roman Catholics), "lead
us not into temptation!--that is our daily prayer to God.  Then, my
son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in courting,
nay, almost tempting temptation.  Try the effects of absence,
though but for a month."  The good father even made an overture
toward imposing a penance upon him, that would have involved an
absence of some duration.  But he was obliged to desist; for he saw
that, without effecting any good, he would merely add spiritual
disobedience to the other offenses of the young man.  Ferdinand
himself drew his attention to THIS; for he said: "Reverend father!
do not you, with the purpose of removing me from temptation, be
yourself the instrument for tempting me into a rebellion against
the church.  Do not you weave snares about my steps; snares there
are already, and but too many."  The old man sighed, and desisted.

Then came--But enough!  From pity, from sympathy, from counsel, and
from consolation, and from scorn--from each of these alike the poor
stricken deer "recoiled into the wilderness;" he fled for days
together into solitary parts of the forest; fled, as I still hoped
and prayed, in good earnest and for a long farewell; but, alas! no:
still he returned to the haunts of his ruined happiness and his
buried hopes, at each return looking more like the wreck of his
former self; and once I heard a penetrating monk observe, whose
convent stood near the city gates: "There goes one ready equally
for doing or suffering, and of whom we shall soon hear that he is
involved in some great catastrophe--it may be of deep calamity--it
may be of memorable guilt."

So stood matters among us.  January was drawing to its close; the
weather was growing more and more winterly; high winds, piercingly
cold, were raving through our narrow streets; and still the spirit
of social festivity bade defiance to the storms which sang through
our ancient forests.  From the accident of our magistracy being
selected from the tradesmen of the city, the hospitalities of the
place were far more extensive than would otherwise have happened;
for every member of the corporation gave two annual entertainments
in his official character.  And such was the rivalship which
prevailed, that often one quarter of the year's income was spent
upon these galas.  Nor was any ridicule thus incurred; for the
costliness of the entertainment was understood to be an expression
of OFFICIAL pride, done in honor of the city, not as an effort of
personal display.  It followed, from the spirit in which these
half-yearly dances originated, that, being given on the part of the
city, every stranger of rank was marked out as a privileged guest,
and the hospitality of the community would have been equally
affronted by failing to offer or by failing to accept the
invitation.

Hence it had happened that the Russian guardsman had been
introduced into many a family which otherwise could not have hoped
for such a distinction.  Upon the evening at which I am now
arrived, the twenty-second of January, 1816, the whole city, in its
wealthier classes, was assembled beneath the roof of a tradesman
who had the heart of a prince.  In every point our entertainment
was superb; and I remarked that the music was the finest I had
heard for years.  Our host was in joyous spirits; proud to survey
the splendid company he had gathered under his roof; happy to
witness their happiness; elated in their elation.  Joyous was the
dance--joyous were all faces that I saw--up to midnight, very soon
after which time supper was announced; and that also, I think, was
the most joyous of all the banquets I ever witnessed.  The
accomplished guardsman outshone himself in brilliancy; even his
melancholy relaxed.  In fact, how could it be otherwise? near to
him sat Margaret Liebenheim--hanging upon his words--more lustrous
and bewitching than ever I had beheld her.  There she had been
placed by the host; and everybody knew why.  That is one of the
luxuries attached to love; all men cede their places with pleasure;
women make way.  Even she herself knew, though not obliged to know,
why she was seated in that neighborhood; and took her place, if
with a rosy suffusion upon her cheeks, yet with fullness of
happiness at her heart.

The guardsman pressed forward to claim Miss Liebenheim's hand for
the next dance; a movement which she was quick to favor, by
retreating behind one or two parties from a person who seemed
coming toward her.  The music again began to pour its voluptuous
tides through the bounding pulses of the youthful company; again
the flying feet of the dancers began to respond to the measures;
again the mounting spirit of delight began to fill the sails of the
hurrying night with steady inspiration.  All went happily.  Already
had one dance finished; some were pacing up and down, leaning on
the arms of their partners; some were reposing from their
exertions; when--O heavens! what a shriek! what a gathering tumult!

Every eye was bent toward the doors--every eye strained forward to
discover what was passing.  But there, every moment, less and less
could be seen, for the gathering crowd more and more intercepted
the view;--so much the more was the ear at leisure for the shrieks
redoubled upon shrieks.  Miss Liebenheim had moved downward to the
crowd.  From her superior height she overlooked all the ladies at
the point where she stood.  In the center stood a rustic girl,
whose features had been familiar to her for some months.  She had
recently come into the city, and had lived with her uncle, a
tradesman, not ten doors from Margaret's own residence, partly on
the terms of a kinswoman, partly as a servant on trial.  At this
moment she was exhausted with excitement, and the nature of the
shock she had sustained.  Mere panic seemed to have mastered her;
and she was leaning, unconscious and weeping, upon the shoulder of
some gentleman, who was endeavoring to soothe her.  A silence of
horror seemed to possess the company, most of whom were still
unacquainted with the cause of the alarming interruption.  A few,
however, who had heard her first agitated words, finding that they
waited in vain for a fuller explanation, now rushed tumultuously
out of the ballroom to satisfy themselves on the spot.  The
distance was not great; and within five minutes several persons
returned hastily, and cried out to the crowd of ladies that all was
true which the young girl had said.  "What was true?"  That her
uncle Mr. Weishaupt's family had been murdered; that not one member
of the family had been spared--namely, Mr. Weishaupt himself and
his wife, neither of them much above sixty, but both infirm beyond
their years; two maiden sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, from forty to
forty-six years of age, and an elderly female domestic.

An incident happened during the recital of these horrors, and of
the details which followed, that furnished matter for conversation
even in these hours when so thrilling an interest had possession of
all minds.  Many ladies fainted; among them Miss Liebenheim--and
she would have fallen to the ground but for Maximilian, who sprang
forward and caught her in his arms.  She was long of returning to
herself; and, during the agony of his suspense, he stooped and
kissed her pallid lips.  That sight was more than could be borne by
one who stood a little behind the group.  He rushed forward, with
eyes glaring like a tiger's, and leveled a blow at Maximilian.  It
was poor, maniacal Von Harrelstein, who had been absent in the
forest for a week.  Many people stepped forward and checked his
arm, uplifted for a repetition of this outrage.  One or two had
some influence with him, and led him away from the spot; while as
to Maximilian, so absorbed was he that he had not so much as
perceived the affront offered to himself.  Margaret, on reviving,
was confounded at finding herself so situated amid a great crowd;
and yet the prudes complained that there was a look of love
exchanged between herself and Maximilian, that ought not to have
escaped her in such a situation.  If they meant by such a
situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that it was a
situation of excessive agitation; but, if they alluded to the
horrors of the moment, no situation more naturally opens the heart
to affection and confiding love than the recoil from scenes of
exquisite terror.

An examination went on that night before the magistrates, but all
was dark; although suspicion attached to a <DW64> named Aaron, who
had occasionally been employed in menial services by the family,
and had been in the house immediately before the murder.  The
circumstances were such as to leave every man in utter perplexity
as to the presumption for and against him.  His mode of defending
himself, and his general deportment, were marked by the coolest,
nay, the most sneering indifference.  The first thing he did, on
being acquainted with the suspicions against himself, was to laugh
ferociously, and to all appearance most cordially and unaffectedly.
He demanded whether a poor man like himself would have left so much
wealth as lay scattered abroad in that house--gold repeaters, massy
plate, gold snuff boxes--untouched?  That argument certainly
weighed much in his favor.  And yet again it was turned against
him; for a magistrate asked him how HE happened to know already
that nothing had been touched.  True it was, and a fact which had
puzzled no less than it had awed the magistrates, that, upon their
examination of the premises, many rich articles of bijouterie,
jewelry, and personal ornaments, had been found lying underanged,
and apparently in their usual situations; articles so portable that
in the very hastiest flight some might have been carried off.  In
particular, there was a crucifix of gold, enriched with jewels so
large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a prize of
great magnitude.  Yet this was left untouched, though suspended in
a little oratory that had been magnificently adorned by the elder
of the maiden sisters.  There was an altar, in itself a splendid
object, furnished with every article of the most costly material
and workmanship, for the private celebration of mass.  This
crucifix, as well as everything else in the little closet, must
have been seen by one at least of the murderous party; for hither
had one of the ladies fled; hither had one of the murderers
pursued.  She had clasped the golden pillars which supported the
altar--had turned perhaps her dying looks upon the crucifix; for
there, with one arm still wreathed about the altar foot, though in
her agony she had turned round upon her face, did the elder sister
lie when the magistrates first broke open the street door.  And
upon the beautiful parquet, or inlaid floor which ran round the
room, were still impressed the footsteps of the murderer.  These,
it was hoped, might furnish a clew to the discovery of one at least
among the murderous band.  They were rather difficult to trace
accurately; those parts of the traces which lay upon the black
tessellae being less distinct in the outline than the others upon
the white or .  Most unquestionably, so far as this went, it
furnished a negative circumstance in favor of the <DW64>, for the
footsteps were very different in outline from his, and smaller, for
Aaron was a man of colossal build.  And as to his knowledge of the
state in which the premises had been found, and his having so
familiarly relied upon the fact of no robbery having taken place as
an argument on his own behalf, he contended that he had himself
been among the crowd that pushed into the house along with the
magistrates; that, from his previous acquaintance with the rooms
and their ordinary condition, a glance of the eye had been
sufficient for him to ascertain the undisturbed condition of all
the valuable property most obvious to the grasp of a robber that,
in fact, he had seen enough for his argument before he and the rest
of the mob had been ejected by the magistrates; but, finally, that
independently of all this, he had heard both the officers, as they
conducted him, and all the tumultuous gatherings of people in the
street, arguing for the mysteriousness of the bloody transaction
upon that very circumstance of so much gold, silver, and jewels,
being left behind untouched.

In six weeks or less from the date of this terrific event, the
<DW64> was set at liberty by a majority of voices among the
magistrates.  In that short interval other events had occurred no
less terrific and mysterious.  In this first murder, though the
motive was dark and unintelligible, yet the agency was not so;
ordinary assassins apparently, and with ordinary means, had
assailed a helpless and unprepared family; had separated them;
attacked them singly in flight (for in this first case all but one
of the murdered persons appeared to have been making for the street
door); and in all this there was no subject for wonder, except the
original one as to the motive.  But now came a series of cases
destined to fling this earliest murder into the shade.  Nobody
could now be unprepared; and yet the tragedies, henceforward, which
passed before us, one by one, in sad, leisurely, or in terrific
groups, seemed to argue a lethargy like that of apoplexy in the
victims, one and all.  The very midnight of mysterious awe fell
upon all minds.

Three weeks had passed since the murder at Mr. Weishaupt's--three
weeks the most agitated that had been known in this sequestered
city.  We felt ourselves solitary, and thrown upon our own
resources; all combination with other towns being unavailing from
their great distance.  Our situation was no ordinary one.  Had
there been some mysterious robbers among us, the chances of a
visit, divided among so many, would have been too small to distress
the most timid; while to young and high-spirited people, with
courage to spare for ordinary trials, such a state of expectation
would have sent pulses of pleasurable anxiety among the nerves.
But murderers! exterminating murderers!--clothed in mystery and
utter darkness--these were objects too terrific for any family to
contemplate with fortitude.  Had these very murderers added to
their functions those of robbery, they would have become less
terrific; nine out of every ten would have found themselves
discharged, as it were, from the roll of those who were liable to a
visit; while such as knew themselves liable would have had warning
of their danger in the fact of being rich; and would, from the very
riches which constituted that danger, have derived the means of
repelling it.  But, as things were, no man could guess what it was
that must make him obnoxious to the murderers.  Imagination
exhausted itself in vain guesses at the causes which could by
possibility have made the poor Weishaupts objects of such hatred to
any man.  True, they were bigoted in a degree which indicated
feebleness of intellect; but THAT wounded no man in particular,
while to many it recommended them.  True, their charity was narrow
and exclusive, but to those of their own religious body it expanded
munificently; and, being rich beyond their wants, or any means of
employing wealth which their gloomy asceticism allowed, they had
the power of doing a great deal of good among the indigent <DW7>s
of the suburbs.  As to the old gentleman and his wife, their
infirmities confined them to the house.  Nobody remembered to have
seen them abroad for years.  How, therefore, or when could they
have made an enemy?  And, with respect to the maiden sisters of Mr.
Weishaupt, they were simply weak-minded persons, now and then too
censorious, but not placed in a situation to incur serious anger
from any quarter, and too little heard of in society to occupy much
of anybody's attention.

Conceive, then, that three weeks have passed away, that the poor
Weishaupts have been laid in that narrow sanctuary which no
murderer's voice will ever violate.  Quiet has not returned to us,
but the first flutterings of panic have subsided.  People are
beginning to respire freely again; and such another space of time
would have cicatrized our wounds--when, hark! a church bell rings
out a loud alarm;--the night is starlight and frosty--the iron
notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated.  What could this mean?
I hurried to a room over the porter's lodge, and, opening the
window, I cried out to a man passing hastily below, "What, in God's
name, is the meaning of this?"  It was a watchman belonging to our
district.  I knew his voice, he knew mine, and he replied in great
agitation:

"It is another murder, sir, at the old town councilor's, Albernass;
and this time they have made a clear house of it."

"God preserve us!  Has a curse been pronounced upon this city?
What can be done?  What are the magistrates going to do?"

"I don't know, sir.  I have orders to run to the Black Friars,
where another meeting is gathering.  Shall I say you will attend,
sir?"

"Yes--no--stop a little.  No matter, you may go on; I'll follow
immediately."

I went instantly to Maximilian's room.  He was lying asleep on a
sofa, at which I was not surprised, for there had been a severe
stag chase in the morning.  Even at this moment I found myself
arrested by two objects, and I paused to survey them.  One was
Maximilian himself.  A person so mysterious took precedency of
other interests even at a time like this; and especially by his
features, which, composed in profound sleep, as sometimes happens,
assumed a new expression, which arrested me chiefly by awaking some
confused remembrance of the same features seen under other
circumstances and in times long past; but where?  This was what I
could not recollect, though once before a thought of the same sort
had crossed my mind.  The other object of my interest was a
miniature, which Maximilian was holding in his hand.  He had gone
to sleep apparently looking at this picture; and the hand which
held it had slipped down upon the sofa, so that it was in danger of
falling.  I released the miniature from his hand, and surveyed it
attentively.  It represented a lady of sunny, oriental complexion,
and features the most noble that it is possible to conceive.  One
might have imagined such a lady, with her raven locks and imperial
eyes, to be the favorite sultana of some Amurath or Mohammed.  What
was she to Maximilian, or what HAD she been?  For, by the tear
which I had once seen him drop upon this miniature when he believed
himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were
already laid low, and her name among the list of vanished things.
Probably she was his mother, for the dress was rich with pearls,
and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court
beauties.  I sighed as I thought of the stern melancholy of her
son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate
and fortunes of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in
the expression of her fine features, but still noble--generous--
confiding.  Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian,
and told him of the dreadful news.  He listened attentively, made
no remark, but proposed that we should go together to the meeting
of our quarter at the Black Friars.  He  upon observing the
miniature on the table; and, therefore, I frankly told him in what
situation I had found it, and that I had taken the liberty of
admiring it for a few moments.  He pressed it tenderly to his lips,
sighed heavily, and we walked away together.

I pass over the frenzied state of feeling in which we found the
meeting.  Fear, or rather horror, did not promote harmony; many
quarreled with each other in discussing the suggestions brought
forward, and Maximilian was the only person attended to.  He
proposed a nightly mounted patrol for every district.  And in
particular he offered, as being himself a member of the university,
that the students should form themselves into a guard, and go out
by rotation to keep watch and ward from sunset to sunrise.
Arrangements were made toward that object by the few people who
retained possession of their senses, and for the present we
separated.

Never, in fact, did any events so keenly try the difference between
man and man.  Some started up into heroes under the excitement.
Some, alas for the dignity of man! drooped into helpless
imbecility.  Women, in some cases, rose superior to men, but yet
not so often as might have happened under a less mysterious danger.
A woman is not unwomanly because she confronts danger boldly.  But
I have remarked, with respect to female courage, that it requires,
more than that of men, to be sustained by hope; and that it droops
more certainly in the presence of a MYSTERIOUS danger.  The fancy
of women is more active, if not stronger, and it influences more
directly the physical nature.  In this case few were the women who
made even a show of defying the danger.  On the contrary, with THEM
fear took the form of sadness, while with many of the men it took
that of wrath.

And how did the Russian guardsman conduct himself amidst this
panic?  Many were surprised at his behavior; some complained of it;
I did neither.  He took a reasonable interest in each separate
case, listened to the details with attention, and, in the
examination of persons able to furnish evidence, never failed to
suggest judicious questions.  But still he manifested a coolness
almost amounting to carelessness, which to many appeared revolting.
But these people I desired to notice that all the other military
students, who had been long in the army, felt exactly in the same
way.  In fact, the military service of Christendom, for the last
ten years, had been anything but a parade service; and to those,
therefore, who were familiar with every form of horrid butchery,
the mere outside horrors of death had lost much of their terror.
In the recent murder there had not been much to call forth
sympathy.  The family consisted of two old bachelors, two sisters,
and one grandniece.  The niece was absent on a visit, and the two
old men were cynical misers, to whom little personal interest
attached.  Still, in this case as in that of the Weishaupts, the
same twofold mystery confounded the public mind--the mystery of the
HOW, and the profounder mystery of the WHY.  Here, again, no atom
of property was taken, though both the misers had hordes of ducats
and English guineas in the very room where they died.  Their bias,
again, though of an unpopular character, had rather availed to make
them unknown than to make them hateful.  In one point this case
differed memorably from the other--that, instead of falling
helpless, or flying victims (as the Weishaupts had done), these old
men, strong, resolute, and not so much taken by surprise, left
proofs that they had made a desperate defense.  The furniture was
partly smashed to pieces, and the other details furnished evidence
still more revolting of the acharnement with which the struggle had
been maintained.  In fact, with THEM a surprise must have been
impracticable, as they admitted nobody into their house on visiting
terms.  It was thought singular that from each of these domestic
tragedies a benefit of the same sort should result to young persons
standing in nearly the same relation.  The girl who gave the alarm
at the ball, with two little sisters, and a little orphan nephew,
their cousin, divided the very large inheritance of the Weishaupts;
and in this latter case the accumulated savings of two long lives
all vested in the person of the amiable grandniece.

But now, as if in mockery of all our anxious consultations and
elaborate devices, three fresh murders took place on the two
consecutive nights succeeding these new arrangements.  And in one
case, as nearly as time could be noted, the mounted patrol must
have been within call at the very moment when the awful work was
going on.  I shall not dwell much upon them; but a few
circumstances are too interesting to be passed over.  The earliest
case on the first of the two nights was that of a currier.  He was
fifty years old; not rich, but well off.  His first wife was dead,
and his daughters by her were married away from their father's
house.  He had married a second wife, but, having no children by
her, and keeping no servants, it is probable that, but for an
accident, no third person would have been in the house at the time
when the murderers got admittance.  About seven o'clock, a
wayfaring man, a journeyman currier, who, according to our German
system, was now in his wanderjahre, entered the city from the
forest.  At the gate he made some inquiries about the curriers and
tanners of our town; and, agreeably to the information he received,
made his way to this Mr. Heinberg.  Mr. Heinberg refused to admit
him, until he mentioned his errand, and pushed below the door a
letter of recommendation from a Silesian correspondent, describing
him as an excellent and steady workman.  Wanting such a man, and
satisfied by the answers returned that he was what he represented
himself, Mr. Heinberg unbolted his door and admitted him.  Then,
after slipping the bolt into its place, he bade him sit to the
fire, brought him a glass of beer, conversed with him for ten
minutes, and said: "You had better stay here to-night; I'll tell
you why afterwards; but now I'll step upstairs, and ask my wife
whether she can make up a bed for you; and do you mind the door
while I'm away."  So saying, he went out of the room.  Not one
minute had he been gone when there came a gentle knock at the door.
It was raining heavily, and, being a stranger to the city, not
dreaming that in any crowded town such a state of things could
exist as really did in this, the young man, without hesitation,
admitted the person knocking.  He has declared since--but, perhaps,
confounding the feelings gained from better knowledge with the
feelings of the moment--that from the moment he drew the bolt he
had a misgiving that he had done wrong.  A man entered in a
horseman's cloak, and so muffled up that the journeyman could
discover none of his features.  In a low tone the stranger said,
"Where's Heinberg?"--"Upstairs."--"Call him down, then."  The
journeyman went to the door by which Mr. Heinberg had left him, and
called, "Mr. Heinberg, here's one wanting you!"  Mr. Heinberg heard
him, for the man could distinctly catch these words: "God bless me!
has the man opened the door?  O, the traitor!  I see it."  Upon
this he felt more and more consternation, though not knowing why.
Just then he heard a sound of feet behind him.  On turning round,
he beheld three more men in the room; one was fastening the outer
door; one was drawing some arms from a cupboard, and two others
were whispering together.  He himself was disturbed and perplexed,
and felt that all was not right.  Such was his confusion, that
either all the men's faces must have been muffled up, or at least
he remembered nothing distinctly but one fierce pair of eyes
glaring upon him.  Then, before he could look round, came a man
from behind and threw a sack over his head, which was drawn tight
about his waist, so as to confine his arms, as well as to impede
his hearing in part, and his voice altogether.  He was then pushed
into a room; but previously he had heard a rush upstairs, and words
like those of a person exulting, and then a door closed.  Once it
opened, and he could distinguish the words, in one voice, "And for
THAT!" to which another voice replied, in tones that made his heart
quake, "Aye, for THAT, sir."  And then the same voice went on
rapidly to say, "O dog! could you hope"--at which word the door
closed again.  Once he thought that he heard a scuffle, and he was
sure that he heard the sound of feet, as if rushing from one corner
of a room to another.  But then all was hushed and still for about
six or seven minutes, until a voice close to his ear said, "Now,
wait quietly till some persons come in to release you.  This will
happen within half an hour."  Accordingly, in less than that time,
he again heard the sound of feet within the house, his own bandages
were liberated, and he was brought to tell his story at the police
office.  Mr. Heinberg was found in his bedroom.  He had died by
strangulation, and the cord was still tightened about his neck.
During the whole dreadful scene his youthful wife had been locked
into a closet, where she heard or saw nothing.

In the second case, the object of vengeance was again an elderly
man.  Of the ordinary family, all were absent at a country house,
except the master and a female servant.  She was a woman of
courage, and blessed with the firmest nerves; so that she might
have been relied on for reporting accurately everything seen or
heard.  But things took another course.  The first warning that she
had of the murderers' presence was from their steps and voices
already in the hall.  She heard her master run hastily into the
hall, crying out, "Lord Jesus!--Mary, Mary, save me!"  The servant
resolved to give what aid she could, seized a large poker, and was
hurrying to his assistance, when she found that they had nailed up
the door of communication at the head of the stairs.  What passed
after this she could not tell; for, when the impulse of intrepid
fidelity had been balked, and she found that her own safety was
provided for by means which made it impossible to aid a poor fellow
creature who had just invoked her name, the generous-hearted
creature was overcome by anguish of mind, and sank down on the
stair, where she lay, unconscious of all that succeeded, until she
found herself raised in the arms of a mob who had entered the
house.  And how came they to have entered?  In a way
characteristically dreadful.  The night was starlit; the patrols
had perambulated the street without noticing anything suspicious,
when two foot passengers, who were following in their rear,
observed a dark- stream traversing the causeway.  One of
them, at the same instant tracing the stream backward with his
eyes, observed that it flowed from under the door of Mr. Munzer,
and, dipping his finger in the trickling fluid, he held it up to
the lamplight, yelling out at the moment, "Why, this is blood!"  It
was so, indeed, and it was yet warm.  The other saw, heard, and
like an arrow flew after the horse patrol, then in the act of
turning the corner.  One cry, full of meaning, was sufficient for
ears full of expectation.  The horsemen pulled up, wheeled, and in
another moment reined up at Mr. Munzer's door.  The crowd,
gathering like the drifting of snow, supplied implements which soon
forced the chains of the door and all other obstacles.  But the
murderous party had escaped, and all traces of their persons had
vanished, as usual.

Rarely did any case occur without some peculiarity more or less
interesting.  In that which happened on the following night, making
the fifth in the series, an impressive incident varied the monotony
of horrors.  In this case the parties aimed at were two elderly
ladies, who conducted a female boarding school.  None of the pupils
had as yet returned to school from their vacation; but two sisters,
young girls of thirteen and sixteen, coming from a distance, had
stayed at school throughout the Christmas holidays.  It was the
youngest of these who gave the only evidence of any value, and one
which added a new feature of alarm to the existing panic.  Thus it
was that her testimony was given: On the day before the murder, she
and her sister were sitting with the old ladies in a room fronting
to the street; the elder ladies were reading, the younger ones
drawing.  Louisa, the youngest, never had her ear inattentive to
the slightest sound, and once it struck her that she heard the
creaking of a foot upon the stairs.  She said nothing, but,
slipping out of the room, she ascertained that the two female
servants were in the kitchen, and could not have been absent; that
all the doors and windows, by which ingress was possible, were not
only locked, but bolted and barred--a fact which excluded all
possibility of invasion by means of false keys.  Still she felt
persuaded that she had heard the sound of a heavy foot upon the
stairs.  It was, however, daylight, and this gave her confidence;
so that, without communicating her alarm to anybody, she found
courage to traverse the house in every direction; and, as nothing
was either seen or heard, she concluded that her ears had been too
sensitively awake.  Yet that night, as she lay in bed, dim terrors
assailed her, especially because she considered that, in so large a
house, some closet or other might have been overlooked, and, in
particular, she did not remember to have examined one or two
chests, in which a man could have lain concealed.  Through the
greater part of the night she lay awake; but as one of the town
clocks struck four, she dismissed her anxieties, and fell asleep.
The next day, wearied with this unusual watching, she proposed to
her sister that they should go to bed earlier than usual.  This
they did; and, on their way upstairs, Louisa happened to think
suddenly of a heavy cloak, which would improve the coverings of her
bed against the severity of the night.  The cloak was hanging up in
a closet within a closet, both leading off from a large room used
as the young ladies' dancing school.  These closets she had
examined on the previous day, and therefore she felt no particular
alarm at this moment.  The cloak was the first article which met
her sight; it was suspended from a hook in the wall, and close to
the door.  She took it down, but, in doing so, exposed part of the
wall and of the floor, which its folds had previously concealed.
Turning away hastily, the chances were that she had gone without
making any discovery.  In the act of turning, however, her light
fell brightly on a man's foot and leg.  Matchless was her presence
of mind; having previously been humming an air, she continued to do
so.  But now came the trial; her sister was bending her steps to
the same closet.  If she suffered her to do so, Lottchen would
stumble on the same discovery, and expire of fright.  On the other
hand, if she gave her a hint, Lottchen would either fail to
understand her, or, gaining but a glimpse of her meaning, would
shriek aloud, or by some equally decisive expression convey the
fatal news to the assassin that he had been discovered.  In this
torturing dilemma fear prompted an expedient, which to Lottchen
appeared madness, and to Louisa herself the act of a sibyl instinct
with blind inspiration.  "Here," said she, "is our dancing room.
When shall we all meet and dance again together?"  Saying which,
she commenced a wild dance, whirling her candle round her head
until the motion extinguished it; then, eddying round her sister in
narrowing circles, she seized Lottchen's candle also, blew it out,
and then interrupted her own singing to attempt a laugh.  But the
laugh was hysterical.  The darkness, however, favored her; and,
seizing her sister's arm, she forced her along, whispering, "Come,
come, come!"  Lottchen could not be so dull as entirely to
misunderstand her.  She suffered herself to be led up the first
flight of stairs, at the head of which was a room looking into the
street.  In this they would have gained an asylum, for the door had
a strong bolt.  But, as they were on the last steps of the landing,
they could hear the hard breathing and long strides of the murderer
ascending behind them.  He had watched them through a crevice, and
had been satisfied by the hysterical laugh of Louisa that she had
seen him.  In the darkness he could not follow fast, from ignorance
of the localities, until he found himself upon the stairs.  Louisa,
dragging her sister along, felt strong as with the strength of
lunacy, but Lottchen hung like a weight of lead upon her.  She
rushed into the room, but at the very entrance Lottchen fell.  At
that moment the assassin exchanged his stealthy pace for a loud
clattering ascent.  Already he was on the topmost stair; already he
was throwing himself at a bound against the door, when Louisa,
having dragged her sister into the room, closed the door and sent
the bolt home in the very instant that the murderer's hand came
into contact with the handle.  Then, from the violence of her
emotions, she fell down in a fit, with her arm around the sister
whom she had saved.

How long they lay in this state neither ever knew.  The two old
ladies had rushed upstairs on hearing the tumult.  Other persons
had been concealed in other parts of the house.  The servants found
themselves suddenly locked in, and were not sorry to be saved from
a collision which involved so awful a danger.  The old ladies had
rushed, side by side, into the very center of those who were
seeking them.  Retreat was impossible; two persons at least were
heard following them upstairs.  Something like a shrieking
expostulation and counter-expostulation went on between the ladies
and the murderers; then came louder voices--then one heart-piercing
shriek, and then another--and then a slow moaning and a dead
silence.  Shortly afterwards was heard the first crashing of the
door inward by the mob; but the murderers had fled upon the first
alarm, and, to the astonishment of the servants, had fled upward.
Examination, however, explained this: from a window in the roof
they had passed to an adjoining house recently left empty; and
here, as in other cases, we had proof how apt people are, in the
midst of elaborate provisions against remote dangers, to neglect
those which are obvious.

The reign of terror, it may be supposed, had now reached its acme.
The two old ladies were both lying dead at different points on the
staircase, and, as usual, no conjecture could be made as to the
nature of the offense which they had given; but that the murder WAS
a vindictive one, the usual evidence remained behind, in the proofs
that no robbery had been attempted.  Two new features, however,
were now brought forward in this system of horrors, one of which
riveted the sense of their insecurity to all families occupying
extensive houses, and the other raised ill blood between the city
and the university, such as required years to allay.  The first
arose out of the experience, now first obtained, that these
assassins pursued the plan of secreting themselves within the house
where they meditated a murder.  All the care, therefore, previously
directed to the securing of doors and windows after nightfall
appeared nugatory.  The other feature brought to light on this
occasion was vouched for by one of the servants, who declared that,
the moment before the door of the kitchen was fastened upon herself
and fellow servant, she saw two men in the hall, one on the point
of ascending the stairs, the other making toward the kitchen; that
she could not distinguish the faces of either, but that both were
dressed in the academic costume belonging to the students of the
university.  The consequences of such a declaration need scarcely
be mentioned.  Suspicion settled upon the students, who were more
numerous since the general peace, in a much larger proportion
military, and less select or respectable than heretofore.  Still,
no part of the mystery was cleared up by this discovery.  Many of
the students were poor enough to feel the temptation that might be
offered by any LUCRATIVE system of outrage.  Jealous and painful
collusions were, in the meantime, produced; and, during the latter
two months of this winter, it may be said that our city exhibited
the very anarchy of evil passions.  This condition of things lasted
until the dawning of another spring.

It will be supposed that communications were made to the supreme
government of the land as soon as the murders in our city were
understood to be no casual occurrences, but links in a systematic
series.  Perhaps it might happen from some other business, of a
higher kind, just then engaging the attention of our governors,
that our representations did not make the impression we had
expected.  We could not, indeed, complain of absolute neglect from
the government.  They sent down one or two of their most
accomplished police officers, and they suggested some counsels,
especially that we should examine more strictly into the quality of
the miscellaneous population who occupied our large suburb.  But
they more than hinted that no necessity was seen either for
quartering troops upon us, or for arming our local magistracy with
ampler powers.

This correspondence with the central government occupied the month
of March, and, before that time, the bloody system had ceased as
abruptly as it began.  The new police officer flattered himself
that the terror of his name had wrought this effect; but judicious
people thought otherwise.  All, however, was quiet until the depth
of summer, when, by way of hinting to us, perhaps, that the
dreadful power which clothed itself with darkness had not expired,
but was only reposing from its labors, all at once the chief jailer
of the city was missing.  He had been in the habit of taking long
rides in the forest, his present situation being much of a
sinecure.  It was on the first of July that he was missed.  In
riding through the city gates that morning, he had mentioned the
direction which he meant to pursue; and the last time he was seen
alive was in one of the forest avenues, about eight miles from the
city, leading toward the point he had indicated.  This jailer was
not a man to be regretted on his own account; his life had been a
tissue of cruelty and brutal abuse of his powers, in which he had
been too much supported by the magistrates, partly on the plea that
it was their duty to back their own officers against all
complainers, partly also from the necessities created by the
turbulent times for a more summary exercise of their magisterial
authority.  No man, therefore, on his own separate account, could
more willingly have been spared than this brutal jailer; and it was
a general remark that, had the murderous band within our walls
swept away this man only, they would have merited the public
gratitude as purifiers from a public nuisance.  But was it certain
that the jailer had died by the same hands as had so deeply
afflicted the peace of our city during the winter--or, indeed, that
he had been murdered at all?  The forest was too extensive to be
searched; and it was possible that he might have met with some
fatal accident.  His horse had returned to the city gates in the
night, and was found there in the morning.  Nobody, however, for
months could give information about his rider; and it seemed
probable that he would not be discovered until the autumn and the
winter should again carry the sportsman into every thicket and
dingle of this sylvan tract.  One person only seemed to have more
knowledge on this subject than others, and that was poor Ferdinand
von Harrelstein.  He was now a mere ruin of what he had once been,
both as to intellect and moral feeling; and I observed him
frequently smile when the jailer was mentioned.  "Wait," he would
say, "till the leaves begin to drop; then you will see what fine
fruit our forest bears."  I did not repeat these expressions to
anybody except one friend, who agreed with me that the jailer had
probably been hanged in some recess of the forest, which summer
veiled with its luxuriant umbrage; and that Ferdinand, constantly
wandering in the forest, had discovered the body; but we both
acquitted him of having been an accomplice in the murder.

Meantime the marriage between Margaret Liebenheim and Maximilian
was understood to be drawing near.  Yet one thing struck everybody
with astonishment.  As far as the young people were concerned,
nobody could doubt that all was arranged; for never was happiness
more perfect than that which seemed to unite them.  Margaret was
the impersonation of May-time and youthful rapture; even Maximilian
in her presence seemed to forget his gloom, and the worm which
gnawed at his heart was charmed asleep by the music of her voice,
and the paradise of her smiles.  But, until the autumn came,
Margaret's grandfather had never ceased to frown upon this
connection, and to support the pretensions of Ferdinand.  The
dislike, indeed, seemed reciprocal between him and Maximilian.
Each avoided the other's company and as to the old man, he went so
far as to speak sneeringly of Maximilian.  Maximilian despised him
too heartily to speak of him at all.  When he could not avoid
meeting him, he treated him with a stern courtesy, which distressed
Margaret as often as she witnessed it.  She felt that her
grandfather had been the aggressor; and she felt also that he did
injustice to the merits of her lover.  But she had a filial
tenderness for the old man, as the father of her sainted mother,
and on his own account, continually making more claims on her pity,
as the decay of his memory, and a childish fretfulness growing upon
him from day to day, marked his increasing imbecility.

Equally mysterious it seemed, that about this time Miss Liebenheim
began to receive anonymous letters, written in the darkest and most
menacing terms.  Some of them she showed to me.  I could not guess
at their drift.  Evidently they glanced at Maximilian, and bade her
beware of connection with him; and dreadful things were insinuated
about him.  Could these letters be written by Ferdinand?  Written
they were not, but could they be dictated by him?  Much I feared
that they were; and the more so for one reason.

All at once, and most inexplicably, Margaret's grandfather showed a
total change of opinion in his views as to her marriage.  Instead
of favoring Harrelstein's pretensions, as he had hitherto done, he
now threw the feeble weight of his encouragement into Maximilian's
scale; though, from the situation of all the parties, nobody
attached any PRACTICAL importance to the change in Mr. Liebenheim's
way of thinking.  Nobody?  Is that true?  No; one person DID attach
the greatest weight to the change--poor, ruined Ferdinand.  He, so
long as there was one person to take his part, so long as the
grandfather of Margaret showed countenance to himself, had still
felt his situation not utterly desperate.

Thus were things situated, when in November, all the leaves daily
blowing off from the woods, and leaving bare the most secret haunts
of the thickets, the body of the jailer was left exposed in the
forest; but not, as I and my friend had conjectured, hanged.  No;
he had died apparently by a more horrid death--by that of
crucifixion.  The tree, a remarkable one, bore upon a part of its
trunk this brief but savage inscription:--"T. H., jailer at -----;
Crucified July 1, 1816."

A great deal of talk went on throughout the city upon this
discovery; nobody uttered one word of regret on account of the
wretched jailer; on the contrary, the voice of vengeance, rising up
in many a cottage, reached my ears in every direction as I walked
abroad.  The hatred in itself seemed horrid and unchristian, and
still more so after the man's death; but, though horrid and
fiendish for itself, it was much more impressive, considered as the
measure and exponent of the damnable oppression which must have
existed to produce it.

At first, when the absence of the jailer was a recent occurrence,
and the presence of the murderers among us was, in consequence,
revived to our anxious thoughts, it was an event which few alluded
to without fear.  But matters were changed now; the jailer had been
dead for months, and this interval, during which the murderer's
hand had slept, encouraged everybody to hope that the storm had
passed over our city; that peace had returned to our hearths; and
that henceforth weakness might sleep in safety, and innocence
without anxiety.  Once more we had peace within our walls, and
tranquillity by our firesides.  Again the child went to bed in
cheerfulness, and the old man said his prayers in serenity.
Confidence was restored; peace was re-established; and once again
the sanctity of human life became the rule and the principle for
all human hands among us.  Great was the joy; the happiness was
universal.

O heavens! by what a thunderbolt were we awakened from our
security!  On the night of the twenty-seventh of December, half an
hour, it might be, after twelve o'clock, an alarm was given that
all was not right in the house of Mr. Liebenheim.  Vast was the
crowd which soon collected in breathless agitation.  In two minutes
a man who had gone round by the back of the house was heard
unbarring Mr. Liebenheim's door: he was incapable of uttering a
word; but his gestures, as he threw the door open and beckoned to
the crowd, were quite enough.  In the hall, at the further
extremity, and as if arrested in the act of making for the back
door, lay the bodies of old Mr. Liebenheim and one of his sisters,
an aged widow; on the stair lay another sister, younger and
unmarried, but upward of sixty.  The hall and lower flight of
stairs were floating with blood.  Where, then, was Miss Liebenheim,
the granddaughter?  That was the universal cry; for she was beloved
as generally as she was admired.  Had the infernal murderers been
devilish enough to break into that temple of innocent and happy
life?  Everyone asked the question, and everyone held his breath to
listen; but for a few moments no one dared to advance; for the
silence of the house was ominous.  At length some one cried out
that Miss Liebenheim had that day gone upon a visit to a friend,
whose house was forty miles distant in the forest.  "Aye," replied
another," she had settled to go; but I heard that something had
stopped her."  The suspense was now at its height, and the crowd
passed from room to room, but found no traces of Miss Liebenheim.
At length they ascended the stair, and in the very first room, a
small closet, or boudoir, lay Margaret, with her dress soiled
hideously with blood.  The first impression was that she also had
been murdered; but, on a nearer approach, she appeared to be
unwounded, and was manifestly alive.  Life had not departed, for
her breath sent a haze over a mirror, but it was suspended, and she
was laboring in some kind of fit.  The first act of the crowd was
to carry her into the house of a friend on the opposite side of the
street, by which time medical assistance had crowded to the spot.
Their attentions to Miss Liebenheim had naturally deranged the
condition of things in the little room, but not before many people
found time to remark that one of the murderers must have carried
her with his bloody hands to the sofa on which she lay, for water
had been sprinkled profusely over her face and throat, and water
was even placed ready to her hand, when she might happen to
recover, upon a low foot-stool by the side of the sofa.

On the following morning, Maximilian, who had been upon a hunting
party in the forest, returned to the city, and immediately learned
the news.  I did not see him for some hours after, but he then
appeared to me thoroughly agitated, for the first time I had known
him to be so.  In the evening another perplexing piece of
intelligence transpired with regard to Miss Liebenheim, which at
first afflicted every friend of that young lady.  It was that she
had been seized with the pains of childbirth, and delivered of a
son, who, however, being born prematurely, did not live many hours.
Scandal, however, was not allowed long to batten upon this
imaginary triumph, for within two hours after the circulation of
this first rumor, followed a second, authenticated, announcing that
Maximilian had appeared with the confessor of the Liebenheim
family, at the residence of the chief magistrate, and there
produced satisfactory proofs of his marriage with Miss Liebenheim,
which had been duly celebrated, though with great secrecy, nearly
eight months before.  In our city, as in all the cities of our
country, clandestine marriages, witnessed, perhaps, by two friends
only of the parties, besides the officiating priest, are
exceedingly common.  In the mere fact, therefore, taken separately,
there was nothing to surprise us, but, taken in connection with the
general position of the parties, it DID surprise us all; nor could
we conjecture the reason for a step apparently so needless.  For,
that Maximilian could have thought it any point of prudence or
necessity to secure the hand of Margaret Liebenheim by a private
marriage, against the final opposition of her grandfather, nobody
who knew the parties, who knew the perfect love which possessed
Miss Liebenbeim, the growing imbecility of her grandfather, or the
utter contempt with which Maximilian regarded him, could for a
moment believe.  Altogether, the matter was one of profound
mystery.

Meantime, it rejoiced me that poor Margaret's name had been thus
rescued from the fangs of the scandalmongers.  These harpies had
their prey torn from them at the very moment when they were sitting
down to the unhallowed banquet.  For this I rejoiced, but else
there was little subject for rejoicing in anything which concerned
poor Margaret.  Long she lay in deep insensibility, taking no
notice of anything, rarely opening her eyes, and apparently
unconscious of the revolutions, as they succeeded, of morning or
evening, light or darkness, yesterday or to-day.  Great was the
agitation which convulsed the heart of Maximilian during this
period; he walked up and down in the cathedral nearly all day long,
and the ravages which anxiety was working in his physical system
might be read in his face.  People felt it an intrusion upon the
sanctity of his grief to look at him too narrowly, and the whole
town sympathized with his situation.

At length a change took place in Margaret, but one which the
medical men announced to Maximilian as boding ill for her recovery.
The wanderings of her mind did not depart, but they altered their
character.  She became more agitated; she would start up suddenly,
and strain her eye-sight after some figure which she seemed to see;
then she would apostrophize some person in the most piteous terms,
beseeching him, with streaming eyes, to spare her old grandfather.
"Look, look," she would cry out, "look at his gray hairs!  O, sir!
he is but a child; he does not know what he says; and he will soon
be out of the way and in his grave; and very soon, sir, he will
give you no more trouble."  Then, again, she would mutter
indistinctly for hours together; sometimes she would cry out
frantically, and say things which terrified the bystanders, and
which the physicians would solemnly caution them how they repeated;
then she would weep, and invoke Maximilian to come and aid her.
But seldom, indeed, did that name pass her lips that she did not
again begin to strain her eyeballs, and start up in bed to watch
some phantom of her poor, fevered heart, as if it seemed vanishing
into some mighty distance.

After nearly seven weeks passed in this agitating state, suddenly,
on one morning, the earliest and the loveliest of dawning spring, a
change was announced to us all as having taken place in Margaret;
but it was a change, alas! that ushered in the last great change of
all.  The conflict, which had for so long a period raged within
her, and overthrown her reason, was at an end; the strife was over,
and nature was settling into an everlasting rest.  In the course of
the night she had recovered her senses.  When the morning light
penetrated through her curtain, she recognized her attendants, made
inquiries as to the month and the day of the month, and then,
sensible that she could not outlive the day, she requested that her
confessor might be summoned.

About an hour and a half the confessor remained alone with her.  At
the end of that time he came out, and hastily summoned the
attendants, for Margaret, he said, was sinking into a fainting fit.
The confessor himself might have passed through many a fit, so much
was he changed by the results of this interview.  I crossed him
coming out of the house.  I spoke to him--I called to him; but he
heard me not--he saw me not.  He saw nobody.  Onward he strode to
the cathedral, where Maximilian was sure to be found, pacing about
upon the graves.  Him he seized by the arm, whispered something
into his ear, and then both retired into one of the many
sequestered chapels in which lights are continually burning.  There
they had some conversation, but not very long, for within five
minutes Maximilian strode away to the house in which his young wife
was dying.  One step seemed to carry him upstairs.  The attendants,
according to the directions they had received from the physicians,
mustered at the head of the stairs to oppose him.  But that was
idle: before the rights which he held as a lover and a husband--
before the still more sacred rights of grief, which he carried in
his countenance, all opposition fled like a dream.  There was,
besides, a fury in his eye.  A motion of his hand waved them off
like summer flies; he entered the room, and once again, for the
last time, he was in company with his beloved.

What passed who could pretend to guess?  Something more than two
hours had elapsed, during which Margaret had been able to talk
occasionally, which was known, because at times the attendants
heard the sound of Maximilian's voice evidently in tones of reply
to something which she had said.  At the end of that time, a little
bell, placed near the bedside, was rung hastily.  A fainting fit
had seized Margaret; but she recovered almost before her women
applied the usual remedies.  They lingered, however, a little,
looking at the youthful couple with an interest which no restraints
availed to check.  Their hands were locked together, and in
Margaret's eyes there gleamed a farewell light of love, which
settled upon Maximilian, and seemed to indicate that she was
becoming speechless.  Just at this moment she made a feeble effort
to draw Maximilian toward her; he bent forward and kissed her with
an anguish that made the most callous weep, and then he whispered
something into her ear, upon which the attendants retired, taking
this as a proof that their presence was a hindrance to a free
communication.  But they heard no more talking, and in less than
ten minutes they returned.  Maximilian and Margaret still retained
their former position.  Their hands were fast locked together; the
same parting ray of affection, the same farewell light of love, was
in the eye of Margaret, and still it settled upon Maximilian.  But
her eyes were beginning to grow dim; mists were rapidly stealing
over them.  Maximilian, who sat stupefied and like one not in his
right mind, now, at the gentle request of the women, resigned his
seat, for the hand which had clasped his had already relaxed its
hold; the farewell gleam of love had departed.  One of the women
closed her eyelids; and there fell asleep forever the loveliest
flower that our city had reared for generations.

The funeral took place on the fourth day after her death.  In the
morning of that day, from strong affection--having known her from
an infant--I begged permission to see the corpse.  She was in her
coffin; snowdrops and crocuses were laid upon her innocent bosom,
and roses, of that sort which the season allowed, over her person.
These and other lovely symbols of youth, of springtime, and of
resurrection, caught my eye for the first moment; but in the next
it fell upon her face.  Mighty God! what a change! what a
transfiguration!  Still, indeed, there was the same innocent
sweetness; still there was something of the same loveliness; the
expression still remained; but for the features--all trace of flesh
seemed to have vanished; mere outline of bony structure remained;
mere pencilings and shadowings of what she once had been.  This is,
indeed, I exclaimed, "dust to dust--ashes to ashes!"

Maximilian, to the astonishment of everybody, attended the funeral.
It was celebrated in the cathedral.  All made way for him, and at
times he seemed collected; at times he reeled like one who was
drunk.  He heard as one who hears not; he saw as one in a dream.
The whole ceremony went on by torchlight, and toward the close he
stood like a pillar, motionless, torpid, frozen.  But the great
burst of the choir, and the mighty blare ascending from our vast
organ at the closing of the grave, recalled him to himself, and he
strode rapidly homeward.  Half an hour after I returned, I was
summoned to his bedroom.  He was in bed, calm and collected.  What
he said to me I remember as if it had been yesterday, and the very
tone with which he said it, although more than twenty years have
passed since then.  He began thus: "I have not long to live"; and
when he saw me start, suddenly awakened into a consciousness that
perhaps he had taken poison, and meant to intimate as much, he
continued: "You fancy I have taken poison;--no matter whether I
have or not; if I have, the poison is such that no antidote will
now avail; or, if they would, you well know that some griefs are of
a kind which leave no opening to any hope.  What difference,
therefore, can it make whether I leave this earth to-day, to-
morrow, or the next day?  Be assured of this--that whatever I have
determined to do is past all power of being affected by a human
opposition.  Occupy yourself not with any fruitless attempts, but
calmly listen to me, else I know what to do."  Seeing a suppressed
fury in his eye, notwithstanding I saw also some change stealing
over his features as if from some subtle poison beginning to work
upon his frame, awestruck I consented to listen, and sat still.
"It is well that you do so, for my time is short.  Here is my will,
legally drawn up, and you will see that I have committed an immense
property to your discretion.  Here, again, is a paper still more
important in my eyes; it is also testamentary, and binds you to
duties which may not be so easy to execute as the disposal of my
property.  But now listen to something else, which concerns neither
of these papers.  Promise me, in the first place, solemnly, that
whenever I die you will see me buried in the same grave as my wife,
from whose funeral we are just returned.  Promise."--I promised.--
"Swear."--I swore.--"Finally, promise me that, when you read this
second paper which I have put into your hands, whatsoever you may
think of it, you will say nothing--publish nothing to the world
until three years shall have passed."--I promised.--"And now
farewell for three hours.  Come to me again about ten o'clock, and
take a glass of wine in memory of old times."  This he said
laughingly; but even then a dark spasm crossed his face.  Yet,
thinking that this might be the mere working of mental anguish
within him, I complied with his desire, and retired.  Feeling,
however, but little at ease, I devised an excuse for looking in
upon him about one hour and a half after I had left him.  I knocked
gently at his door; there was no answer.  I knocked louder; still
no answer.  I went in.  The light of day was gone, and I could see
nothing.  But I was alarmed by the utter stillness of the room.  I
listened earnestly, but not a breath could be heard.  I rushed back
hastily into the hall for a lamp; I returned; I looked in upon this
marvel of manly beauty, and the first glance informed me that he
and all his splendid endowments had departed forever.  He had died,
probably, soon after I left him, and had dismissed me from some
growing instinct which informed him that his last agonies were at
hand.

I took up his two testamentary documents; both were addressed in
the shape of letters to myself.  The first was a rapid though
distinct appropriation of his enormous property.  General rules
were laid down, upon which the property was to be distributed, but
the details were left to my discretion, and to the guidance of
circumstances as they should happen to emerge from the various
inquiries which it would become necessary to set on foot.  This
first document I soon laid aside, both because I found that its
provisions were dependent for their meaning upon the second, and
because to this second document I looked with confidence for a
solution of many mysteries;--of the profound sadness which had,
from the first of my acquaintance with him, possessed a man so
gorgeously endowed as the favorite of nature and fortune; of his
motives for huddling up, in a clandestine manner, that connection
which formed the glory of his life; and possibly (but then I
hesitated) of the late unintelligible murders, which still lay
under as profound a cloud as ever.  Much of this WOULD be unveiled--
all might be: and there and then, with the corpse lying beside me
of the gifted and mysterious writer, I seated myself, and read the
following statement:


"MARCH 26, 1817.

"My trial is finished; my conscience, my duty, my honor, are
liberated; my 'warfare is accomplished.'  Margaret, my innocent
young wife, I have seen for the last time.  Her, the crown that
might have been of my earthly felicity--her, the one temptation to
put aside the bitter cup which awaited me--her, sole seductress (O
innocent seductress!) from the stern duties which my fate had
imposed upon me--her, even her, I have sacrificed.

"Before I go, partly lest the innocent should be brought into
question for acts almost exclusively mine, but still more lest the
lesson and the warning which God, by my hand, has written in blood
upon your guilty walls, should perish for want of its authentic
exposition, hear my last dying avowal, that the murders which have
desolated so many families within your walls, and made the
household hearth no sanctuary, age no charter of protection, are
all due originally to my head, if not always to my hand, as the
minister of a dreadful retribution.

"That account of my history, and my prospects, which you received
from the Russian diplomatist, among some errors of little
importance, is essentially correct.  My father was not so
immediately connected with English blood as is there represented.
However, it is true that he claimed descent from an English family
of even higher distinction than that which is assigned in the
Russian statement.  He was proud of this English descent, and the
more so as the war with revolutionary France brought out more
prominently than ever the moral and civil grandeur of England.
This pride was generous, but it was imprudent in his situation.
His immediate progenitors had been settled in Italy--at Rome first,
but latterly at Milan; and his whole property, large and scattered,
came, by the progress of the revolution, to stand under French
domination.  Many spoliations he suffered; but still he was too
rich to be seriously injured.  But he foresaw, in the progress of
events, still greater perils menacing his most capital resources.
Many of the states or princes in Italy were deeply in his debt;
and, in the great convulsions which threatened his country, he saw
that both the contending parties would find a colorable excuse for
absolving themselves from engagements which pressed unpleasantly
upon their finances.  In this embarrassment he formed an intimacy
with a French officer of high rank and high principle.  My father's
friend saw his danger, and advised him to enter the French service.
In his younger days, my father had served extensively under many
princes, and had found in every other military service a spirit of
honor governing the conduct of the officers.  Here only, and for
the first time, he found ruffian manners and universal rapacity.
He could not draw his sword in company with such men, nor in such a
cause.  But at length, under the pressure of necessity, he accepted
(or rather bought with an immense bribe) the place of a commissary
to the French forces in Italy.  With this one resource, eventually
he succeeded in making good the whole of his public claims upon the
Italian states.  These vast sums he remitted, through various
channels, to England, where he became proprietor in the funds to an
immense amount.  Incautiously, however, something of this
transpired, and the result was doubly unfortunate; for, while his
intentions were thus made known as finally pointing to England,
which of itself made him an object of hatred and suspicion, it also
diminished his means of bribery.  These considerations, along with
another, made some French officers of high rank and influence the
bitter enemies of my father.  My mother, whom he had married when
holding a brigadier-general's commission in the Austrian service,
was, by birth and by religion, a Jewess.  She was of exquisite
beauty, and had been sought in Morganatic marriage by an archduke
of the Austrian family; but she had relied upon this plea, that
hers was the purest and noblest blood among all Jewish families--
that her family traced themselves, by tradition and a vast series
of attestations under the hands of the Jewish high priests, to the
Maccabees, and to the royal houses of Judea; and that for her it
would be a degradation to accept even of a sovereign prince on the
terms of such marriage.  This was no vain pretension of
ostentatious vanity.  It was one which had been admitted as valid
for time immemorial in Transylvania and adjacent countries, where
my mother's family were rich and honored, and took their seat among
the dignitaries of the land.  The French officers I have alluded
to, without capacity for anything so dignified as a deep passion,
but merely in pursuit of a vagrant fancy that would, on the next
day, have given place to another equally fleeting, had dared to
insult my mother with proposals the most licentious--proposals as
much below her rank and birth, as, at any rate, they would have
been below her dignity of mind and her purity.  These she had
communicated to my father, who bitterly resented the chains of
subordination which tied up his hands from avenging his injuries.
Still his eye told a tale which his superiors could brook as little
as they could the disdainful neglect of his wife.  More than one
had been concerned in the injuries to my father and mother; more
than one were interested in obtaining revenge.  Things could be
done in German towns, and by favor of old German laws or usages,
which even in France could not have been tolerated.  This my
father's enemies well knew, but this my father also knew; and he
endeavored to lay down his office of commissary.  That, however,
was a favor which he could not obtain.  He was compelled to serve
on the German campaign then commencing, and on the subsequent one
of Friedland and Eylau.  Here he was caught in some one of the
snares laid for him; first trepanned into an act which violated
some rule of the service; and then provoked into a breach of
discipline against the general officer who had thus trepanned him.
Now was the long-sought opportunity gained, and in that very
quarter of Germany best fitted for improving it.  My father was
thrown into prison in your city, subjected to the atrocious
oppression of your jailer, and the more detestable oppression of
your local laws.  The charges against him were thought even to
affect his life, and he was humbled into suing for permission to
send for his wife and children.  Already, to his proud spirit, it
was punishment enough that he should be reduced to sue for favor to
one of his bitterest foes.  But it was no part of their plan to
refuse THAT.  By way of expediting my mother's arrival, a military
courier, with every facility for the journey, was forwarded to her
without delay.  My mother, her two daughters, and myself, were then
residing in Venice.  I had, through the aid of my father's
connections in Austria, been appointed in the imperial service, and
held a high commission for my age.  But, on my father's marching
northward with the French army, I had been recalled as an
indispensable support to my mother.  Not that my years could have
made me such, for I had barely accomplished my twelfth year; but my
premature growth, and my military station, had given me
considerable knowledge of the world and presence of mind.

"Our journey I pass over; but as I approach your city, that
sepulcher of honor and happiness to my poor family, my heart beats
with frantic emotions.  Never do I see that venerable dome of your
minster from the forest, but I curse its form, which reminds me of
what we then surveyed for many a mile as we traversed the forest.
For leagues before we approached the city, this object lay before
us in relief upon the frosty blue sky; and still it seemed never to
increase.  Such was the complaint of my little sister Mariamne.
Most innocent child! would that it never had increased for thy
eyes, but remained forever at a distance!  That same hour began the
series of monstrous indignities which terminated the career of my
ill-fated family.  As we drew up to the city gates, the officer who
inspected the passports, finding my mother and sisters described as
Jewesses, which in my mother's ears (reared in a region where Jews
are not dishonored) always sounded a title of distinction, summoned
a subordinate agent, who in coarse terms demanded his toll.  We
presumed this to be a road tax for the carriage and horses, but we
were quickly undeceived; a small sum was demanded for each of my
sisters and my mother, as for so many head of cattle.  I, fancying
some mistake, spoke to the man temperately, and, to do him justice,
he did not seem desirous of insulting us; but he produced a printed
board, on which, along with the vilest animals, Jews and Jewesses
were rated at so much a head.  While we were debating the point,
the officers of the gate wore a sneering smile upon their faces--
the postilions were laughing together; and this, too, in the
presence of three creatures whose exquisite beauty, in different
styles, agreeably to their different ages, would have caused
noblemen to have fallen down and worshiped.  My mother, who had
never yet met with any flagrant insult on account of her national
distinctions, was too much shocked to be capable of speaking.  I
whispered to her a few words, recalling her to her native dignity
of mind, paid the money, and we drove to the prison.  But the hour
was past at which we could be admitted, and, as Jewesses, my mother
and sisters could not be allowed to stay in the city; they were to
go into the Jewish quarter, a part of the suburb set apart for
Jews, in which it was scarcely possible to obtain a lodging
tolerably clean.  My father, on the next day, we found, to our
horror, at the point of death.  To my mother he did not tell the
worst of what he had endured.  To me he told that, driven to
madness by the insults offered to him, he had upbraided the court-
martial with their corrupt propensities, and had even mentioned
that overtures had been made to him for quashing the proceedings in
return for a sum of two millions of francs; and that his sole
reason for not entertaining the proposal was his distrust of those
who made it.  'They would have taken my money,' said he, 'and then
found a pretext for putting me to death, that I might tell no
secrets.'  This was too near the truth to be tolerated; in concert
with the local authorities, the military enemies of my father
conspired against him--witnesses were suborned; and, finally, under
some antiquated law of the place, he was subjected, in secret, to a
mode of torture which still lingers in the east of Europe.

"He sank under the torture and the degradation.  I, too,
thoughtlessly, but by a natural movement of filial indignation,
suffered the truth to escape me in conversing with my mother.  And
she--;but I will preserve the regular succession of things.  My
father died; but he had taken such measures, in concert with me,
that his enemies should never benefit by his property.  Meantime my
mother and sisters had closed my father's eyes; had attended his
remains to the grave; and in every act connected with this last sad
rite had met with insults and degradations too mighty for human
patience.  My mother, now become incapable of self-command, in the
fury of her righteous grief, publicly and in court denounced the
conduct of the magistracy--taxed some of them with the vilest
proposals to herself--taxed them as a body with having used
instruments of torture upon my father; and, finally, accused them
of collusion with the French military oppressors of the district.
This last was a charge under which they quailed; for by that time
the French had made themselves odious to all who retained a spark
of patriotic feeling.  My heart sank within me when I looked up at
the bench, this tribunal of tyrants, all purple or livid with rage;
when I looked at them alternately and at my noble mother with her
weeping daughters--these so powerless, those so basely vindictive,
and locally so omnipotent.  Willingly I would have sacrificed all
my wealth for a simple permission to quit this infernal city with
my poor female relations safe and undishonored.  But far other were
the intentions of that incensed magistracy.  My mother was
arrested, charged with some offense equal to petty treason, or
scandalum magnatum, or the sowing of sedition; and, though what she
said was true, where, alas! was she to look for evidence?  Here was
seen the want of gentlemen.  Gentlemen, had they been even equally
tyrannical, would have recoiled with shame from taking vengeance on
a woman.  And what a vengeance!  O heavenly powers! that I should
live to mention such a thing!  Man that is born of woman, to
inflict upon woman personal scourging on the bare back, and through
the streets at noonday!  Even for Christian women the punishment
was severe which the laws assigned to the offense in question.  But
for Jewesses, by one of the ancient laws against that persecuted
people, far heavier and more degrading punishments were annexed to
almost every offense.  What else could be looked for in a city
which welcomed its Jewish guests by valuing them at its gates as
brute beasts?  Sentence was passed, and the punishment was to be
inflicted on two separate days, with an interval between each--
doubtless to prolong the tortures of mind, but under a vile
pretense of alleviating the physical torture.  Three days after
would come the first day of punishment.  My mother spent the time
in reading her native Scriptures; she spent it in prayer and in
musing; while her daughters clung and wept around her day and
night--groveling on the ground at the feet of any people in
authority that entered their mother's cell.  That same interval--
how was it passed by me?  Now mark, my friend.  Every man in
office, or that could be presumed to bear the slightest influence,
every wife, mother, sister, daughter of such men, I besieged
morning, noon, and night.  I wearied them with my supplications.  I
humbled myself to the dust; I, the haughtiest of God's creatures,
knelt and prayed to them for the sake of my mother.  I besought
them that I might undergo the punishment ten times over in her
stead.  And once or twice I DID obtain the encouragement of a few
natural tears--given more, however, as I was told, to my piety than
to my mother's deserts.  But rarely was I heard out with patience;
and from some houses repelled with personal indignities.  The day
came: I saw my mother half undressed by the base officials; I heard
the prison gates expand; I heard the trumpets of the magistracy
sound.  She had warned me what to do; I had warned myself.  Would I
sacrifice a retribution sacred and comprehensive, for the momentary
triumph over an individual?  If not, let me forbear to look out of
doors; for I felt that in the selfsame moment in which I saw the
dog of an executioner raise his accursed hand against my mother,
swifter than the lightning would my dagger search his heart.  When
I heard the roar of the cruel mob, I paused--endured--forbore.  I
stole out by by-lanes of the city from my poor exhausted sisters,
whom I left sleeping in each other's innocent arms, into the
forest.  There I listened to the shouting populace; there even I
fancied that I could trace my poor mother's route by the course of
the triumphant cries.  There, even then, even then, I made--O
silent forest! thou heardst me when I made--a vow that I have kept
too faithfully.  Mother, thou art avenged: sleep, daughter of
Jerusalem! for at length the oppressor sleeps with thee.  And thy
poor son has paid, in discharge of his vow, the forfeit of his own
happiness, of a paradise opening upon earth, of a heart as innocent
as thine, and a face as fair.

"I returned, and found my mother returned.  She slept by starts,
but she was feverish and agitated; and when she awoke and first saw
me, she blushed, as if I could think that real degradation had
settled upon her.  Then it was that I told her of my vow.  Her eyes
were lambent with fierce light for a moment; but, when I went on
more eagerly to speak of my hopes and projects, she called me to
her--kissed me, and whispered: 'Oh, not so, my son! think not of
me--think not of vengeance--think only of poor Berenice and
Mariamne.'  Aye, that thought WAS startling.  Yet this magnanimous
and forbearing mother, as I knew by the report of our one faithful
female servant, had, in the morning, during her bitter trial,
behaved as might have become a daughter of Judas Maccabaeus: she
had looked serenely upon the vile mob, and awed even them by her
serenity; she had disdained to utter a shriek when the cruel lash
fell upon her fair skin.  There is a point that makes the triumph
over natural feelings of pain easy or not easy--the degree in which
we count upon the sympathy of the bystanders.  My mother had it not
in the beginning; but, long before the end, her celestial beauty,
the divinity of injured innocence, the pleading of common womanhood
in the minds of the lowest class, and the reaction of manly feeling
in the men, had worked a great change in the mob.  Some began now
to threaten those who had been active in insulting her.  The
silence of awe and respect succeeded to noise and uproar; and
feelings which they scarcely understood, mastered the rude rabble
as they witnessed more and more the patient fortitude of the
sufferer.  Menaces began to rise toward the executioner.  Things
wore such an aspect that the magistrates put a sudden end to the
scene.

"That day we received permission to go home to our poor house in
the Jewish quarter.  I know not whether you are learned enough in
Jewish usages to be aware that in every Jewish house, where old
traditions are kept up, there is one room consecrated to confusion;
a room always locked up and sequestered from vulgar use, except on
occasions of memorable affliction, where everything is purposely in
disorder--broken--shattered--mutilated: to typify, by symbols
appalling to the eye, that desolation which has so long trampled on
Jerusalem, and the ravages of the boar within the vineyards of
Judea.  My mother, as a Hebrew princess, maintained all traditional
customs.  Even in this wretched suburb she had her 'chamber of
desolation.'  There it was that I and my sisters heard her last
words.  The rest of her sentence was to be carried into effect
within a week.  She, meantime, had disdained to utter any word of
fear; but that energy of self-control had made the suffering but
the more bitter.  Fever and dreadful agitation had succeeded.  Her
dreams showed sufficiently to us, who watched her couch, that
terror for the future mingled with the sense of degradation for the
past.  Nature asserted her rights.  But the more she shrank from
the suffering, the more did she proclaim how severe it had been,
and consequently how noble the self-conquest.  Yet, as her weakness
increased, so did her terror; until I besought her to take comfort,
assuring her that, in case any attempt should be made to force her
out again to public exposure, I would kill the man who came to
execute the order--that we would all die together--and there would
be a common end to her injuries and her fears.  She was reassured
by what I told her of my belief that no future attempt would be
made upon her.  She slept more tranquilly--but her fever increased;
and slowly she slept away into the everlasting sleep which knows of
no to-morrow.

"Here came a crisis in my fate.  Should I stay and attempt to
protect my sisters?  But, alas! what power had I to do so among our
enemies?  Rachael and I consulted; and many a scheme we planned.
Even while we consulted, and the very night after my mother had
been committed to the Jewish burying ground, came an officer,
bearing an order for me to repair to Vienna.  Some officer in the
French army, having watched the transaction respecting my parents,
was filled with shame and grief.  He wrote a statement of the whole
to an Austrian officer of rank, my father's friend, who obtained
from the emperor an order, claiming me as a page of his own, and an
officer in the household service.  O heavens! what a neglect that
it did not include my sisters!  However, the next best thing was
that I should use my influence at the imperial court to get them
passed to Vienna.  This I did, to the utmost of my power.  But
seven months elapsed before I saw the emperor.  If my applications
ever met his eye he might readily suppose that your city, my
friend, was as safe a place as another for my sisters.  Nor did I
myself know all its dangers.  At length, with the emperor's leave
of absence, I returned.  And what did I find?  Eight months had
passed, and the faithful Rachael had died.  The poor sisters,
clinging together, but now utterly bereft of friends, knew not
which way to turn.  In this abandonment they fell into the
insidious hands of the ruffian jailer.  My eldest sister, Berenice,
the stateliest and noblest of beauties, had attracted this
ruffian's admiration while she was in the prison with her mother.
And when I returned to your city, armed with the imperial passports
for all, I found that Berenice had died in the villain's custody;
nor could I obtain anything beyond a legal certificate of her
death.  And, finally, the blooming, laughing Mariamne, she also had
died--and of affliction for the loss of her sister.  You, my
friend, had been absent upon your travels during the calamitous
history I have recited.  You had seen neither my father nor my
mother.  But you came in time to take under your protection, from
the abhorred wretch the jailer, my little broken-hearted Mariamne.
And when sometimes you fancied that you had seen me under other
circumstances, in her it was, my dear friend, and in her features
that you saw mine.

"Now was the world a desert to me.  I cared little, in the way of
love, which way I turned.  But in the way of hatred I cared
everything.  I transferred myself to the Russian service, with the
view of gaining some appointment on the Polish frontier, which
might put it in my power to execute my vow of destroying all the
magistrates of your city.  War, however, raged, and carried me into
far other regions.  It ceased, and there was little prospect that
another generation would see it relighted; for the disturber of
peace was a prisoner forever, and all nations were exhausted.  Now,
then, it became necessary that I should adopt some new mode for
executing my vengeance; and the more so, because annually some were
dying of those whom it was my mission to punish.  A voice ascended
to me, day and night, from the graves of my father and mother,
calling for vengeance before it should be too late.

I took my measures thus: Many Jews were present at Waterloo.  From
among these, all irritated against Napoleon for the expectations he
had raised, only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews at
Paris, I selected eight, whom I knew familiarly as men hardened by
military experience against the movements of pity.  With these as
my beagles, I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my
regular campaign; and I am surprised that you did not hear of the
death which met the executioner--him I mean who dared to lift his
hand against my mother.  This man I met by accident in the forest;
and I slew him.  I talked with the wretch, as a stranger at first,
upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady.  Had he relented, had
he expressed compunction, I might have relented.  But far
otherwise: the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke, exulted; he--
But why repeat the villain's words?  I cut him to pieces.  Next I
did this: My agents I caused to matriculate separately at the
college.  They assumed the college dress.  And now mark the
solution of that mystery which caused such perplexity.  Simply as
students we all had an unsuspected admission at any house.  Just
then there was a common practice, as you will remember, among the
younger students, of going out a masking--that is, of entering
houses in the academic dress, and with the face masked.  This
practice subsisted even during the most intense alarm from the
murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring
protection along with it.  But, even after suspicion had connected
itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I should appear
unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly
reception.  Hence the facility with which death was inflicted, and
that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm.  I took
hold of my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security.  Our
weapons were hid under our academic robes; and even when we drew
them out, and at the moment of applying them to the threat, they
still supposed our gestures to be part of the pantomime we were
performing.  Did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in
myself?  No--I loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my
mother, a phantom not seen with bodily eyes, but ever present to my
mind, continually ascended before me; and still I shouted aloud to
my astounded victim, 'This comes from the Jewess!  Hound of hounds!
Do you remember the Jewess whom you dishonored, and the oaths which
you broke in order that you might dishonor her, and the righteous
law which you violated, and the cry of anguish from her son which
you scoffed at?'  Who I was, what I avenged, and whom, I made every
man aware, and every woman, before I punished them.  The details of
the cases I need not repeat.  One or two I was obliged, at the
beginning, to commit to my Jews.  The suspicion was thus, from the
first, turned aside by the notoriety of my presence elsewhere; but
I took care that none suffered who had not either been upon the
guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother, or of those
who turned away with mockery from the supplication of the son.

"It pleased God, however, to place a mighty temptation in my path,
which might have persuaded me to forego all thoughts of vengeance,
to forget my vow, to forget the voices which invoked me from the
grave.  This was Margaret Liebenheim.  Ah! how terrific appeared my
duty of bloody retribution, after her angel's face and angel's
voice had calmed me.  With respect to her grandfather, strange it
is to mention, that never did my innocent wife appear so lovely as
precisely in the relation of granddaughter.  So beautiful was her
goodness to the old man, and so divine was the childlike innocence
on her part, contrasted with the guilty recollections associated
with him--for he was among the guiltiest toward my mother--still I
delayed HIS punishment to the last; and, for his child's sake, I
would have pardoned him--nay, I had resolved to do so, when a
fierce Jew, who had a deep malignity toward this man, swore that he
would accomplish HIS vengeance at all events, and perhaps might be
obliged to include Margaret in the ruin, unless I adhered to the
original scheme.  Then I yielded; for circumstances armed this man
with momentary power.  But the night fixed on was one in which I
had reason to know that my wife would be absent; for so I had
myself arranged with her, and the unhappy counter-arrangement I do
not yet understand.  Let me add, that the sole purpose of my
clandestine marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the
belief that HIS family had been dishonored, even as he had
dishonored mine.  He learned, as I took care that he should, that
his granddaughter carried about with her the promises of a mother,
and did not know that she had the sanction of a wife.  This
discovery made him, in one day, become eager for the marriage he
had previously opposed; and this discovery also embittered the
misery of his death.  At that moment I attempted to think only of
my mother's wrongs; but, in spite of all I could do, this old man
appeared to me in the light of Margaret's grandfather--and, had I
been left to myself, he would have been saved.  As it was, never
was horror equal to mine when I met her flying to his succor.  I
had relied upon her absence; and the misery of that moment, when
her eye fell upon me in the very act of seizing her grandfather,
far transcended all else that I have suffered in these terrific
scenes.  She fainted in my arms, and I and another carried her
upstairs and procured water.  Meantime her grandfather had been
murdered, even while Margaret fainted.  I had, however, under the
fear of discovery, though never anticipating a reencounter with
herself, forestalled the explanation requisite in such a case to
make my conduct intelligible.  I had told her, under feigned names,
the story of my mother and my sisters.  She knew their wrongs: she
had heard me contend for the right of vengeance.  Consequently, in
our parting interview, one word only was required to place myself
in a new position to her thoughts.  I needed only to say I was that
son; that unhappy mother, so miserably degraded and outraged, was
mine.

"As to the jailer, he was met by a party of us.  Not suspecting
that any of us could be connected with the family, he was led to
talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor Berenice.
The child had not, as had been insinuated, aided her own
degradation, but had nobly sustained the dignity of her sex and her
family.  Such advantages as the monster pretended to have gained
over her--sick, desolate, and latterly delirious--were, by his own
confession, not obtained without violence.  This was too much.
Forty thousand lives, had he possessed them, could not have
gratified my thirst for revenge.  Yet, had he but showed courage,
he should have died the death of a soldier.  But the wretch showed
cowardice the most abject, and--,but you know his fate.

"Now, then, all is finished, and human nature is avenged.  Yet, if
you complain of the bloodshed and the terror, think of the wrongs
which created my rights; think of the sacrifice by which I gave a
tenfold strength to those rights; think of the necessity for a
dreadful concussion and shock to society, in order to carry my
lesson into the councils of princes.

"This will now have been effected.  And ye, victims of dishonor,
will be glorified in your deaths; ye will not have suffered in
vain, nor died without a monument.  Sleep, therefore, sister
Berenice--sleep, gentle Mariamne, in peace.  And thou, noble
mother, let the outrages sown in thy dishonor, rise again and
blossom in wide harvests of honor for the women of thy afflicted
race.  Sleep, daughters of Jerusalem, in the sanctity of your
sufferings.  And thou, if it be possible, even more beloved
daughter of a Christian fold, whose company was too soon denied to
him in life, open thy grave to receive HIM, who, in the hour of
death, wishes to remember no title which he wore on earth but that
of thy chosen and adoring lover,

"MAXIMILIAN."



Introduction to Melmoth the Wanderer


Balzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's
Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Maturin's Melmoth--great
allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe."

"But what is 'Melmoth'?  Why is HE classed as 'a great allegorical
figure'?" exclaimed many a surprised reader.  Few had perused--few
know at this day--the terrible story of Melmoth the Wanderer, half
man, half devil, who has bartered away his soul for the glory of
power and knowledge, and, repenting of his bargain, tries again and
again to persuade some desperate human to change places with him--
penetrates to the refuge of misery, the death chamber, even the
madhouse, seeking one in such utter agony as to accept his help,
and take his curse--but ever fails.

Why this extraordinary tale, told with wild and compelling sweep,
has remained so deep in oblivion, appears immediately on a glance
at the original.  The author, Charles Robert Maturin, a needy,
eccentric Irish clergyman of 1780-1824, could cause intense
suspense and horror--could read keenly into human motives--could
teach an awful moral lesson in the guise of fascinating fiction,
but he could not stick to a long story with simplicity.  His dozens
of shifting scenes, his fantastic coils of "tales within tales"
sadly perplex the reader of "Melmoth" in the first version.  It is
hoped, however, that the present selection, by its directness and
the clearness of the story thread, may please the modern reader
better than the involved original, and bring before a wider public
some of the most gripping descriptions ever penned in English.

In Volume IV of these stories comes a tale, "Melmoth Reconciled,"
which Balzac himself wrote, while under the spell of Maturin's
"great allegorical figure."  Here the unhappy being succeeds in his
purpose.  The story takes place in mocking, careless Paris, "that
branch establishment of hell"; a cashier, on the eve of
embezzlement and detection, cynically accedes to Melmoth's terms,
and accepts his help--with what unlooked-for results, the reader
may see.



Charles Robert Maturin


Melmoth the Wanderer


John Melmoth, student at Trinity College, Dublin, having journeyed
to County Wicklow for attendance at the deathbed of his miserly
uncle, finds the old man, even in his last moments, tortured by
avarice, and by suspicion of all around him.  He whispers to John:


"I want a glass of wine, it would keep me alive for some hours, but
there is not one I can trust to get it for me,--they'd steal a
bottle, and ruin me."  John was greatly shocked.  "Sir, for God's
sake, let ME get a glass of wine for you."  "Do you know where?"
said the old man, with an expression in his face John could not
understand.  "No, Sir; you know I have been rather a stranger here,
Sir."  "Take this key," said old Melmoth, after a violent spasm;
"take this key, there is wine in that closet,--Madeira.  I always
told them there was nothing there, but they did not believe me, or
I should not have been robbed as I have been.  At one time I said
it was whisky, and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank
twice as much of it."

John took the key from his uncle's hand; the dying man pressed it
as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a mark of kindness,
returned the pressure.  He was undeceived by the whisper that
followed,--"John, my lad, don't drink any of that wine while you
are there."  "Good God!" said John, indignantly throwing the key on
the bed; then, recollecting that the miserable being before him was
no object of resentment, he gave the promise required, and entered
the closet, which no foot but that of old Melmoth had entered for
nearly sixty years.  He had some difficulty in finding out the
wine, and indeed stayed long enough to justify his uncle's
suspicions,--but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady.  He
could not but remark his uncle's extraordinary look, that had the
ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him
permission to enter his closet.  He could not but see the looks of
horror which the women exchanged as he approached it.  And,
finally, when he was in it, his memory was malicious enough to
suggest some faint traces of a story, too horrible for imagination,
connected with it.  He remembered in one moment most distinctly,
that no one but his uncle had ever been known to enter it for many
years.

Before he quitted it, he held up the dim light, and looked around
him with a mixture of terror and curiosity.  There was a great deal
of decayed and useless lumber, such as might be supposed to be
heaped up to rot in a miser's closet; but John's eyes were in a
moment, and as if by magic, riveted on a portrait that hung on the
wall, and appeared, even to his untaught eye, far superior to the
tribe of family pictures that are left to molder on the walls of a
family mansion.  It represented a man of middle age.  There was
nothing remarkable in the costume, or in the countenance, but THE
EYES, John felt, were such as one feels they wish they had never
seen, and feels they can never forget.  Had he been acquainted with
the poetry of Southey, he might have often exclaimed in his after-
life,


     "Only the eyes had life,
      They gleamed with demon light."--THALABA.


From an impulse equally resistless and painful, he approached the
portrait, held the candle toward it, and could distinguish the
words on the border of the painting,--Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646.
John was neither timid by nature, nor nervous by constitution, nor
superstitious from habit, yet he continued to gaze in stupid horror
on this singular picture, till, aroused by his uncle's cough, he
hurried into his room.  The old man swallowed the wine.  He
appeared a little revived; it was long since he had tasted such a
cordial,--his heart appeared to expand to a momentary confidence.
"John, what did you see in that room?"  "Nothing, Sir."  "That's a
lie; everyone wants to cheat or to rob me."  "Sir, I don't want to
do either."  "Well, what did you see that you--you took notice of?"
"Only a picture, Sir."  "A picture, Sir!--the original is still
alive."  John, though under the impression of his recent feelings,
could not but look incredulous.  "John," whispered his uncle;--
"John, they say I am dying of this and that; and one says it is for
want of nourishment, and one says it is for want of medicine,--but,
John," and his face looked hideously ghastly, "I am dying of a
fright.  That man," and he extended his meager arm toward the
closet, as if he was pointing to a living being; "that man, I have
good reason to know, is alive still."  "How is that possible, Sir?"
said John involuntarily, "the date on the picture is 1646."  "You
have seen it,--you have noticed it," said his uncle.  "Well,"--he
rocked and nodded on his bolster for a moment, then, grasping
John's hand with an unutterable look, he exclaimed, "You will see
him again, he is alive."  Then, sinking back on his bolster, he
fell into a kind of sleep or stupor, his eyes still open, and fixed
on John.

The house was now perfectly silent, and John had time and space for
reflection.  More thoughts came crowding on him than he wished to
welcome, but they would not be repulsed.  He thought of his uncle's
habits and character, turned the matter over and over again in his
mind, and he said to himself, "The last man on earth to be
superstitious.  He never thought of anything but the price of
stocks, and the rate of exchange, and my college expenses, that
hung heavier at his heart than all; and such a man to die of a
fright,--a ridiculous fright, that a man living 150 years ago is
alive still, and yet--he is dying."  John paused, for facts will
confute the most stubborn logician.  "With all his hardness of
mind, and of heart, he is dying of a fright.  I heard it in the
kitchen, I have heard it from himself,--he could not be deceived.
If I had ever heard he was nervous, or fanciful, or superstitious,
but a character so contrary to all these impressions;--a man that,
as poor Butler says, in his 'Remains of the Antiquarian,' would
have 'sold Christ over again for the numerical piece of silver
which Judas got for him,'--such a man to die of fear!  Yet he IS
dying," said John, glancing his fearful eye on the contracted
nostril, the glazed eye, the drooping jaw, the whole horrible
apparatus of the facies Hippocraticae displayed, and soon to cease
its display.

Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor; his eyes
lost that little expression they had before, and his hands, that
had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their short
and quivering grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the claws of
some bird that had died of hunger,--so meager, so yellow, so
spread.  John, unaccustomed to the sight of death, believed this to
be only a sign that he was going to sleep; and, urged by an impulse
for which he did not attempt to account to himself, caught up the
miserable light, and once more ventured into the forbidden room,--
the BLUE CHAMBER of the dwelling.  The motion roused the dying
man;--he sat bolt upright in his bed.  This John could not see, for
he was now in the closet; but he heard the groan, or rather the
choked and gurgling rattle of the throat, that announces the
horrible conflict between muscular and mental convulsion.  He
started, turned away; but, as he turned away, he thought he saw the
eyes of the portrait, on which his own was fixed, MOVE, and hurried
back to his uncle's bedside.

Old Melmoth died in the course of that night, and died as he had
lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium.  John could not have
imagined a scene so horrible as his last hours presented.  He
cursed and blasphemed about three halfpence, missing, as he said,
some weeks before, in an account of change with his groom, about
hay to a starved horse that he kept.  Then he grasped John's hand,
and asked him to give him the sacrament.  "If I send to the
clergyman, he will charge me something for it, which I cannot pay,--
I cannot.  They say I am rich,--look at this blanket;--but I would
not mind that, if I could save my soul."  And, raving, he added,
"Indeed, Doctor, I am a very poor man.  I never troubled a
clergyman before, and all I want is, that you will grant me two
trifling requests, very little matters in your way,--save my soul,
and (whispering) make interest to get me a parish coffin,--I have
not enough left to bury me.  I always told everyone I was poor, but
the more I told them so, the less they believed me."

John, greatly shocked, retired from the bedside, and sat down in a
distant corner of the room.  The women were again in the room,
which was very dark.  Melmoth was silent from exhaustion, and there
was a deathlike pause for some time.  At this moment John saw the
door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the room,
and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before John had
discovered in his face the living original of the portrait.  His
first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror, but his breath
felt stopped.  He was then rising to pursue the figure, but a
moment's reflection checked him.  What could be more absurd, than
to be alarmed or amazed at a resemblance between a living man and
the portrait of a dead one!  The likeness was doubtless strong
enough to strike him even in that darkened room, but it was
doubtless only a likeness; and though it might be imposing enough
to terrify an old man of gloomy and retired habits, and with a
broken constitution, John resolved it should not produce the same
effect on him.

But while he was applauding himself for this resolution, the door
opened, and the figure appeared at it, beckoning and nodding to
him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying.  John now started up,
determined to pursue it; but the pursuit was stopped by the weak
but shrill cries of his uncle, who was struggling at once with the
agonies of death and his housekeeper.  The poor woman, anxious for
her master's reputation and her own, was trying to put on him a
clean shirt and nightcap, and Melmoth, who had just sensation
enough to perceive they were taking something from him, continued
exclaiming feebly, "They are robbing me,--robbing me in my last
moments,--robbing a dying man.  John, won't you assist me,--I shall
die a beggar; they are taking my last shirt,--I shall die a
beggar."--And the miser died.

        .        .        .        .        .

A few days after the funeral, the will was opened before proper
witnesses, and John was found to be left sole heir to his uncle's
property, which, though originally moderate, had, by his grasping
habits, and parsimonious life, become very considerable.

As the attorney who read the will concluded, he added, "There are
some words here, at the corner of the parchment, which do not
appear to be part of the will, as they are neither in the form of a
codicil, nor is the signature of the testator affixed to them; but,
to the best of my belief, they are in the handwriting of the
deceased."  As he spoke he showed the lines to Melmoth, who
immediately recognized his uncle's hand (that perpendicular and
penurious hand, that seems determined to make the most of the very
paper, thriftily abridging every word, and leaving scarce an atom
of margin), and read, not without some emotion, the following
words: "I enjoin my nephew and heir, John Melmoth, to remove,
destroy, or cause to be destroyed, the portrait inscribed J.
Melmoth, 1646, hanging in my closet.  I also enjoin him to search
for a manuscript, which I think he will find in the third and
lowest left-hand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that
portrait,--it is among some papers of no value, such as manuscript
sermons, and pamphlets on the improvement of Ireland, and such
stuff; he will distinguish it by its being tied round with a black
tape, and the paper being very moldy and discolored.  He may read
it if he will;--I think he had better not.  At all events, I adjure
him, if there be any power in the adjuration of a dying man, to
burn it."

After reading this singular memorandum, the business of the meeting
was again resumed; and as old Melmoth's will was very clear and
legally worded, all was soon settled, the party dispersed, and John
Melmoth was left alone.

        .        .        .        .        .

He resolutely entered the closet, shut the door, and proceeded to
search for the manuscript.  It was soon found, for the directions
of old Melmoth were forcibly written, and strongly remembered.  The
manuscript, old, tattered, and discolored, was taken from the very
drawer in which it was mentioned to be laid.  Melmoth's hands felt
as cold as those of his dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages
from their nook.  He sat down to read,--there was a dead silence
through the house.  Melmoth looked wistfully at the candles,
snuffed them, and still thought they looked dim, (perchance he
thought they burned blue, but such thought he kept to himself).
Certain it is, he often changed his posture, and would have changed
his chair, had there been more than one in the apartment.

He sank for a few moments into a fit of gloomy abstraction, till
the sound of the clock striking twelve made him start,--it was the
only sound he had heard for some hours, and the sounds produced by
inanimate things, while all living beings around are as dead, have
at such an hour an effect indescribably awful.  John looked at his
manuscript with some reluctance, opened it, paused over the first
lines, and as the wind sighed round the desolate apartment, and the
rain pattered with a mournful sound against the dismantled window,
wished--what did he wish for?--he wished the sound of the wind less
dismal, and the dash of the rain less monotonous.--He may be
forgiven, it was past midnight, and there was not a human being
awake but himself within ten miles when he began to read.

        .        .        .        .        .

The manuscript was discolored, obliterated, and mutilated beyond
any that had ever before exercised the patience of a reader.
Michaelis himself, scrutinizing into the pretended autograph of St.
Mark at Venice, never had a harder time of it.--Melmoth could make
out only a sentence here and there.  The writer, it appeared, was
an Englishman of the name of Stanton, who had traveled abroad
shortly after the Restoration.  Traveling was not then attended
with the facilities which modern improvement has introduced, and
scholars and literati, the intelligent, the idle, and the curious,
wandered over the Continent for years, like Tom Corvat, though they
had the modesty, on their return, to entitle the result of their
multiplied observations and labors only "crudities."

Stanton, about the year 1676, was in Spain; he was, like most of
the travelers of that age, a man of literature, intelligence, and
curiosity, but ignorant of the language of the country, and
fighting his way at times from convent to convent, in quest of what
was called "Hospitality," that is, obtaining board and lodging on
the condition of holding a debate in Latin, on some point
theological or metaphysical, with any monk who would become the
champion of the strife.  Now, as the theology was Catholic, and the
metaphysics Aristotelian, Stanton sometimes wished himself at the
miserable Posada from whose filth and famine he had been fighting
his escape; but though his reverend antagonists always denounced
his creed, and comforted themselves, even in defeat, with the
assurance that he must be damned, on the double score of his being
a heretic and an Englishman, they were obliged to confess that his
Latin was good, and his logic unanswerable; and he was allowed, in
most cases, to sup and sleep in peace.  This was not doomed to be
his fate on the night of the 17th August 1677, when he found
himself in the plains of Valencia, deserted by a cowardly guide,
who had been terrified by the sight of a cross erected as a
memorial of a murder, had slipped off his mule unperceived,
crossing himself every step he took on his retreat from the
heretic, and left Stanton amid the terrors of an approaching storm,
and the dangers of an unknown country.  The sublime and yet
softened beauty of the scenery around, had filled the soul of
Stanton with delight, and he enjoyed that delight as Englishmen
generally do, silently.

The magnificent remains of two dynasties that had passed away, the
ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish fortresses, were around and
above him;--the dark and heavy thunder clouds that advanced slowly,
seemed like the shrouds of these specters of departed greatness;
they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or conceal them, as if
Nature herself was for once awed by the power of man; and far
below, the lovely valley of Valencia blushed and burned in all the
glory of sunset, like a bride receiving the last glowing kiss of
the bridegroom before the approach of night.  Stanton gazed around.
The difference between the architecture of the Roman and Moorish
ruins struck him.  Among the former are the remains of a theater,
and something like a public place; the latter present only the
remains of fortresses, embattled, castellated, and fortified from
top to bottom,--not a loophole for pleasure to get in by,--the
loopholes were only for arrows; all denoted military power and
despotic subjugation a l'outrance.  The contrast might have pleased
a philosopher, and he might have indulged in the reflection, that
though the ancient Greeks and Romans were savages (as Dr. Johnson
says all people who want a press must be, and he says truly), yet
they were wonderful savages for their time, for they alone have
left traces of their taste for pleasure in the countries they
conquered, in their superb theaters, temples (which were also
dedicated to pleasure one way or another), and baths, while other
conquering bands of savages never left anything behind them but
traces of their rage for power.  So thought Stanton, as he still
saw strongly defined, though darkened by the darkening clouds, the
huge skeleton of a Roman amphitheater, its arched and gigantic
colonnades now admitting a gleam of light, and now commingling with
the purple thunder cloud; and now the solid and heavy mass of a
Moorish fortress, no light playing between its impermeable walls,--
the image of power, dark, isolated, impenetrable.  Stanton forgot
his cowardly guide, his loneliness, his danger amid an approaching
storm and an inhospitable country, where his name and country would
shut every door against him, and every peal of thunder would be
supposed justified by the daring intrusion of a heretic in the
dwelling of an old Christian, as the Spanish Catholics absurdly
term themselves, to mark the distinction between them and the
baptized Moors.

All this was forgot in contemplating the glorious and awful scenery
before him,--light struggling with darkness,--and darkness menacing
a light still more terrible, and announcing its menace in the blue
and livid mass of cloud that hovered like a destroying angel in the
air, its arrows aimed, but their direction awfully indefinite.  But
he ceased to forget these local and petty dangers, as the sublimity
of romance would term them, when he saw the first flash of the
lightning, broad and red as the banners of an insulting army whose
motto is Vae victis, shatter to atoms the remains of a Roman
tower;--the rifted stones rolled down the hill, and fell at the
feet of Stanton.  He stood appalled, and, awaiting his summons from
the Power in whose eye pyramids, palaces, and the worms whose toil
has formed them, and the worms who toil out their existence under
their shadow or their pressure, are perhaps all alike contemptible,
he stood collected, and for a moment felt that defiance of danger
which danger itself excites, and we love to encounter it as a
physical enemy, to bid it "do its worst," and feel that its worst
will perhaps be ultimately its best for us.  He stood and saw
another flash dart its bright, brief, and malignant glance over the
ruins of ancient power, and the luxuriance of recent fertility.
Singular contrast!  The relics of art forever decaying,--the
productions of nature forever renewed.--(Alas! for what purpose are
they renewed, better than to mock at the perishable monuments which
men try in vain to rival them by.)  The pyramids themselves must
perish, but the grass that grows between their disjointed stones
will be renewed from year to year.

Stanton was thinking thus, when all power of thought was suspended,
by seeing two persons bearing between them the body of a young, and
apparently very lovely girl, who had been struck dead by the
lightning.  Stanton approached, and heard the voices of the bearers
repeating, "There is none who will mourn for her!"  "There is none
who will mourn for her!" said other voices, as two more bore in
their arms the blasted and blackened figure of what had once been a
man, comely and graceful;--"there is not ONE to mourn for her now!"
They were lovers, and he had been consumed by the flash that had
destroyed her, while in the act of endeavoring to defend her.  As
they were about to remove the bodies, a person approached with a
calmness of step and demeanor, as if he were alone unconscious of
danger, and incapable of fear; and after looking on them for some
time, burst into a laugh so loud, wild, and protracted, that the
peasants, starting with as much horror at the sound as at that of
the storm, hurried away, bearing the corpses with them.  Even
Stanton's fears were subdued by his astonishment, and, turning to
the stranger, who remained standing on the same spot, he asked the
reason of such an outrage on humanity.  The stranger, slowly
turning round, and disclosing a countenance which--(Here the
manuscript was illegible for a few lines), said in English--(A long
hiatus followed here, and the next passage that was legible, though
it proved to be a continuation of the narrative, was but a
fragment.)

        .        .        .        .        .

The terrors of the night rendered Stanton a sturdy and unappeasable
applicant; and the shrill voice of the old woman, repeating, "no
heretic--no English--Mother of God protect us--avaunt Satan!"--
combined with the clatter of the wooden casement (peculiar to the
houses in Valencia) which she opened to discharge her volley of
anathematization, and shut again as the lightning glanced through
the aperture, were unable to repel his importunate request for
admittance, in a night whose terrors ought to soften all the
miserable petty local passions into one awful feeling of fear for
the Power who caused it, and compassion for those who were exposed
to it.--But Stanton felt there was something more than national
bigotry in the exclamations of the old woman; there was a peculiar
and personal horror of the English.--And he was right; but this did
not diminish the eagerness of his. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

The house was handsome and spacious, but the melancholy appearance
of desertion . . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

--The benches were by the wall, but there were none to sit there;
the tables were spread in what had been the hall, but it seemed as
if none had gathered round them for many years;--the clock struck
audibly, there was no voice of mirth or of occupation to drown its
sound; time told his awful lesson to silence alone;--the hearths
were black with fuel long since consumed;--the family portraits
looked as if they were the only tenants of the mansion; they seemed
to say, from their moldering frames, "there are none to gaze on
us;" and the echo of the steps of Stanton and his feeble guide, was
the only sound audible between the peals of thunder that rolled
still awfully, but more distantly,--every peal like the exhausted
murmurs of a spent heart.  As they passed on, a shriek was heard.
Stanton paused, and fearful images of the dangers to which
travelers on the Continent are exposed in deserted and remote
habitations, came into his mind.  "Don't heed it," said the old
woman, lighting him on with a miserable lamp;--"it is only he. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

The old woman having now satisfied herself, by ocular
demonstration, that her English guest, even if he was the devil,
had neither horn, hoof, nor tail, that he could bear the sign of
the cross without changing his form, and that, when he spoke, not a
puff of sulphur came out of his mouth, began to take courage, and
at length commenced her story, which, weary and comfortless as
Stanton was, . . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

Every obstacle was now removed; parents and relations at last gave
up all opposition, and the young pair were united.  Never was there
a lovelier,--they seemed like angels who had only anticipated by a
few years their celestial and eternal union.  The marriage was
solemnized with much pomp, and a few days after there was a feast
in that very wainscoted chamber which you paused to remark was so
gloomy.  It was that night hung with rich tapestry, representing
the exploits of the Cid, particularly that of his burning a few
Moors who refused to renounce their accursed religion.  They were
represented beautifully tortured, writhing and howling, and
"Mahomet! Mahomet!" issuing out of their mouths, as they called on
him in their burning agonies;--you could almost hear them scream.
At the upper end of the room, under a splendid estrade, over which
was an image of the blessed Virgin, sat Donna Isabella de Cardoza,
mother to the bride, and near her Donna Ines, the bride, on rich
almohadas; the bridegroom sat opposite to her, and though they
never spoke to each other, their eyes, slowly raised, but suddenly
withdrawn (those eyes that blushed), told to each other the
delicious secret of their happiness.  Don Pedro de Cardoza had
assembled a large party in honor of his daughter's nuptials; among
them was an Englishman of the name of MELMOTH, a traveler; no one
knew who had brought him there.  He sat silent like the rest, while
the iced waters and the sugared wafers were presented to the
company.  The night was intensely hot, and the moon glowed like a
sun over the ruins of Saguntum; the embroidered blinds flapped
heavily, as if the wind made an effort to raise them in vain, and
then desisted.

(Another defect in the manuscript occurred here, but it was soon
supplied.)

        .        .        .        .        .

The company were dispersed through various alleys of the garden;
the bridegroom and bride wandered through one where the delicious
perfume of the orange trees mingled itself with that of the myrtles
in blow.  On their return to the ball, both of them asked, Had the
company heard the exquisite sounds that floated through the garden
just before they quitted it?  No one had heard them.  They
expressed their surprise.  The Englishman had never quitted the
hall; it was said he smiled with a most particular and
extraordinary expression as the remark was made.  His silence had
been noticed before, but it was ascribed to his ignorance of the
Spanish language, an ignorance that Spaniards are not anxious
either to expose or remove by speaking to a stranger.  The subject
of the music was not again reverted to till the guests were seated
at supper, when Donna Ines and her young husband, exchanging a
smile of delighted surprise, exclaimed they heard the same
delicious sounds floating round them.  The guests listened, but no
one else could hear it;--everyone felt there was something
extraordinary in this.  Hush! was uttered by every voice almost at
the same moment.  A dead silence followed,--you would think, from
their intent looks, that they listened with their very eyes.  This
deep silence, contrasted with the splendor of the feast, and the
light effused from torches held by the domestics, produced a
singular effect,--it seemed for some moments like an assembly of
the dead.  The silence was interrupted, though the cause of wonder
had not ceased, by the entrance of Father Olavida, the Confessor of
Donna Isabella, who had been called away previous to the feast, to
administer extreme unction to a dying man in the neighborhood.  He
was a priest of uncommon sanctity, beloved in the family, and
respected in the neighborhood, where he had displayed uncommon
taste and talents for exorcism;--in fact, this was the good
Father's forte, and he piqued himself on it accordingly.  The devil
never fell into worse hands than Father Olavida's, for when he was
so contumacious as to resist Latin, and even the first verses of
the Gospel of St. John in Greek, which the good Father never had
recourse to but in cases of extreme stubbornness and difficulty,--
(here Stanton recollected the English story of the Boy of Bilson,
and blushed even in Spain for his countrymen),--then he always
applied to the Inquisition; and if the devils were ever so
obstinate before, they were always seen to fly out of the
possessed, just as, in the midst of their cries (no doubt of
blasphemy), they were tied to the stake.  Some held out even till
the flames surrounded them; but even the most stubborn must have
been dislodged when the operation was over, for the devil himself
could no longer tenant a crisp and glutinous lump of cinders.  Thus
Father Olavida's fame spread far and wide, and the Cardoza family
had made uncommon interest to procure him for a Confessor, and
happily succeeded.  The ceremony he had just been performing had
cast a shade over the good Father's countenance, but it dispersed
as he mingled among the guests, and was introduced to them.  Room
was soon made for him, and he happened accidentally to be seated
opposite the Englishman.  As the wine was presented to him, Father
Olavida (who, as I observed, was a man of singular sanctity)
prepared to utter a short internal prayer.  He hesitated,--
trembled,--desisted; and, putting down the wine, wiped the drops
from his forehead with the sleeve of his habit.  Donna Isabella
gave a sign to a domestic, and other wine of a higher quality was
offered to him.  His lips moved, as if in the effort to pronounce a
benediction on it and the company, but the effort again failed; and
the change in his countenance was so extraordinary, that it was
perceived by all the guests.  He felt the sensation that his
extraordinary appearance excited, and attempted to remove it by
again endeavoring to lift the cup to his lips.  So strong was the
anxiety with which the company watched him, that the only sound
heard in that spacious and crowded hall was the rustling of his
habit as he attempted to lift the cup to his lips once more--in
vain.  The guests sat in astonished silence.  Father Olavida alone
remained standing; but at that moment the Englishman rose, and
appeared determined to fix Olavida's regards by a gaze like that of
fascination.  Olavida rocked, reeled, grasped the arm of a page,
and at last, closing his eyes for a moment, as if to escape the
horrible fascination of that unearthly glare (the Englishman's eyes
were observed by all the guests, from the moment of his entrance,
to effuse a most fearful and preternatural luster), exclaimed, "Who
is among us?--Who?--I cannot utter a blessing while he is here.  I
cannot feel one.  Where he treads, the earth is parched!--Where he
breathes, the air is fire!--Where he feeds, the food is poison!--
Where he turns his glance is lightning!--WHO IS AMONG US?--WHO?"
repeated the priest in the agony of adjuration, while his cowl
fallen back, his few thin hairs around the scalp instinct and alive
with terrible emotion, his outspread arms protruded from the
sleeves of his habit, and extended toward the awful stranger,
suggested the idea of an inspired being in the dreadful rapture of
prophetic denunciation.  He stood--still stood, and the Englishman
stood calmly opposite to him.  There was an agitated irregularity
in the attitudes of those around them, which contrasted strongly
the fixed and stern postures of those two, who remained gazing
silently at each other.  "Who knows him?" exclaimed Olavida,
starting apparently from a trance; "who knows him? who brought him
here?"

The guests severally disclaimed all knowledge of the Englishman,
and each asked the other in whispers, "who HAD brought him there?"
Father Olavida then pointed his arm to each of the company, and
asked each individually, "Do you know him?"  No! no! no!" was
uttered with vehement emphasis by every individual.  "But I know
him," said Olavida, "by these cold drops!" and he wiped them off;--
"by these convulsed joints!" and he attempted to sign the cross,
but could not.  He raised his voice, and evidently speaking with
increased difficulty,--"By this bread and wine, which the faithful
receive as the body and blood of Christ, but which HIS presence
converts into matter as viperous as the suicide foam of the dying
Judas,--by all these--I know him, and command him to be gone!--He
is--he is--" and he bent forward as he spoke, and gazed on the
Englishman with an expression which the mixture of rage, hatred,
and fear rendered terrible.  All the guests rose at these words,--
the whole company now presented two singular groups, that of the
amazed guests all collected together, and repeating, "Who, what is
he?" and that of the Englishman, who stood unmoved, and Olavida,
who dropped dead in the attitude of pointing to him.

        .        .        .        .        .

The body was removed into another room, and the departure of the
Englishman was not noticed till the company returned to the hall.
They sat late together, conversing on this extraordinary
circumstance, and finally agreed to remain in the house, lest the
evil spirit (for they believed the Englishman no better) should
take certain liberties with the corse by no means agreeable to a
Catholic, particularly as he had manifestly died without the
benefit of the last sacraments.  Just as this laudable resolution
was formed, they were roused by cries of horror and agony from the
bridal chamber, where the young pair had retired.

They hurried to the door, but the father was first.  They burst it
open, and found the bride a corse in the arms of her husband.

        .        .        .        .        .

He never recovered his reason; the family deserted the mansion
rendered terrible by so many misfortunes.  One apartment is still
tenanted by the unhappy maniac; his were the cries you heard as you
traversed the deserted rooms.  He is for the most part silent
during the day, but at midnight he always exclaims, in a voice
frightfully piercing, and hardly human, "They are coming! they are
coming!" and relapses into profound silence.

The funeral of Father Olavida was attended by an extraordinary
circumstance.  He was interred in a neighboring convent; and the
reputation of his sanctity, joined to the interest caused by his
extraordinary death, collected vast numbers at the ceremony.  His
funeral sermon was preached by a monk of distinguished eloquence,
appointed for the purpose.  To render the effect of his discourse
more powerful, the corse, extended on a bier, with its face
uncovered, was placed in the aisle.  The monk took his text from
one of the prophets,--"Death is gone up into our palaces."  He
expatiated on mortality, whose approach, whether abrupt or
lingering, is alike awful to man.--He spoke of the vicisstudes of
empires with much eloquence and learning, but his audience were not
observed to be much affected.--He cited various passages from the
lives of the saints, descriptive of the glories of martyrdom, and
the heroism of those who had bled and blazed for Christ and his
blessed mother, but they appeared still waiting for something to
touch them more deeply.  When he inveighed against the tyrants
under whose bloody persecution those holy men suffered, his hearers
were roused for a moment, for it is always easier to excite a
passion than a moral feeling.  But when he spoke of the dead, and
pointed with emphatic gesture to the corse, as it lay before them
cold and motionless, every eye was fixed, and every ear became
attentive.  Even the lovers, who, under pretense of dipping their
fingers into the holy water, were contriving to exchange amorous
billets, forbore for one moment this interesting intercourse, to
listen to the preacher.  He dwelt with much energy on the virtues
of the deceased, whom he declared to be a particular favorite of
the Virgin; and enumerating the various losses that would be caused
by his departure to the community to which he belonged, to society,
and to religion at large; he at last worked up himself to a
vehement expostulation with the Deity on the occasion.  "Why hast
thou," he exclaimed, "why hast thou, Oh God! thus dealt with us?
Why hast thou snatched from our sight this glorious saint, whose
merits, if properly applied, doubtless would have been sufficient
to atone for the apostasy of St. Peter, the opposition of St. Paul
(previous to his conversion), and even the treachery of Judas
himself?  Why hast thou, Oh God! snatched him from us?"--and a deep
and hollow voice from among the congregation answered,--"Because he
deserved his fate."  The murmurs of approbation with which the
congregation honored this apostrophe half drowned this
extraordinary interruption; and though there was some little
commotion in the immediate vicinity of the speaker, the rest of the
audience continued to listen intently.  "What," proceeded the
preacher, pointing to the corse, "what hath laid thee there,
servant of God?"--"Pride, ignorance, and fear," answered the same
voice, in accents still more thrilling.  The disturbance now became
universal.  The preacher paused, and a circle opening, disclosed
the figure of a monk belonging to the convent, who stood among
them.

        .        .        .        .        .

After all the usual modes of admonition, exhortation, and
discipline had been employed, and the bishop of the diocese, who,
under the report of these extraordinary circumstances, had visited
the convent in person to obtain some explanation from the
contumacious monk in vain, it was agreed, in a chapter
extraordinary, to surrender him to the power of the Inquisition.
He testified great horror when this determination was made known to
him,--and offered to tell over and over again all that he COULD
relate of the cause of Father Olavida's death.  His humiliation,
and repeated offers of confession, came too late.  He was conveyed
to the Inquisition.  The proceedings of that tribunal are rarely
disclosed, but there is a secret report (I cannot answer for its
truth) of what he said and suffered there.  On his first
examination, he said he would relate all he COULD.  He was told
that was not enough, he must relate all he knew.

        .        .        .        .        .

"Why did you testify such horror at the funeral of Father
Olavida?"--"Everyone testified horror and grief at the death of
that venerable ecclesiastic, who died in the odor of sanctity.  Had
I done otherwise, it might have been reckoned a proof of my guilt."
"Why did you interrupt the preacher with such extraordinary
exclamations?"--To this no answer.  "Why do you refuse to explain
the meaning of those exclamations?"--No answer.  "Why do you
persist in this obstinate and dangerous silence?  Look, I beseech
you, brother, at the cross that is suspended against this wall,"
and the Inquisitor pointed to the large black crucifix at the back
of the chair where he sat; "one drop of the blood shed there can
purify you from all the sin you have ever committed; but all that
blood, combined with the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, and
the merits of all its martyrs, nay, even the absolution of the
Pope, cannot deliver you from the curse of dying in unrepented
sin."--"What sin, then, have I committed?"--"The greatest of all
possible sins; you refuse answering the questions put to you at the
tribunal of the most holy and merciful Inquisition;--you will not
tell us what you know concerning the death of Father Olavida."--"I
have told you that I believe he perished in consequence of his
ignorance and presumption."  "What proof can you produce of that?"--
"He sought the knowledge of a secret withheld from man."  "What
was that?"--"The secret of discovering the presence or agency of
the evil power."  "Do you possess that secret?"--After much
agitation on the part of the prisoner, he said distinctly, but very
faintly, "My master forbids me to disclose it."  "If your master
were Jesus Christ, he would not forbid you to obey the commands, or
answer the questions of the Inquisition."--"I am not sure of that."
There was a general outcry of horror at these words.  The
examination then went on.  "If you believed Olavida to be guilty of
any pursuits or studies condemned by our mother the church, why did
you not denounce him to the Inquisition?"--"Because I believed him
not likely to be injured by such pursuits; his mind was too weak,--
he died in the struggle," said the prisoner with great emphasis.
"You believe, then, it requires strength of mind to keep those
abominable secrets, when examined as to their nature and
tendency?"--"No, I rather imagine strength of body."  "We shall try
that presently," said an Inquisitor, giving a signal for the
torture.

        .        .        .        .        .

The prisoner underwent the first and second applications with
unshrinking courage, but on the infliction of the water-torture,
which is indeed insupportable to humanity, either to suffer or
relate, he exclaimed in the gasping interval, he would disclose
everything.  He was released, refreshed, restored, and the
following day uttered the following remarkable confession. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

The old Spanish woman further confessed to Stanton, that. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

and that the Englishman certainly had been seen in the neighborhood
since;--seen, as she had heard, that very night.  "Great G--d!"
exclaimed Stanton, as he recollected the stranger whose demoniac
laugh had so appalled him, while gazing on the lifeless bodies of
the lovers, whom the lightning had struck and blasted.


As the manuscript, after a few blotted and illegible pages, became
more distinct, Melmoth read on, perplexed and unsatisfied, not
knowing what connection this Spanish story could have with his
ancestor, whom, however, he recognized under the title of the
Englishman; and wondering how Stanton could have thought it worth
his while to follow him to Ireland, write a long manuscript about
an event that occurred in Spain, and leave it in the hands of his
family, to "verify untrue things," in the language of Dogberry,--
his wonder was diminished, though his curiosity was still more
inflamed, by the perusal of the next lines, which he made out with
some difficulty.  It seems Stanton was now in England.

        .        .        .        .        .

About the year 1677, Stanton was in London, his mind still full of
his mysterious countryman.  This constant subject of his
contemplations had produced a visible change in his exterior,--his
walk was what Sallust tells us of Catiline's,--his were, too, the
"faedi oculi."  He said to himself every moment, "If I could but
trace that being, I will not call him man,"--and the next moment he
said, "and what if I could?"  In this state of mind, it is singular
enough that he mixed constantly in public amusements, but it is
true.  When one fierce passion is devouring the soul, we feel more
than ever the necessity of external excitement; and our dependence
on the world for temporary relief increases in direct proportion to
our contempt of the world and all its works.  He went frequently to
the theaters, THEN fashionable, when


     "The fair sat panting at a courtier's play,
      And not a mask went unimproved away."


        .        .        .        .        .

It was that memorable night, when, according to the history of the
veteran Betterton,* Mrs. Barry, who personated Roxana, had a green-
room squabble with Mrs. Bowtell, the representative of Statira,
about a veil, which the partiality of the property man adjudged to
the latter.  Roxana suppressed her rage till the fifth act, when,
stabbing Statira, she aimed the blow with such force as to pierce
through her stays, and inflict a severe though not dangerous wound.
Mrs. Bowtell fainted, the performance was suspended, and, in the
commotion which this incident caused in the house, many of the
audience rose, and Stanton among them.  It was at this moment that,
in a seat opposite to him, he discovered the object of his search
for four years,--the Englishman whom he had met in the plains of
Valencia, and whom he believed the same with the subject of the
extraordinary narrative he had heard there.


* Vide Betterton's History of the Stage.


He was standing up.  There was nothing particular or remarkable in
his appearance, but the expression of his eyes could never be
mistaken or forgotten.  The heart of Stanton palpitated with
violence,--a mist overspread his eye,--a nameless and deadly
sickness, accompanied with a creeping sensation in every pore, from
which cold drops were gushing, announced the. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

Before he had well recovered, a strain of music, soft, solemn, and
delicious, breathed round him, audibly ascending from the ground,
and increasing in sweetness and power till it seemed to fill the
whole building.  Under the sudden impulse of amazement and
pleasure, he inquired of some around him from whence those
exquisite sounds arose.  But, by the manner in which he was
answered, it was plain that those he addressed considered him
insane; and, indeed, the remarkable change in his expression might
well justify the suspicion.  He then remembered that night in
Spain, when the same sweet and mysterious sounds were heard only by
the young bridegroom and bride, of whom the latter perished on that
very night.  "And am I then to be the next victim?" thought
Stanton; "and are those celestial sounds, that seem to prepare us
for heaven, only intended to announce the presence of an incarnate
fiend, who mocks the devoted with 'airs from heaven,' while he
prepares to surround them with 'blasts from hell'?"  It is very
singular that at this moment, when his imagination had reached its
highest pitch of elevation,--when the object he had pursued so long
and fruitlessly, had in one moment become as it were tangible to
the grasp both of mind and body,--when this spirit, with whom he
had wrestled in darkness, was at last about to declare its name,
that Stanton began to feel a kind of disappointment at the futility
of his pursuits, like Bruce at discovering the source of the Nile,
or Gibbon on concluding his History.  The feeling which he had
dwelt on so long, that he had actually converted it into a duty,
was after all mere curiosity; but what passion is more insatiable,
or more capable of giving a kind of romantic grandeur to all its
wanderings and eccentricities?  Curiosity is in one respect like
love, it always compromises between the object and the feeling; and
provided the latter possesses sufficient energy, no matter how
contemptible the former may be.  A child might have smiled at the
agitation of Stanton, caused as it was by the accidental appearance
of a stranger; but no man, in the full energy of his passions, was
there, but must have trembled at the horrible agony of emotion with
which he felt approaching, with sudden and irresistible velocity,
the crisis of his destiny.

When the play was over, he stood for some moments in the deserted
streets.  It was a beautiful moonlight night, and he saw near him a
figure, whose shadow, projected half across the street (there were
no flagged ways then, chains and posts were the only defense of the
foot passenger), appeared to him of gigantic magnitude.  He had
been so long accustomed to contend with these phantoms of the
imagination, that he took a kind of stubborn delight in subduing
them.  He walked up to the object, and observing the shadow only
was magnified, and the figure was the ordinary height of man, he
approached it, and discovered the very object of his search,--the
man whom he had seen for a moment in Valencia, and, after a search
of four years, recognized at the theater.

        .        .        .        .        .

"You were in quest of me?"--"I was."  "Have you anything to inquire
of me?"--"Much."  "Speak, then."--"This is no place."  "No place!
poor wretch, I am independent of time and place.  Speak, if you
have anything to ask or to learn."--"I have many things to ask, but
nothing to learn, I hope, from you."  "You deceive yourself, but
you will be undeceived when next we meet."--"And when shall that
be?" said Stanton, grasping his arm; "name your hour and your
place."  "The hour shall be midday," answered the stranger, with a
horrid and unintelligible smile; "and the place shall be the bare
walls of a madhouse, where you shall rise rattling in your chains,
and rustling from your straw, to greet me,--yet still you shall
have THE CURSE OF SANITY, and of memory.  My voice shall ring in
your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be
reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold
them again."--"Is it under circumstances so horrible we are to meet
again?" said Stanton, shrinking under the full-lighted blaze of
those demon eyes.  "I never," said the stranger, in an emphatic
tone,--"I never desert my friends in misfortune.  When they are
plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, they are sure to be
visited by me."

        .        .        .        .        .

The narrative, when Melmoth was again able to trace its
continuation, described Stanton, some years after, plunged in a
state the most deplorable.

He had been always reckoned of a singular turn of mind, and the
belief of this, aggravated by his constant talk of Melmoth, his
wild pursuit of him, his strange behavior at the theater, and his
dwelling on the various particulars of their extraordinary
meetings, with all the intensity of the deepest conviction (while
he never could impress them on any one's conviction but his own),
suggested to some prudent people the idea that he was deranged.
Their malignity probably took part with their prudence.  The
selfish Frenchman* says, we feel a pleasure even in the misfortunes
of our friends,--a plus forte in those of our enemies; and as
everyone is an enemy to a man of genius of course, the report of
Stanton's malady was propagated with infernal and successful
industry.  Stanton's next relative, a needy unprincipled man,
watched the report in its circulation, and saw the snares closing
round his victim.  He waited on him one morning, accompanied by a
person of a grave, though somewhat repulsive appearance.  Stanton
was as usual abstracted and restless, and, after a few moments'
conversation, he proposed a drive a few miles out of London, which
he said would revive and refresh him.  Stanton objected, on account
of the difficulty of getting a hackney coach (for it is singular
that at this period the number of private equipages, though
infinitely fewer than they are now, exceeded the number of hired
ones), and proposed going by water.  This, however, did not suit
the kinsman's views; and, after pretending to send for a carriage
(which was in waiting at the end of the street), Stanton and his
companions entered it, and drove about two miles out of London.


* Rochefoucauld.


The carriage then stopped.  Come, Cousin," said the younger
Stanton,--"come and view a purchase I have made."  Stanton absently
alighted, and followed him across a small paved court; the other
person followed.  "In troth, Cousin," said Stanton, "your choice
appears not to have been discreetly made; your house has somewhat
of a gloomy aspect."--"Hold you content, Cousin," replied the
other; "I shall take order that you like it better, when you have
been some time a dweller therein."  Some attendants of a mean
appearance, and with most suspicious visages, awaited them on their
entrance, and they ascended a narrow staircase, which led to a room
meanly furnished.  "Wait here," said the kinsman, to the man who
accompanied them, "till I go for company to divertise my cousin in
his loneliness."  They were left alone.  Stanton took no notice of
his companion, but as usual seized the first book near him, and
began to read.  It was a volume in manuscript,--they were then much
more common than now.

The first lines struck him as indicating insanity in the writer.
It was a wild proposal (written apparently after the great fire of
London) to rebuild it with stone, and attempting to prove, on a
calculation wild, false, and yet sometimes plausible, that this
could be done out of the colossal fragments of Stonehenge, which
the writer proposed to remove for that purpose.  Subjoined were
several grotesque drawings of engines designed to remove those
massive blocks, and in a corner of the page was a note,--"I would
have drawn these more accurately, but was not allowed a KNIFE to
mend my pen."

The next was entitled, "A modest proposal for the spreading of
Christianity in foreign parts, whereby it is hoped its
entertainment will become general all over the world."--This modest
proposal was, to convert the Turkish ambassadors (who had been in
London a few years before), by offering them their choice of being
strangled on the spot, or becoming Christians.  Of course the
writer reckoned on their embracing the easier alternative, but even
this was to be clogged with a heavy condition,--namely, that they
must be bound before a magistrate to convert twenty Mussulmans a
day, on their return to Turkey.  The rest of the pamphlet was
reasoned very much in the conclusive style of Captain Bobadil,--
these twenty will convert twenty more apiece, and these two hundred
converts, converting their due number in the same time, all Turkey
would be converted before the Grand Signior knew where he was.
Then comes the coup d'eclat,--one fine morning, every minaret in
Constantinople was to ring out with bells, instead of the cry of
the Muezzins; and the Imaum, coming out to see what was the matter,
was to be encountered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in
pontificalibus, performing Cathedral service in the church of St.
Sophia, which was to finish the business.  Here an objection
appeared to arise, which the ingenuity of the writer had
anticipated.--"It may be redargued," saith he, "by those who have
more spleen than brain, that forasmuch as the Archbishop preacheth
in English, he will not thereby much edify the Turkish folk, who do
altogether hold in a vain gabble of their own."  But this (to use
his own language) he "evites," by judiciously observing, that where
service was performed in an unknown tongue, the devotion of the
people was always observed to be much increased thereby; as, for
instance, in the church of Rome,--that St. Augustine, with his
monks, advanced to meet King Ethelbert singing litanies (in a
language his majesty could not possibly have understood), and
converted him and his whole court on the spot;--that the sybilline
books. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

Cum multis aliis.

Between the pages were cut most exquisitely in paper the likenesses
of some of these Turkish ambassadors; the hair of the beards, in
particular, was feathered with a delicacy of touch that seemed the
work of fairy fingers,--but the pages ended with a complaint of the
operator, that his scissors had been taken from him.  However, he
consoled himself and the reader with the assurance, that he would
that night catch a moonbeam as it entered through the grating, and,
when he had whetted it on the iron knobs of his door, would do
wonders with it.  In the next page was found a melancholy proof of
powerful but prostrated intellect.  It contained some insane lines,
ascribed to Lee the dramatic poet, commencing,


     "O that my lungs could bleat like buttered pease," &c.


There is no proof whatever that these miserable lines were really
written by Lee, except that the measure is the fashionable quatrain
of the period.  It is singular that Stanton read on without
suspicion of his own danger, quite absorbed in the album of a
madhouse, without ever reflecting on the place where he was, and
which such compositions too manifestly designated.

It was after a long interval that he looked round, and perceived
that his companion was gone.  Bells were unusual then.  He
proceeded to the door,--it was fastened.  He called aloud,--his
voice was echoed in a moment by many others, but in tones so wild
and discordant, that he desisted in involuntary terror.  As the day
advanced, and no one approached, he tried the window, and then
perceived for the first time it was grated.  It looked out on the
narrow flagged yard, in which no human being was; and if there had,
from such a being no human feeling could have been extracted.

Sickening with unspeakable horror, he sunk rather than sat down
beside the miserable window, and "wished for day."

        .        .        .        .        .

At midnight he started from a doze, half a swoon, half a sleep,
which probably the hardness of his seat, and of the deal table on
which he leaned, had not contributed to prolong.

He was in complete darkness; the horror of his situation struck him
at once, and for a moment he was indeed almost qualified for an
inmate of that dreadful mansion.  He felt his way to the door,
shook it with desperate strength, and uttered the most frightful
cries, mixed with expostulations and commands.  His cries were in a
moment echoed by a hundred voices.  In maniacs there is a peculiar
malignity, accompanied by an extraordinary acuteness of some of the
senses, particularly in distinguishing the voice of a stranger.
The cries that he heard on every side seemed like a wild and
infernal yell of joy, that their mansion of misery had obtained
another tenant.

He paused, exhausted,--a quick and thundering step was heard in the
passage.  The door was opened, and a man of savage appearance stood
at the entrance,--two more were seen indistinctly in the passage.
"Release me, villain!"--"Stop, my fine fellow, what's all this
noise for?"  "Where am I?"  "Where you ought to be."  "Will you
dare to detain me?"--"Yes, and a little more than that," answered
the ruffian, applying a loaded horsewhip to his back and shoulders,
till the patient soon fell to the ground convulsed with rage and
pain.  "Now you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the
ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the
advice of a friend, and make no more noise.  The lads are ready for
you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of
this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first."  They then
were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their
hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and
showed, by their frightful countenances and gestures, no
unwillingness to apply them.  Their harsh rattle on the stone
pavement made Stanton's blood run cold; the effect, however, was
useful.  He had the presence of mind to acknowledge his (supposed)
miserable condition, to supplicate the forbearance of the ruthless
keeper, and promise complete submission to his orders.  This
pacified the ruffian, and he retired.

Stanton collected all his resolution to encounter the horrible
night; he saw all that was before him, and summoned himself to meet
it.  After much agitated deliberation, he conceived it best to
continue the same appearance of submission and tranquillity, hoping
that thus he might in time either propitiate the wretches in whose
hands he was, or, by his apparent inoffensiveness, procure such
opportunities of indulgence, as might perhaps ultimately facilitate
his escape.  He therefore determined to conduct himself with the
utmost tranquillity, and never to let his voice be heard in the
house; and he laid down several other resolutions with a degree of
prudence which he already shuddered to think might be the cunning
of incipient madness, or the beginning result of the horrid habits
of the place.

These resolutions were put to desperate trial that very night.
Just next to Stanton's apartment were lodged two most uncongenial
neighbors.  One of them was a puritanical weaver, who had been
driven mad by a single sermon from the celebrated Hugh Peters, and
was sent to the madhouse as full of election and reprobation as he
could hold,--and fuller.  He regularly repeated over the five
points while daylight lasted, and imagined himself preaching in a
conventicle with distinguished success; toward twilight his visions
were more gloomy, and at midnight his blasphemies became horrible.
In the opposite cell was lodged a loyalist tailor, who had been
ruined by giving credit to the cavaliers and their ladies,--(for at
this time, and much later, down to the reign of Anne, tailors were
employed by females even to make and fit on their stays),--who had
run mad with drink and loyalty on the burning of the Rump, and ever
since had made the cells of the madhouse echo with fragments of the
ill-fated Colonel Lovelace's song, scraps from Cowley's "Cutter of
Coleman street," and some curious specimens from Mrs. Aphra Behn's
plays, where the cavaliers are denominated the heroicks, and Lady
Lambert and Lady Desborough represented as going to meeting, their
large Bibles carried before them by their pages, and falling in
love with two banished cavaliers by the way.  The voice in which he
shrieked out such words was powerfully horrible, but it was like
the moan of an infant compared to the voice which took up and
reechoed the cry, in a tone that made the building shake.  It was
the voice of a maniac, who had lost her husband, children,
subsistence, and finally her reason, in the dreadful fire of
London.  The cry of fire never failed to operate with terrible
punctuality on her associations.  She had been in a disturbed
sleep, and now started from it as suddenly as on that dreadful
night.  It was Saturday night too, and she was always observed to
be particularly violent on that night,--it was the terrible weekly
festival of insanity with her.  She was awake, and busy in a moment
escaping from the flames; and she dramatized the whole scene with
such hideous fidelity, that Stanton's resolution was far more in
danger from her than from the battle between his neighbors
Testimony and Hothead.  She began exclaiming she was suffocated by
the smoke; then she sprung from her bed, calling for a light, and
appeared to be struck by the sudden glare that burst through her
casement.--"The last day," she shrieked, "The last day!  The very
heavens are on fire!"--"That will not come till the Man of Sin be
first destroyed," cried the weaver; "thou ravest of light and fire,
and yet thou art in utter darkness.--I pity thee, poor mad soul, I
pity thee!"  The maniac never heeded him; she appeared to be
scrambling up a staircase to her children's room.  She exclaimed
she was scorched, singed, suffocated; her courage appeared to fail,
and she retreated.  "But my children are there!" she cried in a
voice of unspeakable agony, as she seemed to make another effort;
"here I am--here I am come to save you.--Oh God!  They are all
blazing!--Take this arm--no, not that, it is scorched and disabled--
well, any arm--take hold of my clothes--no, they are blazing too!--
Well, take me all on fire as I am!--And their hair, how it
hisses!--Water, one drop of water for my youngest--he is but an
infant--for my youngest, and let me burn!"  She paused in horrid
silence, to watch the fall of a blazing rafter that was about to
shatter the staircase on which she stood.--"The roof has fallen on
my head!" she exclaimed.  "The earth is weak, and all the
inhabitants thereof," chanted the weaver; "I bear up the pillars of
it."

The maniac marked the destruction of the spot where she thought she
stood by one desperate bound, accompanied by a wild shriek, and
then calmly gazed on her infants as they rolled over the scorching
fragments, and sunk into the abyss of fire below.  "There they go,--
one--two--three--all!" and her voice sunk into low mutterings, and
her convulsions into faint, cold shudderings, like the sobbings of
a spent storm, as she imagined herself to "stand in safety and
despair," amid the thousand houseless wretches assembled in the
suburbs of London on the dreadful nights after the fire, without
food, roof, or raiment, all gazing on the burning ruins of their
dwellings and their property.  She seemed to listen to their
complaints, and even repeated some of them very affectingly, but
invariably answered them with the same words, "But I have lost all
my children--all!"  It was remarkable, that when this sufferer
began to rave, all the others became silent.  The cry of nature
hushed every other cry,--she was the only patient in the house who
was not mad from politics, religion, ebriety, or some perverted
passion; and terrifying as the outbreak of her frenzy always was,
Stanton used to await it as a kind of relief from the dissonant,
melancholy, and ludicrous ravings of the others.

But the utmost efforts of his resolution began to sink under the
continued horrors of the place.  The impression on his senses began
to defy the power of reason to resist them.  He could not shut out
these frightful cries nightly repeated, nor the frightful sound of
the whip employed to still them.  Hope began to fail him, as he
observed, that the submissive tranquillity (which he had imagined,
by obtaining increased indulgence, might contribute to his escape,
or perhaps convince the keeper of his sanity) was interpreted by
the callous ruffian, who was acquainted only with the varieties of
MADNESS, as a more refined species of that cunning which he was
well accustomed to watch and baffle.

On his first discovery of his situation, he had determined to take
the utmost care of his health and intellect that the place allowed,
as the sole basis of his hope of deliverance.  But as that hope
declined, he neglected the means of realizing it.  He had at first
risen early, walked incessantly about his cell, and availed himself
of every opportunity of being in the open air.  He took the
strictest care of his person in point of cleanliness, and with or
without appetite, regularly forced down his miserable meals; and
all these efforts were even pleasant, as long as hope prompted
them.  But now he began to relax them all.  He passed half the day
in his wretched bed, in which he frequently took his meals,
declined shaving or changing his linen, and, when the sun shone
into his cell, he turned from it on his straw with a sigh of
heartbroken despondency.  Formerly, when the air breathed through
his grating, he used to say, "Blessed air of heaven, I shall
breathe you once more in freedom!--Reserve all your freshness for
that delicious evening when I shall inhale you, and be as free as
you myself."  Now when he felt it, he sighed and said nothing.  The
twitter of the sparrows, the pattering of rain, or the moan of the
wind, sounds that he used to sit up in his bed to catch with
delight, as reminding him of nature, were now unheeded.

He began at times to listen with sullen and horrible pleasure to
the cries of his miserable companions.  He became squalid,
listless, torpid, and disgusting in his appearance.

        .        .        .        .        .

It was one of those dismal nights, that, as he tossed on his
loathsome bed,--more loathsome from the impossibility to quit it
without feeling more "unrest,"--he perceived the miserable light
that burned in the hearth was obscured by the intervention of some
dark object.  He turned feebly toward the light, without curiosity,
without excitement, but with a wish to diversify the monotony of
his misery, by observing the slightest change made even
accidentally in the dusky atmosphere of his cell.  Between him and
the light stood the figure of Melmoth, just as he had seen him from
the first; the figure was the same; the expression of the face was
the same,--cold, stony, and rigid; the eyes, with their infernal
and dazzling luster, were still the same.

Stanton's ruling passion rushed on his soul; he felt this
apparition like a summons to a high and fearful encounter.  He
heard his heart beat audibly, and could have exclaimed with Lee's
unfortunate heroine,--"It pants as cowards do before a battle; Oh
the great march has sounded!"

Melmoth approached him with that frightful calmness that mocks the
terror it excites.  "My prophecy has been fulfilled;--you rise to
meet me rattling from your chains, and rustling from your straw--am
I not a true prophet?"  Stanton was silent.  "Is not your situation
very miserable?"--Still Stanton was silent; for he was beginning to
believe this an illusion of madness.  He thought to himself, "How
could he have gained entrance here?"--"Would you not wish to be
delivered from it?"  Stanton tossed on his straw, and its rustling
seemed to answer the question.  "I have the power to deliver you
from it."  Melmoth spoke very slowly and very softly, and the
melodious smoothness of his voice made a frightful contrast to the
stony rigor of his features, and the fiendlike brilliancy of his
eyes.  "Who are you, and whence come you?" said Stanton, in a tone
that was meant to be interrogatory and imperative, but which, from
his habits of squalid debility, was at once feeble and querulous.
His intellect had become affected by the gloom of his miserable
habitation, as the wretched inmate of a similar mansion, when
produced before a medical examiner, was reported to be a complete
Albino.--His skin was bleached, his eyes turned white; he could not
bear the light; and, when exposed to it, he turned away with a
mixture of weakness and restlessness, more like the writhings of a
sick infant than the struggles of a man.

Such was Stanton's situation.  He was enfeebled now, and the power
of the enemy seemed without a possibility of opposition from either
his intellectual or corporeal powers.

        .        .        .        .        .

Of all their horrible dialogue, only these words were legible in
the manuscript, "You know me now."--"I always knew you."--"That is
false; you imagined you did, and that has been the cause of all the
wild     .      of the     .        .        .        .        .
.  of your finally being lodged in this mansion of misery, where
only I would seek, where only I can succor you."--"You, demon!"--
"Demon!--Harsh words!--Was it a demon or a human being placed you
here?--Listen to me, Stanton; nay, wrap not yourself in that
miserable blanket,--that cannot shut out my words.  Believe me,
were you folded in thunder clouds, you must hear ME!  Stanton,
think of your misery.  These bare walls--what do they present to
the intellect or to the senses?--Whitewash, diversified with the
scrawls of charcoal or red chalk, that your happy predecessors have
left for you to trace over.  You have a taste for drawing--I trust
it will improve.  And here's a grating, through which the sun
squints on you like a stepdame, and the breeze blows, as if it
meant to tantalize you with a sigh from that sweet mouth, whose
kiss you must never enjoy.  And where's your library,--intellectual
man,--traveled man?" he repeated in a tone of bitter derision;
"where be your companions, your peaked men of countries, as your
favorite Shakespeare has it?  You must be content with the spider
and the rat, to crawl and scratch round your flock bed!  I have
known prisoners in the Bastille to feed them for companions,--why
don't you begin your task?  I have known a spider to descend at the
tap of a finger, and a rat to come forth when the daily meal was
brought, to share it with his fellow prisoner!--How delightful to
have vermin for your guests!  Aye, and when the feast fails them,
they make a meal of their entertainer!--You shudder.--Are you,
then, the first prisoner who has been devoured alive by the vermin
that infested his cell?--Delightful banquet, not 'where you eat,
but where you are eaten'!  Your guests, however, will give you one
token of repentance while they feed; there will be gnashing of
teeth, and you shall hear it, and feel it too perchance!--And then
for meals--Oh you are daintily off!--The soup that the cat has
lapped; and (as her progeny has probably contributed to the hell
broth) why not?  Then your hours of solitude, deliciously
diversified by the yell of famine, the howl of madness, the crash
of whips, and the broken-hearted sob of those who, like you, are
supposed, or DRIVEN mad by the crimes of others!--Stanton, do you
imagine your reason can possibly hold out amid such scenes?--
Supposing your reason was unimpaired, your health not destroyed,--
suppose all this, which is, after all, more than fair supposition
can grant, guess the effect of the continuance of these scenes on
your senses alone.  A time will come, and soon, when, from mere
habit, you will echo the scream of every delirious wretch that
harbors near you; then you will pause, clasp your hands on your
throbbing head, and listen with horrible anxiety whether the scream
proceeded from YOU or THEM.  The time will come, when, from the
want of occupation, the listless and horrible vacancy of your
hours, you will feel as anxious to hear those shrieks, as you were
at first terrified to hear them,--when you will watch for the
ravings of your next neighbor, as you would for a scene on the
stage.  All humanity will be extinguished in you.  The ravings of
these wretches will become at once your sport and your torture.
You will watch for the sounds, to mock them with the grimaces and
bellowings of a fiend.  The mind has a power of accommodating
itself to its situation, that you will experience in its most
frightful and deplorable efficacy.  Then comes the dreadful doubt
of one's own sanity, the terrible announcer that THAT doubt will
soon become fear, and THAT fear certainty.  Perhaps (still more
dreadful) the FEAR will at last become a HOPE,--shut out from
society, watched by a brutal keeper, writhing with all the impotent
agony of an incarcerated mind, without communication and without
sympathy, unable to exchange ideas but with those whose ideas are
only the hideous specters of departed intellect, or even to hear
the welcome sound of the human voice, except to mistake it for the
howl of a fiend, and stop the ear desecrated by its intrusion,--
then at last your fear will become a more fearful hope; you will
wish to become one of them, to escape the agony of consciousness.
As those who have long leaned over a precipice, have at last felt a
desire to plunge below, to relieve the intolerable temptation of
their giddiness,* you will hear them laugh amid their wildest
paroxysms; you will say, 'Doubtless those wretches have some
consolation, but I have none; my sanity is my greatest curse in
this abode of horrors.  They greedily devour their miserable meals,
while I loathe mine.  They sleep sometimes soundly, while my sleep
is--worse than their waking.  They are revived every morning by
some delicious illusion of cunning madness, soothing them with the
hope of escaping, baffling or tormenting their keeper; my sanity
precludes all such hope.  I KNOW I NEVER CAN ESCAPE, and the
preservation of my faculties is only an aggravation of my
sufferings.  I have all their miseries,--I have none of their
consolations.  They laugh,--I hear them; would I could laugh like
them.'  You will try, and the very effort will be an invocation to
the demon of insanity to come and take full possession of you from
that moment forever."


* A fact, related to me by a person who was near committing suicide
in a similar situation, to escape what he called "the excruciating
torture of giddiness."


(There were other details, both of the menaces and temptations
employed by Melmoth, which are too horrible for insertion.  One of
them may serve for an instance.)

"You think that the intellectual power is something distinct from
the vitality of the soul, or, in other words, that if even your
reason should be destroyed (which it nearly is), your soul might
yet enjoy beatitude in the full exercise of its enlarged and
exalted faculties, and all the clouds which obscured them be
dispelled by the Sun of Righteousness, in whose beams you hope to
bask forever and ever.  Now, without going into any metaphysical
subtleties about the distinction between mind and soul, experience
must teach you, that there can be no crime into which madmen would
not, and do not, precipitate themselves; mischief is their
occupation, malice their habit, murder their sport, and blasphemy
their delight.  Whether a soul in this state can be in a hopeful
one, it is for you to judge; but it seems to me, that with the loss
of reason (and reason cannot long be retained in this place) you
lose also the hope of immortality.--Listen," said the tempter,
pausing, "listen to the wretch who is raving near you, and whose
blasphemies might make a demon start.--He was once an eminent
puritanical preacher.  Half the day he imagines himself in a
pulpit, denouncing damnation against <DW7>s, Arminians, and even
Sublapsarians (he being a Supra-lapsarian himself).  He foams, he
writhes, he gnashes his teeth; you would imagine him in the hell he
was painting, and that the fire and brimstone he is so lavish of
were actually exhaling from his jaws.  At night his creed
retaliates on him; he believes himself one of the reprobates he has
been all day denouncing, and curses God for the very decree he has
all day been glorifying Him for.

"He, whom he has for twelve hours been vociferating 'is the
loveliest among ten thousand,' becomes the object of demoniac
hostility and execration.  He grapples with the iron posts of his
bed, and says he is rooting out the cross from the very foundations
of Calvary; and it is remarkable, that in proportion as his morning
exercises are intense, vivid, and eloquent, his nightly blasphemies
are outrageous and horrible.--Hark!  Now he believes himself a
demon; listen to his diabolical eloquence of horror!"

Stanton listened, and shuddered        .        .

        .        .        .        .        .

"Escape--escape for your life," cried the tempter; "break forth
into life, liberty, and sanity.  Your social happiness, your
intellectual powers, your immortal interests, perhaps, depend on
the choice of this moment.--There is the door, and the key is in my
hand.--Choose--choose!"--"And how comes the key in your hand? and
what is the condition of my liberation?" said Stanton.

        .        .        .        .        .

The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of
young Melmoth, were wholly illegible.  It seemed, however, to have
been rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for
Melmoth at last made out,--"Begone, monster, demon!--begone to your
native place.  Even this mansion of horror trembles to contain you;
its walls sweat, and its floors quiver, while you tread them."

        .        .        .        .        .

The conclusion of this extraordinary manuscript was in such a
state, that, in fifteen moldy and crumbling pages, Melmoth could
hardly make out that number of lines.  No antiquarian, unfolding
with trembling hand the calcined leaves of an Herculaneum
manuscript, and hoping to discover some lost lines of the Aeneis in
Virgil's own autograph, or at least some unutterable abomination of
Petronius or Martial, happily elucidatory of the mysteries of the
Spintriae, or the orgies of the Phallic worshipers, ever pored with
more luckless diligence, or shook a head of more hopeless
despondency over his task.  He could but just make out what tended
rather to excite than assuage that feverish thirst of curiosity
which was consuming his inmost soul.  The manuscript told no more
of Melmoth, but mentioned that Stanton was finally liberated from
his confinement,--that his pursuit of Melmoth was incessant and
indefatigable,--that he himself allowed it to be a species of
insanity,--that while he acknowledged it to be the master passion,
he also felt it the master torment of his life.  He again visited
the Continent, returned to England,--pursued, inquired, traced,
bribed, but in vain.  The being whom he had met thrice, under
circumstances so extraordinary, he was fated never to encounter
again IN HIS LIFETIME.  At length, discovering that he had been
born in Ireland, he resolved to go there,--went, and found his
pursuit again fruitless, and his inquiries unanswered.  The family
knew nothing of him, or at least what they knew or imagined, they
prudently refused to disclose to a stranger, and Stanton departed
unsatisfied.  It is remarkable, that he too, as appeared from many
half-obliterated pages of the manuscript, never disclosed to mortal
the particulars of their conversation in the madhouse; and the
slightest allusion to it threw him into fits of rage and gloom
equally singular and alarming.  He left the manuscript, however, in
the hands of the family, possibly deeming, from their incuriosity,
their apparent indifference to their relative, or their obvious
unacquaintance with reading of any kind, manuscript or books, his
deposit would be safe.  He seems, in fact, to have acted like men,
who, in distress at sea, intrust their letters and dispatches to a
bottle sealed, and commit it to the waves.  The last lines of the
manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary. . .
.

        .        .        .        .        .

"I have sought him everywhere.--The desire of meeting him once more
is become as a burning fire within me,--it is the necessary
condition of my existence.  I have vainly sought him at last in
Ireland, of which I find he is a native.--Perhaps our final meeting
will be in. . . .

        .        .        .        .        .

Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in
his uncle's closet.  When he had finished it, he sunk down on the
table near which he had been reading it, his face hid in his folded
arms, his senses reeling, his mind in a mingled state of stupor and
excitement.  After a few moments, he raised himself with an
involuntary start, and saw the picture gazing at him from its
canvas.  He was within ten inches of it as he sat, and the
proximity appeared increased by the strong light that was
accidentally thrown on it, and its being the only representation of
a human figure in the room.  Melmoth felt for a moment as if he
were about to receive an explanation from its lips.

He gazed on it in return,--all was silent in the house,--they were
alone together.  The illusion subsided at length: and as the mind
rapidly passes to opposite extremes, he remembered the injunction
of his uncle to destroy the portrait.  He seized it;--his hand
shook at first, but the moldering canvas appeared to assist him in
the effort.  He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific,
half triumphant,--it fell at his feet, and he shuddered as it fell.
He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginable
breathings of prophetic horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for
such he felt it, to tear the portrait of his ancestor from his
native walls.  He paused and listened:--"There was no voice, nor
any that answered;"--but as the wrinkled and torn canvas fell to
the floor, its undulations gave the portrait the appearance of
smiling.  Melmoth felt horror indescribable at this transient and
imaginary resuscitation of the figure.  He caught it up, rushed
into the next room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction,
and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in the
turf fire which had been lit in his room.  As Melmoth saw the last
blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope of a deep and intense
sleep.  He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted
both in mind and body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had
hoped for.  The sullen light of the turf fire, burning but never
blazing, disturbed him every moment.  He turned and turned, but
still there was the same red light glaring on, but not
illuminating, the dusky furniture of the apartment.  The wind was
high that night, and as the creaking door swung on its hinges,
every noise seemed like the sound of a hand struggling with the
lock, or of a foot pausing on the threshold.  But (for Melmoth
never could decide) was it in a dream or not, that he saw the
figure of his ancestor appear at the door?--hesitatingly as he saw
him at first on the night of his uncle's death,--saw him enter the
room, approach his bed, and heard him whisper, "You have burned me,
then; but those are flames I can survive.--I am alive,--I am beside
you."  Melmoth started, sprung from his bed,--it was broad
daylight.  He looked round,--there was no human being in the room
but himself.  He felt a slight pain in the wrist of his right arm.
He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of
a strong hand.


Balzac's tale, Melmoth Reconciled, in Vol. IV., furnishes a
solution to the terrible problem which Maturin has stated in this
story.--EDITOR'S NOTE.



Introduction to "A Mystery with a Moral"


The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes.  The
editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like
other writers of English.  He is certainly one of the very
greatest.  Yet nowadays he is generally unknown.  His rollicking
frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account
for the neglect.  Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its
eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy" appeared.  "A most unclerical
clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and
prebendary of York.

Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree.  Plot concerned
him least of all authors of fiction.

For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson
really INTENDED a moral to be read into the adventures of his
"Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages.  He used to
declare that he never intended anything--he never knew whither his
pen was leading--the rash implement, once in hand, was likely to
fly with him from Yorkshire to Italy--or to Paris--or across the
road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the helpless author do but
improve each occasion?

So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed
sequels--heedless, one would say, and yet glittering with the
unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple
emotion, like a thousand immortal passages of this random
philosopher.

Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration.  No less
a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied that "his works
consist only of brilliant passages."

And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The
Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an "Application" of worldly
wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness--
they have felt emboldened to ascribe the passage "A Mystery with a
Moral."

As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote.  He
sought the South of France for health in 1762, and was run after
and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs.
This foreign sojourn failed to cure his lung complaint, but
suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental
Journey."  Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18,
1768, Sterne died alone in his London lodgings.

Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1
live, if only for the exquisite literary art which ever made great
things out of little.--The EDITOR.



Laurence Sterne


A Mystery with a Moral

Parisian Experience of Parson Yorick, on his "Sentimental Journey"


A RIDDLE


I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at
everyone who passed by, and forming conjectures upon them, till my
attention got fixed upon a single object, which confounded all kind
of reasoning upon him.

It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious adult look, which
passed and repassed sedately along the street, making a turn of
about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel.  The man
was about fifty-two, had a small cane under his arm, was dressed in
a dark drab- coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seemed to
have seen some years' service.  They were still clean, and there
was a little air of frugal propriete throughout him.  By his
pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in
his way, I saw he was asking charity; so I got a sous or two out of
my pocket, ready to give him as he took me in his turn.  He passed
by me without asking anything, and yet he did not go five steps
farther before he asked charity of a little woman.  I was much more
likely to have given of the two.  He had scarce done with the
woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the
same way.  An ancient gentleman came slowly, and after him a young
smart one.  He let them both pass and asked nothing.  I stood
observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns
backward and forward, and found that he invariably pursued the same
plan.

There were two things very singular in this which set my brain to
work, and to no purpose; the first was, why the man should only
tell his story to the sex; and secondly, what kind of a story it
was and what species of eloquence it could be which softened the
hearts of the women which he knew it was to no purpose to practice
upon the men.

There were two other circumstances which entangled this mystery.
The one was, he told every woman what he had to say in her ear, and
in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition;
the other was, it was always successful--he never stopped a woman
but she pulled out her purse and immediately gave him something.

I could form no system to explain the phenomenon.

I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening, so I
walked upstairs to my chamber.


OVERHEARD


The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be
an excellent, good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will
not do to make a sentimental traveler.  I count little of the many
things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets;
Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an
unobservable corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers
worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded
together; and yet they are ABSOLUTELY fine, and whenever I have a
more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a
preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of
them, and for the text, "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
Pamphilia," is as good as anyone in the Bible.

There is a long, dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique
into a narrow street.  It is trod by a few who humbly wait for a
fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done.
At the end of it, toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small
candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway
down, but near the door--it is more for ornament than use--you see
it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns, but does
little good to the world that we know of.


*Hackney coach.


In returning [from the opera] along this passage, I discerned, as I
approached within five or six paces of the door, two ladies
standing arm in arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as
I imagined, for a fiacre.  As they were next the door, I thought
they had a prior right, so I edged myself up within a yard or
little more of them, and quietly took my stand.  I was in black and
scarce seen.

The lady next me was a tall, lean figure of a woman of about
thirty-six; the other, of the same size and make of about forty.
There was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of
them.  They seemed to be two upright vestal sisters, unsapped by
caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations.  I could have
wished to have made them happy.  Their happiness was destined, that
night, to come from another quarter.

A low voice with a good turn of expression and sweet cadence at the
end of it, begged for a twelve-sous piece between them for the love
of heaven.  I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the
quota of an alms, and that the sum should be twelve times as much
as what is usually given in the dark.  They both seemed astonished
at it as much as myself.  "Twelve sous," said one.  "A twelve-sous
piece," said the other, and made no reply.

The poor man said he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their
rank, and bowed down his head to the ground.

"Pooh!" said they, "we have no money."

The beggar remained silent for a moment or two, and renewed his
supplication.

"Do not, my fair young ladies," said he, "stop your good ears
against me."

"Upon my word, honest man," said the younger, "we have no change."

"Then God bless you," said the poor man, "and multiply those joys
which you can give to others without change."

I observed the older sister put her hand into her pocket.  "I will
see," said she, "if I have a sous."

"A sous!  Give twelve," said the suppliant.  "Nature has been
bountiful to you; be bountiful to a poor man."

"I would, friend, with all my heart," said the younger, "if I had
it."

"My fair charitable," said he, addressing himself to the elder,
"what is it but your goodness and humanity which make your bright
eyes so sweet that they outshine the morning even in this dark
passage?  And what was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and
his brother say so much of you both, as they just passed by?"

The two ladies seemed much affected, and impulsively at the same
time they put their hands into their pockets and each took out a
twelve-sous piece.

The contest between them and the poor suppliant was no more.  It
was continued between themselves which of the two should give the
twelve-sous piece in charity, and, to end the dispute, they both
gave it together, and the man went away.


SOLUTION


I stepped hastily after him; it was the very man whose success in
asking charity of the woman before the door of the hotel had so
puzzled me, and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis
of it: it was flattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature!  How strongly
are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side!  How sweetly
dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most
difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!

The poor man, as he was not straitened for time, had given it here
in a larger dose.  It is certain he had a way of bringing it into
less form for the many sudden causes he had to do with in the
streets; but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concenter, and
qualify it--I vex not my spirit with the inquiry.  It is enough,
the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces, and they can best tell
the rest who have gained much greater matters by it.


APPLICATION


We get forward in the world not so much by doing services as
receiving them.  You take a withering twig and put it in the
ground, and then you water it because you have planted it.

Monsieur le Comte de B----, merely because he had done me one
kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me
another the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few
people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.

I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honors to
some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should
have dined or supped a single time or two round, and then by
TRANSLATING French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should
presently have seen that I had got hold of the couvert* of some
more entertaining guest; and in course of time should have resigned
all my places one after another, merely upon the principle that I
could not keep them.  As it was, things did not go much amiss.


* Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon.


I had the honor of being introduced to the old Marquis de B----.
In days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of
chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the
idea of tilts and tournaments ever since.  The Marquis de B----
wished to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his
brain.  "He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much
of the English ladies.  "Stay where you are, I beseech you,
Monsieur le Marquis," said I.  "Les Messieurs Anglais can scarce
get a kind look from them as it is."  The marquis invited me to
supper.

M. P----, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our
taxes.  They were very considerable, he heard.  "If we knew but how
to collect them," said I, making him a low bow.

I could never have been invited to M. P----'s concerts upon any
other terms.

I had been misrepresented to Mme. de Q---- as an esprit--Mme. de Q----
was an esprit herself; she burned with impatience to see me and
hear me talk.  I had not taken my seat before I saw she did not
care a sou whether I had any wit or no.  I was let in to be
convinced she had.  I call Heaven to witness I never once opened
the door of my lips.

Mme. de V---- vowed to every creature she met, "She had never had a
more improving conversation with a man in her life."

There are three epochs in the empire of a Frenchwoman--she is
coquette, then deist, then devote.  The empire during these is
never lost--she only changes her subjects.  When thirty-five years
and more have unpeopled her dominion of the slaves of love she
repeoples it with slaves of infidelity, and, then with the slaves
of the church.

Mme. de V---- was vibrating between the first of these epochs; the
color of the rose was fading fast away; she ought to have been a
deist five years before the time I had the honor to pay my first
visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her for the sake of disputing
the point of religion more closely.  In short, Mme. de V---- told
me she believed nothing.

I told Mme. de V---- it might be her principle, but I was sure it
could not be her interest, to level the outworks, without which I
could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended;
that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a
beauty to be a deist; that it was a debt I owed my creed not to
conceal it from her; that I had not been five minutes upon the sofa
beside her before I had begun to form designs; and what is it but
the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in
her breast, which could have checked them as they rose up?

"We are not adamant," said I, taking hold of her hand, "and there
is need of all restraints till age in her own time steals in and
lays them on us; but, my dear lady," said I, kissing her hand, "it
is too--too soon."

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Mme. de
V----.  She affirmed to M. D---- and the Abbe M---- that in one
half hour I had said more for revealed religion than all their
encyclopaedia had said against it.  I was listed directly into Mme.
de V----o's coterie, and she put off the epoch of deism for two
years.

I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in
which I was showing the necessity of a first cause, that the young
Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the
room, to tell me that my solitaire was pinned too strait about my
neck.  "It should be plus badinant," said the count, looking down
upon his own; "but a word, M. Yorick, to the wise--"

"And from the wise, M. le Comte," replied I, making him a bow, "is
enough."

The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardor than ever I was
embraced by mortal man.

For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met.
"Pardi! ce M. Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres."

"Il raisonne bien," said another.

"C'est un bon enfant," said a third.

And at this price I could have eaten and drunk and been merry all
the days of my life at Paris; but it was a dishonest reckoning.  I
grew ashamed of it; it was the gain of a slave; every sentiment of
honor revolted against it; the higher I got, the more was I forced
upon my beggarly system; the better the coterie, the more children
of Art, I languished for those of Nature.  And one night, after a
most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people,
I grew sick, went to bed, and ordered horses in the morning to set
out for Italy.


CONTRAST


A shoe coming loose from the forefoot of the thill horse at the
beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the postilion dismounted,
twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was
of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence I made a
point of having the shoe fastened on again as well as we could, but
the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the
chaise box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go
on.

He had not mounted half a mile higher when, coming to a flinty
piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his
other forefoot.  I then got out of the chaise in good earnest, and
seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a
great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it.
The look of the house, and of everything about it, as we drew
nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster.  It was a little
farmhouse surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as
much corn, and close to the house on one side was a potagerie of an
acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a
French peasant's house, and on the other side was a little wood
which furnished wherewithal to dress it.  It was about eight in the
evening when I got to the house, so I left the postilion to manage
his point as he could, and for mine I walked directly into the
house.

The family consisted of an old gray-headed man and his wife, with
five or six sons and sons-in-laws, and their several wives, and a
joyous genealogy out of them.

They were all sitting down together to their lentil soup.  A large
wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table, and a flagon of wine
at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast--
'twas a feast of love.

The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality
would have me sit down at the table.  My heart was sat down the
moment I entered the room, so I sat down at once like a son of the
family, and to invest myself in the character as speedily as I
could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the
loaf cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a
testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a
welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it.

Was it this, or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this
morsel so sweet, and to what magic I owe it that the draught I took
of their flagon was so delicious with it that they remain upon my
palate to this hour?

If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much
more so.

When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with
the haft of his knife to bid them prepare for the dance.  The
moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together
into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to
the door to wash their faces and change their sabots, and in three
minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the
house to begin.  The old man and his wife came out last, and,
placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon
the vielle,* and at the age he was then of, touched well enough for
the purpose.  His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then
intermitted, and joined her old man again, as their children and
grandchildren danced before them.


* A small violin, such as was used by the wandering jongleurs of
the Middle Ages.--EDITOR.


It was not till the middle of the second dance when, from some
pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I
fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from
that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.  In a
word, I thought I beheld RELIGION mixing in the dance; but, as I
had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as
one of the illusions of an imagination, which is eternally
misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended,
said that this was their constant way, and that all his life long
he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his
family to dance and rejoice, believing, he said, that a cheerful
and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an
illiterate peasant could pay--

"Or a learned prelate either," said I.

When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently
down to Lyons.  Adieu then to all rapid movements!  It is a journey
of caution, and it fares better with sentiments not to be in a
hurry with them, so I contracted with a volturin to take his time
with a couple of mules and convey me in my own chaise safe to Turin
through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people, fear not!  Your poverty, the
treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the
world, nor will your values be invaded by it.  Nature, in the midst
of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou
hast created; with all thy great works about thee little hast thou
left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle, but to that
little thou grantest safety and protection, and sweet are the
dwellings which stand so sheltered!



William Makepeace Thackeray


On Being Found Out


At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy
at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember
the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into
a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one
by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little thing
just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the
house was for tools or hens), and in that house to put our hands
into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it.  I
put my hand into the sack.  My hand came out quite black.  I went
and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands
were black too.

By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, I hope,
will be satisfied by my acknowledging that I am a hundred and
fifty-six next birthday) I could not understand what was the
meaning of this night excursion--this candle, this tool house, this
bag of soot.  I think we little boys were taken out of our sleep to
be brought to the ordeal.  We came, then, and showed our little
hands to the master; washed them or not--most probably, I should
say, not--and so went bewildered back to bed.

Something had been stolen in the school that day; and Mr. Wiseacre
having read in a book of an ingenious method of finding out a thief
by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue
would shirk from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial.
Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole it.  We all
had black hands to show the master.  And the thief, whoever he was,
was not Found Out that time.

I wonder if the rascal is alive--an elderly scoundrel he must be by
this time; and a hoary old hypocrite, to whom an old schoolfellow
presents his kindest regards--parenthetically remarking what a
dreadful place that private school was; cold, chilblains, bad
dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful!--Are you alive
still, I say, you nameless villain, who escaped discovery on that
day of crime?  I hope you have escaped often since, old sinner.
Ah, what a lucky thing it is, for you and me, my man, that we are
NOT found out in all our peccadilloes; and that our backs can slip
away from the master and the cane!

Just consider what life would be, if every rogue was found out, and
flogged coram populo!  What a butchery, what an indecency, what an
endless swishing of the rod!  Don't cry out about my misanthropy.
My good friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go
to church?  When there, do you say, or do you not, that you are a
miserable sinner, and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it?
If you are a M. S., don't you deserve correction, and aren't you
grateful if you are to be let off?  I say again what a blessed
thing it is that we are not all found out!

Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being found out,
and punished accordingly.  Fancy all the boys in all the school
being whipped; and then the assistants, and then the headmaster
(Dr. Badford let us call him).  Fancy the provost marshal being
tied up, having previously superintended the correction of the
whole army.  After the young gentlemen have had their turn for the
faulty exercises, fancy Dr. Lincolnsinn being taken up for certain
faults in HIS Essay and Review.  After the clergyman has cried his
peccavi, suppose we hoist up a bishop, and give him a couple of
dozen!  (I see my Lord Bishop of Double-Gloucester sitting in a
very uneasy posture on his right reverend bench.)  After we have
cast off the bishop, what are we to say to the Minister who
appointed him?  My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use
personal correction to a boy of your age; but really . . . Siste
tandem carnifex!  The butchery is too horrible.  The hand drops
powerless, appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and
brandish.  I am glad we are not all found out, I say again; and
protest, my dear brethren, against our having our deserts.

To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough; but imagine
all the women found out in the distinguished social circle in which
you and I have the honor to move.  Is it not a mercy that a many of
these fair criminals remain unpunished and undiscovered!  There is
Mrs. Longbow, who is forever practicing, and who shoots poisoned
arrows, too; when you meet her you don't call her liar, and charge
her with the wickedness she has done and is doing.  There is Mrs.
Painter, who passes for a most respectable woman, and a model in
society.  There is no use in saying what you really know regarding
her and her goings on.  There is Diana Hunter--what a little
haughty prude it is; and yet WE know stories about her which are
not altogether edifying.  I say it is best for the sake of the
good, that the bad should not all be found out.  You don't want
your children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who
is so handsome, and whom they admire so.  Ah me, what would life be
if we were all found out and punished for all our faults?  Jack
Ketch would be in permanence; and then who would hang Jack Ketch?

They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found out.  Psha!  I
have heard an authority awfully competent vow and declare that
scores and hundreds of murders are committed, and nobody is the
wiser.  That terrible man mentioned one or two ways of committing
murder, which he maintained were quite common, and were scarcely
ever found out.  A man, for instance, comes home to his wife,
and . . . but I pause--I know that this Magazine has a very large
circulation.*  Hundreds and hundreds of thousands--why not say a
million of people at once?--well, say a million, read it.  And
among these countless readers, I might be teaching some monster how
to make away with his wife without being found out, some fiend of a
woman how to destroy her dear husband.  I will NOT then tell this
easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by a most
respectable party in the confidence of private intercourse.
Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most simple and easy
receipt--it seems to me almost infallible--and come to grief in
consequence, and be found out and hanged?  Should I ever pardon
myself for having been the means of doing injury to a single one of
our esteemed subscribers?  The prescription whereof I speak--that
is to say, whereof I DON'T speak--shall be buried in this bosom.
No, I am a humane man.  I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and
say to my wife, "My dear! I am going away for a few days to
Brighton.  Here are all the keys of the house.  You may open every
door and closet, except the one at the end of the oak room opposite
the fireplace, with the little bronze Shakespeare on the
mantelpiece (or what not)."  I don't say this to a woman--unless,
to be sure, I want to get rid of her--because, after such a
caution, I know she'll peep into the closet.  I say nothing about
the closet at all.  I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom I
love, but who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of harm's way.
You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground with your
lovely little feet, on the table with your sweet rosy fingers, and
cry, "Oh, sneerer!  You don't know the depth of woman's feeling,
the lofty scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity
in the sex, or never, never would you libel us so!"  Ah, Delia!
dear, dear Delia!  It is because I fancy I DO know something about
you (not all, mind--no, no; no man knows that).--Ah, my bride, my
ringdove, my rose, my poppet--choose, in fact, whatever name you
like--bulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert, sunshine of my
darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned existence, it is because I
DO know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that
private closet, and keep my key in my pocket.  You take away that
closet key then, and the house key.  You lock Delia in.  You keep
her out of harm's way and gadding, and so she never CAN be found
out.


* The Cornhill.--editor.


And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we are
being found out every day.  You remember that old story of the Abbe
Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one night how the first
confession he ever received was--from a murderer, let us say.
Presently enters to supper the Marquis de Croquemitaine.
"Palsambleu, abbe!" says the brilliant marquis, taking a pinch of
snuff, "are you here?  Gentlemen and ladies!  I was the abbe's
first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you
astonished him."

To be sure how queerly things are found out!  Here is an instance.
Only the other day I was writing in these Roundabout Papers about a
certain man, whom I facetiously called Baggs, and who had abused me
to my friends, who of course told me.  Shortly after that paper was
published another friend--Sacks let us call him--scowls fiercely at
me as I am sitting in perfect good humor at the club, and passes on
without speaking.  A cut.  A quarrel.  Sacks thinks it is about him
that I was writing: whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I never
had him once in my mind, and was pointing my moral from quite
another man.  But don't you see, by this wrath of the guilty-
conscienced Sacks, that he had been abusing me too?  He has owned
himself guilty, never having been accused.  He has winced when
nobody thought of hitting him.  I did but put the cap out, and
madly butting and chafing, behold my friend rushes out to put his
head into it!  Never mind, Sacks, you are found out; but I bear you
no malice, my man.

And yet to be found out, I know from my own experience, must be
painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying to the inward vanity.
Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say.  With fierce mustache, loud
talk, plentiful oaths, and an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless
a character for courage.  I swear fearfully at cabmen and women;
brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two
with it: brag of the images which I break at the shooting gallery,
and pass among my friends for a whiskery fire-eater, afraid of
neither man nor dragon.  Ah me!  Suppose some brisk little chap
steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all the
heads of my friends looking out of all the club windows.  My
reputation is gone.  I frighten no man more.  My nose is pulled by
whipper-snappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it.  I am found
out.  And in the days of my triumphs, when people were yet afraid
of me, and were taken in by my swagger, I always knew that I was a
lily liver, and expected that I should be found out some day.

That certainty of being found out must haunt and depress many a
bold braggadocio spirit.  Let us say it is a clergyman, who can
pump copious floods of tears out of his own eyes and those of his
audience.  He thinks to himself, "I am but a poor swindling,
chattering rogue.  My bills are unpaid.  I have jilted several
women whom I have promised to marry.  I don't know whether I
believe what I preach, and I know I have stolen the very sermon
over which I have been sniveling.  Have they found me out?" says
he, as his head drops down on the cushion.

Then your writer, poet, historian, novelist, or what not?  The
Beacon says that "Jones's work is one of the first order."  The
Lamp declares that Jones's tragedy surpasses every work since the
days of Him of Avon."  The Comet asserts that "J's 'Life of Goody
Twoshoes' is a [Greek text omitted], a noble and enduring monument
to the fame of that admirable Englishwoman," and so forth.  But
then Jones knows that he has lent the critic of the Beacon five
pounds; that his publisher has a half share in the Lamp; and that
the Cornet comes repeatedly to dine with him.  It is all very well.
Jones is immortal until he is found out; and then down comes the
extinguisher, and the immortal is dead and buried.  The idea (dies
irae!) of discovery must haunt many a man, and make him uneasy, as
the trumpets are puffing in his triumph.  Brown, who has a higher
place than he deserves, cowers before Smith, who has found him out.
What is the chorus of critics shouting "Bravo"?--a public clapping
hands and flinging garlands?  Brown knows that Smith has found him
out.  Puff, trumpets!  Wave, banners!  Huzza, boys, for the
immortal Brown!  This is all very well," B. thinks (bowing the
while, smiling, laying his hand to his heart); "but there stands
Smith at the window: HE has measured me; and some day the others
will find me out too."  It is a very curious sensation to sit by a
man who has found you out, and who, as you know, has found you out;
or, vice versa, to sit with a man whom YOU have found out.  His
talent?  Bah!  His virtue?  We know a little story or two about his
virtue, and he knows we know it.  We are thinking over friend
Robinson's antecedents, as we grin, bow and talk; and we are both
humbugs together.  Robinson a good fellow, is he?  You know how he
behaved to Hicks?  A good-natured man, is he?  Pray do you remember
that little story of Mrs. Robinson's black eye?  How men have to
work, to talk, to smile, to go to bed, and try and sleep, with this
dread of being found out on their consciences!  Bardolph, who has
robbed a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual
haunts, and smoke their pipes with their companions.  Mr. Detective
Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph!  I want you about that
there pyx business!"  Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his
pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks away
quite meekly.  He is found out.  He must go.  "Good-by, 'Doll
Tearsheet!  Good-by, Mrs. Quickly, ma'am!"  The other gentlemen and
ladies de la societe look on and exchange mute adieux with the
departing friends.  And an assured time will come when the other
gentlemen and ladies will be found out too.

What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature it has been
that, for the most part, our womankind are not endowed with the
faculty of finding us out!  THEY don't doubt, and probe, and weigh,
and take your measure.  Lay down this paper, my benevolent friend
and reader, go into your drawing-room now, and utter a joke ever so
old, and I wager sixpence the ladies there will all begin to laugh.
Go to Brown's house, and tell Mrs. Brown and the young ladies what
you think of him, and see what a welcome you will get!  In like
manner, let him come to your house, and tell YOUR good lady his
candid opinion of you, and fancy how she will receive him!  Would
you have your wife and children know you exactly for what you are,
and esteem you precisely at your worth?  If so, my friend, you will
live in a dreary house, and you will have but a chilly fireside.
Do you suppose the people round it don't see your homely face as
under a glamour, and, as it were, with a halo of love round it?
You don't fancy you ARE as you seem to them?  No such thing, my
man.  Put away that monstrous conceit, and be thankful that THEY
have not found you out.



The Notch on the Ax

A Story a la Mode*


* (Here Thackeray reduces to an absurdity the literary fashion of
the day--the vogue for startling stories and "Tales of Terror,"
which was high in his time, and which influenced several of the
stories which precede in this volume.  But while Dickens made fun,
with mental reservations; while Bulwer Lytton tried to explain by
rising to the heights of natural philosophy, and Maturin did not
explain at all, but let his extravagant genius roam between heaven
and earth--Thackeray's keen wit saw mainly one chance for exquisite
literary satire and parody.  At one point or another in this skit,
the style of each principal sensational novelist of the day is
delightfully imitated.--EDITOR.)


I


Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of your
Blind Bard (to whose sightless orbs no doubt Glorious Shapes were
apparent, and Visions Celestial), how Adam discourses to Eve of the
Bright Visitors who hovered round their Eden--


     'Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
      Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.'


"'How often,' says Father Adam, 'from the steep of echoing hill or
thicket, have we heard celestial voices to the midnight air, sole,
or responsive to each other's notes, singing!'  After the Act of
Disobedience, when the erring pair from Eden took their solitary
way, and went forth to toil and trouble on common earth--though the
Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you cannot say they were
gone.  It was not that the Bright Ones were absent, but that the
dim eyes of rebel man no longer could see them.  In your chamber
hangs a picture of one whom you never knew, but whom you have long
held in tenderest regard, and who was painted for you by a friend
of mine, the Knight of Plympton.  She communes with you.  She
smiles on you.  When your spirits are low, her bright eyes shine on
you and cheer you.  Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you.
She never fails to soothe you with her speechless prattle.  You
love her.  She is alive with you.  As you extinguish your candle
and turn to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she not there
still smiling?  As you lie in the night awake, and thinking of your
duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil oppressing the busy,
weary, wakeful brain as with a remorse, the crackling fire flashes
up for a moment in the grate, and she is there, your little
Beauteous Maiden, smiling with her sweet eyes!  When moon is down,
when fire is out, when curtains are drawn, when lids are closed, is
she not there, the little Beautiful One, though invisible, present
and smiling still?  Friend, the Unseen Ones are round about us.
Does it not seem as if the time were drawing near when it shall be
given to men to behold them?"

The print of which my friend spoke, and which, indeed, hangs in my
room, though he has never been there, is that charming little
winter piece of Sir Joshua, representing the little Lady Caroline
Montague, afterwards Duchess of Buccleuch.  She is represented as
standing in the midst of a winter landscape, wrapped in muff and
cloak; and she looks out of her picture with a smile so exquisite
that a Herod could not see her without being charmed.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. PINTO," I said to the person with whom I
was conversing.  (I wonder, by the way, that I was not surprised at
his knowing how fond I am of this print.)  "You spoke of the Knight
of Plympton.  Sir Joshua died 1792: and you say he was your dear
friend?"

As I spoke I chanced to look at Mr. Pinto; and then it suddenly
struck me: Gracious powers!  Perhaps you ARE a hundred years old,
now I think of it.  You look more than a hundred.  Yes, you may be
a thousand years old for what I know.  Your teeth are false.  One
eye is evidently false.  Can I say that the other is not?  If a
man's age may be calculated by the rings round his eyes, this man
may be as old as Methuselah.  He has no beard.  He wears a large
curly glossy brown wig, and his eyebrows are painted a deep olive-
green.  It was odd to hear this man, this walking mummy, talking
sentiment, in these queer old chambers in Shepherd's Inn.

Pinto passed a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his awful white
teeth, and kept his glass eye steadily fixed on me.  "Sir Joshua's
friend?" said he (you perceive, eluding my direct question).  "Is
not everyone that knows his pictures Reynolds's friend?  Suppose I
tell you that I have been in his painting room scores of times, and
that his sister The has made me tea, and his sister Toffy has made
coffee for me?  You will only say I am an old ombog."  (Mr. Pinto,
I remarked, spoke all languages with an accent equally foreign.)
"Suppose I tell you that I knew Mr. Sam Johnson, and did not like
him? that I was at that very ball at Madame Cornelis', which you
have mentioned in one of your little--what do you call them?--bah!
my memory begins to fail me--in one of your little Whirligig
Papers?  Suppose I tell you that Sir Joshua has been here, in this
very room?"

"Have you, then, had these apartments for--more--than--seventy
years?" I asked.

"They look as if they had not been swept for that time--don't they?
Hey?  I did not say that I had them for seventy years, but that Sir
Joshua has visited me here."

"When?" I asked, eying the man sternly, for I began to think he was
an impostor.

He answered me with a glance still more stern: "Sir Joshua Reynolds
was here this very morning, with Angelica Kaufmann and Mr. Oliver
Goldschmidt.  He is still very much attached to Angelica, who still
does not care for him.  Because he is dead (and I was in the fourth
mourning coach at his funeral) is that any reason why he should not
come back to earth again?  My good sir, you are laughing at me.  He
has sat many a time on that very chair which you are now occupying.
There are several spirits in the room now, whom you cannot see.
Excuse me."  Here he turned round as if he was addressing somebody,
and began rapidly speaking a language unknown to me.  "It is
Arabic," he said; "a bad patois, I own.  I learned it in Barbary,
when I was a prisoner among the Moors.  In anno 1609, bin ick aldus
ghekledt gheghaen.  Ha! you doubt me: look at me well.  At least I
am like--"

Perhaps some of my readers remember a paper of which the figure of
a man carrying a barrel formed the initial letter, and which I
copied from an old spoon now in my possession.  As I looked at Mr.
Pinto I do declare he looked so like the figure on that old piece
of plate that I started and felt very uneasy.  "Ha!" said he,
laughing through his false teeth (I declare they were false--I
could see utterly toothless gums working up and down behind the
pink coral), "you see I wore a beard den; I am shafed now; perhaps
you tink I am A SPOON.  Ha, ha!"  And as he laughed he gave a cough
which I thought would have coughed his teeth out, his glass eye
out, his wig off, his very head off; but he stopped this convulsion
by stumping across the room and seizing a little bottle of bright
pink medicine, which, being opened, spread a singular acrid
aromatic odor through the apartment; and I thought I saw--but of
this I cannot take an affirmation--a light green and violet flame
flickering round the neck of the vial as he opened it.  By the way,
from the peculiar stumping noise which he made in crossing the
bare-boarded apartment, I knew at once that my strange entertainer
had a wooden leg.  Over the dust which lay quite thick on the
boards, you could see the mark of one foot very neat and pretty,
and then a round O, which was naturally the impression made by the
wooden stump.  I own I had a queer thrill as I saw that mark, and
felt a secret comfort that it was not CLOVEN.

In this desolate apartment in which Mr. Pinto had invited me to see
him, there were three chairs, one bottomless, a little table on
which you might put a breakfast tray, and not a single other
article of furniture.  In the next room, the door of which was
open, I could see a magnificent gilt dressing case, with some
splendid diamond and ruby shirt studs lying by it, and a chest of
drawers, and a cupboard apparently full of clothes.

Remembering him in Baden-Baden in great magnificence I wondered at
his present denuded state.  "You have a house elsewhere, Mr.
Pinto?" I said.

"Many," says he.  "I have apartments in many cities.  I lock dem
up, and do not carry mosh logish."

I then remembered that his apartment at Baden, where I first met
him, was bare, and had no bed in it.

"There is, then, a sleeping room beyond?"

"This is the sleeping room."  (He pronounces it DIS.  Can this, by
the way, give any clew to the nationality of this singular man?)

"If you sleep on these two old chairs you have a rickety couch; if
on the floor, a dusty one."

"Suppose I sleep up dere?" said this strange man, and he actually
pointed up to the ceiling.  I thought him mad or what he himself
called "an ombog."  "I know.  You do not believe me; for why should
I deceive you?  I came but to propose a matter of business to you.
I told you I could give you the clew to the mystery of the Two
Children in Black, whom you met at Baden, and you came to see me.
If I told you you would not believe me.  What for try and convinz
you?  Ha hey?"  And he shook his hand once, twice, thrice, at me,
and glared at me out of his eye in a peculiar way.

Of what happened now I protest I cannot give an accurate account.
It seemed to me that there shot a flame from his eye into my brain,
while behind his GLASS eye there was a green illumination as if a
candle had been lit in it.  It seemed to me that from his long
fingers two quivering flames issued, sputtering, as it were, which
penetrated me, and forced me back into one of the chairs--the
broken one--out of which I had much difficulty in scrambling, when
the strange glamour was ended.  It seemed to me that, when I was so
fixed, so transfixed in the broken chair, the man floated up to the
ceiling, crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he was lying on a
sofa, and grinned down at me.  When I came to myself he was down
from the ceiling, and, taking me out of the broken cane-bottomed
chair, kindly enough--"Bah!" said he, "it is the smell of my
medicine.  It often gives the vertigo.  I thought you would have
had a little fit.  Come into the open air."  And we went down the
steps, and into Shepherd's Inn, where the setting sun was just
shining on the statue of Shepherd; the laundresses were traipsing
about; the porters were leaning against the railings; and the
clerks were playing at marbles, to my inexpressible consolation.

"You said you were going to dine at the 'Gray's-Inn Coffee-House,'"
he said.  I was.  I often dine there.  There is excellent wine at
the "Gray's-Inn Coffee-House"; but I declare I NEVER SAID so.  I
was not astonished at his remark; no more astonished than if I was
in a dream.  Perhaps I WAS in a dream.  Is life a dream?  Are
dreams facts?  Is sleeping being really awake?  I don't know.  I
tell you I am puzzled.  I have read "The Woman in White,"  "The
Strange Story"--not to mention that story "Stranger than Fiction"
in the Cornhill Magazine--that story for which THREE credible
witnesses are ready to vouch.  I have had messages from the dead;
and not only from the dead, but from people who never existed at
all.  I own I am in a state of much bewilderment: but, if you
please, will proceed with my simple, my artless story.

Well, then.  We passed from Shepherd's Inn into Holborn, and looked
for a while at Woodgate's bric-a-brac shop, which I never can pass
without delaying at the windows--indeed, if I were going to be
hung, I would beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more
at that delightful omnium gatherum.  And passing Woodgate's, we
come to Gale's little shop, "No. 47," which is also a favorite
haunt of mine.

Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we exchanged
salutations, "Mr. Pinto," I said, "will you like to see a real
curiosity in this curiosity shop?  Step into Mr. Gale's little back
room."

In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs; there are old
Saxe and Sevres plates; there is Furstenberg, Carl Theodor,
Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other jimcrockery.  And in the corner
what do you think there is?  There is an actual GUILLOTINE.  If you
doubt me, go and see--Gale, High Holborn, No. 47.  It is a slim
instrument, much slighter than those which they make now;--some
nine feet high, narrow, a pretty piece of upholstery enough.  There
is the hook over which the rope used to play which unloosened the
dreadful ax above; and look! dropped into the orifice where the
head used to go--there is THE AX itself, all rusty, with A GREAT
NOTCH IN THE BLADE.

As Pinto looked at it--Mr. Gale was not in the room, I recollect;
happening to have been just called out by a customer who offered
him three pound fourteen and sixpence for a blue Shepherd in pate
tendre,--Mr. Pinto gave a little start, and seemed crispe for a
moment.  Then he looked steadily toward one of those great
porcelain stools which you see in gardens--and--it seemed to me--I
tell you I won't take my affidavit--I may have been maddened by the
six glasses I took of that pink elixir--I may have been sleep-
walking: perhaps am as I write now--I may have been under the
influence of that astounding MEDIUM into whose hands I had fallen--
but I vow I heard Pinto say, with rather a ghastly grin at the
porcelain stool,


     "Nay, nefer shague your gory locks at me,
      Dou canst not say I did it."


(He pronounced it, by the way, I DIT it, by which I KNOW that Pinto
was a German.)

I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on the porcelain
stool I saw, dimly at first, then with an awful distinctness--a
ghost--an EIDOLON--a form--A HEADLESS MAN seated with his head in
his lap, which wore an expression of piteous surprise.

At this minute, Mr. Gale entered from the front shop to show a
customer some Delft plates; and he did not see--but WE DID--the
figure rise up from the porcelain stool, shake its head, which it
held in its hand, and which kept its eyes fixed sadly on us, and
disappear behind the guillotine.

"Come to the 'Gray's-Inn Coffee-House,'" Pinto said, "and I will
tell you how the notch came to the ax."  And we walked down Holborn
at about thirty-seven minutes past six o'clock.

If there is anything in the above statement which astonishes the
reader, I promise him that in the next chapter of this little story
he will be astonished still more.


II


"You will excuse me," I said to my companion, "for remarking that
when you addressed the individual sitting on the porcelain stool,
with his head in his lap, your ordinarily benevolent features"--
(this I confess was a bouncer, for between ourselves a more
sinister and ill-looking rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom set
eyes on)--"your ordinarily handsome face wore an expression that
was by no means pleasing.  You grinned at the individual just as
you did at me when you went up to the cei--, pardon me, as I
THOUGHT you did, when I fell down in a fit in your chambers"; and I
qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble; I did not care
to offend the man--I did not DARE to offend the man.  I thought
once or twice of jumping into a cab, and flying; of taking refuge
in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse; of speaking to a policeman,
but not one would come.  I was this man's slave.  I followed him
like his dog.  I COULD not get away from him.  So, you see, I went
on meanly conversing with him, and affecting a simpering
confidence.  I remember, when I was a little boy at school, going
up fawning and smiling in this way to some great hulking bully of a
sixth-form boy.  So I said in a word, "Your ordinarily handsome
face wore a disagreeable expression," &c.

"It is ordinarily VERY handsome," said he, with such a leer at a
couple of passers-by, that one of them cried, "Oh, crickey, here's
a precious guy!" and a child, in its nurse's arms, screamed itself
into convulsions.  "Oh, oui, che suis tres-choli garcon, bien peau,
cerdainement," continued Mr. Pinto; "but you were right.  That--
that person was not very well pleased when he saw me.  There was no
love lost between us, as you say: and the world never knew a more
worthless miscreant.  I hate him, voyez-vous?  I hated him alife; I
hate him dead.  I hate him man; I hate him ghost: and he know it,
and tremble before me.  If I see him twenty tausend years hence--
and why not?--I shall hate him still.  You remarked how he was
dressed?"

"In black satin breeches and striped stockings; a white pique
waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons, and his hair in
powder.  He must have worn a pigtail--only--"

"Only it was CUT OFF!  Ha, ha, ha!"  Mr. Pinto cried, yelling a
laugh, which I observed made the policeman stare very much.  "Yes.
It was cut off by the same blow which took off the scoundrel's
head--ho, ho, ho!"  And he made a circle with his hook-nailed
finger round his own yellow neck, and grinned with a horrible
triumph.  "I promise you that fellow was surprised when he found
his head in the pannier.  Ha! ha!  Do you ever cease to hate those
whom you hate?"--fire flashed terrifically from his glass eye as he
spoke--"or to love dose whom you once loved?  Oh, never, never!"
And here his natural eye was bedewed with tears.  "But here we are
at the 'Gray's-Inn CoffeeHouse.'  James, what is the joint?"

That very respectful and efficient waiter brought in the bill of
fare, and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of pork, and pease
pudding, which my acquaintance said would do as well as anything
else; though I remarked he only trifled with the pease pudding, and
left all the pork on the plate.  In fact, he scarcely ate anything.
But he drank a prodigious quantity of wine; and I must say that my
friend Mr. Hart's port wine is so good that I myself took--well, I
should think, I took three glasses.  Yes, three, certainly.  HE--I
mean Mr. P.--the old rogue, was insatiable: for we had to call for
a second bottle in no time.  When that was gone, my companion
wanted another.  A little red mounted up to his yellow cheeks as he
drank the wine, and he winked at it in a strange manner.  "I
remember," said he, musing, "when port wine was scarcely drunk in
this country--though the Queen liked it, and so did Hurley; but
Bolingbroke didn't--he drank Florence and Champagne.  Dr. Swift put
water to his wine.  'Jonathan,' I once said to him--but bah! autres
temps, autres moeurs.  Another magnum, James."

This was all very well.  "My good sir," I said, "it may suit YOU to
order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a bottle; but that kind of
price does not suit me.  I only happen to have thirty-four and
sixpence in my pocket, of which I want a shilling for the waiter,
and eighteen pence for my cab.  You rich foreigners and SWELLS may
spend what you like" (I had him there: for my friend's dress was as
shabby as an old-clothes man's); "but a man with a family, Mr.
Whatd'you-call'im, cannot afford to spend seven or eight hundred a
year on his dinner alone."

"Bah!" he said.  "Nunkey pays for all, as you say.  I will what you
call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!" and again he gave that
disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crook-nailed and by no
means clean finger to his nose.  But I was not so afraid of him
now, for we were in a public place; and the three glasses of port
wine had, you see, given me courage.

"What a pretty snuff-box!" he remarked, as I handed him mine, which
I am still old-fashioned enough to carry.  It is a pretty old gold
box enough, but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old
relative, whom I can just remember as a child, when she was very
kind to me.  "Yes; a pretty box.  I can remember when many ladies--
most ladies, carried a box--nay, two boxes--tabatiere and
bonbonniere.  What lady carries snuff-box now, hey?  Suppose your
astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise?  I
can remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we
used to call it then; with paniers, with a tortoise-shell cane,
with the prettiest little high-heeled velvet shoes in the world!--
ah! that was a time, that was a time!  Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have
thee now in my mind's eye!  At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not
walk with thee, Eliza?  Aha, did I not love thee?  Did I not walk
with thee then?  Do I not see thee still?"

This was passing strange.  My ancestress--but there is no need to
publish her revered name--did indeed live at Bungay St. Mary's,
where she lies buried.  She used to walk with a tortoise-shell
cane.  She used to wear little black velvet shoes, with the
prettiest high heels in the world.

"Did you--did you--know, then, my great-gr-nd-m-ther?" I said.

He pulled up his coat sleeve--"Is that her name?" he said.

"Eliza--"

There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature
written in red on his arm.

"YOU knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange
knack); "I knew her young and lovely.  I danced with her at the
Bury ball.  Did I not, dear, dear Miss ----?"

As I live, he here mentioned dear gr-nny's MAIDEN name.  Her maiden
name was ----.  Her honored married name was ----.

"She married your great-gr-ndf-th-r the year Poseidon won the
Newmarket Plate," Mr. Pinto dryly remarked.

Merciful powers!  I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon
case on the sideboard in my gr-nny's parlor, a print by Stubbs of
that very horse.  My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair
flowing over his shoulders, was over the mantelpiece, and Poseidon
won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783!

"Yes; you are right.  I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very
night, before I lost my poor leg.  And I quarreled with your
grandf--, ha!"

As he said "Ha!" there came three quiet little taps on the table--
it is the middle table in the "Gray's-Inn CoffeeHouse," under the
bust of the late Duke of W-ll-ngt-n.

"I fired in the air," he continued; "did I not?" (Tap, tap, tap.)
"Your grandfather hit me in the leg.  He married three months
afterwards.  'Captain Brown,' I said 'who could see Miss Sm-th
without loving her?'  She is there!  She is there!" (Tap, tap,
tap.)  "Yes, my first love--"

But here there came tap, tap, which everybody knows means "No."

"I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan
features, "she was not my first love.  In Germ--in my own country--
there WAS a young woman--"

Tap, tap, tap.  There was here quite a lively little treble knock;
and when the old man said, "But I loved thee better than all the
world, Eliza," the affirmative signal was briskly repeated.

And this I declare UPON MY HONOR.  There was, I have said, a bottle
of port wine before us--I should say a decanter.  That decanter was
LIFTED UP, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of
wine were poured.  I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlord--I appeal to
James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if this statement is
not true?  And when we had finished that magnum, and I said--for I
did not now in the least doubt her presence--"Dear gr-nny, may we
have another magnum?" the table DISTINCTLY rapped "No.".

"Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began to be affected
by the wine, "you understand the interest I have taken in you.  I
loved Eliza ----" (of course I don't mention family names).  "I
knew you had that box which belonged to her--I will give you what
you like for that box.  Name your price at once, and I pay you on
the spot."

"Why, when you came out, you said you had not six-pence in your
pocket."

"Bah! give you anything you like--fifty--a hundred--a tausend
pound."

"Come, come," said I, "the gold of the box may be worth nine
guineas, and the facon we will put at six more."

"One tausend guineas!" he screeched.  "One tausend and fifty pound
dere!" and he sank back in his chair--no, by the way, on his bench,
for he was sitting with his back to one of the partitions of the
boxes, as I dare say James remembers.

"DON'T go on in this way," I continued rather weakly, for I did not
know whether I was in a dream.  "If you offer me a thousand guineas
for this box I MUST take it.  Mustn't I, dear gr-nny?"

The table most distinctly said "Yes"; and putting out his claws to
seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked nose into it, and
eagerly inhaled some of my 47 with a dash of Hardman.

"But stay, you old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of
rage, and quite familiar with him.  "Where is the money?  Where is
the check?"

"James, a piece of note paper and a receipt stamp!"

"This is all mighty well, sir," I said, "but I don't know you; I
never saw you before.  I will trouble you to hand me that box back
again, or give me a check with some known signature."

"Whose?  Ha, Ha, HA!"

The room happened to be very dark.  Indeed all the waiters were
gone to supper, and there were only two gentlemen snoring in their
respective boxes.  I saw a hand come quivering down from the
ceiling--a very pretty hand, on which was a ring with a coronet,
with a lion rampant gules for a crest.  I saw that hand take a dip
of ink and write across the paper.  Mr. Pinto, then, taking a gray
receipt stamp out of his blue leather pocketbook, fastened it on to
the paper by the usual process; and the hand then wrote across the
receipt stamp, went across the table and shook hands with Pinto,
and then, as if waving him an adieu, vanished in the direction of
the ceiling.

There was the paper before me, wet with the ink.  There was the pen
which THE HAND had used.  Does anybody doubt me?  I have that pen
now,--a cedar stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of
Gillott's pens.  It is in my inkstand now, I tell you.  Anybody may
see it.  The handwriting on the check, for such the document was,
was the writing of a female.  It ran thus:--"London, midnight,
March 31, 1862.  Pay the bearer one thousand and fifty pounds.
Rachel Sidonia.  To Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London."

"Noblest and best of women!" said Pinto, kissing the sheet of paper
with much reverence.  "My good Mr. Roundabout, I suppose you do not
question THAT signature?"

Indeed the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., is known to be one
of the richest in Europe, and as for the Countess Rachel, she was
known to be the chief manager of that enormously wealthy
establishment.  There was only one little difficulty, the Countess
Rachel died last October.

I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the paper to Pinto
with a sneer.

"C'est a brandre ou a laisser," he said with some heat.  "You
literary men are all imbrudent; but I did not tink you such a fool
wie dis.  Your box is not worth twenty pound, and I offer you a
tausend because I know you want money to pay dat rascal Tom's
college bills."  (This strange man actually knew that my scapegrace
Tom had been a source of great expense and annoyance to me.)  "You
see money costs me nothing, and you refuse to take it!  Once,
twice; will you take this check in exchange for your trumpery
snuff-box?"

What could I do?  My poor granny's legacy was valuable and dear to
me, but after all a thousand guineas are not to be had every day.
"Be it a bargain," said I.  "Shall we have a glass of wine on it?"
says Pinto; and to this proposal I also unwillingly acceded,
reminding him, by the way, that he had not yet told me the story of
the headless man.

"Your poor gr-ndm-ther was right just now, when she said she was
not my first love.  'Twas one of those banale expressions" (here
Mr. P. blushed once more) "which we use to women.  We tell each she
is our first passion.  They reply with a similar illusory formula.
No man is any woman's first love; no woman any man's.  We are in
love in our nurse's arms, and women coquette with their eyes before
their tongue can form a word.  How could your lovely relative love
me?  I was far, far too old for her.  I am older than I look.  I am
so old that you would not believe my age were I to tell you.  I
have loved many and many a woman before your relative.  It has not
always been fortunate for them to love me.  Ah, Sophronia!  Round
the dreadful circus where you fell, and whence I was dragged
corpselike by the heels, there sat multitudes more savage than the
lions which mangled your sweet form!  Ah, tenez! when we marched to
the terrible stake together at Valladolid--the Protestant and the
J--  But away with memory!  Boy! it was happy for thy grandam that
she loved me not.

"During that strange period," he went on, "when the teeming Time
was great with the revolution that was speedily to be born, I was
on a mission in Paris with my excellent, my maligned friend,
Cagliostro.  Mesmer was one of our band.  I seemed to occupy but an
obscure rank in it: though, as you know, in secret societies the
humble man may be a chief and director--the ostensible leader but a
puppet moved by unseen hands.  Never mind who was chief, or who was
second.  Never mind my age.  It boots not to tell it: why shall I
expose myself to your scornful incredulity--or reply to your
questions in words that are familiar to you, but which you cannot
understand?  Words are symbols of things which you know, or of
things which you don't know.  If you don't know them, to speak is
idle."  (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly thirty-eight
minutes, about physics, metaphysics, language, the origin and
destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and to
relieve my ennui, drank a half glass or so of wine.)  "LOVE,
friend, is the fountain of youth!  It may not happen to me once--
once in an age: but when I love then I am young.  I loved when I
was in Paris.  Bathilde, Bathilde, I loved thee--ah, how fondly!
Wine, I say, more wine!  Love is ever young.  I was a boy at the
little feet of Bathilde de Bechamel--the fair, the fond, the
fickle, ah, the false!"  The strange old man's agony was here
really terrific, and he showed himself much more agitated than when
he had been speaking about my gr-ndm-th-r.

"I thought Blanche might love me.  I could speak to her in the
language of all countries, and tell her the lore of all ages.  I
could trace the nursery legends which she loved up to their
Sanscrit source, and whisper to her the darkling mysteries of the
Egyptian Magi.  I could chant for her the wild chorus that rang in
the disheveled Eleusinian revel: I could tell her and I would, the
watchword never known but to one woman, the Saban Queen, which
Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of Solomon--You don't attend.
Psha! you have drunk too much wine!"  Perhaps I may as well own
that I was NOT attending, for he had been carrying on for about
fifty-seven minutes; and I don't like a man to have ALL the talk to
himself.

"Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of Masonry.
In early, early days I loved, I married a girl fair as Blanche,
who, too, was tormented by curiosity, who, too, would peep into my
closet, into the only secret guarded from her.  A dreadful fate
befell poor Fatima.  An ACCIDENT shortened her life.  Poor thing!
she had a foolish sister who urged her on.  I always told her to
beware of Ann.  She died.  They said her brothers killed me.  A
gross falsehood.  AM I dead?  If I were, could I pledge you in this
wine?"

"Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, "was your name, pray,
then, ever Blueb----?"

"Hush! the waiter will overhear you.  Methought we were speaking of
Blanche de Bechamel.  I loved her, young man.  My pearls, and
diamonds, and treasure, my wit, my wisdom, my passion, I flung them
all into the child's lap.  I was a fool.  Was strong Samson not as
weak as I?  Was Solomon the Wise much better when Balkis wheedled
him?  I said to the king--But enough of that, I spake of Blanche de
Bechamel.

"Curiosity was the poor child's foible.  I could see, as I talked
to her, that her thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, my friend, have
been absent once or twice to-night).  To know the secret of Masonry
was the wretched child's mad desire.  With a thousand wiles,
smiles, caresses, she strove to coax it from me--from ME--ha! ha!

"I had an apprentice--the son of a dear friend, who died by my side
at Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose army I happened to be,
suffered a dreadful defeat for neglecting my advice.  The Young
Chevalier Goby de Mouchy was glad enough to serve as my clerk, and
help in some chemical experiments in which I was engaged with my
friend Dr. Mesmer.  Bathilde saw this young man.  Since women were,
has it not been their business to smile and deceive, to fondle and
lure?  Away!  From the very first it has been so!"  And as my
companion spoke, he looked as wicked as the serpent that coiled
round the tree, and hissed a poisoned counsel to the first woman.

"One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche.  She was
radiant: she was wild with spirits: a saucy triumph blazed in her
blue eyes.  She talked, she rattled in her childish way.  She
uttered, in the course of her rhapsody, a hint--an intimation--so
terrible that the truth flashed across me in a moment.  Did I ask
her?  She would lie to me.  But I knew how to make falsehood
impossible.  And I ordered her to go to sleep."

At this moment the clock (after its previous convulsions) sounded
TWELVE.  And as the new Editor* of the Cornhill Magazine--and HE, I
promise you, won't stand any nonsense--will only allow seven pages,
I am obliged to leave off at THE VERY MOST INTERESTING POINT OF THE
STORY.


* Mr. Thackeray retired from the Editorship of the Cornhill
Magazine in March, 1862


III


"Are you of our fraternity?  I see you are not.  The secret which
Mademoiselle de Bechamel confided to me in her mad triumph and wild
hoyden spirits--she was but a child, poor thing, poor thing, scarce
fifteen;--but I love them young--a folly not unusual with the old!"
(Here Mr. Pinto thrust his knuckles into his hollow eyes; and, I am
sorry to say, so little regardful was he of personal cleanliness,
that his tears made streaks of white over his guarled dark hands.)
"Ah, at fifteen, poor child, thy fate was terrible!  Go to!  It is
not good to love me, friend.  They prosper not who do.  I divine
you.  You need not say what you are thinking--"

In truth, I was thinking, if girls fall in love with this sallow,
hook-nosed, glass-eyed, wooden-legged, dirty, hideous old man, with
the sham teeth, they have a queer taste.  THAT is what I was
thinking.

"Jack Wilkes said the handsomest man in London had but half an
hour's start of him.  And, without vanity, I am scarcely uglier
than Jack Wilkes.  We were members of the same club at Medenham
Abbey, Jack and I, and had many a merry night together.  Well, sir,
I--Mary of Scotland knew me but as a little hunchbacked music
master; and yet, and yet, I think she was not indifferent to her
David Riz--and SHE came to misfortune.  They all do--they all do!"

"Sir, you are wandering from your point!" I said, with some
severity.  For, really, for this old humbug to hint that he had
been the baboon who frightened the club at Medenham, that he had
been in the Inquisition at Valladolid--that under the name of D.
Riz, as he called it, he had known the lovely Queen of Scots--was a
LITTLE too much.  "Sir," then I said, "you were speaking about a
Miss Bechamel.  I really have not time to hear all of your
biography."

"Faith, the good wine gets into my head."  (I should think so, the
old toper!  Four bottles all but two glasses.)  "To return to poor
Blanche.  As I sat laughing, joking with her, she let slip a word,
a little word, which filled me with dismay.  Some one had told her
a part of the Secret--the secret which has been divulged scarce
thrice in three thousand years--the Secret of the Freemasons.  Do
you know what happens to those uninitiate who learn that secret? to
those wretched men, the initiate who reveal it?"

As Pinto spoke to me, he looked through and through me with his
horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite uneasily on my bench.
He continued: "Did I question her awake?  I knew she would lie to
me.  Poor child!  I loved her no less because I did not believe a
word she said.  I loved her blue eye, her golden hair, her
delicious voice, that was true in song, though when she spoke,
false as Eblis!  You are aware that I possess in rather a
remarkable degree what we have agreed to call the mesmeric power.
I set the unhappy girl to sleep.  THEN she was obliged to tell me
all.  It was as I had surmised.  Goby de Mouchy, my wretched,
besotted miserable secretary, in his visits to the chateau of the
Marquis de Bechamel, who was one of our society, had seen Blanche.
I suppose it was because she had been warned that he was worthless,
and poor, artful and a coward, she loved him.  She wormed out of
the besotted wretch the secrets of our Order.  'Did he tell you the
NUMBER ONE?' I asked.

"She said, 'Yes.'

"'Did he,' I further inquired, 'tell you the--'

"'Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me!' she said, writhing on the sofa,
where she lay in the presence of the Marquis de Bechamel, her most
unhappy father.  Poor Bechamel, poor Bechamel!  How pale he looked
as I spoke!  'Did he tell you,' I repeated with a dreadful calm,
'the NUMBER TWO?'  She said, 'Yes.'

"The poor old marquis rose up, and clasping his hands, fell on his
knees before Count Cagl----  Bah!  I went by a different name then.
Vat's in a name?  Dat vich ye call a Rosicrucian by any other name
vil smell as sveet.  'Monsieur,' he said, 'I am old--I am rich.  I
have five hundred thousand livres of rentes in Picardy.  I have
half as much in Artois.  I have two hundred and eighty thousand on
the Grand Livre.  I am promised by my Sovereign a dukedom and his
orders with a reversion to my heir.  I am a Grandee of Spain of the
First Class, and Duke of Volovento.  Take my titles, my ready
money, my life, my honor, everything I have in the world, but don't
ask the THIRD QUESTION.'

"'Godfroid de Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee of Spain and
Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly what was the oath you swore?'
The old man writhed as he remembered its terrific purport.

"Though my heart was racked with agony, and I would have died, aye,
cheerfully" (died, indeed, as if THAT were a penalty!) "to spare
yonder lovely child a pang, I said to her calmly, 'Blanche de
Bechamel, did Goby de Mouchy tell you secret NUMBER THREE?'

"She whispered a oui that was quite faint, faint and small.  But
her poor father fell in convulsions at her feet.

"She died suddenly that night.  Did I not tell you those I love
come to no good?  When General Bonaparte crossed the Saint Bernard,
he saw in the convent an old monk with a white beard, wandering
about the corridors, cheerful and rather stout, but mad--mad as a
March hare.  'General,' I said to him, 'did you ever see that face
before?'  He had not.  He had not mingled much with the higher
classes of our society before the Revolution.  I knew the poor old
man well enough; he was the last of a noble race, and I loved his
child."

"And did she die by--?"

"Man! did I say so?  Do I whisper the secrets of the Vehmgericht?
I say she died that night: and he--he, the heartless, the villain,
the betrayer,--you saw him seated in yonder curiosity shop, by
yonder guillotine, with his scoundrelly head in his lap.

"You saw how slight that instrument was?  It was one of the first
which Guillotin made, and which he showed to private friends in a
hangar in the Rue Picpus, where he lived.  The invention created
some little conversation among scientific men at the time, though I
remember a machine in Edinburgh of a very similar construction, two
hundred--well, many, many years ago--and at a breakfast which
Guillotin gave he showed us the instrument, and much talk arose
among us as to whether people suffered under it.

"And now I must tell you what befell the traitor who had caused all
this suffering.  Did he know that the poor child's death was a
SENTENCE?  He felt a cowardly satisfaction that with her was gone
the secret of his treason.  Then he began to doubt.  I had MEANS to
penetrate all his thoughts, as well as to know his acts.  Then he
became a slave to a horrible fear.  He fled in abject terror to a
convent.  They still existed in Paris; and behind the walls of
Jacobins the wretch thought himself secure.  Poor fool!  I had but
to set one of my somnambulists to sleep.  Her spirit went forth and
spied the shuddering wretch in his cell.  She described the street,
the gate, the convent, the very dress which he wore, and which you
saw to-day.

"And now THIS is what happened.  In his chamber in the Rue St.
Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE--a man who has been maligned, a
man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been
persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions,
forsooth, and elsewhere.  Ha! ha!  A man who has a mighty will.

"And looking toward the Jacobins Convent (of which, from his
chamber, he could see the spires and trees), this man WILLED.  And
it was not yet dawn.  And he willed; and one who was lying in his
cell in the convent of Jacobins, awake and shuddering with terror
for a crime which he had committed, fell asleep.

"But though he was asleep his eyes were open.

"And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the pallet, and
saying 'No, I will not go,' he rose up and donned his clothes--a
gray coat, a vest of white pique, black satin small-clothes, ribbed
silk stockings, and a white stock with a steel buckle; and he
arranged his hair, and he tied his queue, all the while being in
that strange somnolence which walks, which moves, which FLIES
sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent to pain, which OBEYS.
And he put on his hat, and he went forth from his cell: and though
the dawn was not yet, he trod the corridors as seeing them.  And he
passed into the cloister, and then into the garden where lie the
ancient dead.  And he came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome was
opening just at the dawning.  And the crowd was already waiting
with their cans and bowls to receive the alms of the good brethren.

"And he passed through the crowd and went on his way, and the few
people then abroad who marked him, said, 'Tiens!  How very odd he
looks!  He looks like a man walking in his sleep!'  This was said
by various persons:--

"By milk women, with their cans and carts, coming into the town.

"By roysterers who had been drinking at the taverns of the Barrier,
for it was Mid-Lent.

"By the sergeants of the watch, who eyed him sternly as he passed
near their halberds.

"But he passed on unmoved by their halberds,

"Unmoved by the cries of the roysterers,

"By the market women coming with their milk and eggs.

"He walked through the Rue St. Honore, I say:--

"By the Rue Rambuteau,

"By the Rue St. Antoine,

"By the King's Chateau of the Bastille,

"By the Faubourg St. Antoine.

"And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpus--a house which then stood
between a court and garden--

"That is, there was a building of one story, with a great coach
door.

"Then there was a court, around which were stables, coach-houses,
offices.

"Then there was a house--a two-storied house, with a perron in
front.

"Behind the house was a garden--a garden of two hundred and fifty
French feet in length.

"And as one hundred feet of France equal one hundred and six feet
of England, this garden, my friend, equaled exactly two hundred and
sixty-five feet of British measure.

"In the center of the garden was a fountain and a statue--or, to
speak more correctly, two statues.  One was recumbent,--a man.
Over him, saber in hand, stood a Woman.

"The man was Olofernes.  The woman was Judith.  From the head, from
the trunk, the water gushed.  It was the taste of the doctor:--was
it not a droll of taste?

"At the end of the garden was the doctor's cabinet of study.  My
faith, a singular cabinet, and singular pictures!--

"Decapitation of Charles Premier at Vitehall.

"Decapitation of Montrose at Edimbourg.

"Decapitation of Cinq Mars.  When I tell you that he was a man of
taste, charming!

"Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, went the
pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew the way of the house.
He did.  Turning neither right nor left, he seemed to walk THROUGH
the statues, the obstacles, the flower beds, the stairs, the door,
the tables, the chairs.

"In the corner of the room was THAT INSTRUMENT, which Guillotin had
just invented and perfected.  One day he was to lay his own head
under his own ax.  Peace be to his name!  With him I deal not!

"In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board with a half
circle in it, over which another board fitted.  Above was a heavy
ax, which fell--you know how.  It was held up by a rope, and when
this rope was untied, or cut, the steel fell.

"To the story which I now have to relate, you may give credence, or
not, as you will.  The sleeping man went up to that instrument.

"He laid his head in it, asleep."

"Asleep?"

"He then took a little penknife out of the pocket of his white
dimity waistcoat.

"He cut the rope asleep.

"The ax descended on the head of the traitor and villain.  The
notch in it was made by the steel buckle of his stock, which was
cut through.

"A strange legend has got abroad that after the deed was done, the
figure rose, took the head from the basket, walked forth through
the garden, and by the screaming porters at the gate, and went and
laid itself down at the Morgue.  But for this I will not vouch.
Only of this be sure.  'There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.'  More and more
the light peeps through the chinks.  Soon, amidst music ravishing,
the curtain will rise, and the glorious scene be displayed.  Adieu!
Remember me.  Ha! 'tis dawn," Pinto said.  And he was gone.

I am ashamed to say that my first movement was to clutch the check
which he had left with me, and which I was determined to present
the very moment the bank opened.  I know the importance of these
things, and that men change their mind sometimes.  I sprang through
the streets to the great banking house of Manasseh in Duke Street.
It seemed to me as if I actually flew as I walked.  As the clock
struck ten I was at the counter and laid down my check.

The gentleman who received it, who was one of the Hebrew
persuasion, as were the other two hundred clerks of the
establishment, having looked at the draft with terror in his
countenance, then looked at me, then called to himself two of his
fellow clerks, and queer it was to see all their aquiline beaks
over the paper.

"Come, come!" said I, "don't keep me here all day.  Hand me over
the money, short, if you please!" for I was, you see, a little
alarmed, and so determined to assume some extra bluster.

"Will you have the kindness to step into the parlor to the
partners?" the clerk said, and I followed him.

"What, AGAIN?" shrieked a bald-headed, red-whiskered gentleman,
whom I knew to be Mr. Manasseh.  "Mr. Salathiel, this is too bad!
Leave me with this gentleman, S."  And the clerk disappeared.

"Sir," he said, "I know how you came by this: the Count de Pinto
gave it you.  It is too bad!  I honor my parents; I honor THEIR
parents; I honor their bills!  But this one of grandma's is too
bad--it is, upon my word, now!  She've been dead these five-and-
thirty years.  And this last four months she has left her burial
place and took to drawing on our 'ouse!  It's too bad, grandma; it
is too bad!" and he appealed to me, and tears actually trickled
down his nose.

"Is it the Countess Sidonia's check or not?" I asked, haughtily.

"But, I tell you, she's dead!  It's a shame!--it's a shame!--it is,
grandmamma!" and he cried, and wiped his great nose in his yellow
pocket handkerchief.  "Look year--will you take pounds instead of
guineas?  She's dead, I tell you!  It's no go!  Take the pounds--
one tausend pound!--ten nice, neat, crisp hundred-pound notes, and
go away vid you, do!"

"I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said; and I put on an
attitude of resolution which I confess surprised even myself.

"Wery veil," he shrieked, with many oaths, "then you shall have
noting--ha, ha, ha!--noting but a policeman!  Mr. Abednego, call a
policeman!  Take that, you humbug and impostor!" and here with an
abundance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the
wealthy banker abused and defied me.

Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to
honor a check drawn by his dead grandmother?  I began to wish I had
my snuff-box back.  I began to think I was a fool for changing that
little old-fashioned gold for
this slip of strange paper.

Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a paroxysm
of despair.  He seemed to be addressing some person invisible, but
in the room: "Look here, ma'am, you've really been coming it too
strong.  A hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more!
The 'ouse can't stand it; it WON'T stand it, I say!  What?  Oh!
mercy, mercy!

As he uttered these words, A HAND fluttered over the table in the
air!  It was a female hand: that which I had seen the night before.
That female hand took a pen from the green baize table, dipped it
in a silver inkstand, and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap
on the blotting book, "How about the diamond robbery?  If you do
not pay, I will tell him where they are."

What diamonds? what robbery? what was this mystery?  That will
never be ascertained, for the wretched man's demeanor instantly
changed.  "Certainly, sir;--oh, certainly," he said, forcing a
grin.  "How will you have the money, sir?  All right, Mr. Abednego.
This way out."

"I hope I shall often see you again," I said; on which I own poor
Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot back into his parlor.

I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred pounds, and
the dear little fifty which made up the account.  I flew through
the streets again.  I got to my chambers.  I bolted the outer
doors.  I sank back in my great chair, and slept. . . .

My first thing on waking was to feel for my money.  Perdition!
Where was I?  Ha!--on the table before me was my grandmother's
snuff-box, and by its side one of those awful--those admirable--
sensation novels, which I had been reading, and which are full of
delicious wonder.

But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, No. 47,
High Holborn, I give you MY HONOR.  I suppose I was dreaming about
it.  I don't know.  What is dreaming?  What is life?  Why shouldn't
I sleep on the ceiling?--and am I sitting on it now, or on the
floor?  I am puzzled.  But enough.  If the fashion for sensation
novels goes on, I tell you I will write one in fifty volumes.  For
the present, DIXI.  But between ourselves, this Pinto, who fought
at the Colosseum, who was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition,
and sang duets at Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after
three little bits of Roundabout Papers.  Et vous?



Bourgonef


I

AT A TABLE D'HOTE


At the close of February, 1848, I was in Nuremberg.  My original
intention had been to pass a couple of days there on my way to
Munich, that being, I thought, as much time as could reasonably be
spared for so small a city, beckoned as my footsteps were to the
Bavarian Athens, of whose glories of ancient art and German
Renaissance I had formed expectations the most exaggerated--
expectations fatal to any perfect enjoyment, and certain to be
disappointed, however great the actual merit of Munich might be.
But after two days at Nuremberg I was so deeply interested in its
antique sequestered life, the charms of which had not been deadened
by previous anticipations, that I resolved to remain there until I
had mastered every detail and knew the place by heart.

I have a story to tell which will move amidst tragic circumstances
of too engrossing a nature to be disturbed by archaeological
interests, and shall not, therefore, minutely describe here what I
observed in Nuremberg, although no adequate description of that
wonderful city has yet fallen in my way.  To readers unacquainted
with this antique place, it will be enough to say that in it the
old German life seems still to a great extent rescued from the all-
devouring, all-equalizing tendencies of European civilization.  The
houses are either of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or are
constructed after those ancient models.  The citizens have
preserved much of the simple manners and customs of their
ancestors.  The hurrying feet of commerce and curiosity pass
rapidly by, leaving it sequestered from the agitations and the
turmoils of metropolitan existence.  It is as quiet as a village.
During my stay there rose in its quiet streets the startled echoes
of horror at a crime unparalleled in its annals, which, gathering
increased horror from the very peacefulness and serenity of the
scene, arrested the attention and the sympathy in a degree seldom
experienced.  Before narrating that, it will be necessary to go
back a little, that my own connection with it may be intelligible,
especially in the fanciful weaving together of remote conjectures
which strangely involved me in the story.

The table d'hote at the Bayerischer Hof had about thirty visitors--
all, with one exception, of that local commonplace which escapes
remark.  Indeed this may almost always be said of tables d'hote;
though there is a current belief, which I cannot share, of a table
d'hote being very delightful--of one being certain to meet pleasant
people there."  It may be so.  For many years I believed it was so.
The general verdict received my assent.  I had never met those
delightful people, but was always expecting to meet them.  Hitherto
they had been conspicuous by their absence.  According to my
experience in Spain, France, and Germany, such dinners had been
dreary or noisy and vapid.  If the guests were English, they were
chillingly silent, or surlily monosyllabic: to their neighbors they
were frigid; amongst each other they spoke in low undertones.  And
if the guests were foreigners, they were noisy, clattering, and
chattering, foolish for the most part, and vivaciously commonplace.
I don't know which made me feel most dreary.  The predominance of
my countrymen gave the dinner the gayety of a funeral; the
predominance of the Mossoo gave it the fatigue of got-up
enthusiasm, of trivial expansiveness.  To hear strangers imparting
the scraps of erudition and connoisseurship which they had that
morning gathered from their valets de place and guide-books, or
describing the sights they had just seen, to you, who either saw
them yesterday, or would see them to-morrow, could not be
permanently attractive.  My mind refuses to pasture on such food
with gusto.  I cannot be made to care what the Herr Baron's
sentiments about Albert Durer or Lucas Cranach may be.  I can
digest my rindfleisch without the aid of the commis voyageur's
criticisms on Gothic architecture.  This may be my misfortune.  In
spite of the Italian blood which I inherit, I am a shy man--shy as
the purest Briton.  But, like other shy men, I make up in obstinacy
what may be deficient in expansiveness.  I can be frightened into
silence, but I won't be dictated to.  You might as well attempt the
persuasive effect of your eloquence upon a snail who has withdrawn
into his shell at your approach, and will not emerge till his
confidence is restored.  To be told that I MUST see this, and ought
to go there, because my casual neighbor was charme, has never
presented itself to me as an adequate motive.

From this you readily gather that I am severely taciturn at a table
d'hote.  I refrain from joining in the "delightful conversation"
which flies across the table, and know that my reticence is
attributed to "insular pride."  It is really and truly nothing but
impatience of commonplace.  I thoroughly enjoy good talk; but, ask
yourself, what are the probabilities of hearing that rare thing in
the casual assemblage of forty or fifty people, not brought
together by any natural affinities or interests, but thrown
together by the accident of being in the same district, and in the
same hotel?  They are not "forty feeding like one," but like forty.
They have no community, except the community of commonplace.  No,
tables d'hote are not delightful, and do not gather interesting
people together.

Such has been my extensive experience.  But this at Nuremberg is a
conspicuous exception.  At that table there was one guest who, on
various grounds, personal and incidental, remains the most
memorable man I ever met.  From the first he riveted my attention
in an unusual degree.  He had not, as yet, induced me to emerge
from my habitual reserve, for in truth, although he riveted my
attention, he inspired me with a strange feeling of repulsion.  I
could scarcely keep my eyes from him; yet, except the formal bow on
sitting down and rising from the table, I had interchanged no sign
of fellowship with him.  He was a young Russian, named Bourgonef,
as I at once learned; rather handsome, and peculiarly arresting to
the eye, partly from an air of settled melancholy, especially in
his smile, the amiability of which seemed breaking from under
clouds of grief, and still more so from the mute appeal to sympathy
in the empty sleeve of his right arm, which was looped to the
breast-button of his coat.  His eyes were large and soft.  He had
no beard or whisker, and only delicate moustaches.  The sorrow,
quiet but profound, the amiable smile and the lost arm, were
appealing details which at once arrested attention and excited
sympathy.  But to me this sympathy was mingled with a vague
repulsion, occasioned by a certain falseness in the amiable smile,
and a furtiveness in the eyes, which I saw--or fancied--and which,
with an inexplicable reserve, forming as it were the impregnable
citadel in the center of his outwardly polite and engaging manner,
gave me something of that vague impression which we express by the
words "instinctive antipathy."

It was, when calmly considered, eminently absurd.  To see one so
young, and by his conversation so highly cultured and intelligent,
condemned to early helplessness, his food cut up for him by a
servant, as if he were a child, naturally engaged pity, and, on the
first day, I cudgeled my brains during the greater part of dinner
in the effort to account for his lost arm.  He was obviously not a
military man; the unmistakable look and stoop of a student told
that plainly enough.  Nor was the loss one dating from early life:
he used his left arm too awkwardly for the event not to have had a
recent date.  Had it anything to do with his melancholy?  Here was
a topic for my vagabond imagination, and endless were the romances
woven by it during my silent dinner.  For the reader must be told
of one peculiarity in me, because to it much of the strange
complications of my story are due; complications into which a mind
less active in weaving imaginary hypotheses to interpret casual and
trifling facts would never have been drawn.  From my childhood I
have been the victim of my constructive imagination, which has led
me into many mistakes and some scrapes; because, instead of
contenting myself with plain, obvious evidence, I have allowed
myself to frame hypothetical interpretations, which, to acts simple
in themselves, and explicable on ordinary motives, render the
simple-seeming acts portentous.  With bitter pangs of self-reproach
I have at times discovered that a long and plausible history
constructed by me, relating to personal friends, has crumpled into
a ruin of absurdity, by the disclosure of the primary misconception
on which the whole history was based.  I have gone, let us say, on
the supposition that two people were secretly lovers; on this
supposition my imagination has constructed a whole scheme to
explain certain acts, and one fine day I have discovered
indubitably that the supposed lovers were not lovers, but
confidants of their passions in other directions, and, of course,
all my conjectures have been utterly false.  The secret flush of
shame at failure has not, however, prevented my falling into
similar mistakes immediately after.

When, therefore, I hereafter speak of my "constructive
imagination," the reader will know to what I am alluding.  It was
already busy with Bourgonef.  To it must be added that vague
repulsion, previously mentioned.  This feeling abated on the second
day; but, although lessened, it remained powerful enough to prevent
my speaking to him.  Whether it would have continued to abate until
it disappeared, as such antipathies often disappear, under the
familiarities of prolonged intercourse, without any immediate
appeal to my amour propre, I know not; but every reflective mind,
conscious of being accessible to antipathies, will remember that
one certain method of stifling them is for the object to make some
appeal to our interest or our vanity: in the engagement of these
more powerful feelings, the antipathy is quickly strangled.  At any
rate it is so in my case, and was so now.

On the third day, the conversation at table happening to turn, as
it often turned, upon St. Sebald's Church, a young Frenchman, who
was criticising its architecture with fluent dogmatism, drew
Bourgonef into the discussion, and thereby elicited such a display
of accurate and extensive knowledge, no less than delicacy of
appreciation, that we were all listening spellbound.  In the midst
of this triumphant exposition the irritated vanity of the Frenchman
could do nothing to regain his position but oppose a flat denial to
a historical statement made by Bourgonef, backing his denial by the
confident assertion that "all the competent authorities" held with
him.  At this point Bourgonef appealed to me, and in that tone of
deference so exquisitely flattering from one we already know to be
superior he requested my decision; observing that, from the manner
in which he had seen me examine the details of the architecture, he
could not be mistaken in his confidence that I was a connoisseur.
All eyes were turned upon me.  As a shy man, this made me blush; as
a vain man, the blush was accompanied with delight.  It might
easily have happened that such an appeal, acting at once upon
shyness and ignorance, would have inflamed my wrath; but the appeal
happening to be directed on a point which I had recently
investigated and thoroughly mastered, I was flattered at the
opportunity of a victorious display.

The pleasure of my triumph diffused itself over my feelings towards
him who had been the occasion of it.  The Frenchman was silenced;
the general verdict of the company was too obviously on our side.
From this time the conversation continued between Bourgonef and
myself; and he not only succeeded in entirely dissipating my absurd
antipathy--which I now saw to have been founded on purely imaginary
grounds, for neither the falseness nor the furtiveness could now be
detected--but he succeeded in captivating all my sympathy.  Long
after dinner was over, and the salle empty, we sat smoking our
cigars, and discussing politics, literature, and art in that
suggestive desultory manner which often gives a charm to casual
acquaintances.

It was a stirring epoch, that of February, 1848.  The Revolution,
at first so hopeful, and soon to manifest itself in failure so
disastrous, was hurrying to an outburst.  France had been for many
months agitated by cries of electoral reform, and by indignation at
the corruption and scandals in high places.  The Praslin murder,
and the dishonor of M. Teste, terminated by suicide, had been
interpreted as signs of the coming destruction.  The political
banquets given in various important cities had been occasions for
inflaming the public mind, and to the far-seeing, these banquets
were interpreted as the sounds of the tocsin.  Louis Philippe had
become odious to France, and contemptible to Europe.  Guizot and
Duchatel, the ministers of that day, although backed by a
parliamentary majority on which they blindly relied, were
unpopular, and were regarded as infatuated even by their admirers
in Europe.  The Spanish marriages had all but led to a war with
England.  The Opposition, headed by Thiers and Odillon Barrot, was
strengthened by united action with the republican party, headed by
Ledru Rollin, Marrast, Flocon, and Louis Blanc.

Bourgonef was an ardent republican.  So was I; but my color was of
a different shade from his.  He belonged to the Reds.  My own
dominant tendencies being artistic and literary, my dream was of a
republic in which intelligence would be the archon or ruler; and,
of course, in such a republic, art and literature, as the highest
manifestation of mind, would have the supreme direction.  Do you
smile, reader?  I smile now; but it was serious earnest with me
then.  It is unnecessary to say more on this point.  I have said so
much to render intelligible the stray link of communion which
riveted the charm of my new acquaintance's conversation; there was
both agreement enough and difference enough in our views to render
our society mutually fascinating.

On retiring to my room that afternoon I could not help laughing at
my absurd antipathy against Bourgonef.  All his remarks had
disclosed a generous, ardent, and refined nature.  While my
antipathy had specially fastened upon a certain falseness in his
smile--a falseness the more poignantly hideous if it were
falseness, because hidden amidst the wreaths of amiability--my
delight in his conversation had specially justified itself by the
truthfulness of his mode of looking at things.  He seemed to be
sincerity itself.  There was, indeed, a certain central reserve;
but that might only he an integrity of pride; or it might be
connected with painful circumstances in his history, of which the
melancholy in his face was the outward sign.

That very evening my constructive imagination was furnished with a
detail on which it was soon to be actively set to work.  I had been
rambling about the old fortifications, and was returning at
nightfall through the old archway near Albert Durer's house, when a
man passed by me.  We looked at each other in that automatic way in
which men look when they meet in narrow places, and I felt, so to
speak, a start of recognition in the eyes of the man who passed.
Nothing else, in features or gestures, betrayed recognition or
surprise.  But although there was only that, it flashed from his
eyes to mine like an electric shock.  He passed.  I looked back.
He continued his way without turning.  The face was certainly known
to me; but it floated in a mist of confused memories.

I walked on slowly, pestering my memory with fruitless calls upon
it, hopelessly trying to recover the place where I could have seen
the stranger before.  In vain memory traveled over Europe in
concert-rooms, theaters, shops, and railway carriages.  I could not
recall the occasion on which those eyes had previously met mine.
That they had met them I had no doubt.  I went to bed with the
riddle undiscovered.


II

THE ECHOES OF MURDER


Next morning Nuremberg was agitated with a horror such as can
seldom have disturbed its quiet; a young and lovely girl had been
murdered.  Her corpse was discovered at daybreak under the archway
leading to the old fortifications.  She had been stabbed to the
heart.  No other signs of violence were visible; no robbery had
been attempted.

In great cities, necessarily great centers of crime, we daily hear
of murders; their frequency and remoteness leave us undisturbed.
Our sympathies can only be deeply moved either by some scenic
peculiarities investing the crime with unusual romance or unusual
atrocity, or else by the more immediate appeal of direct neighborly
interest.  The murder which is read of in the Times as having
occurred in Westminster, has seldom any special horror to the
inhabitants of Islington or Oxford Street; but to the inhabitants
of Westminster, and especially to the inhabitants of the particular
street in which it was perpetrated, the crime assumes heart-shaking
proportions.  Every detail is asked for, and every surmise listened
to, with feverish eagerness is repeated and diffused through the
crowd with growing interest.  The family of the victim; the
antecedents of the assassin, if he is known; or the conjectures
pointing to the unknown assassin,--are eagerly discussed.  All the
trivial details of household care or domestic fortunes, all the
items of personal gossip, become invested with a solemn and
affecting interest.  Pity for the victim and survivors mingle and
alternate with fierce cries for vengeance on the guilty.  The whole
street becomes one family, commingled by an energetic sympathy,
united by one common feeling of compassion and wrath.

In villages, and in cities so small as Nuremberg, the same
community of feeling is manifested.  The town became as one street.
The horror spread like a conflagration, the sympathy surged and
swelled like a tide.  Everyone felt a personal interest in the
event, as if the murder had been committed at his own door.  Never
shall I forget that wail of passionate pity, and that cry for the
vengeance of justice, which rose from all sides of the startled
city.  Never shall I forget the hurry, the agitation, the feverish
restlessness, the universal communicativeness, the volunteered
services, the eager suggestion, surging round the house of the
unhappy parents.  Herr Lehfeldt, the father of the unhappy girl,
was a respected burgher known to almost every one.  His mercer's
shop was the leading one of the city.  A worthy, pious man,
somewhat strict, but of irreproachable character; his virtues, no
less than those of his wife, and of his only daughter, Lieschen--
now, alas; for ever snatched from their yearning eyes--were
canvassed everywhere, and served to intensify the general grief.
That such a calamity should have fallen on a household so
estimable, seemed to add fuel to the people's wrath.  Poor
Lieschen! her pretty, playful ways--her opening prospects, as the
only daughter of parents so well to do and so kind--her youth and
abounding life--these were detailed with impassioned fervor by
friends, and repeated by strangers who caught the tone of friends,
as if they, too, had known and loved her.  But amidst the surging
uproar of this sea of many voices no one clear voice of direction
could be heard; no clue given to the clamorous bloodhounds to run
down the assassin.

Cries had been heard in the streets that night at various parts of
the town, which, although then interpreted as the quarrels of
drunken brawlers, and the conflicts of cats, were now confidently
asserted to have proceeded from the unhappy girl in her death-
struggle.  But none of these cries had been heard in the immediate
neighborhood of the archway.  All the inhabitants of that part of
the town agreed that in their waking hours the streets had been
perfectly still.  Nor were there any traces visible of a struggle
having taken place.  Lieschen might have been murdered elsewhere,
and her corpse quietly deposited where it was found, as far as any
evidence went.

Wild and vague were the conjectures.  All were baffled in the
attempt to give them a definite direction.  The crime was
apparently prompted by revenge--certainly not by lust, or desire of
money.  But she was not known to stand in any one's way.  In this
utter blank as to the assignable motive, I, perhaps alone among the
furious crowd, had a distinct suspicion of the assassin.  No sooner
had the news reached me, than with the specification of the theater
of the crime there at once flashed upon me the intellectual vision
of the criminal: the stranger with the dark beard and startled eyes
stood confessed before me!  I held my breath for a few moments, and
then there came a tide of objections rushing over my mind,
revealing the inadequacy of the grounds on which rested my
suspicions.  What were the grounds?  I had seen a man in a
particular spot, not an unfrequented spot, on the evening of the
night when the crime had been committed there; that man had seemed
to recognize me, and wished to avoid being recognized.  Obviously
these grounds were too slender to bear any weight of construction
such as I had based on them.  Mere presence on the spot could no
more inculpate him than it could inculpate me; if I had met him
there, equally had he met me there.  Nor even if my suspicion were
correct that he knew me, and refused to recognize me, could that be
any argument tending to criminate him in an affair wholly
disconnected with me.  Besides, he was walking peaceably, openly,
and he looked like a gentleman.  All these objections pressed
themselves upon me, and kept me silent.  But in spite of their
force I could not prevent the suspicion from continually arising.
Ashamed to mention it, because it may have sounded too absurd, I
could not prevent my constructive imagination indulging in its
vagaries, and with this secret conviction I resolved to await
events, and in case suspicion from other quarters should ever
designate the probable assassin, I might then come forward with my
bit of corroborative evidence, should the suspected assassin be the
stranger of the archway.

By twelve o'clock a new direction was given to rumor.  Hitherto the
stories, when carefully sifted of all exaggerations of flying
conjecture, had settled themselves into something like this:  The
Lehfeldts had retired to rest at a quarter before ten, as was their
custom.  They had seen Lieschen go into her bedroom for the night,
and had themselves gone to sleep with unclouded minds.  From this
peaceful security they were startled early in the morning by the
appalling news of the calamity which had fallen on them.
Incredulous at first, as well they might be, and incapable of
believing in a ruin so unexpected and so overwhelming, they
imagined some mistake, asserting that Lieschen was in her own room.
Into that room they rushed, and there the undisturbed bed, and the
open window, but a few feet from the garden, silently and
pathetically disclosed the fatal truth.  The bereaved parents
turned a revealing look upon each other's whitened faces, and then
slowly retired from the room, followed in affecting silence by the
others.  Back into their own room they went.  The father knelt
beside the bed, and, sobbing, prayed.  The mother sat staring with
a stupefied stare, her lips faintly moving.  In a short while the
flood of grief, awakened to a thorough consciousness, burst from
their laboring hearts.  When the first paroxysms were over they
questioned others, and gave incoherent replies to the questions
addressed to them.  From all which it resulted that Lieschen's
absence, though obviously voluntary, was wholly inexplicable to
them; and no clew whatever could be given as to the motives of the
crime.  When these details became known, conjecture naturally
interpreted Lieschen's absence at night as an assignation.  But
with whom?  She was not known to have a lover.  Her father, on
being questioned, passionately affirmed that she had none; she
loved no one but her parents, poor child!  Her mother, on being
questioned, told the same story--adding, however, that about
seventeen months before, she had fancied that Lieschen was a little
disposed to favor Franz Kerkel, their shopman; but on being spoken
to on the subject with some seriousness, and warned of the distance
between them, she had laughed heartily at the idea, and since then
had treated Franz with so much indifference that only a week ago
she had drawn from her mother a reproof on the subject.

"I told her Franz was a good lad, though not good enough for her,
and that she ought to treat him kindly.  But she said my lecture
had given her an alarm, lest Franz should have got the same maggot
into his head."

This was the story now passing through the curious crowds in every
street.  After hearing it I had turned into a tobacconist's in the
Adlergrasse, to restock my cigar-case, and found there, as
everywhere, a group discussing the one topic of the hour.  Herr
Fischer, the tobacconist, with a long porcelain pipe pendent from
his screwed-up lips, was solemnly listening to the particulars
volubly communicated by a stout Bavarian priest; while behind the
counter, in a corner, swiftly knitting, sat his wife, her black
bead-like eyes also fixed on the orator.  Of course I was dragged
into the conversation.  Instead of attending to commercial
interests, they looked upon me as the possible bearer of fresh
news.  Nor was it without a secret satisfaction that I found I
could gratify them in that respect.  They had not heard of Franz
Kerkel in the matter.  No sooner had I told what I had heard than
the knitting-needles of the vivacious little woman were at once
suspended.

"Ach Je!" she exclaimed, "I see it all.  He's the wretch!"

"Who?" we all simultaneously inquired.

"Who?  Why, Kerkel, of course.  If she changed, and treated him
with indifference, it was because she loved him; and he has
murdered the poor thing."

"How you run on, wife!" remonstrated Fischer; while the priest
shook a dubious head.

"I tell you it is so.  I'm positive."

"If she loved him."

"She did, I tell you.  Trust a woman for seeing through such
things."

"Well, say she did," continued Fischer, "and I won't deny that it
may be so; but then that makes against the idea of his having done
her any harm."

"Don't tell me," retorted the convinced woman.  "She loved him.
She went out to meet him in secret, and he murdered her--the
villain did.  I'm as sure of it as if these eyes had seen him do
it."

The husband winked at us, as much as to say, "You hear these
women!" and the priest and I endeavored to reason her out of her
illogical position.  But she was immovable.  Kerkel had murdered
her; she knew it; she couldn't tell why, but she knew it.  Perhaps
he was jealous, who knows?  At any rate, he ought to be arrested.

And by twelve o'clock, as I said, a new rumor ran through the
crowd, which seemed to confirm the little woman in her rash logic.
Kerkel had been arrested, and a waistcoat stained with blood had
been found in his room!  By half-past twelve the rumor ran that he
had confessed the crime.  This, however, proved on inquiry to be
the hasty anticipation of public indignation.  He had been
arrested; the waistcoat had been found: so much was authentic; and
the suspicions gathered ominously over him.

When first Frau Fischer had started the suggestion it flew like
wildfire.  Then people suddenly noticed, as very surprising, that
Kerkel had not that day made his appearance at the shop.  His
absence had not been noticed in the tumult of grief and inquiry;
but it became suddenly invested with a dreadful significance, now
that it was rumored that he had been Lieschen's lover.  Of all men
he would be the most affected by the tragic news; of all men he
would have been the first to tender sympathy and aid to the
afflicted parents, and the most clamorous in the search for the
undiscovered culprit.  Yet, while all Nuremberg was crowding round
the house of sorrow, which was also his house of business, he alone
remained away.  This naturally pointed suspicion at him.  When the
messengers had gone to seek him, his mother refused them admission,
declaring in incoherent phrases, betraying great agitation, that
her son was gone distracted with grief and could see no one.  On
this it was determined to order his arrest.  The police went, the
house was searched, and the waistcoat found.

The testimony of the girl who lived as servant in Kerkel's house
was also criminatory.  She deposed that on the night in question
she awoke about half-past eleven with a violent toothache; she was
certain as to the hour, because she heard the clock afterwards
strike twelve.  She felt some alarm at hearing voices in the rooms
at an hour when her mistress and young master must long ago have
gone to bed; but as the voices were seemingly in quiet
conversation, her alarm subsided, and she concluded that instead of
having gone to bed her mistress was still up.  In her pain she
heard the door gently open, and then she heard footsteps in the
garden.  This surprised her very much.  She couldn't think what the
young master could want going out at that hour.  She became
terrified without knowing exactly at what.  Fear quite drove away
the toothache, which had not since returned.  After lying there
quaking for some time, again she heard footsteps in the garden; the
door opened and closed gently; voices were heard; and she at last
distinctly heard her mistress say, "Be a man, Franz.  Good-night--
sleep well;" upon which Franz replied in a tone of great agony,
"There's no chance of sleep for me."  Then all was silent.  Next
morning her mistress seemed "very queer."  Her young master went
out very early, but soon came back again; and there were dreadful
scenes going on in his room, as she heard, but she didn't know what
it was all about.  She heard of the murder from a neighbor, but
never thought of its having any particular interest for Mr. Franz,
though, of course, he would be very sorry for the Lehfeldts.

The facts testified to by the servant, especially the going out at
that late hour, and the "dreadful scenes" of the morning, seemed to
bear but one interpretation.  Moreover, she identified the
waistcoat as the one worn by Franz on the day preceding the fatal
night.


III

THE ACCUSED


Now at last the pent-up wrath found a vent.  From the distracting
condition of wandering uncertain suspicion, it had been recalled
into the glad security of individual hate.  Although up to this
time Kerkel had borne an exemplary reputation, it was now
remembered that he had always been of a morose and violent temper,
a hypocrite in religion, a selfish sensualist.  Several sagacious
critics had long "seen through him"; others had "never liked him";
others had wondered how it was he kept his place so long in
Lehfeldt's shop.  Poor fellow! his life and actions, like those of
every one else when illuminated by a light thrown back upon them,
seemed so conspicuously despicable, although when illuminated in
their own light they had seemed innocent enough.  His mother's
frantic protestations of her son's innocence--her assertions that
Franz loved Lieschen more than his own soul--only served to envelop
her in the silent accusation of being an accomplice, or at least of
being an accessory after the fact.

I cannot say why it was, but I did not share the universal belief.
The logic seemed to me forced; the evidence trivial.  On first
hearing of Kerkel's arrest, I eagerly questioned my informant
respecting his personal appearance; and on hearing that he was
fair, with blue eyes and flaxen hair, my conviction of his
innocence was fixed.  Looking back on these days, I am often amused
at this characteristic of my constructive imagination.  While
rejecting the disjointed logic of the mob, which interpreted his
guilt, I was myself deluded by a logic infinitely less rational.
Had Kerkel been dark, with dark eyes and beard, I should probably
have sworn to his guilt, simply because the idea of that stranger
had firmly fixed itself in my mind.

All that afternoon, and all the next day, the busy hum of voices
was raised by the one topic of commanding interest.  Kerkel had
been examined.  He at once admitted that a secret betrothal had for
some time existed between him and Lieschen.  They had been led to
take this improper step by fear of her parents, who, had the
attachment been discovered, would, it was thought, have separated
them for ever.  Herr Lehfeldt's sternness, no less than his
superior position, seemed an invincible obstacle, and the good
mother, although doting upon her only daughter, was led by the very
intensity of her affection to form ambitious hopes of her
daughter's future.  It was barely possible that some turn in events
might one day yield an opening for their consent; but meanwhile
prudence dictated secrecy, in order to avert the most pressing
danger, that of separation.

And so the pretty Lieschen, with feminine instinct of ruse, had
affected to treat her lover with indifference; and to compensate
him and herself for this restraint, she had been in the habit of
escaping from home once or twice a week, and spending a delicious
hour or two at night in the company of her lover and his mother.
Kerkel and his mother lived in a cottage a little way outside the
town.  Lehfeldt's shop stood not many yards from the archway.  Now,
as in Nuremberg no one was abroad after ten o'clock, except a few
loungers at the cafes and beer-houses, and these were only to be
met inside the town, not outside it, Lieschen ran extremely little
risk of being observed in her rapid transit from her father's to
her lover's house.  Nor, indeed, had she ever met anyone in the
course of these visits.

On the fatal night Lieschen was expected at the cottage.  Mother
and son waited at first hopefully, then anxiously, at last with
some vague uneasiness at her non-appearance.  It was now a quarter
past eleven--nearly an hour later than her usual time.  They
occasionally went to the door to look for her; then they walked a
few yards down the road, as if to catch an earlier glimpse of her
advancing steps.  But in vain.  The half-hour struck.  They came
back into the cottage, discussing the various probabilities of
delay.  Three-quarters struck.  Perhaps she had been detected;
perhaps she was ill; perhaps--but this was his mother's suggestion,
and took little hold of him--there had been visitors who had stayed
later than usual, and Lieschen, finding the night so advanced, had
postponed her visit to the morrow.  Franz, who interpreted
Lieschen's feelings by his own, was assured that no postponement of
a voluntary kind was credible of her.  Twelve o'clock struck.
Again Franz went out into the road, and walked nearly up to the
archway; he returned with heavy sadness and foreboding at his
heart, reluctantly admitting that now all hope of seeing her that
night was over.  That night?  Poor sorrowing heart, the night was
to be eternal!  The anguish of the desolate "never more" was
awaiting him.

There is something intensely pathetic in being thus, as it were,
spectators of a tragic drama which is being acted on two separate
stages at once--the dreadful link of connection, which is unseen to
the separate actors, being only too vividly seen by the spectators.
It was with some interest that I, who believed in Kerkel's
innocence, heard this story; and in imagination followed its
unfolding stage.  He went to bed, not, as may be expected, to
sleep; tossing restlessly in feverish agitation, conjuring up many
imaginary terrors--but all of them trifles compared with the dread
reality which he was so soon to face.  He pictured her weeping--and
she was lying dead on the cold pavement of the dark archway.  He
saw her in agitated eloquence pleading with offended parents--and
she was removed for ever from all agitations, with the peace of
death upon her young face.

At an early hour he started, that he might put an end to his
suspense.  He had not yet reached the archway before the shattering
news burst upon him.  From that moment he remembered nothing.  But
his mother described his ghastly agitation, as, throwing himself
upon her neck, he told her, through dreadful sobs, the calamity
which had fallen.  She did her best to comfort him; but he grew
wilder and wilder, and rolled upon the ground in the agony of an
immeasurable despair.  She trembled for his reason and his life.
And when the messengers came to seek him, she spoke but the simple
truth in saying that he was like one distracted.  Yet no sooner had
a glimpse of light dawned on him that some vague suspicion rested
on him in reference to the murder, than he started up, flung away
his agitation, and, with a calmness which was awful, answered every
question, and seemed nerved for every trial.  From that moment not
a sob escaped him until, in the narrative of the night's events, he
came to that part which told of the sudden disclosure of his
bereavement.  And the simple, straightforward manner in which he
told this tale, with a face entirely bloodless, and eyes that
seemed to have withdrawn all their light inwards, made a great
impression on the audience, which was heightened into sympathy when
the final sob, breaking through the forced calmness, told of the
agony which was eating its fiery way through the heart.

The story was not only plausible in itself, but accurately tallied
with what before had seemed like the criminating evidence of the
maid; tallied, moreover, precisely as to time, which would hardly
have been the case had the story been an invention.  As to the
waistcoat which had figured so conspicuously in all the rumors, it
appeared that suspicion had monstrously exaggerated the facts.
Instead of a waistcoat plashed with blood--as popular imagination
pictured it--it was a gray waistcoat, with one spot and a slight
smear of blood, which admitted of a very simple explanation.  Three
days before, Franz had cut his left hand in cutting some bread; and
to this the maid testified, because she was present when the
accident occurred.  He had not noticed that his waistcoat was
marked by it until the next day, and had forgotten to wash out the
stains.

People outside shook skeptical heads at this story of the cut hand.
The bloody waistcoat was not to be disposed of in that easy way.
It had fixed itself too strongly in their imagination.  Indeed, my
belief is that even could they have seen the waistcoat, its
insignificant marks would have appeared murderous patches to their
eyes.  I had seen it, and my report was listened to with ill-
concealed disbelief, when not with open protestation.  And when
Kerkel was discharged as free from all suspicion, there was a low
growl of disappointed wrath heard from numerous groups.

This may sympathetically be understood by whomsoever remembers the
painful uneasiness of the mind under a great stress of excitement
with no definite issue.  The lust for a vengeance, demanded by the
aroused sensibilities of compassion, makes men credulous in their
impatience; they easily believe anyone is guilty, because they feel
an imperious need for fastening the guilt upon some definite head.
Few verdicts of "Not Guilty" are well received, unless another
victim is at hand upon whom the verdict of guilty is likely to
fall.  It was demonstrable to all judicial minds that Kerkel was
wholly, pathetically innocent.  In a few days this gradually became
clear to the majority, but at first it was resisted as an attempt
to balk justice; and to the last there were some obstinate
doubters, who shook their heads mysteriously, and said, with a
certain incisiveness, "Somebody must have done it; I should very
much like to know who."

Suspicion once more was drifting aimlessly.  None had pointed in
any new direction.  No mention of anyone whom I could identify with
the stranger had yet been made; but, although silent on the
subject, I kept firm in my conviction, and I sometimes laughed at
the pertinacity with which I scrutinized the face of every man I
met, if he happened to have a black beard; and as black beards are
excessively common, my curiosity, though never gratified, was never
allowed repose.

Meanwhile Lieschen's funeral had been emphatically a public
mourning.  Nay, so great was the emotion, that it almost deadened
the interest which otherwise would have been so powerful, in the
news now daily reaching us from Paris.  Blood had flowed upon her
streets--in consequence of that pistol-shot, which, either by
accident or criminal intent, had converted the demonstration before
the hotel of the Minister of Foreign Affairs into an insurrection.
Paris had risen; barricades were erected.  The troops were under
arms.  This was agitating news.

Such is the solidarity of all European nations, and so quick are
all to vibrate in unison with the vibrations of each, that events
like those transacted in Paris necessarily stirred every city, no
matter how remote, nor politically how secure.  And it says much
for the intense interest excited by the Lehfeldt tragedy that
Nuremberg was capable of sustaining that interest even amid the
tremendous pressure of the February Revolution.  It is true that
Nuremberg is at all times somewhat sequestered from the great
movements of the day, following slowly in the rear of great waves;
it is true, moreover, that some politicians showed remarkable
eagerness in canvassing the characters and hopes of Louis Philippe
and Guizot; but although such events would at another period have
formed the universal interest, the impenetrable mystery hanging
over Lieschen's death threw the Revolution into the background of
their thoughts.  If when a storm is raging over the dreary
moorland, a human cry of suffering is heard at the door, at once
the thunders and the tumult sink into insignificance, and are not
even heard by the ear which is pierced with the feeble human voice:
the grandeurs of storm and tempest, the uproar of surging seas, the
clamorous wail of sea-birds amid the volleying artillery of heaven,
in vain assail the ear that has once caught even the distant cry of
a human agony, or serve only as scenical accompaniments to the
tragedy which is foreshadowed by that cry.  And so it was amid the
uproar of 1848.  A kingdom was in convulsions; but here, at our
door, a young girl had been murdered, and two hearths made
desolate.  Rumors continued to fly about.  The assassin was always
about to be discovered; but he remained shrouded in impenetrable
darkness.  A remark made by Bourgonef struck me much.  Our host,
Zum Bayerischen Hof, one day announced with great satisfaction that
he had himself heard from the syndic that the police were on the
traces of the assassin.

"I am sorry to hear it," said Bourgonef.

The guests paused from eating, and looked at him with astonishment.

"It is a proof," he added, "that even the police now give it up as
hopeless.  I always notice that whenever the police are said to be
on the traces the malefactor is never tracked.  When they are on
his traces they wisely say nothing about it; they allow it to be
believed that they are baffled, in order to lull their victim into
a dangerous security.  When they know themselves to be baffled,
there is no danger in quieting the public mind, and saving their
own credit, by announcing that they are about to be successful."


IV

A DISCOVERY


Bourgonef's remark had been but too sagacious.  The police were
hoplessly baffled.  In all such cases possible success depends upon
the initial suggestion either of a motive which leads to a
suspicion of the person, or of some person which leads to a
suspicion of the motive.  Once set suspicion on the right track,
and evidence is suddenly alight in all quarters.  But, unhappily,
in the present case there was no assignable motive, no shadow
darkening any person.

An episode now came to our knowledge in which Bourgonef manifested
an unusual depth of interest.  I was led to notice this interest,
because it had seemed to me that in the crime itself, and the
discussions which arose out of it, he shared but little of the
universal excitement.  I do not mean that he was indifferent--by no
means; but the horror of the crime did not seem to fascinate his
imagination as it fascinated ours.  He could talk quite as readily
of other things, and far more readily of the French affairs.  But
on the contrary, in this new episode he showed peculiar interest.
It appeared that Lehfeldt, moved, perhaps, partly by a sense of the
injustice which had been done to Kerkel in even suspecting him of
the crime, and in submitting him to an examination more poignantly
affecting to him under such circumstances than a public trial would
have been under others; and moved partly by the sense that
Lieschen's love had practically drawn Kerkel within the family--for
her choice of him as a husband had made him morally, if not
legally, a son-in-law; and moved partly by the sense of loneliness
which had now settled on their childless home,--Lehfeldt had in the
most pathetic and considerate terms begged Kerkel to take the place
of his adopted son, and become joint partner with him in the
business.  This, however, Kerkel had gently yet firmly declined.
He averred that he felt no injury, though great pain had been
inflicted on him by the examination.  He himself in such a case
would not have shrunk from demanding that his own brother should be
tried, under suspicions of similar urgency.  It was simple justice
that all who were suspected should be examined; justice also to
them that they might for ever clear themselves of doubtful
appearances.  But for the rest, while he felt his old affectionate
respect for his master, he could recognize no claim to be removed
from his present position.  Had she lived, said the heartbroken
youth, he would gladly have consented to accept any fortune which
her love might bestow, because he felt that his own love and the
devotion of a life might repay it.  But there was nothing now that
he could give in exchange.  For his services he was amply paid; his
feelings towards Lieschen's parents must continue what they had
ever been.  In vain Lehfeldt pleaded, in vain many friends argued.
Franz remained respectfully firm in his refusal.

This, as I said, interested Bourgonef immensely.  He seemed to
enter completely into the minds of the sorrowing, pleading parents,
and the sorrowing, denying lover.  He appreciated and expounded
their motives with a subtlety and delicacy of perception which
surprised and delighted me.  It showed the refinement of his moral
nature.  But, at the same time, it rendered his minor degree of
interest in the other episodes of the story, those which had a more
direct and overpowering appeal to the heart, a greater paradox.

Human nature is troubled in the presence of all mystery which has
not by long familiarity lost its power of soliciting attention; and
for my own part, I have always been uneasy in the presence of moral
problems.  Puzzled by the contradictions which I noticed in
Bourgonef, I tried to discover whether he had any general
repugnance to stories of crimes, or any special repugnance to
murders, or, finally, any strange repugnance to this particular
case now everywhere discussed.  And it is not a little remarkable
that during three separate interviews, in the course of which I
severally, and as I thought artfully, introduced these topics,
making them seem to arise naturally out of the suggestion of our
talk, I totally failed to arrive at any distinct conclusion.  I was
afraid to put the direct question:  Do you not share the common
feeling of interest in criminal stories?  This question would
doubtless have elicited a categorical reply; but somehow, the
consciousness of an arriere-pensee made me shrink from putting such
a question.

Reflecting on this indifference on a special point, and on the
numerous manifestations I had noticed of his sensibility, I came at
last to the conclusion that he must be a man of tender heart, whose
delicate sensibilities easily shrank from the horrible under every
form; and no more permitted him to dwell unnecessarily upon painful
facts, than they permit imaginative minds to dwell on the details
of an operation.

I had not long settled this in my mind before an accident suddenly
threw a lurid light upon many details noticed previously, and
painfully revived that inexplicable repulsion with which I had at
first regarded him.  A new suspicion filled my mind, or rather, let
me say, a distinct shape was impressed upon many fluctuating
suspicions.  It scarcely admitted of argument, and at times seemed
preposterous, nevertheless it persisted.  The mind which in broad
daylight assents to all that can be alleged against the absurdities
of the belief in apparitions, will often acknowledge the dim
terrors of darkness and loneliness--terrors at possibilities of
supernatural visitations.  In like manner, in the clear daylight of
reason I could see the absurdity of my suspicion, but the vague
stirrings of feeling remained unsilenced.  I was haunted by the dim
horrors of a possibility.

Thus it arose.  We were both going to Munich, and Bourgonef had
shortened his contemplated stay at Nuremberg that he might have the
pleasure of accompanying me; adding also that he, too, should be
glad to reach Munich, not only for its art, but for its greater
command of papers and intelligence respecting what was then going
on in France.  On the night preceding the morning of our departure,
I was seated in his room, smoking and discussing as usual, while
Ivan, his servant, packed up his things in two large portmanteaus.

Ivan was a serf who spoke no word of any language but his own.
Although of a brutal, almost idiotic type, he was loudly eulogized
by his master as the model of fidelity and usefulness.  Bourgonef
treated him with gentleness, though with a certain imperiousness;
much as one might treat a savage mastiff which it was necessary to
dominate without exasperating.  He more than once spoke of Ivan as
a living satire on physiognomists and phrenologists; and as I am a
phrenologist, I listened with some incredulity.

"Look at him," he would say.  "Observe the low, retreating brow,
the flat face, the surly mouth, the broad base of the head, and the
huge bull-like neck.  Would not anyone say Ivan was as destructive
as a panther, as tenacious as a bull-dog, as brutal as a bull?  Yet
he is the gentlest of sluggish creatures, and as tender-hearted as
a girl!  That thick-set muscular frame shrouds a hare's heart.  He
is so faithful and so attached that I believe for me he would risk
his life; but on no account could you get him to place himself in
danger on his own account.  Part of his love for me is gratitude
for having rescued him from the conscription: the dangers incident
to a military life had no charm for him!"

Now, although Bourgonef, who was not a phrenologist, might be
convinced of the absence of ferocious instincts in Ivan, to me, as
a phrenologist, the statement was eminently incredible.  All the
appearances of his manner were such as to confirm his master's
opinion.  He was quiet, even tender in his attentions.  But the
tyrannous influence of ideas and physical impressions cannot be set
aside; and no evidence would permanently have kept down my distrust
of this man.  When women shriek at the sight of a gun, it is in
vain that you solemnly assure them that the gun is not loaded.  "I
don't know," they reply,--"at any rate, I don't like it."  I was
much in this attitude with regard to Ivan.  He might be harmless.
I didn't know that; what I did know was--that I didn't like his
looks.

On this night he was moving noiselessly about the room, employed in
packing.  Bourgonef's talk rambled over the old themes; and I
thought I had never before met with one of my own age whose society
was so perfectly delightful.  He was not so conspicuously my
superior on all points that I felt the restraints inevitably
imposed by superiority; yet he was in many respects sufficiently
above me in knowledge and power to make me eager to have his assent
to my views where we differed, and to have him enlighten me where I
knew myself to be weak.

In the very moment of my most cordial admiration came a shock.
Ivan, on passing from one part of the room to the other, caught his
foot in the strap of the portmanteau and fell.  The small wooden
box, something of a glove-box, which he held in his hand at the
time, fell on the floor, and falling over, discharged its contents
close to Bourgonef's feet.  The objects which caught my eyes were
several pairs of gloves, a rouge-pot and hare's foot, and a black
beard!

By what caprice of imagination was it that the sight of this false
beard lying at Bourgonef's feet thrilled me with horror?  In one
lightning-flash I beheld the archway--the stranger with the
startled eyes--this stranger no longer unknown to me, but too
fatally recognized as Bourgonef--and at his feet the murdered girl!

Moved by what subtle springs of suggestion I know not, but there
before me stood that dreadful vision, seen in a lurid light, but
seen as clearly as if the actual presence of the objects were
obtruding itself upon my eyes.  In the inexpressible horror of this
vision my heart seemed clutched with an icy hand.

Fortunately Bourgonef's attention was called away from me.  He
spoke angrily some short sentence, which of course was in Russian,
and therefore unintelligible to me.  He then stooped, and picking
up the rouge-pot, held it towards me with his melancholy smile.  He
was very red in the face; but that may have been either anger or
the effect of sudden stooping.  "I see you are surprised at these
masquerading follies," he said in a tone which, though low, was
perfectly calm.  "You must not suppose that I beautify my sallow
cheeks on ordinary occasions."

He then quietly handed the pot to Ivan, who replaced it with the
gloves and the beard in the box; and after making an inquiry which
sounded like a growl, to which Bourgonef answered negatively, he
continued his packing.

Bourgonef resumed his cigar and his argument as if nothing had
happened.

The vision had disappeared, but a confused mass of moving figures
took its place.  My heart throbbed so violently that it seemed to
me as if its tumult must be heard by others.  Yet my face must have
been tolerably calm, since Bourgonef made no comment on it.

I answered his remarks in vague fragments, for, in truth, my
thoughts were flying from conjecture to conjecture.  I remembered
that the stranger had a florid complexion; was this rouge?  It is
true that I fancied the stranger carried a walking-stick in his
right hand; if so, this was enough to crush all suspicions of his
identity with Bourgonef; but then I was rather hazy on this point,
and probably did not observe a walking-stick.

After a while my inattention struck him, and looking at me with
some concern, he inquired if there was anything the matter.  I
pleaded a colic, which I attributed to the imprudence of having
indulged in sauerkraut at dinner.  He advised me to take a little
brandy; but, affecting a fresh access of pain, I bade him good-
night.  He hoped I should be all right on the morrow--if not, he
added, we can postpone our journey till the day after.

Once in my own room I bolted the door, and sat down on the edge of
the bed in a tumult of excitement.


V

FLUCTUATIONS


Alone with my thoughts, and capable of pursuing conjectures and
conclusions without external interruption, I quickly exhausted all
the hypothetical possibilities of the case, and, from having
started with the idea that Bourgonef was the assassin, I came at
last to the more sensible conclusion that I was a constructive
blockhead.  My suspicions were simply outrageous in their defect of
evidence, and could never for one moment have seemed otherwise to
any imagination less riotously active than mine.

I bathed my heated head, undressed myself, and got into bed,
considering what I should say to the police when I went next
morning to communicate my suspicions.  And it is worthy of remark,
as well as somewhat ludicrously self-betraying, that no sooner did
I mentally see myself in the presence of the police, and was thus
forced to confront my suspicions with some appearance of evidence,
than the whole fabric of my vision rattled to the ground.  What had
I to say to the police?  Simply that, on the evening of the night
when Lieschen was murdered, I had passed in a public thoroughfare a
man whom I could not identify, but who as I could not help
fancying, seemed to recognize me.  This man, I had persuaded
myself, was the murderer; for which persuasion I was unable to
adduce a tittle of evidence.  It was uncolored by the remotest
possibility.  It was truly and simply the suggestion of my vagrant
fancy, which had mysteriously settled itself into a conviction; and
having thus capriciously identified the stranger with Lieschen's
murderer, I now, upon evidence quite as preposterous, identified
Bourgonef with the stranger.

The folly became apparent even to myself.  If Bourgonef had in his
possession a rouge-pot and false beard, I could not but acknowledge
that he made no attempt to conceal them, nor had he manifested any
confusion on their appearance.  He had quietly characterized them
as masquerading follies.  Moreover, I now began to remember
distinctly that the stranger did carry a walking-stick in his right
hand; and as Bourgonef had lost his right arm, that settled the
point.

Into such complications, would the tricks of imagination lead me!
I blushed mentally, and resolved to let it serve as a lesson in
future.  It is needless, however, to say that the lesson was lost,
as such lessons always are lost; a strong tendency in any direction
soon disregards all the teachings of experience.  I am still not
the less the victim of my constructive imagination, because I have
frequently had to be ashamed of its vagaries.

The next morning I awoke with a lighter breast, rejoicing in the
caution which had delayed me from any rash manifestation of
suspicions now seen to be absurd.  I smiled as the thought arose:
what if this suspected stranger should also be pestered by an
active imagination, and should entertain similar suspicions of me?
He must have seen in my eyes the look of recognition which I saw in
his.  On hearing of the murder, our meeting may also have recurred
to him; and his suspicions would have this color, wanting to mine,
that I happen to inherit with my Italian blood a somewhat truculent
appearance, which has gained for me among my friends the playful
sobriquet of "the brigand."

Anxious to atone at once for my folly, and to remove from my mind
any misgiving--if it existed--at my quitting him so soon after the
disclosures of the masquerading details, I went to Bourgonef as
soon as I was dressed and proposed a ramble till the diligence
started for Munich.  He was sympathetic in his inquiries about my
colic, which I assured him had quite passed away, and out we went.
The sharp morning air of March made us walk briskly, and gave a
pleasant animation to our thoughts.  As he discussed the acts of
the provisional government, so wise, temperate, and energetic, the
fervor and generosity of his sentiments stood out in such striking
contrast with the deed I had last night recklessly imputed to him
that I felt deeply ashamed, and was nearly carried away by mingled
admiration and self-reproach to confess the absurd vagrancy of my
thoughts and humbly ask his pardon.  But you can understand the
reluctance at a confession so insulting to him, so degrading to me.
It is at all times difficult to tell a man, face to face, eye to
eye, the evil you have thought of him, unless the recklessness of
anger seizes on it as a weapon with which to strike; and I had now
so completely unsaid to myself all that I once had thought of evil,
that to put it in words seemed a gratuitous injury to me and insult
to him.

A day or two after our arrival in Munich a reaction began steadily
to set in.  Ashamed as I was of my suspicions, I could not
altogether banish from my mind the incident which had awakened
them.  The image of that false beard would mingle with my thoughts.
I was vaguely uncomfortable at the idea of Bourgonef's carrying
about with him obvious materials of disguise.  In itself this would
have had little significance; but coupled with the fact that his
devoted servant was--in spite of all Bourgonef's eulogies--
repulsively ferocious in aspect, capable, as I could not help
believing, of any brutality,--the suggestion was unpleasant.  You
will understand that having emphatically acquitted Bourgonef in my
mind, I did not again distinctly charge him with any complicity in
the mysterious murder; on the contrary, I should indignantly have
repelled such a thought; but the uneasy sense of some mystery about
him, coupled with the accessories of disguise, and the aspect of
the servant, gave rise to dim, shadowy forebodings which ever and
anon passed across my mind.

Did it ever occur to you, reader, to reflect on the depths of
deceit which lie still and dark even in the honestest minds?
Society reposes on a thin crust of convention, underneath which lie
fathomless possibilities of crime, and consequently suspicions of
crime.  Friendship, however close and dear, is not free from its
reserves, unspoken beliefs, more or less suppressed opinions.  The
man whom you would indignantly defend against any accusation
brought by another, so confident are you in his unshakable
integrity, you may yourself momentarily suspect of crimes far
exceeding those which you repudiate.  Indeed, I have known
sagacious men hold that perfect frankness in expressing the
thoughts is a sure sign of imperfect friendship; something is
always suppressed; and it is not he who loves you that "tells you
candidly what he thinks" of your person, your pretensions, your
children, or your poems.  Perfect candor is dictated by envy, or
some other unfriendly feeling, making friendship a stalking-horse,
under cover of which it shoots the arrow which will rankle.
Friendship is candid only when the candor is urgent--meant to avert
impending danger or to rectify an error.  The candor which is an
impertinence never springs from friendship.  Love is sympathetic.

I do not, of course, mean to intimate that my feeling for Bourgonef
was of that deep kind which justifies the name of friendship.  I
only want to say that in our social relations we are constantly
hiding from each other, under the smiles and courtesies of friendly
interest, thoughts which, if expressed, would destroy all possible
communion--and that, nevertheless, we are not insincere in our
smiles and courtesies; and therefore there is nothing paradoxical
in my having felt great admiration for Bourgonef, and great
pleasure in his society, while all the time there was deep down in
the recesses of my thoughts an uneasy sense of a dark mystery which
possibly connected him with a dreadful crime.

This feeling was roused into greater activity by an incident which
now occurred.  One morning I went to Bourgonef's room, which was at
some distance from mine on the same floor, intending to propose a
visit to the sculpture at the Glyptothek.  To my surprise I found
Ivan the serf standing before the closed door.  He looked at me
like a mastiff about to spring; and intimated by significant
gestures that I was not allowed to enter the room.  Concluding that
his master was occupied in some way, and desired not to be
disturbed, I merely signified by a nod that my visit was of no
consequence, and went out.  On returning about an hour afterwards I
saw Ivan putting three pink letters into the letter-box of the
hotel.  I attached no significance to this very ordinary fact at
the time, but went up to my room and began writing my letters, one
of which was to my lawyer, sending him an important receipt.  The
dinner-bell sounded before I had half finished this letter; but I
wrote on, determined to have done with it at once, in case the
afternoon should offer any expedition with Bourgonef.

At dinner he quietly intimated that Ivan had informed him of my
visit, and apologized for not having been able to see me.  I, of
course, assured him that no apology was necessary, and that we had
plenty of time to visit sculpture together without intruding on his
private hours.  He informed me that he was that afternoon going to
pay a visit to Schwanthaler, the sculptor, and if I desired it, he
would ask permission on another occasion to take me with him.  I
jumped at the proposal, as may be supposed.

Dinner over, I strolled into the Englische Garten, and had my
coffee and cigar there.  On my return I was vexed to find that in
the hurry of finishing my letters I had sealed the one to my
lawyer, and had not enclosed the receipt which had been the object
of writing.  Fortunately it was not too late.  Descending to the
bureau of the hotel, I explained my mistake to the head-waiter, who
unlocked the letter-box to search for my letter.  It was found at
once, for there were only seven or eight in the box.  Among these
my eye naturally caught the three pink letters which I had that
morning seen Ivan drop into the box; but although they were SEEN by
me they were not NOTICED at the time, my mind being solely occupied
with rectifying the stupid blunder I had made.

Once more in my own room a sudden revelation startled me.  Everyone
knows what it is to have details come under the eye which the mind
first interprets long after the eye ceases to rest upon them.  The
impressions are received passively; but they are registered, and
can be calmly read whenever the mind is in activity.  It was so
now.  I suddenly, as if now for the first time, saw that the
addresses on Bourgonef's letters were written in a fluent, masterly
hand, bold in character, and with a certain sweep which might have
come from a painter.  The thrill which this vision gave will be
intelligible when you remember that Bourgonef had lost or pretended
to have lost his right arm, and was, as I before intimated, far
from dexterous with his left.  That no man recently thrown upon the
use of a left hand could have written those addresses was too
evident.  What, then, was the alternative?  The empty sleeve was an
imposture!  At once the old horrible suspicion returned, and this
time with tenfold violence, and with damnatory confirmation.

Pressing my temples between my hands, I tried to be calm and to
survey the evidence without precipitation; but for some time the
conflict of thoughts was too violent.  Whatever might be the
explanation, clear it was that Bourgonef, for some purposes, was
practising a deception, and had, as I knew, other means of
disguising his appearance.  This, on the most favorable
interpretation, branded him with suspicion.  This excluded him from
the circle of honest men.

But did it connect him with the murder of Lieschen Lehfeldt?  In my
thought it did so indubitably; but I was aware of the difficulty of
making this clear to anyone else.


VI

FIRST LOVE


If the reader feels that my suspicions were not wholly unwarranted,
were indeed inevitable, he will not laugh at me on learning that
once more these suspicions were set aside, and the fact--the
damnatory fact, as I regarded it--discovered by me so accidentally,
and, I thought, providentially, was robbed of all its significance
by Bourgonef himself casually and carelessly avowing it in
conversation, just as one may avow a secret infirmity, with some
bitterness, but without any implication of deceit in its
concealment.

I was the more prepared for this revulsion of feeling, by the
difficulty I felt in maintaining my suspicions in the presence of
one so gentle and so refined.  He had come into my room that
evening to tell me of his visit to Schwanthaler, and of the
sculptor's flattering desire to make my personal acquaintance.  He
spoke of Schwanthaler, and his earnest efforts in art, with so much
enthusiasm, and was altogether so charming, that I felt abashed
before him, incapable of ridding myself of the dreadful suspicions,
yet incapable of firmly believing him to be what I thought.  But
more than this, there came the new interest awakened in me by his
story; and when, in the course of his story, he accidentally
disclosed the fact that he had not lost his arm, all my suspicions
vanished at once.

We had got, as usual, upon politics, and were differing more than
usual, because he gave greater prominence to his sympathy with the
Red Republicans.  He accused me of not being "thorough-going,"
which I admitted.  This he attributed to the fact of my giving a
divided heart to politics--a condition natural enough at my age,
and with my hopes.  "Well," said I, laughing, "you don't mean to
take a lofty stand upon your few years' seniority.  If my age
renders it natural, does yours profoundly alter such a conviction?"

"My age, no.  But you have the hopes of youth.  I have none.  I am
banished for ever from the joys and sorrows of domestic life; and
therefore, to live at all, must consecrate my soul to great
abstractions and public affairs."

"But why banished, unless self-banished?"

"Woman's love is impossible.  You look incredulous.  I do not
allude to this," he said, taking up the empty sleeve, and by so
doing sending a shiver through me.

"The loss of your arm," I said--and my voice trembled slightly, for
I felt that a crisis was at hand--"although a misfortune to you,
would really be an advantage in gaining a woman's affections.
Women are so romantic, and their imaginations are so easily
touched!"

"Yes," he replied bitterly; "but the trouble is that I have not
lost my arm."

I started.  He spoke bitterly, yet calmly.  I awaited his
explanation in great suspense.

"To have lost my arm in battle, or even by an accident, would
perhaps have lent me a charm in woman's eyes.  But, as I said, my
arm hangs by my side--withered, unpresentable."

I breathed again.  He continued in the same tone, and without
noticing my looks.

"But it is not this which banishes me.  Woman's love might be hoped
for, had I far worse infirmities.  The cause lies deeper.  It lies
in my history.  A wall of granite has grown up between me and the
sex."

"But, my dear fellow, do you--wounded, as I presume to guess, by
some unworthy woman--extend the fault of one to the whole sex?  Do
you despair of finding another true, because a first was false?"

"They are all false," he exclaimed with energy.  "Not, perhaps, all
false from inherent viciousness, though many are that, but false
because their inherent weakness renders them incapable of truth.
Oh! I know the catalogue of their good qualities.  They are often
pitiful, self-devoting, generous; but they are so by fits and
starts, just as they are cruel, remorseless, exacting, by fits and
starts.  They have no constancy--they are too weak to be constant
even in evil; their minds are all impressions; their actions are
all the issue of immediate promptings.  Swayed by the fleeting
impulses of the hour, they have only one persistent, calculable
motive on which reliance can always be placed--that motive is
vanity; you are always sure of them there.  It is from vanity they
are good--from vanity they are evil; their devotion and their
desertion equally vanity.  I know them.  To me they have disclosed
the shallows of their natures.  God! how I have suffered from
them!"

A deep, low exclamation, half sob, half curse, closed his tirade.
He remained silent for a few minutes, looking on the floor, then,
suddenly turning his eyes upon me, said:

"Were you ever in Heidelberg?"

"Never."

"I thought all your countrymen went there?  Then you will never
have heard anything of my story.  Shall I tell you how my youth was
blighted?  Will you care to listen?"

"It would interest me much."

"I had reached the age of seven-and-twenty," he began, "without
having once known even the vague stirrings of the passion of love.
I admired many women, and courted the admiration of them all; but I
was as yet not only heart-whole, but, to use your Shakespeare's
phrase, Cupid had not tapped me on the shoulder.

"This detail is not unimportant in my story.  You may possibly have
observed that in those passionate natures which reserve their
force, and do not fritter away their feelings in scattered
flirtations or trivial love-affairs, there is a velocity and
momentum, when the movement of passion is once excited, greatly
transcending all that is ever felt by expansive and expressive
natures.  Slow to be moved, when they do move it is with the whole
mass of the heart.  So it was with me.  I purchased my immunity
from earlier entanglements by the price of my whole life.  I am not
what I was.  Between my past and present self there is a gulf; that
gulf is dark, stormy, and profound.  On the far side stands a youth
of hope, energy, ambition, and unclouded happiness, with great
capacities for loving; on this side a blighted manhood, with no
prospects but suffering and storm."

He paused.  With an effort he seemed to master the suggestions
which crowded upon his memory, and continued his narrative in an
equable tone.

"I had been for several weeks at Heidelberg.  One of my intimate
companions was Kestner, the architect, and he one day proposed to
introduce me to his sister-in-law, Ottilie, of whom he had
repeatedly spoken to me in terms of great affection and esteem.

"We went, and we were most cordially received.  Ottilie justified
Kestner's praises.  Pretty, but not strikingly so--clever, but not
obtrusively so; her soft dark eyes were frank and winning; her
manner was gentle and retiring, with that dash of sentimentalism
which seems native to all German girls, but without any of the
ridiculous extravagance too often seen in them.  I liked her all
the more because I was perfectly at my ease with her, and this was
rarely the case in my relations to young women.  I don't enjoy
their society.

"You leap at once to the conclusion that we fell in love.  Your
conclusion is precipitate.  Seeing her continually, I grew to
admire and respect her; but the significant smiles, winks, and
hints of friends, pointing unmistakably at a supposed understanding
existing between us, only made me more seriously examine the state
of my feelings, and assured me that I was not in love.  It is true
that I felt a serene pleasure in her society, and that when away
from her she occupied much of my thoughts.  It is true that I often
thought of her as a wife; and in these meditations she appeared as
one eminently calculated to make a happy home.  But it is no less
true that during a temporary absence of hers of a few weeks I felt
no sort of uneasiness, no yearning for her presence, no vacancy in
my life.  I knew, therefore, that it was not love which I felt.

"So much for my feelings.  What of hers?  They seemed very like my
own.  That she admired me, and was pleased to be with me, was
certain.  That she had a particle of fiery love for me I did not,
could not believe.  And it was probably this very sense of her
calmness which kept my feelings quiet.  For love is a flame which
often can be kindled only by contact with flame.  Certainly this is
so in proud, reserved natures, which are chilled by any contact
with temperature not higher than their own.

"On her return, however, from that absence I have mentioned, I was
not a little fluttered by an obvious change in her manner; an
impression which subsequent meetings only served to confirm.
Although still very quiet, her manner had become more tender, and
it had that delicious shyness which is the most exquisite of
flatteries, as it is one of the most enchanting of graces.  I saw
her tremble slightly beneath my voice, and blush beneath my gaze.

"There was no mistaking these signs.  It was clear that she loved
me; and it was no less clear that I, taking fire at this discovery,
was myself rapidly falling in love.  I will not keep you from my
story by idle reflections.  Take another cigar."  He rose and paced
up and down the room in silence.


VII

AGALMA


"At this juncture there arrived from Paris the woman to whom the
great sorrow of my life is due.  A fatalist might read in her
appearance at this particular moment the signs of a prearranged
doom.  A few weeks later, and her arrival would have been harmless;
I should have been shielded from all external influence by the
absorbing force of love.  But, alas! this was not to be.  My fate
had taken another direction.  The woman had arrived whose shadow
was to darken the rest of my existence.  That woman was Agalma
Liebenstein.

"How is it that the head which we can only see surrounded with a
halo, or a shadow, when the splendors of achievement or the infamy
of shame instruct our eyes, is by the uninstructed eye observed as
wholly vulgar?  We all profess to be physiognomists; how is it we
are so lamentably mistaken in our judgments?  Here was a woman in
whom my ignorant eyes saw nothing at all remarkable except golden
hair of unusual beauty.  When I say golden, I am not speaking
loosely.  I do not mean red or flaxen hair, but hair actually
resembling burnished gold more than anything else.  Its ripples on
her brow caught the light like a coronet.  This was her one beauty,
and it was superb.  For the rest, her features were characterless.
Her figure was tall and full; not graceful, but sweepingly
imposing.  At first I noticed nothing about her except the braided
splendor of her glorious hair."

He rose, and went into his bedroom, from which he returned with a
small trinket-box in his hand.  This he laid open on the table,
disclosing a long strand of exquisite fair hair lying on a cushion
of dark-blue velvet.

"Look at that," he said.  "Might it not have been cut from an
angel's head?"

"It is certainly wonderful."

"It must have been hair like this which crowned the infamous head
of Lucrezia Borgia," he said, bitterly.  "She, too, had golden
hair; but hers must have been of paler tint, like her nature."

He resumed his seat, and, fixing his eyes upon the lock, continued:

"She was one of Ottilie's friends--dear friends, they called each
other,--which meant that they kissed each other profusely, and told
each other all their secrets, or as much as the lying nature of the
sex permitted and suggested.  It is, of course, impossible for me
to disentangle my present knowledge from my past impressions so as
to give you a clear description of what I then thought of Agalma.
Enough that, as a matter of fact, I distinctly remember not to have
admired her, and to have told Ottilie so; and when Ottilie, in
surprise at my insensibility, assured me that men were in general
wonderfully charmed with her (though, for her part, she had never
understood why), I answered, and answered sincerely, that it might
be true with the less refined order of men, but men of taste would
certainly be rather repelled from her.

"This opinion of mine, or some report of it, reached Agalma.

"It may have been the proximate cause of my sorrows.  Without this
stimulus to her vanity, she might have left me undisturbed.  I
don't know.  All I know is, that over many men Agalma exercised
great influence, and that over me she exercised the spell of
fascination.  No other word will explain her influence; for it was
not based on excellences such as the mind could recognize to be
attractions; it was based on a mysterious personal power, something
awful in its mysteriousness, as all demoniac powers are.  One
source of her influence over men I think I can explain: she at once
captivated and repelled them.  By artful appeals to their vanity,
she made them interested in her and in her opinion of them, and yet
kept herself inaccessible by a pride which was the more fascinating
because it always seemed about to give way.  Her instinct fastened
upon the weak point in those she approached.  This made her
seductive to men, because she flattered their weak points; and
hateful to women, because she flouted and disclosed their weak
points.

"Her influence over me began in the following way.  One day, at a
picnic, having been led by her into a conversation respecting the
relative inferiority of the feminine intellect, I was forced to
speak rather more earnestly than usual, when suddenly she turned to
me and exclaimed in a lower voice:

"'I am willing to credit anything you say; only pray don't continue
talking to me so earnestly.'

"'Why not?' I asked, surprised.

"She looked at me with peculiar significance, but remained silent.

"'May I ask why not?' I asked.

"'Because, if you do, somebody may be jealous.'  There was a
laughing defiance in her eye as she spoke.

"'And pray, who has a right to be jealous of me?'

"'Oh! you know well enough.'

"It was true; I did know; and she knew that I knew it.  To my shame
be it said that I was weak enough to yield to an equivocation which
I now see to have been disloyal, but which I then pretended to have
been no more than delicacy to Ottilie.  As, in point of fact, there
had never been a word passed between us respecting our mutual
feelings, I considered myself bound in honor to assume that there
was nothing tacitly acknowledged.

"Piqued by her tone and look, I disavowed the existence of any
claims upon my attention; and to prove the sincerity of my words, I
persisted in addressing my attentions to her.  Once or twice I
fancied I caught flying glances, in which some of the company
criticised my conduct, and Ottilie also seemed to me unusually
quiet.  But her manner, though quiet, was untroubled and unchanged.
I talked less to her than usual, partly because I talked so much to
Agalma, and partly because I felt that Agalma's eyes were on us.
But no shadow of 'temper' or reserve darkened our interchange of
speech.

"On our way back, I know not what devil prompted me to ask Agalma
whether she had really been in earnest in her former allusion to
'somebody.'

"'Yes,' she said, 'I was in earnest then.'

"'And now?'

"'Now I have doubts.  I may have been misinformed.  It's no concern
of mine, anyway; but I had been given to understand.  However, I
admit that my own eyes have not confirmed what my ears heard.'

"This speech was irritating on two separate grounds.  It implied
that people were talking freely of my attachment, which, until I
had formally acknowledged it, I resented as an impertinence; and it
implied that, from personal observation, Agalma doubted Ottilie's
feelings for me.  This alarmed my quick-retreating pride!  I, too,
began to doubt.  Once let loose on that field, imagination soon saw
shapes enough to confirm any doubt.  Ottilie's manner certainly had
seemed less tender--nay, somewhat indifferent--during the last few
days.  Had the arrival of that heavy lout, her cousin, anything to
do with this change?

"Not to weary you by recalling all the unfolding stages of this
miserable story with the minuteness of detail which my own memory
morbidly lingers on, I will hurry to the catastrophe.  I grew more
and more doubtful of the existence in Ottilie's mind of any feeling
stronger than friendship for me; and as this doubt strengthened,
there arose the flattering suspicion that I was becoming an object
of greater interest to Agalma, who had quite changed her tone
towards me, and had become serious in her speech and manner.  Weeks
passed.  Ottilie had fallen from her pedestal, and had taken her
place among agreeable acquaintances.  One day I suddenly learned
that Ottilie was engaged to her cousin.

"You will not wonder that Agalma, who before this had exercised
great fascination over me, now doubly became an object of the most
tender interest.  I fell madly in love.  Hitherto I had never known
that passion.  My feeling for Ottilie I saw was but the
inarticulate stammerings of the mighty voice which now sounded
throught the depths of my nature.  The phrase, madly in love, is no
exaggeration; madness alone knows such a fever of the brain, such a
tumult of the heart.  It was not that reason was overpowered; on
the contrary, reason was intensely active, but active with that
logic of flames which lights up the vision of maniacs.

"Although, of course, my passion was but too evident to every one,
I dreaded its premature avowal, lest I should lose her; and almost
equally dreaded delay, lest I should suffer from that also.  At
length the avowal was extorted from me by jealousy of a brilliant
Pole--Korinski--who had recently appeared in our circle, and was
obviously casting me in the shade by his superior advantages of
novelty, of personal attraction, and of a romantic history.  She
accepted me; and now, for a time, I was the happiest of mortals.
The fever of the last few weeks was abating; it gave place to a
deep tide of hopeful joy.  Could I have died then!  Could I have
even died shortly afterwards, when I knew the delicious mystery of
a jealousy not too absorbing!  For you must know that my happiness
was brief.  Jealousy, to which all passion of a deep and exacting
power is inevitably allied, soon began to disturb my content.
Agalma had no tenderness.  She permitted caresses, never returned
them.  She was ready enough to listen to all my plans for the
future, so long as the recital moved amid details of fortune and
her position in society--that is, so long as her vanity was
interested; but I began to observe with pain that her thoughts
never rested on tender domesticities and poetic anticipations.
This vexed me more and more.  The very spell which she exercised
over me made her want of tenderness more intolerable.  I yearned
for her love--for some sympathy with the vehement passion which was
burning within me; and she was as marble.

"You will not be surprised to hear that I reproached her bitterly
for her indifference.  That is the invariable and fatal folly of
lovers--they seem to imagine that a heart can be scolded into
tenderness!  To my reproaches she at first answered impatiently
that they were unjust; that it was not her fault if her nature was
less expansive than mine; and that it was insulting to be told she
was indifferent to the man whom she had consented to marry.  Later
she answered my reproaches with haughty defiance, one day
intimating that if I really thought what I said, and repented our
engagement, it would be most prudent for us to separate ere it was
too late.  This quieted me for a while.  But it brought no balm to
my wounds.

"And now fresh tortures were added.  Korinski became quite marked
in his attentions to Agalma.  These she received with evident
delight; so much so, that I saw by the glances of others that they
were scandalized at it; and this, of course, increased my pain.  My
renewed reproaches only made her manner colder to me; to Korinski
it became what I would gladly have seen towards myself.

"The stress and agitation of those days were too much for me.  I
fell ill, and for seven weeks lay utterly prostrate.  On
recovering, this note was handed to me.  It was from Agalma."

Bourgonef here held out to me a crumpled letter, and motioned that
I should open it and read.  It ran thus:


"I have thought much of what you have so often said, that it would
be for the happiness of both if our unfortunate engagement were set
aside.  That you have a real affection for me I believe, and be
assured that I once had a real affection for you; not, perhaps, the
passionate love which a nature so exacting as yours demands, and
which I earnestly hope it may one day find, but a genuine affection
nevertheless, which would have made me proud to share your lot.
But it would be uncandid in me to pretend that this now exists.
Your incessant jealousy, the angry feelings excited by your
reproaches, the fretful irritation in which for some time we have
lived together, has completely killed what love I had, and I no
longer feel prepared to risk the happiness of both of us by a
marriage.  What you said the other night convinces me that it is
even your desire our engagement should cease.  It is certainly
mine.  Let us try to think kindly of each other and meet again as
friends.

AGALMA LIEBENSTEIN."


When I had read this and returned it to him, he said:

"You see that this was written on the day I was taken ill.  Whether
she knew that I was helpless I know not.  At any rate, she never
sent to inquire after me.  She went off to Paris; Korinski followed
her; and--as I quickly learned on going once more into society--
they were married!  Did you ever, in the whole course of your
experience, hear of such heartless conduct?"

Bourgonef asked this with a ferocity which quite startled me.  I
did not answer him; for, in truth, I could not see that Agalma had
been very much to blame, even as he told the story, and felt sure
that could I have heard her version it would have worn a very
different aspect.  That she was cold, and disappointed him, might
be true enough, but there was no crime; and I perfectly understood
how thoroughly odious he must have made himself to her by his
exactions and reproaches.  I understood this, perhaps, all the
better, because in the course of his narrative Bourgonef had
revealed to me aspects of his nature which were somewhat repulsive.
Especially was I struck with his morbid vanity, and his readiness
to impute low motives to others.  This unpleasant view of his
character--a character in many respects so admirable for its
generosity and refinement--was deepened as he went on, instead of
awaiting my reply to his question.

"For a wrong so measureless, you will naturally ask what
measureless revenge I sought."

The idea had not occurred to me; indeed I could see no wrong, and
this notion of revenge was somewhat startling in such a case.

"I debated it long," he continued.  "I felt that since I was
prevented from arresting any of the evil to myself, I could at
least mature my plans for an adequate discharge of just
retributions on her.  It reveals the impotence resulting from the
trammels of modern civilization, that while the possibilities of
wrong are infinite, the openings for vengeance are few and
contemptible.  Only when a man is thrown upon the necessities of
this 'wild justice' does he discover how difficult vengeance really
is.  Had Agalma been my wife, I could have wreaked my wrath upon
her, with assurance that some of the torture she inflicted on me
was to fall on her.  Not having this power what was I to do?  Kill
her?  That would have afforded one moment of exquisite
satisfaction--but to her it would have been simply death--and I
wanted to kill the heart."

He seemed working with an insane passion, so that I regarded him
with disgust, mingled with some doubts as to what horrors he was
about to relate.

"My plan was chosen.  The only way to reach her heart was to strike
through her husband.  For several hours daily I practised with the
pistol, until--in spite of only having a left hand--I acquired
fatal skill.  But this was not enough.  Firing at a mark is simple
work.  Firing at a man--especially one holding a pistol pointed at
you--is altogether different.  I had too often heard of 'crack
shots' missing their men, to rely confidently on my skill in the
shooting gallery.  It was necessary that my eye and hand should be
educated to familiarity with the real object.  Part of the cause
why duelists miss their man is from the trepidation of fear.  I was
without fear.  At no moment in my life have I been afraid; and the
chance of being shot by Korinski I counted as nothing.  The other
cause is unfamiliarity with the mark.  This I secured myself
against by getting a lay figure of Korinski's height, dressing it
to resemble him, placing a pistol in its hand, and then practising
at this mark in the woods.  After a short time I could send a
bullet through the thorax without taking more than a hasty glance
at the figure.

"Thus prepared, I started for Paris.  But you will feel for me when
you learn that my hungry heart was baffled of its vengeance, and
baffled for ever.  Agalma had been carried off by scarlet fever.
Korinski had left Paris, and I felt no strong promptings to follow
him, and wreak on him a futile vengeance.  It was on HER my wrath
had been concentrated, and I gnashed my teeth at the thought that
she had escaped me.

"My story is ended.  The months of gloomy depression which
succeeded, now that I was no longer sustained by the hope of
vengeance, I need not speak of.  My existence was desolate, and
even now the desolation continues over the whole region of the
emotions.  I carry a dead heart within me."


VIII

A SECOND VICTIM


Bourgonef's story has been narrated with some fullness, though in
less detail than he told it, in order that the reader may
understand its real bearings on MY story.  Without it, the motives
which impelled the strange pertinacity of my pursuit would have
been unintelligible.  I have said that a very disagreeable
impression remained on my mind respecting certain aspects of his
character, and I felt somewhat ashamed of my imperfect sagacity in
having up to this period been entirely blind to those aspects.  The
truth is, every human being is a mystery, and remains so to the
last.  We fancy we know a character; we form a distinct conception
of it; for years that conception remains unmodified, and suddenly
the strain of some emergency, of the incidental stimulus of new
circumstances, reveals qualities not simply unexpected, but flatly
contradictory of our previous conception.  We judge of a man by the
angle he subtends to our eye--only thus CAN we judge of him; and
this angle depends on the relation his qualities and circumstances
bear to our interests and sympathies.  Bourgonef had charmed me
intellectually; morally I had never come closer to him than in the
sympathies of public questions and abstract theories.  His story
had disclosed hidden depths.

My old suspicions reappeared, and a conversation we had two days
afterwards helped to strengthen them.

We had gone on a visit to Schwanthaler, the sculptor, at his tiny
little castle of Schwaneck, a few miles from Munich.  The artist
was out for a walk, but we were invited to come in and await his
return, which would be shortly; and meanwhile Bourgonef undertook
to show me over the castle, interesting as a bit of modern Gothic,
realizing on a diminutive scale a youthful dream of the sculptor's.
When our survey was completed--and it did not take long--we sat at
one of the windows and enjoyed a magnificent prospect.  "It is
curious," said Bourgonef, "to be shut up here in this imitation of
medieval masonry, where every detail speaks of the dead past, and
to think of the events now going on in Paris which must find
imitators all over Europe, and which open to the mind such vistas
of the future.  What a grotesque anachronism is this Gothic castle,
built in the same age as that which sees a reforming pope!"

"Yes; but is not the reforming pope himself an anachronism?"

"As a Catholic," here he smiled, intimating that his orthodoxy was
not very stringent, "I cannot admit that; as a Protestant, you must
admit that if there must be a pope, he must in these days be a
reformer, or--give up his temporal power.  Not that I look on Pio
Nono as more than a precursor; he may break ground, and point the
way, but he is not the man to lead Europe out of its present slough
of despond, and under the headship of the Church found a new and
lasting republic.  We want a Hildebrand, one who will be to the
nineteenth century as Gregory was to the eleventh."

"Do you believe in such a possibility?  Do you think the Roman
pontiff can ever again sway the destinies of Europe?"

"I can hardly say I believe it; yet I see the possibility of such
an opening if the right man were to arise.  But I fear he will not
arise; or if he should, the Conclave will stifle him.  Yet there is
but one alternative: either Europe must once more join in a crusade
with a pope at the head, or it must hoist the red flag.  There is
no other issue."

"Heaven preserve us from both!  And I think we shall be preserved
from the Pope by the rottenness of the Church; from the drapeau
rouge by the indignation and horror of all honest men.  You see how
the Provisional Government has resisted the insane attempt of the
fanatics to make the red flag accepted as the national banner?"

"Yes; and it is the one thing which dashes my pleasure in the new
revolution.  It is the one act of weakness which the Government has
exhibited; a concession which will be fatal unless it be happily
set aside by the energetic party of action."

"An act of weakness? say rather an act of strength.  A concession?
say rather the repudiation of anarchy, the assertion of law and
justice."

"Not a bit.  It was concession to the fears of the timid, and to
the vanity of the French people.  The tricolor is a French flag--
not the banner of humanity.  It is because the tricolor has been
identified with the victories of France that it appeals to the
vanity of the vainest of people.  They forget that it is the flag
of a revolution which failed, and of an empire which was one
perpetual outrage to humanity.  Whereas the red is new; it is the
symbol of an energetic, thorough-going creed.  If it carries terror
with it, so much the better.  The tyrants and the timid should be
made to tremble."

"I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty," said I, laughing at his
vehemence.

"I am not bloodthirsty at all; I am only logical and consistent.
There is a mass of sophistry current in the world which sickens me.
People talk of Robespierre and St. Just, two of the most virtuous
men that ever lived--and of Dominic and Torquemada, two of the most
single-minded--as if they were cruel and bloodthirsty, whereas they
were only convinced."

"Is it from love of paradox that you defend these tigers?"

"Tigers, again--how those beasts are calumniated!"

He said this with a seriousness which was irresistibly comic.  I
shouted with laughter; but he continued gravely:

"You think I am joking.  But let me ask you why you consider the
tiger more bloodthirsty than yourself?  He springs upon his food--
you buy yours from the butcher.  He cannot live without animal
food: it is a primal necessity, and he obeys the ordained instinct.
You can live on vegetables; yet you slaughter beasts of the field
and birds of the air (or buy them when slaughtered), and consider
yourself a model of virtue.  The tiger only kills his food or his
enemies; you not only kill both, but you kill one animal to make
gravy for another!  The tiger is less bloodthirsty than the
Christian!"

"I don't know how much of that tirade is meant to be serious; but
to waive the question of the tiger's morality, do you really--I
will not say sympathize,--but justify Robespierre, Dominic, St.
Just, and the rest of the fanatics who have waded to their ends
through blood."

"He who wills the END, wills the MEANS."

"A devil's maxim."

"But a truth.  What the foolish world shrinks at as
bloodthirstiness and cruelty is very often mere force and constancy
of intellect.  It is not that fanatics thirst for blood--far from
it,--but they thirst for the triumph of their cause.  Whatever
obstacle lies on their path must be removed; if a torrent of blood
is the only thing that will sweep it away--the torrent must sweep."

"And sweep with it all the sentiments of pity, mercy, charity,
love?"

"No; these sentiments may give a sadness to the necessity; they
make the deed a sacrifice, but they cannot prevent the soul from
seeing the aim to which it tends."

"This is detestable doctrine!  It is the sophism which has
destroyed families, devastated cities, and retarded the moral
progress of the world more than anything else.  No single act of
injustice is ever done on this earth but it tends to perpetuate the
reign of iniquity.  By the feelings it calls forth it keeps up the
native savagery of the heart.  It breeds injustice, partly by
hardening the minds of those who assent, and partly by exciting the
passion of revenge in those who resist."

"You are wrong.  The great drag-chain on the car of progress is the
faltering inconsistency of man.  Weakness is more cruel than
sternness.  Sentiment is more destructive than logic."

The arrival of Schwanthaler was timely, for my indignation was
rising.  The sculptor received us with great cordiality, and in the
pleasure of the subsequent hour I got over to some extent the
irritation Bourgonef's talk had excited.

The next day I left Munich for the Tyrol.  My parting with
Bourgonef was many degrees less friendly than it would have been a
week before.  I had no wish to see him again, and therefore gave
him no address or invitation in case he should come to England.  As
I rolled away in the Malleposte, my busy thoughts reviewed all the
details of our acquaintance, and the farther I was carried from his
presence, the more obtrusive became the suspicions which connected
him with the murder of Lieschen Lehfeldt.  How, or upon what
motive, was indeed an utter mystery.  He had not mentioned the name
of Lehfeldt.  He had not mentioned having before been at Nuremberg.
At Heidelberg the tragedy occurred--or was Heidelberg only a mask?
It occurred to me that he had first ascertained that I had never
been at Heidelberg before he placed the scene of his story there.

Thoughts such as these tormented me.  Imagine, then, the horror
with which I heard, soon after my arrival at Salzburg, that a
murder had been committed at Grosshesslohe--one of the pretty
environs of Munich much resorted to by holiday folk--corresponding
in all essential features with the murder at Nuremberg!  In both
cases the victim was young and pretty.  In both cases she was found
quietly lying on the ground, stabbed to the heart, without any
other traces of violence.  In both cases she was a betrothed bride,
and the motive of the unknown assassin a mystery.

Such a correspondence in the essential features inevitably
suggested an appalling mystery of unity in these crimes,--either as
the crimes of one man, committed under some impulse of motiveless
malignity and thirst for innocent blood--or as the equally
appalling effect of IMITATION acting contagiously upon a criminal
imagination; of which contagion there have been, unfortunately, too
many examples--horrible crimes prompting certain weak and feverish
imaginations, by the very horror they inspire, first to dwell on,
and finally to realize their imitations.

It was this latter hypothesis which found general acceptance.
Indeed it was the only one which rested upon any ground of
experience.  The disastrous influence of imitation, especially
under the fascination of horror, was well known.  The idea of any
diabolical malice moving one man to pass from city to city, and
there quietly single out his victims--both of them, by the very
hypothesis, unrelated to him, both of them at the epoch of their
lives, when


     "The bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne,"


when the peace of the heart is assured, and the future is radiantly
beckoning to them,--that any man should choose such victims for
such crimes was too preposterous an idea long to be entertained.
Unless the man were mad, the idea was inconceivable; and even a
monomaniac must betray himself in such a course, because he would
necessarily conceive himself to be accomplishing some supreme act
of justice.

It was thus I argued; and indeed I should much have preferred to
believe that one maniac were involved, rather than the contagion of
crime,--since one maniac must inevitably be soon detected; whereas
there were no assignable limits to the contagion of imitation.  And
this it was which so profoundly agitated German society.  In every
family in which there happened to be a bride, vague tremors could
not be allayed; and the absolute powerlessness which resulted from
the utter uncertainty as to the quarter in which this dreaded
phantom might next appear, justified and intensified those tremors.
Against such an apparition there was no conceivable safeguard.
From a city stricken with the plague, from a district so stricken,
flight is possible, and there are the resources of medical aid.
But from a moral plague like this, what escape was possible?

So passionate and profound became the terror, that I began to share
the opinion which I heard expressed, regretting the widespread
publicity of the modern press, since, with many undeniable
benefits, it carried also the fatal curse of distributing through
households, and keeping constantly under the excitement of
discussion, images of crime and horror which would tend to
perpetuate and extend the excesses of individual passion.  The mere
dwelling long on such a topic as this was fraught with evil.

This and more I heard discussed as I hurried back to Munich.  To
Munich?  Yes; thither I was posting with all speed.  Not a shadow
of doubt now remained in my mind.  I knew the assassin, and was
resolved to track and convict him.  Do not suppose that THIS time I
was led away by the vagrant activity of my constructive
imagination.  I had something like positive proof.  No sooner had I
learned that the murder had been committed at Grosshesslohe, than
my thoughts at once carried me to a now memorable visit I had made
there in company with Bourgonef and two young Bavarians.  At the
hotel where we dined, we were waited on by the niece of the
landlord, a girl of remarkable beauty, who naturally excited the
attention of four young men, and furnished them with a topic of
conversation.  One of the Bavarians had told us that she would one
day be perhaps one of the wealthiest women in the country, for she
was engaged to be married to a young farmer who had recently found
himself, by a rapid succession of deaths, sole heir to a great
brewer, whose wealth was known to be enormous.

At this moment Sophie entered bringing wine, and I saw Bourgonef
slowly turn his eyes upon her with a look which then was mysterious
to me, but which now spoke too plainly its dreadful meaning.

What is there in a look, you will say?  Perhaps nothing; or it may
be everything.  To my unsuspecting, unenlightened perception,
Bourgonef's gaze was simply the melancholy and half-curious gaze
which such a man might be supposed to cast upon a young woman who
had been made the topic of an interesting discourse.  But to my
mind, enlightened as to his character, and instructed as to his
peculiar feelings arising from his own story, the gaze was charged
with horror.  It marked a victim.  The whole succession of events
rose before me in vivid distinctness; the separate details of
suspicion gathered into unity.

Great as was Bourgonef's command over his features, he could not
conceal uneasiness as well as surprise at my appearance at the
table d'hote in Munich.  I shook hands with him, putting on as
friendly a mask as I could, and replied to his question about my
sudden return by attributing it to unexpected intelligence received
at Salzburg.

"Nothing serious, I hope?"

"Well, I'm afraid it will prove very serious," I said.  "But we
shall see.  Meanwhile my visit to the Tyrol must be given up or
postponed."

"Do you remain here, then?"

"I don't know what my movements will be."

Thus I had prepared him for any reserve or strangeness in my
manner; and I had concealed from him the course of my movements;
for at whatever cost, I was resolved to follow him and bring him to
justice.

But how?  Evidence I had none that could satisfy any one else,
however convincing it might be to my own mind.  Nor did there seem
any evidence forthcoming from Grosshesslohe.  Sophie's body had
been found in the afternoon lying as if asleep in one of the by-
paths of the wood.  No marks of a struggle; no traces of the
murderer.  Her affianced lover, who was at Augsburg, on hearing of
her fate, hurried to Grosshesslohe, but could throw no light on the
murder, could give no hint as to a possible motive for the deed.
But this entire absence of evidence, or even ground of suspicion,
only made MY case the stronger.  It was the motiveless malignity of
the deed which fastened it on Bourgonef; or rather, it was the
absence of any known motive elsewhere which assured me that I had
detected the motive in him.

Should I communicate my conviction to the police?  It was possible
that I might impress them with at least sufficient suspicion to
warrant his examination--and in that case the truth might be
elicited; for among the many barbarities and iniquities of the
criminal procedure in Continental States which often press heavily
on the innocent, there is this compensating advantage, that the
pressure on the guilty is tenfold heavier.  If the innocent are
often unjustly punished--imprisoned and maltreated before their
innocence can be established--the guilty seldom escape.  In England
we give the criminal not only every chance of escape, but many
advantages.  The love of fair-play is carried to excess.  It seems
at times as if the whole arrangements of our procedure were
established with a view to giving a criminal not only the benefit
of every doubt, but of every loophole through which he can slip.
Instead of this, the Continental procedure goes on the principle of
closing up every loophole, and of inventing endless traps into
which the accused may fall.  We warn the accused not to say
anything that may be prejudicial to him.  They entangle him in
contradictions and confessions which disclose his guilt.

Knowing this, I thought it very likely that, however artful
Bourgonef might be, a severe examination might extort from him
sufficient confirmation of my suspicion to warrant further
procedure.  But knowing also that THIS resort was open to me when
all others had failed, I resolved to wait and watch.


IX

FINALE


Two days passed, and nothing occurred.  My watching seemed
hopeless, and I resolved to try the effect of a disguised
interrogatory.  It might help to confirm my already settled
conviction, if it did not elicit any new evidence.

Seated in Bourgonef's room, in the old place, each with a cigar,
and chatting as of old on public affairs, I gradually approached
the subject of the recent murder.

"Is it not strange," I said, "that both these crimes should have
happened while we were casually staying in both places?"

"Perhaps we are the criminals," he replied, laughing.  I shivered
slightly at this audacity.  He laughed as he spoke, but there was a
hard, metallic, and almost defiant tone in his voice which
exasperated me.

"Perhaps we are," I answered, quietly.  He looked full at me; but I
was prepared, and my face told nothing.  I added, as in
explanation, "The crime being apparently contagious, we may have
brought the infection from Nuremberg."

"Do you believe in that hypothesis of imitation?"

"I don't know what to believe.  Do you believe in there being only
one murderer?  It seems such a preposterous idea.  We must suppose
him, at any rate, to be a maniac."

"Not necessarily.  Indeed there seems to have been too much artful
contrivance in both affairs, not only in the selection of the
victims, but in the execution of the schemes.  Cunning as maniacs
often are they are still maniacs, and betray themselves."

"If not a maniac," said I, hoping to pique him, "he must be a man
of stupendous and pitiable vanity,--perhaps one of your constant-
minded friends, whom you refuse to call bloodthirsty."

"Constant-minded, perhaps; but why pitiably vain?"

"Why?  Because only a diseased atrocity of imagination, stimulating
a nature essentially base and weak in its desire to make itself
conspicuous, would or could suggest such things.  The silly youth
who 'fired the Ephesian dome,' the vain idiot who set fire to York
Minster, the miserable Frenchmen who have committed murder and
suicide with a view of making their exit striking from a world in
which their appearance had been contemptible, would all sink into
insignificance beside the towering infamy of baseness which--for
the mere love of producing an effect on the minds of men, and thus
drawing their attention upon him, which otherwise would never have
marked him at all--could scheme and execute crimes so horrible and
inexcusable.  In common charity to human nature, let us suppose the
wretch is mad; because otherwise his miserable vanity would be too
loathsome."  I spoke with warmth and bitterness, which increased as
I perceived him wincing under the degradation of my contempt.

"If his motive WERE vanity," he said, "no doubt it would be
horrible; but may it not have been revenge?"

"Revenge!" I exclaimed; "what! on innocent women?"

"You assume their innocence."

"Good God! do you know anything to the contrary?"

"Not I.  But as we are conjecturing, I may as well conjecture it to
have been the desire to produce a startling effect."

"How do you justify your conjecture?"

"Simply enough.  We have to suppose a motive; let us say it was
revenge, and see whether that will furnish a clue."

"But it can't.  The two victims were wholly unconnected with each
other by any intermediate acquaintances, consequently there can
have been no common wrong or common enmity in existence to furnish
food for vengeance."

"That may be so; it may also be that the avenger made them
vicarious victims."

"How so?"

"It is human nature.  Did you ever observe a thwarted child
striking in its anger the unoffending nurse, destroying its toys to
discharge its wrath?  Did you ever see a schoolboy, unable to wreak
his anger on the bigger boy who has just struck him, turn against
the nearest smaller boy and beat him?  Did you ever know a
schoolmaster, angered by one of the boy's parents, vent his pent-up
spleen upon the unoffending class?  Did you ever see a subaltern
punished because an officer had been reprimanded?  These are
familiar examples of vicarious vengeance.  When the soul is stung
to fury, it must solace itself by the discharge of that fury--it
must relieve its pain by the sight of pain in others.  We are so
constituted.  We need sympathy above all things.  In joy we cannot
bear to see others in distress; in distress we see the joy of
others with dismal envy which sharpens our pain.  That is human
nature."

"And," I exclaimed, carried away by my indignation, "you suppose
that the sight of these two happy girls, beaming with the quiet joy
of brides, was torture to some miserable wretch who had lost his
bride."

I had gone too far.  His eyes looked into mine.  I read in his that
he divined the whole drift of my suspicion--the allusion made to
himself.  There often passes into a look more than words can
venture to express.  In that look he read that he was discovered,
and I read that he had recognized it.  With perfect calmness, but
with a metallic ring in his voice which was like the clash of
swords, he said:

"I did not say that I supposed this; but as we were on the wide
field of conjecture--utterly without evidence one way or the other,
having no clue either to the man or his motives--I drew from the
general principles of human nature a conclusion which was just as
plausible--or absurd if you like--as the conclusion that the motive
must have been vanity."

"As you say, we are utterly without evidence, and conjecture drifts
aimlessly from one thing to another.  After all, the most plausible
explanation is that of a contagion of imitation."

I said this in order to cover my previous imprudence.  He was not
deceived--though for a few moments I fancied he was--but replied:

"I am not persuaded of that either.  The whole thing is a mystery,
and I shall stay here some time in the hope of seeing it cleared
up.  Meanwhile, for a subject of conjecture, let me show you
something on which your ingenuity may profitably be employed."

He rose and passed into his bedroom.  I heard him unlocking and
rummaging the drawers, and was silently reproaching myself for my
want of caution in having spoken as I had done, though it was now
beyond all doubt that he was the murderer, and that his motive had
been rightly guessed; but with this self-reproach there was mingled
a self-gratulation at the way I had got out of the difficulty, as I
fancied.

He returned, and as he sat down I noticed that the lower part of
his surtout was open.  He always wore a long frogged and braided
coat reaching to the knees--as I now know, for the purpose of
concealing the arm which hung (as he said, withered) at his side.
The two last fastenings were now undone.

He held in his hand a tiny chain made of very delicate wire.  This
he gave me, saying:

"Now what would you conjecture that to be?"

"Had it come into my hands without any remark, I should have said
it was simply a very exquisite bit of ironwork; but your question
points to something more out of the way."

"It IS iron-work," he said.

Could I be deceived?  A third fastening of his surtout was undone!
I had seen but two a moment ago.

"And what am I to conjecture?" I asked.

"Where that iron came from?  It was NOT from a mine."  I looked at
it again, and examined it attentively.  On raising my eyes in
inquiry--fortunately with an expression of surprise, since what met
my eyes would have startled a cooler man--I saw the fourth
fastening undone!

"You look surprised," he continued, "and will be more surprised
when I tell you that the iron in your hands once floated in the
circulation of a man.  It is made from human blood."

"Human blood!" I murmured.

He went on expounding the physiological wonders of the blood,--how
it carried, dissolved in its currents, a proportion of iron and
earths; how this iron was extracted by chemists and exhibited as a
curiosity; and how this chain had been manufactured from such
extracts.  I heard every word, but my thoughts were hurrying to and
fro in the agitation of a supreme moment.  That there was a dagger
underneath that coat--that in a few moments it would flash forth--
that a death-struggle was at hand,--I knew well.  My safety
depended on presence of mind.  That incalculable rapidity with
which, in critical moments, the mind surveys all the openings and
resources of an emergency, had assured me that there was no weapon
within reach--that before I could give an alarm the tiger would be
at my throat, and that my only chance was to keep my eyes fixed
upon him, ready to spring on him the moment the next fastening was
undone, and before he could use his arm.

At last the idea occurred to me, that as, with a wild beast, safety
lies in attacking him just before he attacks you, so with this
beast my best chance was audacity.  Looking steadily into his face,
I said slowly:

"And you would like to have such a chain made from my blood."  I
rose as I spoke.  He remained sitting, but was evidently taken
aback.

"What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean," said I, sternly, "that your coat is unfastened, and that
if another fastening is loosened in my presence, I fell you to the
earth."

"You're a fool!" he exclaimed.

I moved towards the door, keeping my eye fixed upon him as he sat
pale and glaring at me.

"YOU are a fool," I said--" and worse, if you stir."

At this moment, I know not by what sense, as if I had eyes at the
back of my head, I was aware of some one moving behind me, yet I
dared not look aside.  Suddenly two mighty folds of darkness seemed
to envelop me like arms.  A powerful scent ascended my nostrils.
There was a ringing in my ears, a beating at my heart.  Darkness
came on, deeper and deeper, like huge waves.  I seemed growing to
gigantic stature.  The waves rolled on faster and faster.  The
ringing became a roaring.  The beating became a throbbing.  Lights
flashed across the darkness.  Forms moved before me.  On came the
waves hurrying like a tide, and I sank deeper and deeper into this
mighty sea of darkness.  Then all was silent.  Consciousness was
still.

      .        .        .        .        .        .

How long I remained unconscious, I cannot tell.  But it must have
been some considerable time.  When consciousness once more began to
dawn within me, I found myself lying on a bed surrounded by a group
of eager, watching faces, and became aware of a confused murmur of
whispering going on around me.  "Er Lebt" (he lives) were the words
which greeted my opening eyes--words which I recognized as coming
from my landlord.

I had had a very narrow escape.  Another moment and I should not
have lived to tell the tale.  The dagger that had already immolated
two of Bourgonef's objects of vengeance would have been in my
breast.  As it was, at the very moment when the terrible Ivan had
thrown his arms around me and was stifling me with chloroform, one
of the servants of the hotel, alarmed or attracted by curiosity at
the sound of high words within the room, had ventured to open the
door to see what was going on.  The alarm had been given, and
Bourgonef had been arrested and handed over to the police.  Ivan,
however, had disappeared; nor were the police ever able to find
him.  This mattered comparatively little.  Ivan without his master
was no more redoubtable than any other noxious animal.  As an
accomplice, as an instrument to execute the will of a man like
Bourgonef, he was a danger to society.  The directing intelligence
withdrawn, he sank to the level of the brute.  I was not uneasy,
therefore, at his having escaped.  Sufficient for me that the real
criminal, the mind that had conceived and directed those fearful
murders, was at last in the hands of justice.  I felt that my task
had been fully accomplished when Bourgonef's head fell on the
scaffold.



The Closed Cabinet


I


It was with a little alarm and a good deal of pleasurable
excitement that I looked forward to my first grown-up visit to
Mervyn Grange.  I had been there several times as a child, but
never since I was twelve years old, and now I was over eighteen.
We were all of us very proud of our cousins the Mervyns: it is not
everybody that can claim kinship with a family who are in full and
admitted possession of a secret, a curse, and a mysterious cabinet,
in addition to the usual surplusage of horrors supplied in such
cases by popular imagination.  Some declared that a Mervyn of the
days of Henry VIII had been cursed by an injured abbot from the
foot of the gallows.  Others affirmed that a dissipated Mervyn of
the Georgian era was still playing cards for his soul in some
remote region of the Grange.  There were stories of white ladies
and black imps, of bloodstained passages and magic stones.  We,
proud of our more intimate acquaintance with the family, naturally
gave no credence to these wild inventions.  The Mervyns, indeed,
followed the accepted precedent in such cases, and greatly disliked
any reference to the reputed mystery being made in their presence;
with the inevitable result that there was no subject so
pertinaciously discussed by their friends in their absence.  My
father's sister had married the late Baronet, Sir Henry Mervyn, and
we always felt that she ought to have been the means of imparting
to us a very complete knowledge of the family secret.  But in this
connection she undoubtedly failed of her duty.  We knew that there
had been a terrible tragedy in the family some two or three hundred
years ago--that a peculiarly wicked owner of Mervyn, who flourished
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, had been murdered by
his wife who subsequently committed suicide.  We knew that the
mysterious curse had some connection with this crime, but what the
curse exactly was we had never been able to discover.  The history
of the family since that time had indeed in one sense been full of
misfortune.  Not in every sense.  A coal mine had been discovered
in one part of the estate, and a populous city had grown over the
corner of another part; and the Mervyns of to-day, in spite of the
usual percentage of extravagant heirs and political mistakes, were
three times as rich as their ancestors had been.  But still their
story was full of bloodshed and shame, of tales of duels and
suicides, broken hearts and broken honor.  Only these calamities
seemed to have little or no relation to each other, and what the
precise curse was that was supposed to connect or account for them
we could not learn.  When she first married, my aunt was told
nothing about it.  Later on in life, when my father asked her for
the story, she begged him to talk upon a pleasanter subject; and
being unluckily a man of much courtesy and little curiosity, he
complied with her request.  This, however, was the only part of the
ghostly traditions of her husband's home upon which she was so
reticent.  The haunted chamber, for instance--which, of course,
existed at the Grange--she treated with the greatest contempt.
Various friends and relations had slept in it at different times,
and no approach to any kind of authenticated ghost-story, even of
the most trivial description, had they been able to supply.  Its
only claim to respect, indeed, was that it contained the famous
Mervyn cabinet, a fascinating puzzle of which I will speak later,
but which certainly had nothing haunting or horrible about its
appearance.

My uncle's family consisted of three sons.  The eldest, George, the
present baronet, was now in his thirties, married, and with
children of his own.  The second, Jack, was the black-sheep of the
family.  He had been in the Guards, but, about five years back, had
got into some very disgraceful scrape, and had been obliged to
leave the country.  The sorrow and the shame of this had killed his
unhappy mother, and her husband had not long afterwards followed
her to the grave.  Alan, the youngest son, probably because he was
the nearest to us in age, had been our special favorite in earlier
years.  George was grown up before I had well left the nursery, and
his hot, quick temper had always kept us youngsters somewhat in awe
of him.  Jack was four years older than Alan, and, besides, his
profession had, in a way, cut his boyhood short.  When my uncle and
aunt were abroad, as they frequently were for months together on
account of her health, it was Alan, chiefly, who had to spend his
holidays with us, both as school-boy and as undergraduate.  And a
brighter, sweeter-tempered comrade, or one possessed of more
diversified talents for the invention of games or the telling of
stories, it would have been difficult to find.

For five years together now our ancient custom of an annual visit
to Mervyn had been broken.  First there had been the seclusion of
mourning for my aunt, and a year later for my uncle; then George
and his wife, Lucy,--she was a connection of our own on our
mother's side, and very intimate with us all,--had been away for
nearly two years on a voyage round the world; and since then
sickness in our own family had kept us in our turn a good deal
abroad.  So that I had not seen my cousins since all the calamities
which had befallen them in the interval, and as I steamed
northwards I wondered a good deal as to the changes I should find.
I was to have come out that year in London, but ill-health had
prevented me; and as a sort of consolation Lucy had kindly asked me
to spend a fortnight at Mervyn, and be present at a shooting-party,
which was to assemble there in the first week of October.

I had started early, and there was still an hour of the short
autumn day left when I descended at the little wayside station,
from which a six-mile drive brought me to the Grange.  A dreary
drive I found it--the round, gray, treeless outline of the fells
stretching around me on every side beneath the leaden, changeless
sky.  The night had nearly fallen as we drove along the narrow
valley in which the Grange stood: it was too dark to see the autumn
tints of the woods which clothed and brightened its sides, almost
too dark to distinguish the old tower,--Dame Alice's tower as it
was called,--which stood some half a mile farther on at its head.
But the light shone brightly from the Grange windows, and all
feeling of dreariness departed as I drove up to the door.  Leaving
maid and boxes to their fate, I ran up the steps into the old,
well-remembered hall, and was informed by the dignified man-servant
that her ladyship and the tea were awaiting me in the morning-room.

I found that there was nobody staying in the house except Alan, who
was finishing the long vacation there: he had been called to the
Bar a couple of years before.  The guests were not to arrive for
another week, so that I had plenty of opportunity in the interval
to make up for lost time with my cousins.  I began my observations
that evening as we sat down to dinner, a cozy party of four.  Lucy
was quite unchanged--pretty, foolish, and gentle as ever.  George
showed the full five years' increase of age, and seemed to have
acquired a somewhat painful control of his temper.  Instead of the
old petulant outbursts, there was at times an air of nervous,
irritable self-restraint, which I found the less pleasant of the
two.  But it was in Alan that the most striking alteration
appeared.  I felt it the moment I shook hands with him, and the
impression deepened that evening with every hour.  I told myself
that it was only the natural difference between boy and man,
between twenty and twenty-five, but I don't think that I believed
it.  Superficially the change was not great.  The slight-built,
graceful figure; the deep gray eyes, too small for beauty; the
clear-cut features, the delicate, sensitive lips, close shaven now,
as they had been hairless then,--all were as I remembered them.
But the face was paler and thinner than it had been, and there were
lines round the eyes and at the corners of the mouth which were no
more natural to twenty-five than they would have been to twenty.
The old charm indeed--the sweet friendliness of manner, which was
his own peculiar possession--was still there.  He talked and
laughed almost as much as formerly, but the talk was manufactured
for our entertainment, and the laughter came from his head and not
from his heart.  And it was when he was taking no part in the
conversation that the change showed most.  Then the face, on which
in the old time every passing emotion had expressed itself in a
constant, living current, became cold and impassive--without
interest, and without desire.  It was at such times that I knew
most certainly that here was something which had been living and
was dead.  Was it only his boyhood?  This question I was unable to
answer.

Still, in spite of all, that week was one of the happiest in my
life.  The brothers were both men of enough ability and cultivation
to be pleasant talkers, and Lucy could perform adequately the part
of conversational accompanist, which, socially speaking, is all
that is required of a woman.  The meals and evenings passed quickly
and agreeably; the mornings I spent in unending gossips with Lucy,
or in games with the children, two bright boys of five and six
years old.  But the afternoons were the best part of the day.
George was a thorough squire in all his tastes and habits, and
every afternoon his wife dutifully accompanied him round farms and
coverts, inspecting new buildings, trudging along half-made roads,
or marking unoffending trees for destruction.  Then Alan and I
would ride by the hour together over moor and meadowland, often
picking our way homewards down the glen-side long after the autumn
evenings had closed in.  During these rides I had glimpses many a
time into depths in Alan's nature of which I doubt whether in the
old days he had himself been aware.  To me certainly they were as a
revelation.  A prevailing sadness, occasionally a painful tone of
bitterness, characterized these more serious moods of his, but I do
not think that, at the end of that week, I would, if I could, have
changed the man, whom I was learning to revere and to pity, for the
light-hearted playmate whom I felt was lost to me for ever.


II


The only feature of the family life which jarred on me was the
attitude of the two brothers towards the children.  I did not
notice this much at first, and at all times it was a thing to be
felt rather than to be seen.  George himself never seemed quite at
ease with them.  The boys were strong and well grown, healthy in
mind and body; and one would have thought that the existence of two
such representatives to carry on his name and inherit his fortune
would have been the very crown of pride and happiness to their
father.  But it was not so.  Lucy indeed was devoted to them, and
in all practical matters no one could have been kinder to them than
was George.  They were free of the whole house, and every
indulgence that money could buy for them they had.  I never heard
him give them a harsh word.  But there was something wrong.  A
constraint in their presence, a relief in their absence, an evident
dislike of discussing them and their affairs, a total want of that
enjoyment of love and possession which in such a case one might
have expected to find.  Alan's state of mind was even more marked.
Never did I hear him willingly address his nephews, or in any way
allude to their existence.  I should have said that he simply
ignored it, but for the heavy gloom which always overspread his
spirits in their company, and for the glances which he would now
and again cast in their direction--glances full of some hidden
painful emotion, though of what nature it would have been hard to
define.  Indeed, Alan's attitude towards her children I soon found
to be the only source of friction between Lucy and this otherwise
much-loved member of her husband's family.  I asked her one day why
the boys never appeared at luncheon.

"Oh, they come when Alan is away," she answered; "but they seem to
annoy him so much that George thinks it is better to keep them out
of sight when he is here.  It is very tiresome.  I know that it is
the fashion to say that George has got the temper of the family;
but I assure you that Alan's nervous moods and fancies are much
more difficult to live with."

That was on the morning--a Friday it was--of the last day which we
were to spend alone.  The guests were to arrive soon after tea; and
I think that with the knowledge of their approach Alan and I
prolonged our ride that afternoon beyond its usual limits.  We were
on our way home, and it was already dusk, when a turn of the path
brought us face to face with the old ruined tower, of which I have
already spoken as standing at the head of the valley.  I had not
been close up to it yet during this visit at Mervyn.  It had been a
very favorite haunt of ours as children, and partly on that
account, partly perhaps in order to defer the dreaded close of our
ride to the last possible moment, I proposed an inspection of it.
The only portion of the old building left standing in any kind of
entirety was two rooms, one above the other.  The tower room, level
with the bottom of the moat, was dark and damp, and it was the
upper one, reached by a little outside staircase, which had been
our rendezvous of old.  Alan showed no disposition to enter, and
said that he would stay outside and hold my horse, so I dismounted
and ran up alone.

The room seemed in no way changed.  A mere stone shell, littered
with fragments of wood and mortar.  There was the rough wooden
block on which Alan used to sit while he first frightened us with
bogey-stories, and then calmed our excited nerves by rapid sallies
of wild nonsense.  There was the plank from behind which, erected
as a barrier across the doorway, he would defend the castle against
our united assault, pelting us with fir-cones and sods of earth.
This and many a bygone scene thronged on me as I stood there, and
the room filled again with the memories of childish mirth.  And
following close came those of childish terrors.  Horrors which had
oppressed me then, wholly imagined or dimly apprehended from half-
heard traditions, and never thought of since, flitted around me in
the gathering dusk.  And with them it seemed to me as if there came
other memories too,--memories which had never been my own, of
scenes whose actors had long been with the dead, but which,
immortal as the spirit before whose eyes they had dwelt, still
lingered in the spot where their victim had first learnt to shudder
at their presence.  Once the ghastly notion came to me, it seized
on my imagination with irresistible force.  It seemed as if from
the darkened corners of the room vague, ill-defined shapes were
actually peering out at me.  When night came they would show
themselves in that form, livid and terrible, in which they had been
burnt into the brain and heart of the long ago dead.

I turned and glanced towards where I had left Alan.  I could see
his figure framed in by the window, a black shadow against the gray
twilight of the sky behind.  Erect and perfectly motionless he sat,
so motionless as to look almost lifeless, gazing before him down
the valley into the illimitable distance beyond.  There was
something in that stern immobility of look and attitude which
struck me with a curious sense of congruity.  It was right that he
should be thus--right that he should be no longer the laughing boy
who a moment before had been in my memory.  The haunting horrors of
that place seemed to demand it, and for the first time I felt that
I understood the change.  With an effort I shook myself free from
these fancies, and turned to go.  As I did so, my eye fell upon a
queer-shaped painted board, leaning up against the wall, which I
well recollected in old times.  Many a discussion had we had about
the legend inscribed upon it, which in our wisdom we had finally
pronounced to be German, chiefly because it was illegible.  Though
I had loudly professed my faith in this theory at the time, I had
always had uneasy doubts on the subject, and now half smiling I
bent down to verify or remove them.  The language was English, not
German; but the badly painted, faded Gothic letters in which it was
written made the mistake excusable.  In the dim light I had
difficulty even now in deciphering the words, and felt when I had
done so that neither the information conveyed nor the style of the
composition was sufficient reward for the trouble I had taken.
This is what I read:


     "Where the woman sinned the maid shall win;
      But God help the maid that sleeps within."


What the lines could refer to I neither had any notion nor did I
pause then even in my own mind to inquire.  I only remember vaguely
wondering whether they were intended for a tombstone or for a
doorway.  Then, continuing my way, I rapidly descended the steps
and remounted my horse, glad to find myself once again in the open
air and by my cousin's side.

The train of thought into which he had sunk during my absence was
apparently an absorbing one, for to my first question as to the
painted board he could hardly rouse himself to answer.

"A board with a legend written on it?  Yes, he remembered something
of the kind there.  It had always been there, he thought.  He knew
nothing about it,"--and so the subject was not continued.

The weird feelings which had haunted me in the tower still
oppressed me, and I proceeded to ask Alan about that old Dame Alice
whom the traditions of my childhood represented as the last
occupant of the ruined building.  Alan roused himself now, but did
not seem anxious to impart information on the subject.  She had
lived there, he admitted, and no one had lived there since.  "Had
she not," I inquired, "something to do with the mysterious cabinet
at the house?  I remember hearing it spoken of as 'Dame Alice's
cabinet.'

"So they say," he assented; "she and an Italian artificer who was
in her service, and who, chiefly I imagine on account of his skill,
shared with her the honor of reputed witchcraft."

"She was the mother of Hugh Mervyn, the man who was murdered by his
wife, was she not?" I asked.

"Yes," said Alan, briefly.

"And had she not something to do with the curse?"  I inquired after
a short pause, and nervously I remembered my father's experience on
that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the
presence of any member of the family.  My nervousness was fully
warranted.  The gloom on Alan's brow deepened, and after a very
short "They say so" he turned full upon me, and inquired with some
asperity why on earth I had developed this sudden curiosity about
his ancestress.

I hesitated a moment, for I was a little ashamed of my fancies; but
the darkness gave me courage, and besides I was not afraid of
telling Alan--he would understand.  I told him of the strange
sensations I had had while in the tower--sensations which had
struck me with all that force and clearness which we usually
associate with a direct experience of fact.  "Of course it was a
trick of imagination," I commented; "but I could not get rid of the
feeling that the person who had dwelt there last must have had
terrible thoughts for the companions of her life."

Alan listened in silence, and the silence continued for some time
after I had ceased speaking.

"It is strange," he said at last; "instincts which we do not
understand form the motive-power of most of our life's actions, and
yet we refuse to admit them as evidence of any external truth.  I
suppose it is because we MUST act somehow, rightly or wrongly; and
there are a great many things which we need not believe unless we
choose.  As for this old lady, she lived long--long enough, like
most of us, to do evil; unlike most of us, long enough to witness
some of the results of that evil.  To say that, is to say that the
last years of her life must have been weighted heavily enough with
tragic thought."

I gave a little shudder of repulsion.

"That is a depressing view of life, Alan," I said.  "Does our peace
of mind depend only upon death coming early enough to hide from us
the truth?  And, after all, can it?  Our spirits do not die.  From
another world they may witness the fruits of our lives in this
one."

"If they do," he answered with sudden violence, "it is absurd to
doubt the existence of a purgatory.  There must in such a case be a
terrible one in store for the best among us."

I was silent.  The shadow that lay on his soul did not penetrate to
mine, but it hung round me nevertheless, a cloud which I felt
powerless to disperse.

After a moment he went on,--"Provided that they are distant enough,
how little, after all, do we think of the results of our actions!
There are few men who would deliberately instill into a child a
love of drink, or wilfully deprive him of his reason; and yet a man
with drunkenness or madness in his blood thinks nothing of bringing
children into the world tainted as deeply with the curse as if he
had inoculated them with it directly.  There is no responsibility
so completely ignored as this one of marriage and fatherhood, and
yet how heavy it is and far-reaching."

"Well," I said, smiling, "let us console ourselves with the thought
that we are not all lunatics and drunkards."

"No," he answered; "but there are other evils besides these, moral
taints as well as physical, curses which have their roots in worlds
beyond our own,--sins of the fathers which are visited upon the
children."

He had lost all violence and bitterness of tone now; but the weary
dejection which had taken their place communicated itself to my
spirit with more subtle power than his previous mood had owned.

"That is why," he went on, and his manner seemed to give more
purpose to his speech than hitherto,--"that is why, so far as I am
concerned, I mean to shirk the responsibility and remain
unmarried."

I was hardly surprised at his words.  I felt that I had expected
them, but their utterance seemed to intensify the gloom which
rested upon us.  Alan was the first to arouse himself from its
influence.

"After all," he said, turning round to me and speaking lightly,
"without looking so far and so deep, I think my resolve is a
prudent one.  Above all things, let us take life easily, and you
know what St. Paul says about 'trouble in the flesh,'--a remark
which I am sure is specially applicable to briefless barristers,
even though possessed of a modest competence of their own.  Perhaps
one of these days, when I am a fat old judge, I shall give my cook
a chance if she is satisfactory in her clear soups; but till then I
shall expect you, Evie, to work me one pair of carpet-slippers per
annum, as tribute due to a bachelor cousin."

I don't quite know what I answered,--my heart was heavy and
aching,--but I tried with true feminine docility to follow the lead
he had set me.  He continued for some time in the same vein; but as
we approached the house the effort seemed to become too much for
him, and we relapsed again into silence.

This time I was the first to break it.  "I suppose," I said,
drearily, "all those horrid people will have come by now."

"Horrid people," he repeated, with rather an uncertain laugh, and
through the darkness I saw his figure bend forward as he stretched
out his hand to caress my horse's neck.  "Why, Evie, I thought you
were pining for gayety, and that it was, in fact, for the purpose
of meeting these 'horrid people' that you came here."

"Yes, I know," I said, wistfully; "but somehow the last week has
been so pleasant that I cannot believe that anything will ever be
quite so nice again."

We had arrived at the house as I spoke, and the groom was standing
at our horses' heads.  Alan got off and came round to help me to
dismount; but instead of putting up his arm as usual as a support
for me to spring from, he laid his hand on mine.  "Yes, Evie," he
said, "it has been indeed a pleasant time.  God bless you for it."
For an instant he stood there looking up at me, his face full in
the light which streamed from the open door, his gray eyes shining
with a radiance which was not wholly from thence.  Then he
straightened his arm, I sprang to the ground, and as if to preclude
the possibility of any answer on my part, he turned sharply on his
heel, and began giving some orders to the groom.  I went on alone
into the house, feeling, I knew not and cared not to know why, that
the gloom had fled from my spirit, and that the last ride had not
after all been such a melancholy failure as it had bid fair at one
time to become.


III


In the hall I was met by the housekeeper, who informed me that,
owing to a misunderstanding about dates, a gentleman had arrived
whom Lucy had not expected at that time, and that in consequence my
room had been changed.  My things had been put into the East Room,--
the haunted room,--the room of the Closed Cabinet, as I remembered
with a certain sense of pleased importance, though without any
surprise.  It stood apart from the other guest-rooms, at the end of
the passage from which opened George and Lucy's private apartment;
and as it was consequently disagreeable to have a stranger there,
it was always used when the house was full for a member of the
family.  My father and mother had often slept there: there was a
little room next to it, though not communicating with it, which
served for a dressing-room.  Though I had never passed the night
there myself, I knew it as well as any room in the house.  I went
there at once, and found Lucy superintending the last arrangements
for my comfort.

She was full of apologies for the trouble she was giving me.  I
told her that the apologies were due to my maid and to her own
servants rather than to me; "and besides," I added, glancing round,
"I am distinctly a gainer by the change."

"You know, of course," she said, lightly, "that this is the haunted
room of the house, and that you have no right to be here?"

"I know it is the haunted room," I answered; "but why have I no
right to be here?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said.  "There is one of those tiresome
Mervyn traditions against allowing unmarried girls to sleep in this
room.  I believe two girls died in it a hundred and fifty years
ago, or something of that sort."

"But I should think that people, married or unmarried, must have
died in nearly every room in the house," I objected.

"Oh, yes, of course they have," said Lucy; "but once you come
across a bit of superstition in this family, it is of no use to ask
for reasons.  However, this particular bit is too ridiculous even
for George.  Owing to Mr. Leslie having come to-day, we must use
every room in the house: it is intolerable having a stranger here,
and you are the only relation staying with us.  I pointed all that
out to George, and he agreed that, under the circumstances, it
would be absurd not to put you here."

"I am quite agreeable," I answered; "and, indeed, I think I am
rather favored in having a room where the last recorded death
appears to have taken place a hundred and fifty years ago,
particularly as I should think that there can be scarcely anything
now left in it which was here then, except, of course, the
cabinet."

The room had, in fact, been entirely done up and refurnished by my
uncle, and was as bright and modern-looking an apartment as you
could wish to see.  It was large, and the walls were covered with
one of those white and gold papers which were fashionable thirty
years ago.  Opposite us, as we stood warming our backs before the
fire, was the bed--a large double one, hung with a pretty shade of
pale blue.  Material of the same color covered the comfortable
modern furniture, and hung from gilded cornices before the two
windows which pierced the side of the room on our left.  Between
them stood the toilet-table, all muslin, blue ribbons, and silver.
The carpet was a gray and blue Brussels one.  The whole effect was
cheerful, though I fear inartistic, and sadly out of keeping with
the character of the house.  The exception to these remarks was, as
I had observed, the famous closed cabinet, to which I have more
than once alluded.  It stood against the same wall of the room as
that in which the fireplace was, and on our right--that is, on that
side of the fireplace which was farthest from the windows.  As I
spoke, I turned to go and look at it, and Lucy followed me.  Many
an hour as a child had I passed in front of it, fingering the seven
carved brass handles, or rather buttons, which were ranged down its
center.  They all slid, twisted, or screwed with the greatest ease,
and apparently like many another ingeniously contrived lock; but
neither I nor any one else had ever yet succeeded in sliding,
twisting, or screwing them after such a fashion as to open the
closed doors of the cabinet.  No one yet had robbed them of their
secret since first it was placed there three hundred years ago by
the old lady and her faithful Italian.  It was a beautiful piece of
workmanship, was this tantalizing cabinet.  Carved out of some dark
foreign wood, the doors and panels were richly inlaid with lapis-
lazuli, ivory, and mother-of-pearl, among which were twisted
delicately chased threads of gold and silver.  Above the doors,
between them and the cornice, lay another mystery, fully as
tormenting as was the first.  In a smooth strip of wood about an
inch wide, and extending along the whole breadth of the cabinet,
was inlaid a fine pattern in gold wire.  This at first sight seemed
to consist of a legend or motto.  On looking closer, however,
though the pattern still looked as if it was formed out of
characters of the alphabet curiously entwined together, you found
yourself unable to fix upon any definite word, or even letter.  You
looked again and again, and the longer that you looked the more
certain became your belief that you were on the verge of discovery.
If you could approach the mysterious legend from a slightly
different point of view, or look at it from another distance, the
clew to the puzzle would be seized, and the words would stand forth
clear and legible in your sight.  But the clew never had been
discovered, and the motto, if there was one, remained unread.

For a few minutes we stood looking at the cabinet in silence, and
then Lucy gave a discontented little sigh.  "There's another
tiresome piece of superstition," she exclaimed; "by far the
handsomest piece of furniture in the house stuck away here in a
bedroom which is hardly ever used.  Again and again have I asked
George to let me have it moved downstairs, but he won't hear of
it."

"Was it not placed here by Dame Alice herself?" I inquired a little
reproachfully, for I felt that Lucy was not treating the cabinet
with the respect which it really deserved.

"Yes, so they say," she answered; and the tone of light contempt in
which she spoke was now pierced by a not unnatural pride in the
romantic mysteries of her husband's family.  "She placed it here,
and it is said, you know, that when the closed cabinet is opened,
and the mysterious motto is read, the curse will depart from the
Mervyn family."

"But why don't they break it open?" I asked, impatiently.  "I am
sure that I would never have remained all my life in a house with a
thing like that, and not found out in some way or another what was
inside it."

"Oh, but that would be quite fatal," answered she.  "The curse can
only be removed when the cabinet is opened as Dame Alice intended
it to be, in an orthodox fashion.  If you were to force it open,
that could never happen, and the curse would therefore remain for
ever."

"And what is the curse?" I asked, with very different feelings to
those with which I had timidly approached the same subject with
Alan.  Lucy was not a Mervyn, and not a person to inspire awe under
any circumstances.  My instincts were right again, for she turned
away with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"I have no idea," she said.  "George and Alan always look
portentously solemn and gloomy whenever one mentions the subject,
so I don't.  If you ask me for the truth, I believe it to be a pure
invention, devised by the Mervyns for the purpose of delicately
accounting for some of the disreputable actions of their ancestors.
For you know, Evie," she added, with a little laugh, "the less said
about the character of the family into which your aunt and I have
married the better."

The remark made me angry, I don't know why, and I answered stiffly,
that as far as I was acquainted with them, I at least saw nothing
to complain of.

"Oh, as regards the present generation, no,--except for that poor,
wretched Jack," acquiesced Lucy, with her usual imperturbable good-
humor.

"And as regards the next?" I suggested, smiling, and already
ashamed of my little temper.

"The next is perfect, of course,--poor dear boys."  She sighed as
she spoke, and I wondered whether she was really as unconscious as
she generally appeared to be of the strange dissatisfaction with
which her husband seemed to regard his children.  Anyhow the
mention of them had evidently changed her mood, and almost directly
afterwards, with the remark that she must go and look after her
guests, who had all arrived by now, she left me to myself.

For some minutes I sat by the bright fire, lost in aimless,
wandering thought, which began with Dame Alice and her cabinet, and
which ended somehow with Alan's face, as I had last seen it looking
up at me in front of the hall-door.  When I had reached that point,
I roused myself to decide that I had dreamt long enough, and that
it was quite time to go down to the guests and to tea.  I
accordingly donned my best teagown, arranged my hair, and proceeded
towards the drawing-room.  My way there lay through the great
central hall.  This apartment was approached from most of the
bedrooms in the house through a large, arched doorway at one end of
it, which communicated directly with the great staircase.  My
bedroom, however, which, as I have said, lay among the private
apartments of the house, opened into a passage which led into a
broad gallery, or upper chamber, stretching right across the end of
the hall.  From this you descended by means of a small staircase in
oak, whose carved balustrade, bending round the corner of the hall,
formed one of the prettiest features of the picturesque old room.
The barrier which ran along the front of the gallery was in solid
oak, and of such a height that, unless standing close up to it, you
could neither see nor be seen by the occupants of the room below.
On approaching this gallery I heard voices in the hall.  They were
George's and Alan's, evidently in hot discussion.  As I issued from
the passage, George was speaking, and his voice had that
exasperated tone in which an angry man tries to bring to a close an
argument in which he has lost his temper.  "For heaven's sake leave
it alone, Alan; I neither can nor will interfere.  We have enough
to bear from these cursed traditions as it is, without adding one
which has no foundation whatever to justify it--a mere contemptible
piece of superstition."

"No member of our family has a right to call any tradition
contemptible which is connected with that place, and you know it,"
answered Alan; and though he spoke low, his voice trembled with
some strong emotion.  A first impulse of hesitation which I had had
I checked, feeling that as I had heard so much it was fairer to go
on, and I advanced to the top of the staircase.  Alan stood by the
fireplace facing me, but far too occupied to see me.  His last
speech had seemingly aroused George to fury, for the latter turned
on him now with savage passion.

"Damn it all, Alan!" he cried, "can't you be quiet?  I will be
master in my own house.  Take care, I tell you; the curse may not
be quite fulfilled yet after all."

As George uttered these words, Alan lifted his eyes to him with a
glance of awful horror: his face turned ghastly white; his lips
trembled for a moment; and then he answered back with one half-
whispered word of supreme appeal--"George!"  There was a long-
drawn, unutterable anguish in his tone, and his voice, though
scarcely audible, penetrated to every corner of the room, and
seemed to hang quivering in the air around one after the sound had
ceased.  Then there was a terrible stillness.  Alan stood trembling
in every limb, incapable apparently of speech or action, and George
faced him, as silent and motionless as he was.  For an instant they
remained thus, while I looked breathlessly on.  Then George, with a
muttered imprecation, turned on his heel and left the room.  Alan
followed him as he went with dull lifeless eyes; and as the door
closed he breathed deeply, with a breath that was almost a groan.

Taking my courage in both hands, I now descended the stairs, and at
the sound of my footfall he glanced up, started, and then came
rapidly to meet me.

"Evie! you here," he said; "I did not notice you.  How long have
you been here?"  He was still quite white, and I noticed that he
panted for breath as he spoke.

"Not long," I answered, timidly, and rather spasmodically; "I only
heard a sentence or two.  You wanted George to do something about
some tradition or other,--and he was angry,--and he said something
about the curse."

While I spoke Alan kept his eyes fixed on mine, reading through
them, as I knew, into my mind.  When I had finished he turned his
gaze away satisfied, and answered very quietly, "Yes, that was it."
Then he went back to the fireplace, rested his arm against the high
mantelpiece above it, and leaning his forehead on his arm, remained
silently looking into the fire.  I could see by his bent brow and
compressed lips that he was engaged upon some earnest train of
thought or reasoning, and I stood waiting--worried, puzzled,
curious, but above all things, pitiful, and oh! longing so
intensely to help him if I could.  Presently he straightened
himself a little, and addressed me more in his ordinary tone of
voice, though without looking round.  "So I hear they have changed
your room."

"Yes," I answered.  And then, flushing rather, "Is that what you
and George have been quarreling about?"  I received no reply, and
taking this silence for assent, I went on deprecatingly, "Because
you know, if it was, I think you are rather foolish, Alan.  As I
understand, two girls are said to have died in that room more than
a hundred years ago, and for that reason there is a prejudice
against putting a girl to sleep there.  That is all.  Merely a
vague, unreasonable tradition."

Alan took a moment to answer.

"Yes," he said at length, speaking slowly, and as if replying to
arguments in his own mind as much as to those which I had uttered.
"Yes, it is nothing but a tradition after all, and that of the very
vaguest and most unsupported kind."

"Is there even any proof that girls have not slept there since
those two died?" I asked.  I think that the suggestion conveyed in
this question was a relief to him, for after a moment's pause, as
if to search his memory, he turned round.

"No," he answered, "I don't think that there is any such proof; and
I have no doubt that you are right, and that it is a mere prejudice
that makes me dislike your sleeping there."

"Then," I said, with a little assumption of sisterly superiority,
"I think George was right, and that you were wrong."

Alan smiled,--a smiled which sat oddly on the still pale face, and
in the wearied, worn-looking eyes.  "Very likely," he said; "I
daresay that I am superstitious.  I have had things to make me so."
Then coming nearer to me, and laying his hands on my shoulders, he
went on, smiling more brightly, "We are a queer-tempered, bad-
nerved race, we Mervyns, and you must not take us too seriously,
Evie.  The best thing that you can do with our odd ways is to
ignore them."

"Oh, I don't mind," I answered, laughing, too glad to have won him
back to even temporary brightness, "as long as you and George don't
come to blows over the question of where I am to sleep; which after
all is chiefly my concern,--and Lucy's."

"Well, perhaps it is," he replied, in the same tone; "and now be
off to the drawing-room, where Lucy is defending the tea-table
single-handed all this time."

I obeyed, and should have gone more cheerfully had I not turned at
the doorway to look back at him, and caught one glimpse of his face
as he sank heavily down into the large arm-chair by the fireside.

However, by dinner-time he appeared to have dismissed all painful
reflections from his mind, or to have buried them too deep for
discovery.  The people staying in the house were, in spite of my
sense of grievance at their arrival, individually pleasant, and
after dinner I discovered them to be socially well assorted.  For
the first hour or two, indeed, after their arrival, each glared at
the other across those triple lines of moral fortification behind
which every well-bred Briton takes refuge on appearing at a
friend's country-house.  But flags of truce were interchanged over
the soup, an armistice was agreed upon during the roast, and the
terms of a treaty of peace and amity were finally ratified under
the sympathetic influence of George's best champagne.  For the
achievement of this happy result Alan certainly worked hard, and
received therefor many a grateful glance from his sister-in-law.
He was more excited than I had ever seen him before, and talked
brilliantly and well--though perhaps not as exclusively to his
neighbors as they may have wished.  His eyes and his attention
seemed everywhere at once: one moment he was throwing remarks
across to some despairing couple opposite, and the next he was
breaking an embarrassing pause in the conversation by some rapid
sally of nonsense addressed to the table in general.  He formed a
great contrast to his brother, who sat gloomy and dejected, making
little or no response to the advances of the two dowagers between
whom he was placed.  After dinner the younger members of the party
spent the evening by Alan's initiative, and chiefly under his
direction, in a series of lively and rather riotous games such as
my nursery days had delighted in, and my schoolroom ones had
disdained.  It was a great and happy surprise to discover that,
grown up, I might again enjoy them.  I did so, hugely, and when
bedtime came all memories more serious than those of "musical
chairs" or "follow my leader" had vanished from my mind.  I think,
from Alan's glance as he handed me my bed candle, that the pleasure
and excitement must have improved my looks.

"I hope you have enjoyed your first evening of gayety, Evie," he
said.

"I have," I answered, with happy conviction; "and really I believe
that it is chiefly owing to you, Alan."  He met my smile by
another; but I think that there must have been something in his
look which recalled other thoughts, for as I started up the stairs
I threw a mischievous glance back at him and whispered, "Now for
the horrors of the haunted chamber."

He laughed rather loudly, and saying "Good-night, and good-luck,"
turned to attend to the other ladies.

His wishes were certainly fulfilled.  I got to bed quickly, and--as
soon as my happy excitement was sufficiently calmed to admit of it--
to sleep.  The only thing which disturbed me was the wind, which
blew fiercely and loudly all the earlier portion of the night, half
arousing me more than once.  I spoke of it at breakfast the next
morning; but the rest of the world seemed to have slept too heavily
to have been aware of it.


IV


The men went out shooting directly after breakfast, and we women
passed the day in orthodox country-house fashion,--working and
eating; walking and riding; driving and playing croquet; and above,
beyond, and through all things, chattering.  Beyond a passing sigh
while I was washing my hands, or a moment of mournful remembrance
while I changed my dress, I had scarcely time even to regret the
quiet happiness of the week that was past.  In the evening we
danced in the great hall.  I had two valses with Alan.  During a
pause for breath, I found that we were standing near the fireplace,
on the very spot where he and George had stood on the previous
afternoon.  The recollection made me involuntarily glance up at his
face.  It looked sad and worried, and the thought suddenly struck
me that his extravagant spirits of the night before, and even his
quieter, careful cheerfulness of to-night, had been but artificial
moods at best.  He turned, and finding my eyes fixed on him, at
once plunged into conversation, discussed the peculiarities of one
of the guests, good-humoredly enough, but with so much fun as to
make me laugh in spite of myself.  Then we danced again.  The
plaintive music, the smooth floor, and the partner were all alike
perfect, and I experienced that entire delight of physical
enjoyment which I believe nothing but a valse under such
circumstances can give.  When it was over I turned to Alan, and
exclaimed with impulsive appeal, "Oh, I am so happy,--you must be
happy too!"  He smiled rather uncertainly, and answered, "Don't
bother yourself about me, Evie, I am all right.  I told you that we
Mervyns had bad nerves; and I am rather tired.  That's all."  I was
too passionately determined just then upon happiness, and his was
too necessary to mine for me not to believe that he was speaking
the truth.

We kept up the dancing till Lucy discovered with a shock that
midnight had struck, and that Sunday had begun, and we were all
sent off to bed.  I was not long in making my nightly preparations,
and had scarcely inserted myself between the sheets when, with a
few long moans, the wind began again, more violently even than the
night before.  It had been a calm, fine day, and I made wise
reflections as I listened upon the uncertainty of the north-country
climate.  What a tempest it was!  How it moaned, and howled, and
shrieked!  Where had I heard the superstition which now came to my
mind, that borne upon the wind come the spirits of the drowned,
wailing and crying for the sepulture which had been denied them?
But there were other sounds in that wind, too.  Evil, murderous
thoughts, perhaps, which had never taken body in deeds, but which,
caught up in the air, now hurled themselves in impotent fury
through the world.  How I wished the wind would stop.  It seemed
full of horrible fancies, and it kept knocking them into my head,
and it wouldn't leave off.  Fancies, or memories--which?--and my
mind reverted with a flash to the fearful thoughts which had
haunted it the day before in Dame Alice's tower.  It was dark now.
Those ghastly intangible shapes must have taken full form and
color, peopling the old ruin with their ageless hideousness.  And
the storm had found them there and borne them along with it as it
blew through the creviced walls.  That was why the wind's sound
struck so strangely on my brain.  Ah! I could hear them now, those
still living memories of dead horror.  Through the window crannies
they came shrieking and wailing.  They filled the chimney with
spirit sobs, and now they were pressing on, crowding through the
room,--eager, eager to reach their prey.  Nearer they came;--nearer
still!  They were round my bed now!  Through my closed eyelids I
could almost see their dreadful shapes; in all my quivering flesh I
felt their terrors as they bent over me,--lower, lower. . . .

With a start I aroused myself and sat up.  Was I asleep or awake?
I was trembling all over still, and it required the greatest effort
of courage I had ever made to enable me to spring from my bed and
strike a light.  What a state my nerves or my digestion must be in!
From my childhood the wind had always affected me strangely, and I
blamed myself now for allowing my imagination to run away with me
at the first.  I found a novel which I had brought up to my room
with me, one of the modern, Chinese-American school, where human
nature is analyzed with the patient, industrious indifference of
the true Celestial.  I took the book to bed with me, and soon under
its soothing influences fell asleep.  I dreamt a good deal,--
nightmares, the definite recollection of which, as is so often the
case, vanished from my mind as soon as I awoke, leaving only a
vague impression of horror.  They had been connected with the wind,
of that alone I was conscious, and I went down to breakfast,
maliciously hoping that others' rest had been as much disturbed as
my own.

To my surprise, however, I found that I had again been the only
sufferer.  Indeed, so impressed were most of the party with the
quiet in which their night had been passed, that they boldly
declared my storm to have been the creature of my dreams.  There is
nothing more annoying when you feel yourself aggrieved by fate than
to be told that your troubles have originated in your own fancy; so
I dropped the subject.  Though the discussion spread for a few
minutes round the whole table, Alan took no part in it.  Neither
did George, except for what I thought a rather unnecessarily rough
expression of his disbelief in the cause of my night's disturbance.
As we rose from breakfast I saw Alan glance towards his brother,
and make a movement, evidently with the purpose of speaking to him.
Whether or not George was aware of the look or action, I cannot
say; but at the same moment he made rapidly across the room to
where one of his principal guests was standing, and at once engaged
him in conversation.  So earnestly and so volubly was he borne on,
that they were still talking together when we ladies appeared again
some minutes later, prepared for our walk to church.  That was not
the only occasion during the day on which I witnessed as I thought
the same by-play going on.  Again and again Alan appeared to be
making efforts to engage George in private conversation, and again
and again the latter successfully eluded him.

The church was about a mile away from the house, and as Lucy did
not like having the carriages out on a Sunday, one service a week
as a rule contented the household.  In the afternoon we took the
usual Sunday walk.  On returning from it, I had just taken off my
outdoor things, and was issuing from my bedroom, when I found
myself face to face with Alan.  He was coming out of George's
study, and had succeeded apparently in obtaining that interview for
which he had been all day seeking.  One glance at his face told me
what its nature had been.  We paused opposite each other for a
moment, and he looked at me earnestly.

"Are you going to church?" he inquired at last, abruptly.

"No," I answered, with some surprise.  "I did not know that any one
was going this evening."

"Will you come with me?"

"Yes, certainly; if you don't mind waiting a moment for me to put
my things on."

"There's plenty of time," he answered; "meet me in the hall."

A few minutes later we started.

It was a calm, cloudless night, and although the moon was not yet
half-full, and already past her meridian, she filled the clear air
with gentle light.  Not a word broke our silence.  Alan walked
hurriedly, looking straight before him, his head upright, his lips
twitching nervously, while every now and then a half-uttered moan
escaped unconsciously from between them.  At last I could bear it
no longer, and burst forth with the first remark which occurred to
me.  We were passing a big, black, queer-shaped stone standing in
rather a lonely uncultivated spot at one end of the garden.  It was
an old acquaintance of my childhood; but my thoughts had been
turned towards it now from the fact that I could see it from my
bedroom window, and had been struck afresh by its uncouth,
incongruous appearance.

"Isn't there some story connected with that stone?" I asked.  "I
remember that we always called it the Dead Stone as children."

Alan cast a quick, sidelong glance in that direction, and his brows
contracted in an irritable frown.  "I don't know," he answered
shortly; "they say that there is a woman buried beneath it, I
believe."

"A woman buried there!" I exclaimed in surprise; "but who?"

"How should I know?  They know nothing whatever about it.  The
place is full of stupid traditions of that kind."  Then, looking
suspiciously round at me, "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know; it was just something to say," I answered
plaintively.  His strange mood so worked upon my nerves, that it
was all that I could do to restrain my tears.  I think that my tone
struck his conscience, for he made a few feverish attempts at
conversation after that.  But they were so entirely abortive that
he soon abandoned the effort, and we finished our walk to church as
speechlessly as we had begun it.

The service was bright, and the sermon perhaps a little
commonplace, but sensible as it seemed to me in matter, and
adequate in style.  The peaceful evening hymn which followed, the
short solemn pause of silent prayer at the end, soothed and
refreshed my spirit.  A hasty glance at my companion's face as he
stood waiting for me in the porch, with the full light from the
church streaming round him, assured me that the same influence had
touched him too.  Haggard and sad he still looked, it is true; but
his features were composed, and the expression of actual pain had
left his eyes.

Silent as we had come we started homeward through the waning
moonlight, but this silence was of a very different nature to the
other, and after a minute or two I did not hesitate to break it.

"It was a good sermon?" I observed, interrogatively.

"Yes," he assented, "I suppose you would call it so; but I confess
that I should have found the text more impressive without its
exposition."

"Poor man!"

"But don't you often find it so?" he asked.  "Do you not often
wish, to take this evening's instance, that clergymen would infuse
themselves with something of St. Paul's own spirit?  Then perhaps
they would not water all the strength out of his words in their
efforts to explain them."

"That is rather a large demand to make upon them, is it not?"

"Is it?" he questioned.  "I don't ask them to be inspired saints.
I don't expect St. Paul's breadth and depth of thought.  But could
they not have something of his vigorous completeness, something of
the intensity of his feeling and belief?  Look at the text of to-
night.  Did not the preacher's examples and applications take
something from its awful unqualified strength?"

"Awful!" I exclaimed, in surprise; "that is hardly the expression I
should have used in connection with those words."

"Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know.  The text is very beautiful, of course, and at
times, when people are tiresome and one ought to be nice to them,
it is very difficult to act up to.  But--"

"But you think that 'awful' is rather a big adjective to use for so
small a duty," interposed Alan, and the moonlight showed the
flicker of a smile upon his face.  Then he continued, gravely, "I
doubt whether you yourself realize the full import of the words.
The precept of charity is not merely a code of rules by which to
order our conduct to our neighbors; it is the picture of a
spiritual condition, and such, where it exists in us, must by its
very nature be roused into activity by anything that affects us.
So with this particular injunction, every circumstance in our lives
is a challenge to it, and in presence of all alike it admits of one
attitude only: 'Beareth all things, endureth all things.'  I hope
it will be long before that 'all' sticks in your gizzard, Evie,--
before you come face to face with things which nature cannot bear,
and yet which must be borne."

He stopped, his voice quivering; and then after a pause went on
again more calmly, "And throughout it is the same.  Moral precepts
everywhere, which will admit of no compromise, no limitation, and
yet which are at war with our strongest passions.  If one could
only interpose some 'unless,' some 'except,' even an 'until,' which
should be short of the grave.  But we cannot.  The law is infinite,
universal, eternal; there is no escape, no repose.  Resist, strive,
endure, that is the recurring cry; that is existence."

"And peace," I exclaimed, appealingly.  "Where is there room for
peace, if that be true?"

He sighed for answer, and then in a changed and lower tone added,
"However thickly the clouds mass, however vainly we search for a
coming glimmer in their midst, we never doubt that the sky IS still
beyond--beyond and around us, infinite and infinitely restful."

He raised his eyes as he spoke, and mine followed his.  We had
entered the wooded glen.  Through the scanty autumn foliage we
could see the stars shining faintly in the dim moonlight, and
beyond them the deep illimitable blue.  A dark world it looked,
distant and mysterious, and my young spirit rebelled at the
consolation offered me.

"Peace seems a long way off," I whispered.

"It is for me," he answered, gently; "not necessarily for you."

"Oh, but I am worse and weaker than you are.  If life is to be all
warfare, I must be beaten.  I cannot always be fighting."

"Cannot you?  Evie, what I have been saying is true of every moral
law worth having, of every ideal of life worth striving after, that
men have yet conceived.  But it is only half the truth of
Christianity.  You know that.  We must strive, for the promise is
to him that overcometh; but though our aim be even higher than is
that of others, we cannot in the end fail to reach it.  The victory
of the Cross is ours.  You know that?  You believe that?"

"Yes" I answered, softly, too surprised to say more.  In speaking
of religion he, as a rule, showed to the full the reserve which is
characteristic of his class and country, and this sudden outburst
was in itself astonishing; but the eager anxiety with which he
emphasized the last words of appeal impressed and bewildered me
still further.  We walked on for some minutes in silence.  Then
suddenly Alan stopped, and turning, took my hand in his.  In what
direction his mind had been working in the interval I could not
divine; but the moment he began to speak I felt that he was now for
the first time giving utterance to what had been really at the
bottom of his thoughts the whole evening.  Even in that dim light I
could see the anxious look upon his face, and his voice shook with
restrained emotion.

"Evie," he said, "have you ever thought of the world in which our
spirits dwell, as our bodies do in this one of matter and sense,
and of how it may be peopled?  I know," he went on hurriedly, "that
it is the fashion nowadays to laugh at such ideas.  I envy those
who have never had cause to be convinced of their reality, and I
hope that you may long remain among the number.  But should that
not be so, should those unseen influences ever touch your life, I
want you to remember then, that, as one of the race for whom Christ
died, you have as high a citizenship in that spirit land as any
creature there: that you are your own soul's warden, and that
neither principalities nor powers can rob you of that your
birthright."

I think my face must have shown my bewilderment, for he dropped my
hand, and walked on with an impatient sigh.

"You don't understand me.  Why should you?  I dare-say that I am
talking nonsense--only--only--"

His voice expressed such an agony of doubt and hesitation that I
burst out--

"I think that I do understand you a little, Alan.  You mean that
even from unearthly enemies there is nothing that we need really
fear--at least, that is, I suppose, nothing worse than death.  But
that is surely enough!"

"Why should you fear death?" he said, abruptly; "your soul will
live."

"Yes, I know that, but still--"  I stopped with a shudder.

"What is life after all but one long death?" he went on, with
sudden violence.  "Our pleasures, our hopes, our youth are all
dying; ambition dies, and even desire at last; our passions and
tastes will die, or will live only to mourn their dead opportunity.
The happiness of love dies with the loss of the loved, and, worst
of all, love itself grows old in our hearts and dies.  Why should
we shrink only from the one death which can free us from all the
others?"

"It is not true, Alan!" I cried, hotly.  "What you say is not true.
There are many things even here which are living and shall live;
and if it were otherwise, in everything, life that ends in death is
better than no life at all."

"You say that," he answered, "because for you these things are yet
living.  To leave life now, therefore, while it is full and sweet,
untainted by death, surely that is not a fate to fear.  Better, a
thousand times better, to see the cord cut with one blow while it
is still whole and strong, and to launch out straight into the
great ocean, than to sit watching through the slow years, while
strand after strand, thread by thread, loosens and unwinds itself,--
each with its own separate pang breaking, bringing the bitterness
of death without its release.

His manner, the despairing ring in his voice, alarmed me even more
than his words.  Clinging to his arm with both hands, while the
tears sprang to my eyes--

"Alan," I cried, "don't say such things,--don't talk like that.
You are making me miserable."

He stopped short at my words, with bent head, his features hidden
in the shadow thus cast upon them,--nothing in his motionless form
to show what was passing within him.  Then he looked up, and turned
his face to the moonlight and to me, laying his hand on one of
mine.

"Don't be afraid," he said; "it is all right, my little David.  You
have driven the evil spirit away."  And lifting my hand, he pressed
it gently to his lips.  Then drawing it within his arm, he went on,
as he walked forward, "And even when it was on me at its worst, I
was not meditating suicide, as I think you imagine.  I am a very
average specimen of humanity,--neither brave enough to defy the
possibilities of eternity nor cowardly enough to shirk those of
time.  No, I was only trying idiotically to persuade a girl of
eighteen that life was not worth living; and more futilely still,
myself, that I did not wish her to live.  I am afraid, that in my
mind philosophy and fact have but small connection with each other;
and though my theorizing for your welfare may be true enough, yet,--
I cannot help it, Evie,--it would go terribly hard with me if
anything were to happen to you."

His voice trembled as he finished.  My fear had gone with his
return to his natural manner, but my bewilderment remained.

"Why SHOULD there anything happen to me?" I asked.

"That is just it," he answered, after a pause, looking straight in
front of him and drawing his hand wearily over his brow.  "I know
of no reason why there should."  Then giving a sigh, as if finally
to dismiss from his mind a worrying subject--"I have acted for the
best," he said, "and may God forgive me if I have done wrong."

There was a little silence after that, and then he began to talk
again, steadily and quietly.  The subject was deep enough still, as
deep as any that we had touched upon, but both voice and sentiment
were calm, bringing peace to my spirit, and soon making me forget
the wonder and fear of a few moments before.  Very openly did he
talk as we passed on across the long trunk shadows and through the
glades of silver light; and I saw farther then into the most sacred
recesses of his soul than I have ever done before or since.

When we reached home the moon had already set; but some of her
beams seemed to have been left behind within my heart, so pure and
peaceful was the light which filled it.

The same feeling continued with me all through that evening.  After
dinner some of the party played and sang.  As it was Sunday, and
Lucy was rigid in her views, the music was of a sacred character.
I sat in a low armchair in a dark corner of the room, my mind too
dreamy to think, and too passive to dream.  I hardly interchanged
three words with Alan, who remained in a still darker spot,
invisible and silent the whole time.  Only as we left the room to
go to bed, I heard Lucy ask him if he had a headache.  I did not
hear his answer, and before I could see his face he had turned back
again into the drawing-room.


V


It was early, and when first I got to my room I felt little
inclined for sleep.  I wandered to the window, and drawing aside
the curtains, looked out upon the still, starlit sky.  At least I
should rest quiet to-night.  The air was very clear, and the sky
seemed full of stars.  As I stood there scraps of schoolroom
learning came back to my mind.  That the stars were all suns,
surrounded perhaps in their turn by worlds as large or larger than
our own.  Worlds beyond worlds, and others farther still, which no
man might number or even descry.  And about the distance of those
wonderful suns too,--that one, for instance, at which I was
looking,--what was it that I had been told?  That our world was not
yet peopled, perhaps not yet formed, when the actual spot of light
which now struck my sight first started from the star's surface!
While it flashed along, itself the very symbol of speed, the whole
of mankind had had time to be born, and live, and die!

My gaze dropped, and fell upon the dim, half-seen outline of the
Dead Stone.  That woman too.  While that one ray speeded towards me
her life had been lived and ended, and her body had rotted away
into the ground.  How close together we all were!  Her life and
mine; our joys, sufferings, deaths--all crowded together into the
space of one flash of light!  And yet there was nothing there but a
horrible skeleton of dead bones, while I--!

I stopped with a shudder, and turned back into the room.  I wished
that Alan had not told me what lay under the stone; I wished that I
had never asked him.  It was a ghastly thing to think about, and
spoilt all the beauty of the night to me.

I got quickly into bed, and soon dropped asleep.  I do not know how
long I slept; but when I woke it was with the consciousness again
of that haunting wind.

It was worse than ever.  The world seemed filled with its din.
Hurling itself passionately against the house, it gathered strength
with every gust, till it seemed as if the old walls must soon crash
in ruins round me.  Gust upon gust; blow upon blow; swelling,
lessening, never ceasing.  The noise surrounded me; it penetrated
my inmost being, as all-pervading as silence itself, and wrapping
me in a solitude even more complete.  There was nothing left in the
world but the wind and I, and then a weird intangible doubt as to
my own identity seized me.  The wind was real, the wind with its
echoes of passion and misery from the eternal abyss; but was there
anything else?  What was, and what had been, the world of sense and
of knowledge, my own consciousness, my very self,--all seemed
gathered up and swept away in that one sole-existent fury of sound.

I pulled myself together, and getting out of bed, groped my way to
the table which stood between the bed and the fireplace.  The
matches were there, and my half-burnt candle, which I lit.  The
wind penetrating the rattling casement circled round the room, and
the flame of my candle bent and flared and shrank before it,
throwing strange moving lights and shadows in every corner.  I
stood there shivering in my thin nightdress, half stunned by the
cataract of noise beating on the walls outside, and peered
anxiously around me.  The room was not the same.  Something was
changed.  What was it?  How the shadows leaped and fell, dancing in
time to the wind's music.  Everything seemed alive.  I turned my
head slowly to the left, and then to the right, and then round--and
stopped with a sudden gasp of fear.

The cabinet was open!

I looked away, and back, and again.  There was no room for doubt.
The doors were thrown back, and were waving gently in the draught.
One of the lower drawers was pulled out, and in a sudden flare of
the candle-light I could see something glistening at its bottom.
Then the light dwindled again, the candle was almost out, and the
cabinet showed a dim black mass in the darkness.  Up and down went
the flame, and each returning brightness flashed back at me from
the thing inside the drawer.  I stood fascinated, my eyes fixed
upon the spot, waiting for the fitful glitter as it came and went.
What was there there?  I knew that I must go and see, but I did not
want to.  If only the cabinet would close again before I looked,
before I knew what was inside it.  But it stood open, and the
glittering thing lay there, dragging me towards itself.

Slowly at last, and with infinite reluctance, I went.  The drawer
was lined with soft white satin, and upon the satin lay a long,
slender knife, hilted and sheathed in antique silver, richly set
with jewels.  I took it up and turned back to the table to examine
it.  It was Italian in workmanship, and I knew that the carving and
chasing of the silver were more precious even than the jewels which
studded it, and whose rough setting gave so firm a grasp to my
hand.  Was the blade as fair as the covering, I wondered?  A little
resistance at first, and then the long thin steel slid easily out.
Sharp, and bright, and finely tempered it looked with its deadly,
tapering point.  Stains, dull and irregular, crossed the fine
engraving on its surface and dimmed its polish.  I bent to examine
them more closely, and as I did so a sudden stronger gust of wind
blew out the candle.  I shuddered a little at the darkness and
looked up.  But it did not matter: the curtain was still drawn away
from the window opposite my bedside, and through it a flood of
moonlight was pouring in upon floor and bed.

Putting the sheath down upon the table, I walked to the window to
examine the knife more closely by that pale light.  How gloriously
brilliant it was! darkened now and again by the quickly passing
shadows of wind-driven clouds.  At least so I thought, and I
glanced up and out of the window to see them.  A black world met my
gaze.  Neither moon was there nor moonlight: the broad silver beam
in which I stood stretched no farther than the window.  I caught my
breath, and my limbs stiffened as I looked.  No moon, no cloud, no
movement in the clear, calm, starlit sky; while still the ghastly
light stretched round me, and the spectral shadows drifted across
the room.

But it was not all dark outside: one spot caught my eye, bright
with a livid unearthly brightness--the Dead Stone shining out into
the night like an ember from hell's furnace!  There was a horrid
semblance of life in the light,--a palpitating, breathing glow,--
and my pulses beat in time to it, till I seemed to be drawing it
into my veins.  It had no warmth, and as it entered my blood my
heart grew colder, and my muscles more rigid.  My fingers clutched
the dagger-hilt till its jeweled roughness pressed painfully into
my palm.  All the strength of my strained powers seemed gathered in
that grasp, and the more tightly I held the more vividly did the
rock gleam and quiver with infernal life.  The dead woman!  The
dead woman!  What had I to do with her?  Let her bones rest in the
filth of their own decay,--out there under the accursed stone.

And now the noise of the wind lessens in my ears.  Let it go on,--
yes, louder and wilder, drowning my senses in its tumult.  What is
there with me in the room--the great empty room behind me?
Nothing; only the cabinet with its waving doors.  They are waving
to and fro, to and fro--I know it.  But there is no other life in
the room but that--no, no; no other life in the room but that.

Oh! don't let the wind stop.  I can't hear anything while it goes
on;--but if it stops!  Ah! the gusts grow weaker, struggling,
forced into rest.  Now--now--they have ceased.

Silence!

A fearful pause.

What is that that I hear?  There, behind me in the room?

Do I hear it?  Is there anything?

The throbbing of my own blood in my ears.

No, no!  There is something as well,--something outside myself.

What is it?

Low; heavy; regular.

God! it is--it is the breath of a living creature!  A living
creature! here--close to me--alone with me!

The numbness of terror conquers me.  I can neither stir nor speak.
Only my whole soul strains at my ears to listen.

Where does the sound come from?

Close behind me--close.

Ah-h!

It is from there--from the bed where I was lying a moment ago! . . .

I try to shriek, but the sound gurgles unuttered in my throat.  I
clutch the stone mullions of the window, and press myself against
the panes.  If I could but throw myself out!--anywhere, anywhere--
away from that dreadful sound--from that thing close behind me in
the bed!  But I can do nothing.  The wind has broken forth again
now; the storm crashes round me.  And still through it all I hear
the ghastly breathing--even, low, scarcely audible--but I hear it.
I shall hear it as long as I live! . . .

Is the thing moving?

Is it coming nearer?

No, no; not that,--that was but a fancy to freeze me dead.

But to stand here, with that creature behind me, listening, waiting
for the warm horror of its breath to touch my neck!  Ah! I cannot.
I will look.  I will see it face to face.  Better any agony than
this one.

Slowly, with held breath, and eyes aching in their stretched
fixity, I turn.  There it is!  Clear in the moonlight I see the
monstrous form within the bed,--the dark coverlet rises and falls
with its heaving breath. . . .  Ah! heaven have mercy!  Is there
none to help, none to save me from this awful presence? . . .

And the knife-hilt draws my fingers round it, while my flesh
quivers, and my soul grows sick with loathing.  The wind howls, the
shadows chase through the room, hunting with fearful darkness more
fearful light; and I stand looking, . . . listening. . . .

     .        .        .        .        .        .

I must not stand here for ever; I must be up and doing.  What a
noise the wind makes, and the rattling of the windows and the
doors.  If he sleeps through this he will sleep through all.
Noiselessly my bare feet tread the carpet as I approach the bed;
noiselessly my left arm raises the heavy curtain.  What does it
hide?  Do I not know?  The bestial features, half-hidden in coarse,
black growth; the muddy, blotched skin, oozing foulness at every
pore.  Oh, I know them too well!  What a monster it is!  How the
rank breath gurgles through his throat in his drunken sleep.  The
eyes are closed now, but I know them too; their odious leer, and
the venomous hatred with which they can glare at me from their
bloodshot setting.  But the time has come at last.  Never again
shall their passion insult me, or their fury degrade me in slavish
terror.  There he lies; there at my mercy, the man who for fifteen
years has made God's light a shame to me, and His darkness a
terror.  The end has come at last,--the only end possible, the only
end left me.  On his head be the blood and the crime!  God
almighty, I am not guilty!  The end has come; I can bear my burden
no farther.

"Beareth all things, endureth all things."

Where have I heard those words?  They are in the Bible; the precept
of charity.  What has that to do with me?  Nothing.  I heard the
words in my dreams somewhere.  A white-faced man said them, a
white-faced man with pure eyes.  To me?--no, no, not to me; to a
girl it was--an ignorant, innocent girl, and she accepted them as
an eternal, unqualified law.  Let her bear but half that I have
borne, let her endure but one-tenth of what I have endured, and
then if she dare let her speak in judgment against me.

Softly now; I must draw the heavy coverings away, and bare his
breast to the stroke,--the stroke that shall free me.  I know well
where to plant it; I have learned that from the old lady's Italian.
Did he guess why I questioned him so closely of the surest,
straightest road to a man's heart?  No matter, he cannot hinder me
now.  Gently!  Ah! I have disturbed him.  He moves, mutters in his
sleep, throws out his arm.  Down; down; crouching behind the
curtain.  Heavens! if he wakes and sees me, he will kill me.  No!
alas! if only he would.  I would kiss the hand that he struck me
with; but he is too cruel for that.  He will imagine some new and
more hellish torture to punish me with.  But the knife!  I have got
that; he shall never touch me living again. . . .  He is quieter
now.  I hear his breath, hoarse and heavy as a wild beast's
panting.  He draws it more evenly, more deeply.  The danger is
past.  Thank God!

God!  What have I to do with Him?  A God of Judgment.  Ha, ha!
Hell cannot frighten me; it will not be worse than earth.  Only he
will be there too.  Not with him, not with him,--send me to the
lowest circle of torment, but not with him.  There, his breast is
bare now.  Is the knife sharp?  Yes; and the blade is strong
enough.  Now let me strike--myself afterwards if need be, but him
first.  Is it the devil that prompts me?  Then the devil is my
friend, and the friend of the world.  No.  God is a God of love.
He cannot wish such a man to live.  He made him, but the devil
spoilt him; and let the devil have his handiwork back again.  It
has served him long enough here; and its last service shall be to
make me a murderess.

How the moonlight gleams from the blade as my arm swings up and
back: with how close a grasp the rough hilt draws my fingers round
it.  Now.

A murderess?

Wait a moment.  A moment may make me free; a moment may make me--
that!

Wait.

Hand and dagger droop again.  His life has dragged its slime over
my soul; shall his death poison it with a fouler corruption still?

"My own soul's warden."

What was that?  Dream memories again.

"Resist, strive, endure."

Easy words.  What do they mean for me?  To creep back now to bed by
his side, and to begin living again to-morrow the life which I have
lived to-day?  No, no; I cannot do it.  Heaven cannot ask it of me.
And there is no other way.  That or this; this or that.  Which
shall it be?  Ah! I have striven, God knows.  I have endured so
long that I hoped even to do so to the end.  But to-day!  Oh! the
torment and the outrage: body and soul still bear the stain of it.
I thought that my heart and my pride were dead together, but he has
stung them again into aching, shameful life.  Yesterday I might
have spared him, to save my own cold soul from sin; but now it is
cold no longer.  It burns, it burns and the fire must be slaked.

Ay, I will kill him, and have done with it.  Why should I pause any
longer?  The knife drags my hand back for the stroke.  Only the
dream surrounds me; the pure man's face is there, white,
beseeching, and God's voice rings in my heart--

"To him that overcometh."

But I cannot overcome.  Evil has governed my life, and evil is
stronger than I am.  What shall I do? what shall I do?  God, if
Thou art stronger than evil, fight for me.

"The victory of the Cross is ours."

Yes, I know it.  It is true, it is true.  But the knife?  I cannot
loose the knife if I would.  How to wrench it from my own hold?
Thou God of Victory be with me!  Christ help me!

I seize the blade with my left hand; the two-edged steel slides
through my grasp; a sharp pain in fingers and palm; and then--
nothing. . . .

     .        .        .        .        .        .


VI


When I again became conscious, I found myself half kneeling, half
lying across the bed, my arms stretched out in front of me, my face
buried in the clothes.  Body and mind were alike numbed.  A
smarting pain in my left hand, a dreadful terror in my heart, were
at first the only sensations of which I was aware.  Slowly, very
slowly, sense and memory returned to me, and with them a more vivid
intensity of mental anguish, as detail by detail I recalled the
weird horror of the night.  Had it really happened,--was the thing
still there,--or was it all a ghastly nightmare?  It was some
minutes before I dared either to move or look up, and then
fearfully I raised my head.  Before me stretched the smooth white
coverlet, faintly bright with yellow sunshine.  Weak and giddy, I
struggled to my feet, and, steadying myself against the foot of the
bed, with clenched teeth and bursting heart, forced my gaze round
to the other end.  The pillow lay there, bare and unmarked save for
what might well have been the pressure of my own head.  My breath
came more freely, and I turned to the window.  The sun had just
risen, the golden tree-tops were touched with light, faint threads
of mist hung here and there across the sky, and the twittering of
birds sounded clearly through the crisp autumn air.

It was nothing but a bad dream then, after all, this horror which
still hung round me, leaving me incapable of effort, almost of
thought.  I remembered the cabinet, and looked swiftly in that
direction.  There it stood, closed as usual, closed as it had been
the evening before, as it had been for the last three hundred
years, except in my dreams.

Yes, that was it; nothing but a dream,--a gruesome, haunting dream.
With an instinct of wiping out the dreadful memory, I raised my
hand wearily to my forehead.  As I did so, I became conscious again
of how it hurt me.  I looked at it.  It was covered with half-dried
blood, and two straight clean cuts appeared, one across the palm
and one across the inside of the fingers just below the knuckles.
I looked again towards the bed, and, in the place where my hand had
rested during my faint, a small patch of red blood was to be seen.

Then it was true!  Then it had all happened!  With a low shuddering
sob I threw myself down upon the couch at the foot of the bed, and
lay there for some minutes, my limbs trembling, and my soul
shrinking within me.  A mist of evil, fearful and loathsome, had
descended upon my girlhood's life, sullying its ignorant innocence,
saddening its brightness, as I felt, for ever.  I lay there till my
teeth began to chatter, and I realized that I was bitterly cold.
To return to that accursed bed was impossible, so I pulled a rug
which hung at one end of the sofa over me, and, utterly worn out in
mind and body, fell uneasily asleep.

I was roused by the entrance of my maid.  I stopped her
exclamations and questions by shortly stating that I had had a bad
night, had been unable to rest in bed, and had had an accident with
my hand,--without further specifying of what description.

"I didn't know that you had been feeling unwell when you went to
bed last night, miss," she said.

"When I went to bed last night?  Unwell?  What do you mean?"

"Only Mr. Alan has just asked me to let him know how you find
yourself this morning," she answered.

Then he expected something, dreaded something.  Ah! why had he
yielded and allowed me to sleep here, I asked myself bitterly, as
the incidents of the day before flashed through my mind.

"Tell him," I said, "what I have told you; and say that I wish to
speak to him directly after breakfast."  I could not confide my
story to any one else, but speak of it I must to some one or go
mad.

Every moment passed in that place was an added misery.  Much to my
maid's surprise I said that I would dress in her room--the little
one which, as I have said, was close to my own.  I felt better
there; but my utter fatigue and my wounded hand combined to make my
toilet slow, and I found that most of the party had finished
breakfast when I reached the dining-room.  I was glad of this, for
even as it was I found it difficult enough to give coherent answers
to the questions which my white face and bandaged hand called
forth.  Alan helped me by giving a resolute turn to the
conversation.  Once only our eyes met across the table.  He looked
as haggard and worn as I did: I learned afterwards that he had
passed most of that fearful night pacing the passage outside my
door, though he listened in vain for any indication of what was
going on within the room.

The moment I had finished breakfast he was by my side.  "You wish
to speak to me? now?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yes; now," I answered, breathlessly, and without raising my eyes
from the ground.

"Where shall we go?  Outside?  It is a bright day, and we shall be
freer there from interruption."

I assented; and then looking up at him appealingly, "Will you fetch
my things for me?  I CANNOT go up to that room again."

He seemed to understand me, nodded, and was gone.  A few minutes
later we left the house, and made our way in silence towards a
grassy spot on the side of the ravine where we had already indulged
in more than one friendly talk.

As we went, the Dead Stone came for a moment into view.  I seized
Alan's arm in an almost convulsive grip.  "Tell me," I whispered,--
"you refused to tell me yesterday, but you must now,--who is buried
beneath that rock?"

There was now neither timidity nor embarrassment in my tone.  The
horrors of that house had become part of my life for ever, and
their secrets were mine by right.  Alan, after a moment's pause, a
questioning glance at my face, tacitly accepted the position.

"I told you the truth," he replied, "when I said that I did not
know; but I can tell you the popular tradition on the subject, if
you like.  They say that Margaret Mervyn, the woman who murdered
her husband, is buried there, and that Dame Alice had the rock
placed over her grave,--whether to save it from insult or to mark
it out for opprobrium, I never heard.  The poor people about here
do not care to go near the place after dark, and among the older
ones there are still some, I believe, who spit at the suicide's
grave as they pass."

"Poor woman, poor woman!" I exclaimed, in a burst of uncontrollable
compassion.

"Why should you pity her?" demanded he with sudden sternness; "she
WAS a suicide and a murderess too.  It would be better for the
public conscience, I believe, if such were still hung in chains, or
buried at the cross-roads with a stake through their bodies."

"Hush, Alan, hush!" I cried hysterically, as I clung to him; "don't
speak harshly of her: you do not know, you cannot tell, how
terribly she was tempted.  How can you?"

He looked down at me in bewildered surprise.  "How can I?" he
repeated.  "You speak as if YOU could.  What do you mean?"

"Don't ask me," I answered, turning towards him my face,--white,
quivering, tear-stained.  "Don't ask me.  Not now.  You must answer
my questions first, and after that I will tell you.  But I cannot
talk of it now.  Not yet."

We had reached the place we were in search of as I spoke.  There,
where the spreading roots of a great beech-tree formed a natural
resting place upon the steep side of the ravine, I took my seat,
and Alan stretched himself upon the grass beside me.  Then looking
up at me--"I do not know what questions you would ask," he said,
quietly; "but I will answer them, whatever they may be."

But I did not ask them yet.  I sat instead with my hands clasping
my knee, looking opposite at the glory of harmonious color, or down
the glen at the vista of far-off, dream-like loveliness, on which
it opened out.  The yellow autumn sunshine made everything golden,
the fresh autumn breezes filled the air with life; but to me a
loathsome shadow seemed to rest upon all, and to stretch itself out
far beyond where my eyes could reach, befouling the beauty of the
whole wide world.  At last I spoke.  "You have known of it all, I
suppose; of this curse that is in the world,--sin and suffering,
and what such words mean."

"Yes," he said, looking at me with wondering pity, "I am afraid
so."

"But have you known them as they are known to some,--agonized,
hopeless suffering, and sin that is all but inevitable?  Some time
in your life probably you have realized that such things are: it
has come home to you, and to every one else, no doubt, except a few
ignorant girls such as I was yesterday.  But there are some,--yes,
thousands and thousands,--who even now, at this moment, are feeling
sorrow like that, are sinking deep, deeper into the bottomless pit
of their soul's degradation.  And yet men who know this, who have
seen it, laugh, talk, are happy, amuse themselves--how can they,
how can they?"  I stopped with a catch in my voice, and then
stretching out my arms in front of me--"And it is not only men.
Look how beautiful the earth is, and God has made it, and lets the
sun crown it every day with a new glory, while this horror of evil
broods over and poisons it all.  Oh, why is it so?  I cannot
understand it."

My arms drooped again as I finished, and my eyes sought Alan's.
His were full of tears, but there was almost a smile quivering at
the corners of his lips as he replied: "When you have found an
answer to that question, Evie, come and tell me and mankind at
large: it will be news to us all."  Then he continued--"But, after
all, the earth is beautiful, and the sun does shine: we have our
own happiness to rejoice in, our own sorrows to bear, the suffering
that is near to us to grapple with.  For the rest, for this
blackness of evil which surrounds us, and which we can do nothing
to lighten, it will soon, thank God, become vague and far off to
you as it is to others: your feeling of it will be dulled, and,
except at moments, you too will forget."

"But that is horrible," I exclaimed, passionately; "the evil will
be there all the same, whether I feel it or not.  Men and women
will be struggling in their misery and sin, only I shall be too
selfish to care."

"We cannot go outside the limits of our own nature," he replied;
"our knowledge is shallow and our spiritual insight dark, and God
in His mercy has made our hearts shallow too, and our imagination
dull.  If, knowing and trusting only as men do, we were to feel as
angels feel, earth would be hell indeed."

It was cold comfort, but at that moment anything warmer or brighter
would have been unreal and utterly repellent to me.  I hardly took
in the meaning of his words, but it was as if a hand had been
stretched out to me, struggling in the deep mire, by one who
himself felt solid ground beneath him.  Where he stood I also might
some day stand, and that thought seemed to make patience possible.

It was he who first broke the silence which followed.  "You were
saying that you had questions to ask me.  I am impatient to put
mine in return, so please go on."

It had been a relief to me to turn even to generalizations of
despair from the actual horror which had inspired them, and to
which my mind was thus recalled.  With an effort I replied, "Yes, I
want to ask you about that room--the room in which I slept, and--
and the murder which was committed there."  In spite of all that I
could do, my voice sank almost to a whisper as I concluded, and I
was trembling from head to foot.

"Who told you that a murder was committed there?"  Something in my
face as he asked the question made him add quickly, "Never mind.
You are right.  That is the room in which Hugh Mervyn was murdered
by his wife.  I was surprised at your question, for I did not know
that anyone but my brothers and myself were aware of the fact.  The
subject is never mentioned: it is closely connected with one
intensely painful to our family, and besides, if spoken of, there
would be inconveniences arising from the superstitious terrors of
servants, and the natural dislike of guests to sleep in a room
where such a thing had happened.  Indeed it was largely with the
view of wiping out the last memory of the crime's locality, that my
father renewed the interior of the room some twenty years ago.  The
only tradition which has been adhered to in connection with it is
the one which has now been violated in your person--the one which
precludes any unmarried woman from sleeping there.  Except for
that, the room has, as you know, lost all sinister reputation, and
its title of 'haunted' has become purely conventional.
Nevertheless, as I said, you are right--that is undoubtedly the
room in which the murder was committed."

He stopped and looked up at me, waiting for more.

"Go on; tell me about it, and what followed."  My lips formed the
words; my heart beat too faintly for my breath to utter them.

"About the murder itself there is not much to tell.  The man, I
believe, was an inhuman scoundrel, and the woman first killed him
in desperation, and afterwards herself in despair.  The only detail
connected with the actual crime of which I have ever heard, was the
gale that was blowing that night--the fiercest known to this
countryside in that generation; and it has always been said since
that any misfortune to the Mervyns--especially any misfortune
connected with the curse--comes with a storm of wind.  That was why
I so disliked your story of the imaginary tempests which have
disturbed your nights since you slept there.  As to what
followed,"--he gave a sigh,--"that story is long enough and full of
incident.  On the morning after the murder, so runs the tale, Dame
Alice came down to the Grange from the tower to which she had
retired when her son's wickednesses had driven her from his house,
and there in the presence of the two corpses she foretold the curse
which should rest upon their descendants for generations to come.
A clergyman who was present, horrified, it is said at her words,
adjured her by the mercy of Heaven to place some term to the doom
which she had pronounced.  She replied that no mortal might reckon
the fruit of a plant which drew its life from hell; that a term
there should be, but as it passed the wisdom of man to fix it, so
it should pass the wit of man to discover it.  She then placed in
the room this cabinet, constructed by herself and her Italian
follower, and said that the curse should not depart from the family
until the day when its doors were unlocked and its legend read.

"Such is the story.  I tell it to you as it was told to me.  One
thing only is certain, that the doom thus traditionally foretold
has been only too amply fulfilled."

"And what was the doom?"

Alan hesitated a little, and when he spoke his voice was almost
awful in its passionless sternness, in its despairing finality; it
seemed to echo the irrevocable judgment which his words pronounced:
"That the crimes against God and each other which had destroyed the
parents' life should enter into the children's blood, and that
never thereafter should there fail a Mervyn to bring shame or death
upon one generation of his father's house.

"There were two sons of that ill-fated marriage," he went on after
a pause, "boys at the time of their parents' death.  When they grew
up they both fell in love with the same woman, and one killed the
other in a duel.  The story of the next generation was a peculiarly
sad one.  Two brothers took opposite sides during the civil
troubles; but so fearful were they of the curse which lay upon the
family, that they chiefly made use of their mutual position in
order to protect and guard each other.  After the wars were over,
the younger brother, while traveling upon some parliamentary
commission, stopped a night at the Grange.  There, through a
mistake, he exchanged the report which he was bringing to London
for a packet of papers implicating his brother and several besides
in a royalist plot.  He only discovered his error as he handed the
papers to his superior, and was but just able to warn his brother
in time for him to save his life by flight.  The other men involved
were taken and executed, and as it was known by what means
information had reached the Government, the elder Mervyn was
universally charged with the vilest treachery.  It is said that
when after the Restoration his return home was rumored the
neighboring gentry assembled, armed with riding whips, to flog him
out of the country if he should dare to show his face there.  He
died abroad, shame-stricken and broken-hearted.  It was his son,
brought up by his uncle in the sternest tenets of Puritanism, who,
coming home after a lengthened journey, found that during his
absence his sister had been shamefully seduced.  He turned her out
of doors, then and there, in the midst of a bitter January night,
and the next morning her dead body and that of her new-born infant
were found half buried in the fresh-fallen snow on the top of the
wolds.  The 'white lady' is still supposed by the villagers to
haunt that side of the glen.  And so it went on.  A beautiful,
heartless Mervyn in Queen Anne's time enticed away the affections
of her sister's betrothed, and on the day of her own wedding with
him, her forsaken sister was found drowned by her own act in the
pond at the bottom of the garden.  Two brothers were soldiers
together in some Continental war, and one was involuntarily the
means of discovering and exposing the treason of the other.  A girl
was betrayed into a false marriage, and her life ruined by a man
who came into the house as her brother's friend, and whose infamous
designs were forwarded and finally accomplished by that same
brother's active though unsuspecting assistance.  Generation after
generation, men or women, guilty or innocent, through the action of
their own will or in spite of it, the curse has never yet failed of
its victims."

"Never yet?  But surely in our own time--your father?"  I did not
dare to put the question which was burning my lips.

"Have you never heard of the tragic end of my poor young uncles?"
he replied.  "They were several years older than my father.  When
boys of fourteen and fifteen they were sent out with the keeper for
their first shooting lesson, and the elder shot his brother through
the heart.  He himself was delicate, and they say that he never
entirely recovered from the shock.  He died before he was twenty,
and my father, then a child of seven years old, became the heir.
It was partly, no doubt, owing to this calamity having thus
occurred before he was old enough to feel it, that his comparative
skepticism on the whole subject was due.  To that I suppose, and to
the fact that he grew up in an age of railways and liberal
culture."

"He didn't believe, then, in the curse?"

"Well, rather, he thought nothing about it.  Until, that is, the
time came when it took effect, to break his heart and end his
life."

"How do you mean?"

There was silence for a little.  Alan had turned away his head, so
that I could not see his face.  Then--

"I suppose you have never been told the true story of why Jack left
the country?"

"No.  Was he--is he--?"

"He is one victim of the curse in this generation, and I, God help
me, am the other, and perhaps more wretched one."

His voice trembled and broke, and for the first time that day I
almost forgot the mysterious horror of the night before, in my pity
for the actual, tangible suffering before me.  I stretched out my
hand to his, and his fingers closed on mine with a sudden, painful
grip.  Then quietly--

"I will tell you the story," he said, "though since that miserable
time I have spoken of it to no one."

There was a pause before he began.  He lay there by my side, his
gaze turned across me up the sunbright, autumn-tinted glen, but his
eyes shadowed by the memories which he was striving to recall and
arrange in due order in his mind.  And when he did speak it was not
directly to begin the promised recital.

"You never knew Jack," he said, abruptly.

"Hardly," I acquiesced.  "I remember thinking him very handsome."

"There could not be two opinions as to that," he answered.  "And a
man who could have done anything he liked with life, had things
gone differently.  His abilities were fine, but his strength lay
above all in his character: he was strong,--strong in his likes and
in his dislikes, resolute, fearless, incapable of half measures--a
man, every inch of him.  He was not generally popular--stiff, hard,
unsympathetic, people called him.  From one point of view, and one
only, he perhaps deserved the epithets.  If a woman lost his
respect she seemed to lose his pity too.  Like a mediaeval monk, he
looked upon such rather as the cause than the result of male
depravity, and his contempt for them mingled with anger, almost, as
I sometimes thought, with hatred.  And this attitude was, I have no
doubt, resented by the men of his own class and set, who shared
neither his faults nor his virtues.  But in other ways he was not
hard.  He could love; I, at least, have cause to know it.  If you
would hear his story rightly from my lips, Evie, you must try and
see him with my eyes.  The friend who loved me, and whom I loved
with the passion which, if not the strongest, is certainly, I
believe, the most enduring of which men are capable,--that perfect
brother's love, which so grows into our being that when it is at
peace we are scarcely conscious of its existence, and when it is
wounded our very life-blood seems to flow at the stroke.  Brothers
do not always love like that: I can only wish that we had not done
so.


VII


"Well, about five years ago, before I had taken my degree, I became
acquainted with a woman whom I will call 'Delia,'--it is near
enough to the name by which she went.  She was a few years older
than myself, very beautiful, and I believed her to be what she
described herself--the innocent victim of circumstance and false
appearance, a helpless prey to the vile calumnies of worldlings.
In sober fact, I am afraid that, whatever her life may have been
actually at the time that I knew her--a subject which I have never
cared to investigate--her past had been not only bad enough
irretrievably to fix her position in society, but bad enough to
leave her without an ideal in the world, though still retaining
within her heart the possibilities of a passion which, from the
moment that it came to life, was strong enough to turn her whole
existence into one desperate reckless straining after an object
hopelessly beyond her reach.  That was the woman with whom, at the
age of twenty, I fancied myself in love.  She wanted to get a
husband, and she thought me--rightly--ass enough to accept the
post.  I was very young then even for my years,--a student, an
idealist, with an imagination highly developed, and no knowledge
whatever of the world as it actually is.  Anyhow, before I had
known her a month, I had determined to make her my wife.  My
parents were abroad at the time, George and Lucy here, so that it
was to Jack that I imparted the news of my resolve.  As you may
imagine, he did all that he could to shake it.  But I was
immovable.  I disbelieved his facts, and despised his contempt from
the standpoint of my own superior morality.  This state of things
continued for several weeks, during the greater part of which time
I was at Oxford.  I only knew that while I was there, Jack had made
Delia's acquaintance, and was apparently cultivating it
assiduously.

"One day, during the Easter vacation, I got a note from her asking
me to supper at her house.  Jack was invited too: we lodged
together while my people were away.

"There is no need to dwell upon that supper.  There were two or
three women there of her own sort, or worse, and a dozen men from
among the most profligate in London.  The conversation was, I
should think, bad even for that class; and she, the goddess of my
idolatry, outstripped them all by the foul, coarse shamelessness of
her language and behavior.  Before the entertainment was half over,
I rose and took my leave, accompanied by Jack and another man,--
Legard was his name,--who I presume was bored.  Just as we had
passed through into the anteroom, which lay beyond the one in which
we had been eating, Delia followed us, and laying her hand on
Jack's arm, said that she must speak with him.  Legard and I went
into the outer hall, and we had not been there more than a minute
when the door from the anteroom opened, and we heard Delia's voice.
I remember the words well,--that was not the only occasion on which
I was to hear them.  'I will keep the ring as a record of my love,'
she said, 'and understand, that though you may forget, I never
shall.'  Jack came through, the door closed, and as we went out I
glanced towards his left hand, and saw, as I expected to see, the
absence of the ring which he usually wore there.  It contained a
gem which my mother had picked up in the East, and I knew that he
valued it quite peculiarly.  We always called it Jack's talisman.

"A miserable time followed, a time for me of agonizing wonder and
doubt, during which regret for my dead illusion was entirely
swallowed up in the terrible dread of my brother's degradation.
Then came the announcement of his engagement to Lady Sylvia Grey;
and a week later, the very day after I had finally returned to
London from Oxford, I received a summons from Delia to come and see
her.  Curiosity, and the haunting fear about Jack, which still hung
round me, induced me to consent to what otherwise would have been
intolerably repellent to me, and I went.  I found her in a mad
passion of fury.  Jack had refused to see her or to answer her
letters, and she had sent for me, that I might give him her
message,--tell him that he belonged to her and her only, and that
he never should marry another woman.  Angry at my interference,
Jack disdained even to repudiate her claims, only sending back a
threat of appealing to the police if she ventured upon any further
annoyance.  I wrote as she told me, and she emphasized my silence
on the subject by writing back to me a more definite and explicit
assertion of her rights.  Beyond that for some weeks she made no
sign.  I have no doubt that she had means of keeping watch upon
both his movements and mine; and during that time, as she
relinquished gradually all hopes of inducing him to abandon his
purpose, she was being driven to her last despairing resolve.

"Later, when all was over, Jack told me the story of that spring
and summer.  He told me how, when he found me immovable on the
subject, he had resolved to stop the marriage somehow through Delia
herself.  He had made her acquaintance, and sought her society
frequently.  She had taken a fancy to him, and he admitted that he
had availed himself of this fact to increase his intimacy with her,
and, as he hoped ultimately, his power over her.  But he was not
conscious of ever having varied in his manner towards her of
contemptuous indifference.  This contradictory behavior,--his being
constantly near her, yet always beyond her reach,--was probably the
very thing which excited her fancy into passion, the one strong
passion of the poor woman's life.  Then came his deliberate demand
that she should by her own act unmask herself in my sight.  The
unfortunate woman tried to bargain for some proof of affection in
return, and on this occasion had first openly declared her feelings
towards him.  He did not believe her; he refused her terms; but
when as her payment she asked for the ring which was so especially
associated with himself, he agreed to give it to her.  Otherwise
hoping, no doubt against hope, dreading above all things a quarrel
and final separation, she submitted unconditionally.  And from the
time of that evening, when Legard and I had overheard her parting
words, Jack never saw her again until the last and final
catastrophe.

"It was in July.  My parents had returned to England, but had come
straight on here.  Jack and I were dining together with Lady Sylvia
at her father's house--her brother, young Grey, making the fourth
at dinner.  I had arranged to go to a party with your mother, and I
told the servants that a lady would call for me early in the
evening.  The house stood in Park Lane, and after dinner we all
went out on to the broad balcony which opened from the drawing-
room.  There was a strong wind blowing that night, and I remember
well the vague, disquieted feeling of unreality that possessed me,--
sweeping through me, as it were, with each gust of wind.  Then,
suddenly, a servant stood behind me, saying that the lady had come
for me, and was in the drawing-room.  Shocked that my aunt should
have troubled herself to come so far, I turned quickly, stepped
back into the room, and found myself face to face with Delia.  She
was fully dressed for the evening, with a long silk opera-cloak
over her shoulders, her face as white as her gown, her splendid
eyes strangely wide open and shining.  I don't know what I said or
did; I tried to get her away, but it was too late.  The others had
heard us, and appeared at the open window.  Jack came forward at
once, speaking rapidly, fiercely; telling her to leave the house at
once; promising desperately that he would see her in his own rooms
on the morrow.  Well I remember how her answer rang out,--

"'Neither to-morrow nor another day: I will never leave you again
while I live.'

"At the same instant she drew something swiftly from under her
cloak, there was the sound of a pistol shot and she lay dead at our
feet, her blood splashing upon Jack's shirt and hands as she fell."

Alan paused in his recital.  He was trembling from head to foot;
but he kept his eyes turned steadily downwards, and both face and
voice were cold--almost expressionless.

"Of course there was an inquest," he resumed, "which, as usual,
exercised its very ill-defined powers in inquiring into all
possible motives for the suicide.  Young Grey, who had stepped into
the room just before the shot had been fired, swore to the last
words Delia had uttered; Legard to those he had overheard the night
of that dreadful supper: there were scores of men to bear witness
to the intimate relations which had existed between her and Jack
during the whole of the previous spring.  I had to give evidence.
A skillful lawyer had been retained by one of her sisters, and had
been instructed by her on points which no doubt she had originally
learnt from Delia herself.  In his hands, I had not only to
corroborate Grey and Legard, and to give full details of that last
interview, but also to swear to the peculiar value which Jack
attached to the talisman ring which he had given Delia; to the
language she had held when I saw her after my return from Oxford;
to her subsequent letter, and Jack's fatal silence on the occasion.
The story by which Jack and I strove to account for the facts was
laughed at as a clumsy invention, and my undisguised reluctance in
giving evidence added greatly to its weight against my brother's
character.

"The jury returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, the
result of desertion by her lover.  You may imagine how that verdict
was commented upon by every Radical newspaper in the kingdom, and
for once society more than corroborated the opinions of the press.
The larger public regarded the story as an extreme case of the
innocent victim and the cowardly society villain.  It was only
among a comparatively small set that Delia's reputation was known,
and there, in view of Jack's notorious and peculiar intimacy, his
repudiation of all relations with her was received with
contemptuous incredulity.  That he should have first entered upon
such relations at the very time when he was already courting Lady
Sylvia was regarded even in those circles as a 'strong order,' and
they looked upon his present attitude with great indignation, as a
cowardly attempt to save his own character by casting upon the dead
woman's memory all the odium of a false accusation.  With an entire
absence of logic, too, he was made responsible for the suicide
having taken place in Lady Sylvia's presence.  She had broken off
the engagement the day after the catastrophe, and her family, a
clan powerful in the London world, furious at the mud through which
her name had been dragged, did all that they could to intensify the
feeling already existing against Jack.

"Not a voice was raised in his defense.  He was advised to leave
the army; he was requested to withdraw from some of his clubs,
turned out of others, avoided by his fast acquaintances, cut by his
respectable ones.  It was enough to kill a weaker man.

"He showed no resentment at the measure thus dealt out to him.
Indeed, at the first, except for Sylvia's desertion of him, he
seemed dully indifferent to it all.  It was as if his soul had been
stunned, from the moment that that wretched woman's blood had
splashed upon his fingers, and her dead eyes had looked up into his
own.

"But it was not long before he realized the full extent of the
social damnation which had been inflicted upon him, and he then
resolved to leave the country and go to America.  The night before
he started he came down here to take leave.  I was here looking
after my parents--George, whose mind was almost unhinged by the
family disgrace, having gone abroad with his wife.  My mother at
the first news of what had happened had taken to her bed, never to
leave it again; and thus it was in my presence alone, up there in
my father's little study, that Jack gave him that night the whole
story.  He told it quietly enough; but when he had finished, with a
sudden outburst of feeling he turned upon me.  It was I who had
been the cause of it all.  My insensate folly had induced him to
make the unhappy woman's acquaintance, to allow and even encourage
her fatal love, to commit all the blunders and sins which had
brought about her miserable ending and his final overthrow.  It was
by means of me that she had obtained access to him on that dreadful
night; my evidence which most utterly damned him in public opinion;
through me he had lost his reputation, his friends, his career, his
country, the woman he loved, his hopes for the future; through me,
above all, that the burden of that horrible death would lie for
ever on his soul.  He was lashing himself to fury with his own
words as he spoke; and I stood leaning against the wall opposite to
him, cold, dumb, unresisting, when suddenly my father interrupted.
I think that both Jack and I had forgotten his presence; but at the
sound of his voice, changed from what we had ever heard it, we
turned to him, and I then for the first time saw in his face the
death-look which never afterwards quitted it.

"'Stop, Jack,' he said; 'Alan is not to blame; and if it had not
been in this way, it would have been in some other.  I only am
guilty, who brought you both into existence with my own hell-
stained blood in your veins.  If you wish to curse anyone, curse
your family, your name, me if you will, and may God forgive me that
you were ever born into the world!'"

Alan stopped with a shudder, and then continued, dully, "It was
when I heard those words, the most terrible that a father could
have uttered, that I first understood all that that old sixteenth-
century tale might mean to me and mine,--I have realized it vividly
enough since.  Early the next morning, when the dawn was just
breaking, Jack came to the door of my room to bid me good-by.  All
his passion was gone.  His looks and tones seemed part and parcel
of the dim gray morning light.  He freely withdrew all the charges
he had made against me the night before; forgave me all the share
that I had had in his misfortunes; and then begged that I would
never come near him, or let him hear from me again.  'The curse is
heavy upon us both,' he said, 'and it is the only favor which you
can do me.'  I have never seen him since."

"But you have heard of him!" I exclaimed; "what has become of him?"

Alan raised himself to a sitting posture.  "The last that I heard,"
he said, with a catch in his voice, "was that in his misery and
hopelessness he was taking to drink.  George writes to him, and
does what he can; but I--I dare not say a word, for fear it should
turn to poison on my lips,--I dare not lift a hand to help him, for
fear it should have power to strike him to the ground.  The worst
may be yet to come; I am still living, still living: there are
depths of shame to which he has not sunk.  And oh, Evie, Evie, he
is my own, my best-loved brother!"

All his composure was gone now.  His voice rose to a kind of wail
with the last words, and folding his arms on his raised knee, he
let his head fall upon them, while his figure quivered with
scarcely restrained emotion.  There was a silence for some moments
while he sat thus, I looking on in wretched helplessness beside
him.  Then he raised his head, and, without looking round at me,
went on in a low tone: "And what is in the future?  I pray that
death instead of shame may be the portion of the next generation,
and I look at George's boys only to wonder which of them is the
happy one who shall some day lie dead at his brother's feet.  Are
you surprised at my resolution never to marry?  The fatal prophecy
is rich in its fulfillment; none of our name and blood are safe;
and the day might come when I too should have to call upon my
children to curse me for their birth,--should have to watch while
the burden which I could no longer bear alone pressed the life from
their mother's heart."

Through the tragedy of this speech I was conscious of a faint
suggestion of comfort, a far-off glimmer, as of unseen home-lights
on a midnight sky.  I was in no mood then to understand, or to seek
to understand, what it was; but I know now that his words had
removed the weight of helpless banishment from my spirit--that his
heart, speaking through them to my own, had made me for life the
sharer of his grief.


VIII


Presently he drew his shoulders together with a slight determined
jerk, threw himself back upon the grass, and turning to me, with
that tremulous, haggard smile upon his lips which I knew so well,
but which had never before struck me with such infinite pathos,
"Luckily," he said, "there are other things to do in life besides
being happy.  Only perhaps you understand now what I meant last
night when I spoke of things which flesh and blood cannot bear, and
yet which must be borne."

Suddenly and sharply his words roused again into activity the
loathsome memory which my interest in his story had partially
deadened.  He noticed the quick involuntary contraction of my
muscles, and read it aright.  "That reminds me," he went on; "I
must claim your promise.  I have told you my story.  Now, tell me
yours."

I told him; not as I have set it down here, though perhaps even in
greater detail, but incoherently, bit by bit, while he helped me
out with gentle questions, quickly comprehending gestures, and
patient waiting during the pauses of exhaustion which perforce
interposed themselves.  As my story approached its climax, his
agitation grew almost equal to my own, and he listened to the
close, his teeth clenched, his brows bent, as if passing again with
me through that awful conflict.  When I had finished, it was some
moments before either of us could speak; and then he burst forth
into bitter self-reproach for having so far yielded to his
brother's angry obstinacy as to allow me to sleep the third night
in that fatal room.

"It was cowardice," he said, "sheer cowardice!  After all that has
happened, I dared not have a quarrel with one of my own blood.  And
yet if I had not hardened my heart, I had reason to know what I was
risking."

"How do you mean?" I asked.

"Those other two girls who slept there," he said, breathlessly; "it
was in each case after the third night there that they were found
dead--dead, Evie, so runs the story, with a mark upon their necks
similar in shape and position to the death-wound which Margaret
Mervyn inflicted upon herself."

I could not speak, but I clutched his hand with an almost
convulsive grip.

"And I knew the story,--I knew it!" he cried.  "As boys we were not
allowed to hear much of our family traditions, but this one I knew.
When my father redid the interior of the east room, he removed at
the same time a board from above the doorway outside, on which had
been written--it is said by Dame Alice herself--a warning upon this
very subject.  I happened to be present when our old housekeeper,
who had been his nurse, remonstrated with him warmly upon this act;
and I asked her afterwards what the board was, and why she cared
about it so much.  In her excitement she told me the story of those
unhappy girls, repeating again and again that, if the warning were
taken away, evil would come of it."

"And she was right," I said, dully.  "Oh, if only your father had
left it there!"

"I suppose," he answered, speaking more quietly, "that he was
impatient of traditions which, as I told you, he at that time more
than half despised.  Indeed he altered the shape of the doorway,
raising it, and making it flat and square, so that the old
inscription could not have been replaced, even had it been wished.
I remember it was fitted round the low Tudor arch which was
previously there."

My mind, too worn with many emotions for deliberate thought,
wandered on languidly, and as it were mechanically, upon these last
trivial words.  The doorway presented itself to my view as it had
originally stood, with the discarded warning above it; and then, by
a spontaneous comparison of mental vision, I recalled the painted
board which I had noticed three days before in Dame Alice's tower.
I suggested to Alan that it might have been the identical one--its
shape was as he described.  "Very likely," he answered, absently.
"Do you remember what the words were?"

"Yes, I think so," I replied.  "Let me see."  And I repeated them
slowly, dragging them out as it were one by one from my memory:


     "Where the woman sinned the maid shall win;
      But God help the maid that sleeps within."


"You see," I said, turning towards him slowly, "the last line is a
warning such as you spoke of."

But to my surprise Alan had sprung to his feet, and was looking
down at me, his whole body quivering with excitement.  "Yes, Evie,"
he cried, "and the first line is a prophecy;--where the woman
sinned the maid HAS won."  He seized the hand which I instinctively
reached out to him.  "We have not seen the end of this yet," he
went on, speaking rapidly, and as if articulation had become
difficult to him.  "Come, Evie, we must go back to the house and
look at the cabinet--now, at once."

I had risen to my feet by this time, but I shrank away at those
words.  "To that room?  Oh, Alan--no, I cannot."

He had hold of my hand still, and he tightened his grasp upon it.
"I shall be with you; you will not be afraid with me," he said.
"Come."  His eyes were burning, his face flushed and paled in rapid
alternation, and his hand held mine like a vice of iron.

I turned with him, and we walked back to the Grange, Alan
quickening his pace as he went, till I almost had to run by his
side.  As we approached the dreaded room my sense of repulsion
became almost unbearable; but I was now infected by his excitement,
though I but dimly comprehended its cause.  We met no one on our
way, and in a moment he had hurried me into the house, up the
stairs, and along the narrow passage, and I was once more in the
east room, and in the presence of all the memories of that accursed
night.  For an instant I stood strengthless, helpless, on the
threshold, my gaze fixed panic-stricken on the spot where I had
taken such awful part in that phantom tragedy of evil; then Alan
threw his arm round me, and drew me hastily on in front of the
cabinet.  Without a pause, giving himself time neither to speak nor
think, he stretched out his left hand and moved the buttons one
after another.  How or in what direction he moved them I know not;
but as the last turned with a click, the doors, which no mortal
hand had unclosed for three hundred years, flew back, and the
cabinet stood open.  I gave a little gasp of fear.  Alan pressed
his lips closely together, and turned to me with eager questioning
in his eyes.  I pointed in answer tremblingly at the drawer which I
had seen open the night before.  He drew it out, and there on its
satin bed lay the dagger in its silver sheath.  Still without a
word he took it up, and reaching his right hand round me, for I
could not now have stood had he withdrawn his support, with a swift
strong jerk he unsheathed the blade.  There in the clear autumn
sunshine I could see the same dull stains I had marked in the
flickering candle-light, and over them, still ruddy and moist, were
the drops of my own half-dried blood.  I grasped the lapel of his
coat with both my hands, and clung to him like a child in terror,
while the eyes of both of us remained fixed as if fascinated upon
the knife-blade.  Then, with a sudden start of memory, Alan raised
his to the cornice of the cabinet, and mine followed.  No change
that I could detect had taken place in that twisted goldwork; but
there, clear in the sight of us both, stood forth the words of the
magic motto:


     "Pure blood shed by the blood-stained knife
      Ends Mervyn shame, heals Mervyn strife."


In low steady tones Alan read out the lines, and then there was
silence--on my part of stunned bewilderment, the bewilderment of a
spirit overwhelmed beyond the power of comprehension by rushing,
conflicting emotions.  Alan pressed me closer to him, while the
silence seemed to throb with the beating of his heart and the
panting of his breath.  But except for that he remained motionless,
gazing at the golden message before him.  At length I felt a
movement, and looking up saw his face turned down towards mine, the
lips quivering, the cheeks flushed, the eyes soft with passionate
feeling.  "We are saved, my darling," he whispered; "saved, and
through you."  Then he bent his head lower, and there in that room
of horror, I received the first long lover's kiss from my own dear
husband's lips.

     .        .        .        .        .        .

My husband, yes; but not till some time after that.  Alan's first
act, when he had once fully realized that the curse was indeed
removed, was--throwing his budding practice to the winds--to set
sail for America.  There he sought out Jack, and labored hard to
impart to him some of his own newfound hope.  It was slow work, but
he succeeded at last; and only left him when, two years later, he
had handed him over to the charge of a bright-eyed Western girl, to
whom the whole story had been told, and who showed herself ready
and anxious to help in building up again the broken life of her
English lover.  To judge from the letters that we have since
received, she has shown herself well fitted for the task.  Among
other things she has money, and Jack's worldly affairs have so
prospered that George declares that he can well afford now to waste
some of his superfluous cash upon farming a few of his elder
brother's acres.  The idea seems to smile upon Jack, and I have
every hope this winter of being able to institute an actual
comparison between our small boy, his namesake, and his own three-
year-old Alan.  The comparison, by the way, will have to be
conditional, for Jacket--the name by which my son and heir is
familiarly known--is but a little more than two.

I turn my eyes for a moment, and they fall upon the northern corner
of the East Room, which shows round the edge of the house.  Then
the skeleton leaps from the cupboard of my memory; the icy hand
which lies ever near my soul grips it suddenly with a chill
shudder.  Not for nothing was that wretched woman's life interwoven
with my own, if only for an hour; not for nothing did my spirit
harbor a conflict and an agony, which, thank God, are far from its
own story.  Though Margaret Mervyn's dagger failed to pierce my
flesh, the wound in my soul may never wholly be healed.  I know
that that is so; and yet as I turn to start through the sunshine to
the cedar shade and its laughing occupants, I whisper to myself
with fervent conviction, "It was worth it."





End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Lock and Key Library, Hawthorne, Ed.

