~~~ Project Gutenberg Australia ~~~

Title: Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (1949)
Author: Arthur Machen
* A Project Gutenberg Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0800651.txt
Language:  English
Date first posted: July 2008
Date most recently updated: October 2009

Project Gutenberg Australia eBooks are created from printed editions
which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice
is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular
paper edition.

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this
file.

This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg Australia License which may be viewed online at
http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html

To contact Project Gutenberg Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: Tales of Horror and the Supernatural (1949)
Author: Arthur Machen




CONTENTS:

THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL
THE NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER
THE GREAT GOD PAN
THE WHITE PEOPLE
THE INMOST LIGHT
THE SHINING PYRAMID
THE BOWMEN
THE GREAT RETURN
THE HAPPY CHILDREN
THE BRIGHT BOY
OUT OF THE EARTH
N
CHILDREN OF THE POOL
THE TERROR


* * * * *



THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL
(RELATED BY THE YOUNG LADY IN LEICESTER SQUARE)


Prologue


'I see you are a determined rationalist,' said the lady. 'Did you not
hear me say that I have had experiences even more terrible? I too was
once a sceptic, but after what I have known I can no longer affect to
doubt.'

'Madam,' replied Mr. Phillipps, 'no one shall make me deny my faith. I
will never believe, nor will I pretend to believe, that two and two make
five, nor will I on any pretences admit the existence of two-sided
triangles.'

'You are a little hasty,' rejoined the lady. 'But may I ask you if you
ever heard the name of Professor Gregg, the authority on ethnology and
kindred subjects?'

'I have done much more than merely hear of Professor Gregg,' said
Phillipps. 'I always regarded him as one of our most acute and
clear-headed observers; and his last publication, the _Textbook of
Ethnology_, struck me as being quite admirable in its kind. Indeed, the
book had but come into my hands when I heard of the terrible accident
which cut short Gregg's career. He had, I think, taken a country house
in the west of England for the summer, and is supposed to have fallen
into a river. So far as I remember, his body was never recovered.'

'Sir, I am sure that you are discreet. Your conversation seems to
declare as much, and the very title of that little work of yours which
you mentioned assures me that you are no empty trifler. In a word, I
feel that I may depend on you. You appear to be under the impression
that Professor Gregg is dead; I have no reason to believe that that is
the case.'

'What?' cried Phillipps, astonished and perturbed. 'You do not hint that
there was anything disgraceful? I cannot believe it. Gregg was a man of
clearest character; his private life was one of great benevolence; and
though I myself am free from delusions, I believe him to have been a
sincere and devout Christian. Surely you cannot mean to insinuate that
some disreputable history forced him to flee the country?'

'Again you are in a hurry.' replied the lady. 'I said nothing of all
this. Briefly, then, I must tell you that Professor Gregg left this
house one morning in full health both in mind and body. He never
returned, but his watch and chain, a purse containing three sovereigns
in gold, and some loose silver, with a ring that he wore habitually,
were found three days later on a wild and savage hillside, many miles
from the river. These articles were placed beside a limestone rock of
fantastic form; they had been wrapped into a parcel with a kind of rough
parchment which was secured with gut. The parcel was opened, and the
inner side of the parchment bore an inscription done with some red
substance; the characters were undecipherable, but seemed to be a
corrupt cuneiform.'

'You interest me intensely,' said Phillipps. 'Would you mind continuing
your story? The circumstance you have mentioned seems to me of the most
inexplicable character, and I thirst for an elucidation.'

The young lady seemed to meditate for a moment, and she then proceeded
to relate THE NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL.


I must now give you some fuller particulars of my history. I am the
daughter of a civil engineer, Steven Lally by name, who was so
unfortunate as to die suddenly at the outset of his career, and before
he had accumulated sufficient means to support his wife and her two
children.

My mother contrived to keep the small household going on resources which
must have been incredibly small; we lived in a remote country village,
because most of the necessaries of life were cheaper than in a town, but
even so we were brought up with the severest economy. My father was a
clever and well-read man, and left behind him a small but select
collection of books, containing the best Greek, Latin, and English
classics, and these books were the only amusement we possessed. My
brother, I remember, learnt Latin out of Descartes's _Meditationes_, and
I, in place of the little tales which children are usually told to read,
had nothing more charming than a translation of the _Gesta_ Romanorum.
We grew up thus, quiet and studious children, and in course of time my
brother provided for himself in the manner I have mentioned. I continued
to live at home: my poor mother had become an invalid, and demanded my
continual care, and about two years ago she died after many months of
painful illness. My situation was a terrible one; the shabby furniture
barely sufficed to pay the debts I had been forced to contract, and the
books I dispatched to my brother, knowing how he would value them. I was
absolutely alone; I was aware how poorly my brother was paid; and though
I came up to London in the hope of finding employment, with the
understanding that he would defray my expenses, I swore it should only
be for a month, and that if I could not in that time find some work I
would starve rather than deprive him of the few miserable pounds he had
laid by for his day of trouble. I took a little room in a distant
suburb; the cheapest that I could find; I lived on bread and tea, and I
spent my time in vain answering of advertisements, and vainer walks to
addresses I had noted. Day followed on day, and week on week, and still
I was unsuccessful, till at last the term I had appointed drew to a
close, and I saw before me the grim prospect of slowly dying of
starvation. My landlady was good-natured in her way; she knew the
slenderness of my means, and I am sure that she would not have turned me
out of doors; it remained for me then to go away, and to try to die in
some quiet place. It was winter then, and a thick white fog gathered in
the early part of the afternoon, becoming more dense as the day wore on;
it was a Sunday, I remember, and the people of the house were at chapel.
At about three o'clock I crept out and walked away as quickly as I
could, for I was weak from abstinence. The white mist wrapped all the
streets in silence, a hard frost had gathered thick upon the bare
branches of the trees, and frost crystals glittered on the wooden
fences, and on the cold, cruel ground beneath my feet. I walked on,
turning to right and left in utter haphazard, without caring to look up
at the names of the streets, and all that I remember of my walk on that
Sunday afternoon seems but the broken fragments of an evil dream. In a
confused vision I stumbled on, through roads half town and half country,
grey fields melting into the cloudy world of mist on one side of me, and
on the other comfortable villas with a glow of firelight flickering on
the walls, but all unreal; red brick walls and lighted windows, vague
trees, and glimmering country, gas-lamps beginning to star the white
shadows, the vanishing perspectives of the railway line beneath high
embankments, the green and red of the signal lamps--all these were but
momentary pictures flashed on my tired brain and senses numbed by
hunger. Now and then I would hear a quick step ringing on the iron road,
and men would pass me well wrapped up, walking fast for the sake of
warmth, and no doubt eagerly foretasting the pleasures of a glowing
hearth, with curtains tightly drawn about the frosted panes, and the
welcomes of their friends, but as the early evening darkened and night
approached, foot-passengers got fewer and fewer, and I passed through
street after street alone. In the white silence I stumbled on, as
desolate as if I trod the streets of a buried city; and as I grew more
weak and exhausted, something of the horror of death was folding thickly
round my heart. Suddenly, as I turned a corner, some one accosted me
courteously beneath the lamp-post, and I heard a voice asking if I could
kindly point the way to Avon Road. At the sudden shock of human accents
I was prostrated, and my strength gave way; I fell all huddled on the
sidewalk, and wept and sobbed and laughed in violent hysteria. I had
gone out prepared to die, and as I stepped across the threshold that had
sheltered me, I consciously bade adieu to all hopes and all
remembrances; the door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and
I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the brief passage of my life,
that henceforth I was to walk a little way in a world of gloom and
shadow; I entered on the stage of the first act of death. Then came my
wandering in the mist, the whiteness wrapping all things, the void
streets, and muffled silence, till when that voice spoke to me it was as
if I had died and life returned to me. In a few minutes I was able to
compose my feelings, and as I rose I saw that I was confronted by a
middle-aged gentleman of pleasing appearance, neatly and correctly
dressed. He looked at me with an expression of great pity, but before I
could stammer out my ignorance of the neighbourhood, for indeed I had
not the slightest notion of where I had wandered, he spoke.

'My dear madam,' he said, 'you seem in some terrible distress. You
cannot think how you alarmed me. But may I inquire the nature of your
trouble? I assure you that you can safely confide in me.'

'You are very kind,' I replied. 'But I fear there is nothing to be done.
My condition seems a hopeless one.'

'Oh, nonsense, nonsense! You are too young to talk like that. Come, let
us walk down here and you must tell me your difficulty. Perhaps I may be
able to help you.'

There was something very soothing and persuasive in his manner, and as
we walked together I gave him an outline of my story, and told of the
despair that had oppressed me almost to death.

'You were wrong to give in so completely,' he said, when I was silent.
'A month is too short a time in which to feel one's way in London.
London, let me tell you, Miss Lally, does not lie open and undefended;
it is a fortified place, fossed and double-moated with curious
intricacies. As must always happen in large towns, the conditions of
life have become hugely artificial, no mere simple palisade is run up to
oppose the man or woman who would take the place by storm, but serried
lines of subtle contrivances, mines, and pitfalls which it needs a
strange skill to overcome. You, in your simplicity, fancied you had only
to shout for these walls to sink into nothingness, but the time is gone
for such startling victories as these. Take courage; you will learn the
secret of success before very long.'

'Alas! sir,' I replied, 'I have no doubt your conclusions are correct,
but at the present moment I seem to be in a fair way to die of
starvation. You spoke of a secret; for Heaven's sake tell it me, if you
have any pity for my distress.'

He laughed genially. 'There lies the strangeness of it all. Those who
know the secret cannot tell it if they would; it is positively as
ineffable as the central doctrine of freemasonry. But I may say this,
that you yourself have penetrated at least the outer husk of the
mystery,' and he laughed again.

'Pray do not jest with me,' I said. 'What have I done, _que sçais-je?_ I
am so far ignorant that I have not the slightest idea of how my next
meal is to be provided.'

'Excuse me. You ask what you have done. You have met me. Come, we will
fence no longer. I see you have self-education, the only education which
is not infinitely pernicious, and I am in want of a governess for my two
children. I have been a widower for some years; my name is Gregg. I
offer you the post I have named, and shall we say a salary of a hundred
a year?'

I could only stutter out my thanks, and slipping a card with his
address, and a banknote by way of earnest, into my hand, Mr. Gregg bade
me good-bye, asking me to call in a day or two.

Such was my introduction to Professor Gregg, and can you wonder that the
remembrance of despair and the cold blast that had blown from the gates
of death upon me made me regard him as a second father? Before the close
of the week I was installed in my new duties. The professor had leased
an old brick manor-house in a western suburb of London, and here,
surrounded by pleasant lawns and orchards, and soothed with the murmur
of ancient elms that rocked their boughs above the roof, the new chapter
of my life began. Knowing as you do the nature of the professor's
occupation, you will not be surprised to hear that the house teemed with
books, and cabinets full of strange, and even hideous, objects filled
every available nook in the vast low rooms. Gregg was a man whose one
thought was for knowledge, and I too before long caught something of his
enthusiasm, and strove to enter into his passion of research. In a few
months I was perhaps more his secretary than the governess of the two
children, and many a night I have sat at the desk in the glow of the
shaded lamp while he, pacing up and down in the rich gloom of the
firelight, dictated to me the substance of his _Textbook of Ethnology_.
But amidst these more sober and accurate studies I always detected a
something hidden, a longing and desire for some object to which he did
not allude; and now and then he would break short in what he was saying
and lapse into reverie, entranced, as it seemed to me, by some distant
prospect of adventurous discovery. The textbook was at last finished,
and we began to receive proofs from the printers, which were entrusted
to me for a first reading, and then underwent the final revision of the
professor. All the while his wariness of the actual business he was
engaged on increased, and it was with the joyous laugh of a schoolboy
when term is over that he one day handed me a copy of the book. 'There,'
he said, 'I have kept my word; I promised to write it, and it is done
with. Now I shall be free to live for stranger things; I confess it,
Miss Lally, I covet the renown of Columbus; you will, I hope, see me
play the part of an explorer.'

'Surely,' I said, 'there is little left to explore. You have been born a
few hundred years too late for that.'

'I think you are wrong,' he replied; 'there are still, depend upon it,
quaint, undiscovered countries and continents of strange extent. Ah,
Miss Lally! believe me, we stand amidst sacraments and mysteries full of
awe, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Life, believe me, is
no simple thing, no mass of grey matter and congeries of veins and
muscles to be laid naked by the surgeon's knife; man is the secret which
I am about to explore, and before I can discover him I must cross over
weltering seas indeed, and oceans and the mists of many thousand years.
You know the myth of the lost Atlantis; what if it be true, and I am
destined to be called the discoverer of that wonderful land?'

I could see excitement boiling beneath his words, and in his face was
the heat of the hunter; before me stood a man who believed himself
summoned to tourney with the unknown. A pang of joy possessed me when I
reflected that I was to be in a way associated with him in the
adventure, and I, too, burned with the lust of the chase, not pausing to
consider that I knew not what we were to unshadow.

The next morning Professor Gregg took me into his inner study, where,
ranged against the wall, stood a nest of pigeonholes, every drawer
neatly labelled, and the results of years of toil classified in a few
feet of space.

'Here,' he said, 'is my life; here are all the facts which I have
gathered together with so much pains, and yet it is all nothing. No,
nothing to what I am about to attempt. Look at this'; and he took me to
an old bureau, a piece fantastic and faded, which stood in a corner of
the room. He unlocked the front and opened one of the drawers.

'A few scraps of paper,' he went on, pointing to the drawer, 'and a lump
of black stone, rudely annotated with queer marks and scratches--that is
all that the drawer holds. Here you see is an old envelope with the dark
red stamp of twenty years ago, but I have pencilled a few lines at the
back; here is a sheet of manuscript, and here some cuttings from obscure
local journals. And if you ask me the subject-matter of the collection,
it will not seem extraordinary--a servant-girl at a farmhouse, who
disappeared from her place and has never been heard of, a child supposed
to have slipped down some old working on the mountains, some queer
scribbling on a limestone rock, a man murdered with a blow from a
strange weapon; such is the scent I have to go upon. Yes, as you say,
there is a ready explanation for all this; the girl may have run away to
London, or Liverpool, or New York; the child may be at the bottom of the
disused shaft; and the letters on the rock may be the idle whims of some
vagrant. Yes, yes, I admit all that; but I know I hold the true key.
Look!' and he held out a slip of yellow paper.

_Characters found inscribed on a limestone rock on the Grey Hills_, I
read, and then there was a word erased, presumably the name of a county,
and a date some fifteen years back. Beneath was traced a number of
uncouth characters, shaped somewhat like wedges or daggers, as strange
and outlandish as the Hebrew alphabet.

'Now the seal,' said Professor Gregg, and he handed me the black stone,
a thing about two inches long, and something like an old-fashioned
tobacco-stopper, much enlarged.

I held it up to the light, and saw to my surprise the characters on the
paper repeated on the seal.

'Yes,' said the professor, 'they are the same. And the marks on the
limestone rock were made fifteen years ago, with some red substance. And
the characters on the seal are four thousand years old at least. Perhaps
much more.'

'Is it a hoax?' I said.

'No, I anticipated that. I was not to be led to give my life to a
practical joke. I have tested the matter very carefully. Only one person
besides myself knows of the mere existence of that black seal. Besides,
there are other reasons which I cannot enter into now.'

'But what does it all mean?' I said. 'I cannot understand to what
conclusion all this leads.'

'My dear Miss Lally, that is a question that I would rather leave
unanswered for some little time. Perhaps I shall never be able to say
what secrets are held here in solution; a few vague hints, the outlines
of village tragedies, a few marks done with red earth upon a rock, and
an ancient seal. A queer set of data to go upon? Half a dozen pieces of
evidence, and twenty years before even so much could be got together;
and who knows what mirage or _terra incognita_ may be beyond all this? I
look across deep waters, Miss Lally, and the land beyond may be but a
haze after all. But still I believe it is not so, and a few months will
show whether I am right or wrong.'

He left me, and alone I endeavoured to fathom the mystery, wondering to
what goal such eccentric odds and ends of evidence could lead. I myself
am not wholly devoid of imagination, and I had reason to respect the
professor's solidity of intellect; yet I saw in the contents of the
drawers but the materials of fantasy, and vainly tried to conceive what
theory could be founded on the fragments that had been placed before me.
Indeed, I could discover in what I had heard and seen but the first
chapter of an extravagant romance; and yet deep in my heart I burned
with curiosity, and day after day I looked eagerly in Professor Gregg's
face for some hint of what was to happen.

It was one evening after dinner that the word came.

'I hope you can make your preparations without much trouble,' he said
suddenly to me. 'We shall be leaving here in a week's time.'

'Really!' I said in astonishment. 'Where are we going?'

'I have taken a country house in the west of England, not far from
Caermaen, a quiet little town, once a city, and the headquarters of a
Roman legion. It is very dull there, but the country is pretty, and the
air is wholesome.'

I detected a glint in his eyes, and guessed that this sudden move had
some relation to our conversation of a few days before.

'I shall just take a few books with me,' said Professor Gregg, 'that is
all. Everything else will remain here for our return. I have got a
holiday,' he went on, smiling at me, 'and I shan't be sorry to be quit
for a time of my old bones and stones and rubbish. Do you know,' he went
on, 'I have been grinding away at facts for thirty years; it is time for
fancies.'

The days passed quickly; I could see that the professor was all
quivering with suppressed excitement, and I could scarce credit the
eager appetence of his glance as we left the old manor-house behind us
and began our journey. We set out at midday, and it was in the dusk of
the evening that we arrived at a little country station. I was tired and
excited, and the drive through the lanes seems all a dream. First the
deserted streets of a forgotten village, while I heard Professor Gregg's
voice talking of the Augustan Legion and the clash of arms, and all the
tremendous pomp that followed the eagles; then the broad river swimming
to full tide with the last afterglow glimmering duskily in the yellow
water, the wide meadows, the cornfields whitening, and the deep lane
winding on the slope between the hills and the water. At last we began
to ascend, and the air grew rarer. I looked down and saw the pure white
mist tracking the outline of the river like a shroud, and a vague and
shadowy country; imaginations and fantasy of swelling hills and hanging
woods, and half-shaped outlines of hills beyond, and in the distance the
glare of the furnace fire on the mountain, glowing by turns a pillar of
shining flame and fading to a dull point of red. We were slowly mounting
a carriage drive, and then there came to me the cool breath and the
secret of the great wood that was above us; I seemed to wander in its
deepest depths, and there was the sound of trickling water, the scent of
the green leaves, and the breath of the summer night. The carriage
stopped at last, and I could scarcely distinguish the form of the house,
as I waited a moment at the pillared porch. The rest of the evening
seemed a dream of strange things bounded by the great silence of the
wood and the valley and the river.

The next morning, when I awoke and looked out of the bow window of the
big, old-fashioned bedroom, I saw under a grey sky a country that was
still all mystery. The long, lovely valley, with the river winding in
and out below, crossed in mid-vision by a medićval bridge of vaulted and
buttressed stone, the clear presence of the rising ground beyond, and
the woods that I had only seen in shadow the night before, seemed tinged
with enchantment, and the soft breath of air that sighed in at the
opened pane was like no other wind. I looked across the valley, and
beyond, hill followed on hill as wave on wave, and here a faint blue
pillar of smoke rose still in the morning air from the chimney of an
ancient grey farmhouse, there was a rugged height crowned with dark
firs, and in the distance I saw the white streak of a road that climbed
and vanished into some unimagined country. But the boundary of all was a
great wall of mountain, vast in the west, and ending like a fortress
with a steep ascent and a domed tumulus clear against the sky.

I saw Professor Gregg walking up and down the terrace path below the
windows, and it was evident that he was revelling in the sense of
liberty, and the thought that he had for a while bidden good-bye to
task-work. When I joined him there was exultation in his voice as he
pointed out the sweep of valley and the river that wound beneath the
lovely hills.

'Yes,' he said, 'it is a strangely beautiful country; and to me, at
least, it seems full of mystery. You have not forgotten the drawer I
showed you, Miss Lally? No; and you have guessed that I have come here
not merely for the sake of the children and the fresh air?'

'I think I have guessed as much as that,' I replied; 'but you must
remember I do not know the mere nature of your investigations; and as
for the connection between the search and this wonderful valley, it is
past my guessing.'

He smiled queerly at me. 'You must not think I am making a mystery for
the sake of mystery,' he said. 'I do not speak out because, so far,
there is nothing to be spoken, nothing definite, I mean, nothing that
can be set down in hard black and white, as dull and sure and
irreproachable as any blue-book. And then I have another reason: Many
years ago a chance paragraph in a newspaper caught my attention, and
focussed in an instant the vagrant thoughts and half-formed fancies of
many idle and speculative hours into a certain hypothesis. I saw at once
that I was treading on a thin crust; my theory was wild and fantastic in
the extreme, and I would not for any consideration have written a hint
of it for publication. But I thought that in the company of scientific
men like myself, men who knew the course of discovery, and were aware
that the gas that blazes and flares in the gin-palace was once a wild
hypothesis--I thought that with such men as these I might hazard my
dream--let us say Atlantis, or the philosopher's stone, or what you
like--without danger of ridicule. I found I was grossly mistaken; my
friends looked blankly at me and at one another, and I could see
something of pity, and something also of insolent contempt, in the
glances they exchanged. One of them called on me next day, and hinted
that I must be suffering from overwork and brain exhaustion. "In plain
terms," I said, "you think I am going mad. I think not"; and I showed
him out with some little appearance of heat. Since that day I vowed that
I would never whisper the nature of my theory to any living soul; to no
one but yourself have I ever shown the contents of that drawer. After
all, I may be following a rainbow; I may have been misled by the play of
coincidence; but as I stand here in this mystic hush and silence, amidst
the woods and wild hills, I am more than ever sure that I am hot on the
scent. Come, it is time we went in.'

To me in all this there was something both of wonder and excitement; I
knew how in his ordinary work Professor Gregg moved step by step,
testing every inch of the way, and never venturing on assertion without
proof that was impregnable. Yet I divined, more from his glance and the
vehemence of his tone than from the spoken word, that he had in his
every thought the vision of the almost incredible continually with him;
and I, who was with some share of imagination no little of a sceptic,
offended at a hint of the marvellous, could not help asking myself
whether he were cherishing a monomania, and barring out from this one
subject all the scientific method of his other life.

Yet, with this image of mystery haunting my thoughts, I surrendered
wholly to the charm of the country. Above the faded house on the
hillside began the great forest--a long, dark line seen from the
opposing hills, stretching above the river for many a mile from north to
south, and yielding in the north to even wilder country, barren and
savage hills, and ragged commonland, a territory all strange and
unvisited, and more unknown to Englishmen than the very heart of Africa.
The space of a couple of steep fields alone separated the house from the
woods, and the children were delighted to follow me up the long alleys
of undergrowth, between smooth pleached walls of shining beech, to the
highest point in the wood, whence one looked on one side across the
river and the rise and fall of the country to the great western mountain
wall, and on the other over the surge and dip of the myriad trees of the
forest, over level meadows and the shining yellow sea to the faint coast
beyond. I used to sit at this point on the warm sunlit turf which marked
the track of the Roman Road, while the two children raced about hunting
for the whinberries that grew here and there on the banks. Here, beneath
the deep blue sky and the great clouds rolling, like olden galleons with
sails full-bellied, from the sea to the hills, as I listened to the
whispered charm of the great and ancient wood, I lived solely for
delight, and only remembered strange things when we would return to the
house and find Professor Gregg either shut up in the little room he had
made his study, or else pacing the terrace with the look, patient and
enthusiastic, of the determined seeker.

One morning, some eight or nine days after our arrival, I looked out of
my window and saw the whole landscape transmuted before me. The clouds
had dipped low and hidden the mountain in the west; a southern wind was
driving the rain in shifting pillars up the valley, and the little
brooklet that burst the hill below the house now raged, a red torrent,
down the river. We were perforce obliged to keep snug within-doors; and
when I had attended to my pupils, I sat down in the morning-room, where
the ruins of a library still encumbered an old-fashioned bookcase. I had
inspected the shelves once or twice, but their contents had failed to
attract me; volumes of eighteenth-century sermons, an old book on
farriery, a collection of poems by 'persons of quality,' Prideaus's
_Connection_, and an odd volume of Pope, were the boundaries of the
library, and there seemed little doubt that everything of interest or
value had been removed. Now, however, in desperation, I began to
re-examine the musty sheepskin and calf bindings, and found, much to my
delight, a fine old quarto printed by the Stephani, containing the three
books of Pomponius Mela, _De Situ Orbis_, and other of the ancient
geographers. I knew enough of Latin to steer my way through an ordinary
sentence, and I soon became absorbed in the odd mixture of fact and
fancy--light shining on a little of the space of the world, and beyond,
mist and shadow and awful forms. Glancing over the clear-printed pages,
my attention was caught by the heading of a chapter in Solinus, and I
read the words:


MIRA DE INTIMIS GENTIBUS LIBYAE. DE LAPIDE HEXECONTALITHO,


--'The wonders of the people that inhabit the inner parts of Libya, and
of the stone called Sixtystone.'

The odd title attracted me, and I read on:

_Gens ista avia er secreta habitat, in montibus horrendis foeda mysteria
celebrat. De hominibus nihil aliud illi praeferunt quam figuram, ab
humano ritu prorsus exulant, oderunt deum lucis.

Stridunt potius quam loquuntur; vox absona nec sine horrore auditur.
Lapide quodam gloriantur, quem Hexecontalithon vocant; dicunt enim hunc
lapidem sexaginta notas ostendere.

Cujus lapidis nomen secretum ineffabile colunt: quod Ixaxar._

'This folk,' I translated to myself, 'dwells in remote and secret
places, and celebrates foul mysteries on savage hills. Nothing have they
in common with men save the face, and the customs of humanity are wholly
strange to them; and they hate the sun. They hiss rather than speak;
their voices are harsh, and not to be heard without fear. They boast of
a certain stone, which they call Sixtystone; for they say that it
displays sixty characters. And this stone has a secret unspeakable name;
which is Ixaxar.'

I laughed at the queer inconsequence of all this, and thought it fit for
'Sinbad the Sailor,' or other of the supplementary _Nights_. When I saw
Professor Gregg in the course of the day, I told him of my find in the
bookcase, and the fantastic rubbish I had been reading. To my surprise
he looked up at me with an expression of great interest.

'That is really very curious,' he said. 'I have never thought it worth
while to look into the old geographers, and I dare say I have missed a
good deal. Ah, that is the passage, is it? It seems a shame to rob you
of your entertainment, but I really think I must carry off the book.'

The next day the professor called me to come to the study. I found him
sitting at a table in the full light of the window, scrutinizing
something very attentively with a magnifying glass.

'Ah, Miss Lally,' he began, 'I want to use your eyes. This glass is
pretty good, but not like my old one that I left in town. Would you mind
examining the thing yourself, and telling me how many characters are cut
on it?'

He handed me the object in his hand. I saw that it was the black seal he
had shown me in London, and my heart began to beat with the thought that
I was presently to know something. I took the seal, and, holding it up
to the light, checked off the grotesque dagger-shaped characters one by
one.

'I make sixty-two,' I said at last.

'Sixty-two? Nonsense; it's impossible. Ah, I see what you have done, you
have counted that and that,' and he pointed to two marks which I had
certainly taken as letters with the rest.

'Yes, yes,' Professor Gregg went on, 'but those are obviously scratches,
done accidentally; I saw that at once. Yes, then that's quite right.
Thank you very much, Miss Lally.'

I was going away, rather disappointed at my having been called in merely
to count the number of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there
flashed into my mind what I had read in the morning.

'But, Professor Gregg,' I cried, breathless, 'the seal, the seal. Why,
it is the stone Hexecontalithos that Solinus writes of; it is Ixaxar.'

'Yes,' he said, 'I suppose it is. Or it may be a mere coincidence. It
never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence
killed the professor.'

I went away puzzled by what I had heard, and as much as ever at a loss
to find the ruling clue in this maze of strange evidence. For three days
the bad weather lasted, changing from driving rain to a dense mist, fine
and dripping, and we seemed to be shut up in a white cloud that veiled
all the world away from us. All the while Professor Gregg was darkling
in his room, unwilling, it appeared, to dispense confidences or talk of
any kind, and I heard him walking to and fro with a quick, impatient
step, as if he were in some way wearied of inaction. The fourth morning
was fine, and at breakfast the professor said briskly:

'We want some extra help about the house; a boy of fifteen or sixteen,
you know. There are a lot of little odd jobs that take up the maids'
time which a boy could do much better.'

'The girls have not complained to me in any way,' I replied. 'Indeed,
Anne said there was much less work than in London, owing to there being
so little dust.'

'Ah, yes, they are very good girls. But I think we shall do much better
with a boy. In fact, that is what has been bothering me for the last two
days.'

'Bothering you?' I said in astonishment, for as a matter of fact the
professor never took the slightest interest in the affairs of the house.

'Yes,' he said, 'the weather, you know. I really couldn't go out in that
Scotch mist; I don't know the country very well, and I should have lost
my way. But I am going to get the boy this morning.'

'But how do you know there is such a boy as you want anywhere about?'

'Oh, I have no doubt as to that. I may have to walk a mile or two at the
most, but I am sure to find just the boy I require.'

I thought the professor was joking, but, though his tone was airy
enough, there was something grim and set about his features that puzzled
me. He got his stick, and stood at the door looking meditatively before
him, and as I passed through the hall he called to me.

'By the way, Miss Lally, there was one thing I wanted to say to you. I
dare say you may have heard that some of these country lads are not
over-bright; "idiotic" would be a harsh word to use, and they are
usually called "naturals", or something of the kind. I hope you won't
mind if the boy I am after should turn out not too keen-witted; he will
be perfectly harmless, of course, and blacking boots doesn't need much
mental effort.'

With that he was gone, striding up the road that led to the wood, and I
remained stupefied; and then for the first time my astonishment was
mingled with a sudden note of terror, arising I knew not whence, and all
unexplained even to myself, and yet I felt about my heart for an instant
something of the chill of death, and that shapeless, formless dread of
the unknown that is worse than death itself. I tried to find courage in
the sweet air that blew up from the sea, and in the sunlight after rain,
but the mystic woods seemed to darken around me; and the vision of the
river coiling between the reeds, and the silver grey of the ancient
bridge, fashioned in my mind symbols of vague dread, as the mind of a
child fashions terror from things harmless and familiar.

Two hours later Professor Gregg returned. I met him as he came down the
road, and asked quietly if he had been able to find a boy.

'Oh, yes.' he answered; 'I found one easily enough. His name is Jervase
Cradock, and I expect he will make himself very useful. His father has
been dead for many years, and the mother, whom I saw, seemed very glad
at the prospect of a few shillings extra coming in on Saturday nights.
As I expected, he is not too sharp, has fits at times, the mother said;
but as he will not be trusted with the china, that doesn't much matter,
does it? And he is not in any way dangerous, you know, merely a little
weak.'

'When is he coming?'

'To-morrow morning at eight o'clock. Anne will show him what he has to
do, and how to do it. At first he will go home every night, but perhaps
it may ultimately turn out more convenient for him to sleep here, and
only go home for Sundays.'

I found nothing to say to all this; Professor Gregg spoke in a quiet
tone of matter-of-fact, as indeed was warranted by the circumstance; and
yet I could not quell my sensation of astonishment at the whole affair.
I knew that in reality no assistance was wanted in the housework, and
the professor's prediction that the boy he was to engage might prove a
little 'simple,' followed by so exact a fulfilment, struck me as bizarre
in the extreme. The next morning I heard from the housemaid that the boy
Cradock had come at eight, and that she had been trying to make him
useful. 'He doesn't seem quite all there, I don't think, miss,' was her
comment, and later in the day I saw him helping the old man who worked
in the garden. He was a youth of about fourteen, with black hair and
black eyes and an olive skin, and I saw at once from the curious vacancy
of his expression that he was mentally weak. He touched his forehead
awkwardly as I went by, and I heard him answering the gardener in a
queer, harsh voice that caught my attention; it gave me the impression
of some one speaking deep below under the earth, and there was a strange
sibilance, like the hissing of the phonograph as the pointer travels
over the cylinder. I heard that he seemed anxious to do what he could,
and was quite docile and obedient, and Morgan the gardener, who knew his
mother, assured me he was perfectly harmless. 'He's always been a bit
queer,' he said, 'and no wonder, after what his mother went through
before he was born. I did know his father, Thomas Cradock, well, and a
very fine workman he was too, indeed. He got something wrong with his
lungs owing to working in the wet woods, and never got over it, and went
off quite sudden like. And they do say as how Mrs. Cradock was quite off
her head: anyhow, she was found by Mr. Hillyer, Ty Coch, all crouched up
on the Grey Hills, over there, crying and weeping like a lost soul. And
Jervase, he was born about eight months afterwards, and, as I was
saying, he was a bit queer always; and they do say when he could
scarcely walk he would frighten the other children into fits with the
noises he would make.'

A word in the story had stirred up some remembrance within me, and,
vaguely curious, I asked the old man where the Grey Hills were.

'Up there,' he said, with the same gesture he had used before; 'you go
past the "Fox and Hounds", and through the forest, by the old ruins.
It's a good five mile from here, and a strange sort of a place. The
poorest soil between this and Monmouth, they do say, though it's good
feed for sheep. Yes, it was a sad thing for poor Mrs. Cradock.'

The old man turned to his work, and I strolled on down the path between
the espaliers, gnarled and gouty with age, thinking of the story I had
heard, and groping for the point in it that had some key to my memory.
In an instant it came before me; I had seen the phrase 'Grey Hills' on
the slip of yellowed paper that Professor Gregg had taken from the
drawer in his cabinet. Again I was seized with pangs of mingled
curiosity and fear; I remembered the strange characters copied from the
limestone rock, and then again their identity with the inscription of
the age-old seal, and the fantastic fables of the Latin geographer. I
saw beyond doubt that, unless coincidence had set all the scene and
disposed all these bizarre events with curious art, I was to be a
spectator of things far removed from the usual and customary traffic and
jostle of life. Professor Gregg I noted day by day; he was hot on his
trail, growing lean with eagerness; and in the evenings, when the sun
was swimming on the verge of the mountain, he would pace the terrace to
and fro with his eyes on the ground, while the mist grew white in the
valley, and the stillness of the evening brought far voices near, and
the blue smoke rose a straight column from the diamond-shaped chimney of
the grey farmhouse, just as I had seen it on the first morning. I have
told you I was of sceptical habit; but though I understood little or
nothing, I began to dread, vainly proposing to myself the iterated
dogmas of science that all life is material, and that in the system of
things there is no undiscovered land, even beyond the remotest stars,
where the supernatural can find a footing. Yet there struck in on this
the thought that matter is as really awful and unknown as spirit, that
science itself but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining more than
a glimpse of the wonders of the inner place.

There is one day that stands up from amidst the others as a grim red
beacon, betokening evil to come. I was sitting on a bench in the garden,
watching the boy Cradock weeding, when I was suddenly alarmed by a harsh
and choking sound, like the cry of a wild beast in anguish, and I was
unspeakably shocked to see the unfortunate lad standing in full view
before me, his whole body quivering and shaking at short intervals as
though shocks of electricity were passing through him, his teeth
grinding, foam gathering on his lips, and his face all swollen and
blackened to a hideous mask of humanity. I shrieked with terror, and
Professor Gregg came running; and as I pointed to Cradock, the boy with
one convulsive shudder fell face forward, and lay on the wet earth, his
body writhing like a wounded blind-worm, and an inconceivable babble of
sounds bursting and rattling and hissing from his lips. He seemed to
pour forth an infamous jargon, with words, or what seemed words, that
might have belonged to a tongue dead since untold ages and buried deep
beneath Nilotic mud, or in the inmost recesses of the Mexican forest.
For a moment the thought passed through my mind, as my ears were still
revolted with that infernal clamour, 'Surely this is the very speech of
hell,' and then I cried out again and again, and ran away shuddering to
my inmost soul. I had seen Professor Gregg's face as he stooped over the
wretched boy and raised him, and I was appalled by the glow of
exultation that shone on every lineament and feature. As I sat in my
room with drawn blinds, and my eyes hidden in my hands, I heard heavy
steps beneath, and I was told afterwards that Professor Gregg had
carried Cradock to his study, and had locked the door. I heard voices
murmur indistinctly, and I trembled to think of what might be passing
within a few feet of where I sat; I longed to escape to the woods and
sunshine, and yet I dreaded the sights that might confront me on the
way; and at last, as I held the handle of the door nervously, I heard
Professor Gregg's voice calling to me with a cheerful ring. 'It's all
right now, Miss Lally,' he said. 'The poor fellow has got over it, and I
have been arranging for him to sleep here after tomorrow. Perhaps I may
be able to do something for him.'

'Yes,' he said later, 'it was a very painful sight, and I don't wonder
you were alarmed. We may hope that good food will build him up a little,
but I am afraid he will never be really cured,' and he affected the
dismal and conventional air with which one speaks of hopeless illness;
and yet beneath it I detected the delight that leapt up rampant within
him, and fought and struggled to find utterance. It was as if one
glanced down on the even surface of the sea, clear and immobile, and saw
beneath raging depths and a storm of contending billows. It was indeed
to me a torturing and offensive problem that this man, who had so
bounteously rescued me from the sharpness of death, and showed himself
in all the relations of life full of benevolence, and pity, and kindly
forethought, should so manifestly be for once on the side of the demons,
and take a ghastly pleasure in the torments of an afflicted fellow
creature. Apart, I struggled with the horned difficulty, and strove to
find the solution; but without the hint of a clue, beset by mystery and
contradiction. I saw nothing that might help me, and began to wonder
whether, after all, I had not escaped from the white mist of the suburb
at too dear a rate. I hinted something of my thought to the professor; I
said enough to let him know that I was in the most acute perplexity, but
the moment after regretted what I had done when I saw his face contort
with a spasm of pain.

'My dear Miss Lally,' he said, 'you surely do not wish to leave us? No,
no, you would not do it. You do not know how I rely on you; how
confidently I go forward, assured that you are here to watch over my
children. You, Miss Lally, are my rear-guard; for let me tell you the
business in which I am engaged is not wholly devoid of peril. You have
not forgotten what I said the first morning here; my lips are shut by an
old and firm resolve till they can open to utter no ingenious hypothesis
or vague surmise, but irrefragable fact, as certain as a demonstration
in mathematics. Think over it, Miss Lally; not for a moment would I
endeavour to keep you here against your own instincts, and yet I tell
you frankly that I am persuaded it is here, here amidst the woods, that
your duty lies.'

I was touched by the eloquence of his tone, and by the remembrance that
the man, after all, had been my salvation, and I gave him my hand on a
promise to serve him loyally and without question. A few days later the
rector of our church--a little church, grey and severe and quaint, that
hovered on the very banks of the river and watched the tides swim and
return--came to see us, and Professor Gregg easily persuaded him to stay
and share our dinner. Mr. Meyrick was a member of an antique family of
squires, whose old manor-house stood amongst the hills some seven miles
away, and thus rooted in the soil, the rector was a living store of all
the old fading customs and lore of the country. His manner, genial, with
a deal of retired oddity, won on Professor Gregg; and towards the
cheese, when a curious Burgundy had begun its incantations, the two men
glowed like the wine, and talked of philology with the enthusiasm of a
burgess over the peerage. The parson was expounding the pronunciation of
the Welsh _ll_, and producing sounds like the gurgle of his native
brooks, when Professor Gregg struck in.

'By the way,' he said, 'that was a very odd word I met with the other
day. You know my boy, poor Jervase Cradock? Well, he has got the bad
habit of talking to himself, and the day before yesterday I was walking
in the garden here and heard him; he was evidently quite unconscious of
my presence. A lot of what he said I couldn't make out, but one word
struck me distinctly. It was such an odd sound, half sibilant, half
guttural, and as quaint as those double _l_'s you have been
demonstrating. I do not know whether I can give you an idea of the
sound; 'Ishakshar' is perhaps as near as I can get. But the _k_ ought to
be a Greek _chi_ or a Spanish _j_. Now what does it mean in Welsh?'

'In Welsh?' said the parson. 'There is no such word in Welsh, nor any
word remotely resembling it. I know the book-Welsh, as they call it, and
the colloquial dialects as well as any man, but there's no word like
that from Anglesea to Usk. Besides, none of the Cradocks speak a word of
Welsh; it's dying out about here.'

'Really. You interest me extremely, Mr. Meyrick. I confess the word
didn't strike me as having the Welsh ring. But I thought it might be
some local corruption.'

'No, I never heard such a word, or anything like it. Indeed,' he added,
smiling whimsically, 'if it belongs to any language, I should say it
must be that of the fairies--the Tylwydd Tęg, as we call them.'

The talk went on to the discovery of a Roman villa in the neighbourhood;
and soon after I left the room, and sat down apart to wonder at the
drawing together of such strange clues of evidence. As the professor had
spoken of the curious word, I had caught the glint in his eye upon me;
and though the pronunciation he gave was grotesque in the extreme, I
recognized the name of the stone of sixty characters mentioned by
Solinus, the black seal shut up in some secret drawer of the study,
stamped for ever by a vanished race with signs that no man could read,
signs that might, for all I knew, be the veils of awful things done long
ago, and forgotten before the hills were moulded into form.

When the next morning I came down, I found Professor Gregg pacing the
terrace in his eternal walk.

'Look at that bridge,' he said, when he saw me; 'observe the quaint and
Gothic design, the angles between the arches, and the silvery grey of
the stone in the awe of the morning light. I confess it seems to me
symbolic; it should illustrate a mystical allegory of the passage from
one world to another.'

'Professor Gregg,' I said quietly, 'it is time that I knew something of
what has happened, and of what is to happen.'

For the moment he put me off, but I returned again with the same
question in the evening, and then Professor Gregg flamed with
excitement. 'Don't you understand yet?' he cried. 'But I have told you a
good deal; yes, and shown you a good deal; you have heard pretty nearly
all that I have heard, and seen what I have seen; or at least,' and his
voice chilled as he spoke, 'enough to make a good deal clear as noonday.
The servants told you, I have no doubt, that the wretched boy Cradock
had another seizure the night before last; he awoke me with cries in
that voice you heard in the garden, and I went to him, and God forbid
you should see what I saw that night. But all this is useless; my time
here is drawing to a close; I must be back in town in three weeks, as I
have a course of lectures to prepare, and need all my books about me. In
a very few days it will be all over, and I shall no longer hint, and no
longer be liable to ridicule as a madman and a quack. No, I shall speak
plainly, and I shall be heard with such emotions as perhaps no other man
has ever drawn from the breasts of his fellows.'

He paused, and seemed to grow radiant with the joy of great and
wonderful discovery.

'But all that is for the future, the near future certainly, but still
the future,' he went on at length. 'There is something to be done yet;
you will remember my telling you that my researches were not altogether
devoid of peril? Yes, there, is a certain amount of danger to be faced;
I did not know how much when I spoke on the subject before, and to a
certain extent I am still in the dark. But it will be a strange
adventure, the last of all, the last demonstration in the chain.'

He was walking up and down the room as he spoke, and I could hear in his
voice the contending tones of exultation and despondence, or perhaps I
should say awe, the awe of a man who goes forth on unknown waters, and I
thought of his allusion to Columbus on the night he had laid his book
before me. The evening was a little chilly, and a fire of logs had been
lighted in the study where we were; the remittent flame and the glow on
the walls reminded me of the old days. I was sitting silent in an
armchair by the fire, wondering over all I had heard, and still vainly
speculating as to the secret springs concealed from me under all the
phantasmagoria I had witnessed, when I became suddenly aware of a
sensation that change of some sort had been at work in the room, and
that there was something unfamiliar in its aspect. For some time I
looked about me, trying in vain to localize the alteration that I knew
had been made; the table by the window, the chairs, the faded settee
were all as I had known them. Suddenly, as a sought-for recollection
flashes into the mind, I knew what was amiss. I was facing the
professor's desk, which stood on the other side of the fire, and above
the desk was a grimy-looking bust of Pitt, that I had never seen there
before. And then I remembered the true position of this work of art; in
the furthest corner by the door was an old cupboard, projecting into the
room, and on the top of the cupboard, fifteen feet from the floor, the
bust had been, and there, no doubt, it had delayed, accumulating dirt,
since the early days of the century.

I was utterly amazed, and sat silent, still in a confusion of thought.
There was, so far as I knew, no such thing as a stepladder in the house,
for I had asked for one to make some alteration in the curtains of my
room, and a tall man standing on a chair would have found it impossible
to take down the bust. It had been placed, not on the edge of the
cupboard, but far back against the wall; and Professor Gregg was, if
anything, under the average height.

'How on earth did you manage to get down Pitt?' I said at last.

The professor looked curiously at me, and seemed to hesitate a little.

'They must have found you a stepladder, or perhaps the gardener brought
in a short ladder from outside?'

'No, I have had no ladder of any kind. Now, Miss Lally,' he went on with
an awkward simulation of jest, 'there is a little puzzle for you; a
problem in the manner of the inimitable Holmes; there are the facts,
plain and patent: summon your acuteness to the solution of the puzzle.
For Heaven's sake,' he cried with a breaking voice, 'say no more about
it! I tell you, I never touched the thing,' and he went out of the room
with horror manifest on his face, and his hand shook and jarred the door
behind him.

I looked round the room in vague surprise, not at all realizing what had
happened, making vain and idle surmises by way of explanation, and
wondering at the stirring of black waters by an idle word and the
trivial change of an ornament. 'This is some petty business, some whim
on which I have jarred.' I reflected; 'the professor is perhaps
scrupulous and superstitious over trifles, and my question may have
outraged unacknowledged fears, as though one killed a spider or spilled
the salt before the very eyes of a practical Scotchwoman.' I was
immersed in these fond suspicions, and began to plume myself a little on
my immunity from such empty fears, when the truth fell heavily as lead
upon my heart, and I recognized with cold terror that some awful
influence had been at work. The bust was simply inaccessible; without a
ladder no one could have touched it.

I went out to the kitchen and spoke as quietly as I could to the
housemaid.

'Who moved that bust from the top of the cupboard, Anne?' I said to her.
'Professor Gregg says he has not touched it. Did you find an old
stepladder in one of the outhouses?'

The girl looked at me blankly.

'I never touched it,' she said. 'I found it where it is now the other
morning when I dusted the room. I remember now, it was Wednesday
morning, because it was the morning after Cradock was taken bad in the
night. My room is next to his, you know, miss,' the girl went on
piteously, 'and it was awful to hear how he cried and called out names
that I couldn't understand. It made me feel all afraid; and then master
came, and I heard him speak, and he took down Cradock to the study and
gave him something.'

'And you found that bust moved the next morning?'

'Yes, miss. There was a queer sort of smell in the study when I came
down and opened the windows; a bad smell it was, and I wondered what it
could be. Do you know, miss, I went a long time ago to the Zoo in London
with my cousin Thomas Barker, one afternoon that I had off, when I was
at Mrs. Prince's in Stanhope Gate, and we went into the snake-house to
see the snakes, and it was just the same sort of smell; very sick it
made me feel, I remember, and I got Barker to take me out. And it was
just the same kind of smell in the study, as I was saying, and I was
wondering what it could be from, when I see that bust with Pitt cut in
it, standing on the master's desk, and I thought to myself, 'Now who has
done that, and how have they done it'?' And when I came to dust the
things, I looked at the bust, and I saw a great mark on it where the
dust was gone, for I don't think it can have been touched with a duster
for years and years, and it wasn't like finger-marks, but a large patch
like, broad and spread out. So I passed my hand over it, without
thinking what I was doing, and where that patch was it was all sticky
and slimy, as if a snail had crawled over it. Very strange, isn't it,
miss? and I wonder who can have done it, and how that mess was made.'

The well-meant gabble of the servant touched me to the quick; I lay down
upon my bed, and bit my lip that I should not cry out loud in the sharp
anguish of my terror and bewilderment. Indeed, I was almost mad with
dread; I believe that if it had been daylight I should have fled hot
foot, forgetting all courage and all the debt of gratitude that was due
to Professor Gregg, not caring whether my fate were that I must starve
slowly, so long as I might escape from the net of blind and panic fear
that every day seemed to draw a little closer round me. If I knew, I
thought, if I knew what there was to dread, I could guard against it;
but here, in this lonely house, shut in on all sides by the olden woods
and the vaulted hills, terror seems to spring inconsequent from every
covert, and the flesh is aghast at the half-hearted murmurs of horrible
things. All in vain I strove to summon scepticism to my aid, and
endeavoured by cool common sense to buttress my belief in a world of
natural order, for the air that blew in at the open window was a mystic
breath, and in the darkness I felt the silence go heavy and sorrowful as
a mass of requiem, and I conjured images of strange shapes gathering
fast amidst the reeds, beside the wash of the river.

In the morning from the moment that I set foot in the breakfast-room, I
felt that the unknown plot was drawing to a crisis; the professor's face
was firm and set, and he seemed hardly to hear our voices when we spoke.

'I am going out for a rather long walk,' he said, when the meal was
over. 'You mustn't be expecting me, now, or thinking anything has
happened if I don't turn up to dinner. I have been getting stupid
lately, and I dare say a miniature walking tour will do me good. Perhaps
I may even spend the night in some little inn, if I find any place that
looks clean and comfortable.'

I heard this, and knew by my experience of Professor Gregg's manner that
it was no ordinary business of pleasure that impelled him. I knew not,
nor even remotely guessed, where he was bound, nor had I the vaguest
notion of his errand, but all the fear of the night before returned; and
as he stood, smiling, on the terrace, ready to set out, I implored him
to stay, and to forget all his dreams of the undiscovered continent.

'No, no, Miss Lally,' he replied, still smiling, 'it's too late now.
_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_, you know, is the device of all true
explorers, though I hope it won't be literally true in my case. But,
indeed, you are wrong to alarm yourself so; I look upon my little
expedition as quite commonplace; no more exciting than a day with the
geological hammers. There is a risk, of course, but so there is on the
commonest excursion. I can afford to be jaunty; I am doing nothing so
hazardous as 'Arry does a hundred times over in the course of every Bank
Holiday. Well, then, you must look more cheerfully; and so good-bye till
tomorrow at latest.'

He walked briskly up the road, and I saw him open the gate that marks
the entrance of the wood, and then he vanished in the gloom of the
trees.

All the day passed heavily with a strange darkness in the air, and again
I felt as if imprisoned amidst the ancient woods, shut in an olden land
of mystery and dread, and as if all was long ago and forgotten by the
living outside. I hoped and dreaded; and when the dinner-hour came I
waited, expecting to hear the professor's step in the hall, and his
voice exulting at I knew not what triumph. I composed my face to welcome
him gladly, but the night descended dark, and he did not come.

In the morning, when the maid knocked at my door, I called out to her,
and asked if her master had returned; and when she replied that his
bedroom door stood open and empty, I felt the cold clasp of despair.
Still, I fancied he might have discovered genial company, and would
return for luncheon, or perhaps in the afternoon, and I took the
children for a walk in the forest, and tried my best to play and laugh
with them, and to shout out the thoughts of mystery and veiled terror.

Hour after hour I waited, and my thoughts grew darker; again the night
came and found me watching, and at last, as I was making much ado to
finish my dinner, I heard steps outside and the sound of a man's voice.

The maid came in and looked oddly at me. 'Please, miss,' she began, 'Mr.
Morgan, the gardener, wants to speak to you for a minute, if you didn't
mind.'

'Show him in, please,' I answered, and set my lips tight.

The old man came slowly into the room, and the servant shut the door
behind him.

'Sit down, Mr. Morgan,' I said; 'what is it that you want to say to me?'

'Well, miss, Mr. Gregg he gave me something for you yesterday morning,
just before he went off, and he told me particular not to hand it up
before eight o'clock this evening exactly, if so be as he wasn't back
again home before, and if he should come home before I was just to
return it to him in his own hands. So, you see, as Mr. Gregg isn't here
yet, I suppose I'd better give you the parcel directly.'

He pulled out something from his pocket, and gave it to me, half rising.
I took it silently, and seeing that Morgan seemed doubtful as to what he
was to do next. I thanked him and bade him good night, and he went out.
I was left alone in the room with the parcel in my hand--a paper parcel,
neatly sealed and directed to me, with the instructions Morgan had
quoted, all written in the professor's large, loose hand. I broke the
seals with a choking at my heart, and found an envelope inside,
addressed also, but open, and I took the letter out.

_My dear Miss Lally_ it began--_To quote the old logic manual, the case
of your reading this note is a case of my having made a blunder of some
sort, and, I am afraid, a blunder that turns these lines into a
farewell. It is practically certain that neither you nor any one else
will ever see me again. I have made my will with provision for this
eventuality, and I hope you will consent to accept the small remembrance
addressed to you, and my sincere thanks for the way in which you joined
your fortunes to mine. The fate which has come upon me is desperate and
terrible beyond the remotest dreams of man; but this fate you have a
right to know--if you please. If you look in the left-hand drawer of my
dressing-table, you will find the key of the escritoire, properly
labelled. In the well of the escritoire is a large envelope sealed and
addressed to your name. I advise you to throw it forthwith into the
fire; you will sleep better of nights if you do so. But if you must know
the history of what has happened, it is all written down for you to
read._

The signature was firmly written below, and again I turned the page and
read out the words one by one, aghast and white to the lips, my hands
cold as ice, and sickness choking me. The dead silence of the room, and
the thought of the dark woods and hills closing me in on every side,
oppressed me, helpless and without capacity, and not knowing where to
turn for counsel. At last I resolved that though knowledge should haunt
my whole life and all the days to come, I must know the meaning of the
strange terrors that had so long tormented me, rising grey, dim, and
awful, like the shadows in the wood at dusk. I carefully carried out
Professor Gregg's directions, and not without reluctance broke the seal
of the envelope, and spread out his manuscript before me. That
manuscript I always carry with me, and I see that I cannot deny your
unspoken request to read it. This, then, was what I read that night,
sitting at the desk, with a shaded lamp beside me.

The young lady who called herself Miss Lally then proceeded to recite


THE STATEMENT OF WILLIAM GREGG. F.R.S., ETC.


It is many years since the first glimmer of the theory which is now
almost, if not quite, reduced to fact dawned on my mind. A somewhat
extensive course of miscellaneous and obsolete reading had done a great
deal to prepare the way, and, later, when I became somewhat of a
specialist, and immersed myself in the studies known as ethnological, I
was now and then startled by facts that would not square with orthodox
scientific opinion, and by discoveries that seemed to hint at something
still hidden for all our research. More particularly I became convinced
that much of the folk-lore of the world is but an exaggerated account of
events that really happened, and I was especially drawn to consider the
stories of the fairies, the good folk of the Celtic races. Here, I
thought I could detect the fringe of embroidery and exaggeration, the
fantastic guise, the little people dressed in green and gold sporting in
the flowers, and I thought I saw a distinct analogy between the name
given to this race (supposed to be imaginary) and the description of
their appearance and manners. Just as our remote ancestors called the
dreaded beings 'fair' and 'good' precisely because they dreaded them, so
they had dressed them up in charming forms, knowing the truth to be the
very reverse. Literature, too, had gone early to work, and had lent a
powerful hand in the transformation, so that the playful elves of
Shakespere are already far removed from the true original, and the real
horror is disguised in a form of prankish mischief. But in the older
tales, the stories that used to make men cross themselves as they sat
around the burning logs, we tread a different stage; I saw a widely
opposed spirit in certain histories of children and of men and women who
vanished strangely from the earth. They would be seen by a peasant in
the fields walking towards some green and rounded hillock, and seen no
more on earth; and there are stories of mothers who have left a child
quietly sleeping, with the cottage door rudely barred with a piece of
wood, and have returned, not to find the plump and rosy little Saxon,
but a thin and wizened creature, with sallow skin and black, piercing
eyes, the child of another race. Then, again, there were myths darker
still; the dread of witch and wizard, the lurid evil of the Sabbath, and
the hint of demons who mingled with the daughters of men. And just as we
have turned the terrible 'fair folk' into a company of benignant, if
freakish elves, so we have hidden from us the black foulness of the
witch and her companions under a popular _diablerie_ of old women and
broomsticks, and a comic cat with tail on end. So the Greeks called the
hideous furies benevolent ladies, and thus the northern nations have
followed their example. I pursued my investigations, stealing odd hours
from other and more imperative labours, and I asked myself the question:
Supposing these traditions to be true, who were the demons who are
reported to have attended the Sabbaths? I need not say that I laid aside
what I may call the supernatural hypothesis of the Middle Ages, and came
to the conclusion that fairies and devils were of one and the same race
and origin; invention, no doubt, and the Gothic fancy of old days, had
done much in the way of exaggeration and distortion; yet I firmly
believe that beneath all this imagery there was a black background of
truth. As for some of the alleged wonders, I hesitated. While I should
be very loath to receive any one specific instance of modern
spiritualism as containing even a grain of the genuine, yet I was not
wholly prepared to deny that human flesh may now and then, once perhaps
in ten millions cases, be the veil of powers which seem magical to
us--powers which, so far from proceeding from the heights and leading
men thither, are in reality survivals from the depths of being. The
amoeba and the snail have powers which we do not possess; and I thought
it possible that the theory of reversion might explain many things which
seem wholly inexplicable. Thus stood my position; I saw good reason to
believe that much of the tradition, a vast deal of the earliest and
uncorrupted tradition of the so-called fairies, represented solid fact,
and I thought that the purely supernatural element in these traditions
was to be accounted for on the hypothesis that a race which had fallen
out of the grand march of evolution might have retained, as a survival,
certain powers which would be to us wholly miraculous. Such was my
theory as it stood conceived in my mind; and working with this in view,
I seemed to gather confirmation from every side, from the spoils of a
tumulus or a barrow, from a local paper reporting an antiquarian meeting
in the country, and from general literature of all kinds. Amongst other
instances, I remember being struck by the phrase 'articulate-speaking
men' in Homer, as if the writer knew or had heard of men whose speech
was so rude that it could hardly be termed articulate; and on my
hypothesis of a race who had lagged far behind the rest, I could easily
conceive that such a folk would speak a jargon but little removed from
the inarticulate noises of brute beasts.

Thus I stood, satisfied that my conjecture was at all events not far
removed from fact, when a chance paragraph in a small country print one
day arrested my attention. It was a short account of what was to all
appearance the usual sordid tragedy of the village--a young girl
unaccountably missing, and evil rumour blatant and busy with her
reputation. Yet I could read between the lines that all this scandal was
purely hypothetical, and in all probability invented to account for what
was in any other manner unaccountable. A flight to London or Liverpool,
or an undiscovered body lying with a weight about its neck in the foul
depths of a woodland pool, or perhaps murder--such were the theories of
the wretched girl's neighbours. But as I idly scanned the paragraph, a
flash of thought passed through me with the violence of an electric
shock: what if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still
survived, still remained haunting wild places and barren hills, and now
and then repeating the evil of Gothic legend, unchanged and unchangeable
as the Turanian Shelta, or the Basques of Spain? I have said that the
thought came with violence; and indeed I drew in my breath sharply, and
clung with both hands to my elbow-chair, in a strange confusion of
horror and elation. It was as if one of my _confrčres_ of physical
science, roaming in a quiet English wood, had been suddenly stricken
aghast by the presence of the slimy and loathsome terror of the
ichthyosaurus, the original of the stories of the awful worms killed by
valourous knights, or had seen the sun darkened by the pterodactyl, the
dragon of tradition. Yet as a resolute explorer of knowledge, the
thought of such a discovery threw me into a passion of joy, and I cut
out the slip from the paper and put it in a drawer in my old bureau,
resolved that it should be but the first piece in a collection of the
strangest significance. I sat long that evening dreaming of the
conclusions I should establish, nor did cooler reflection at first dash
my confidence. Yet as I began to put the case fairly, I saw that I might
be building on an unstable foundation; the facts might possibly be in
accordance with local opinion, and I regarded the affair with a mood of
some reserve. Yet I resolved to remain perched on the look-out, and I
hugged to myself the thought that I alone was watching and wakeful,
while the great crowd of thinkers and searchers stood heedless and
indifferent, perhaps letting the most prerogative facts pass by
unnoticed.

Several years elapsed before I was enabled to add to the contents of the
drawer; and the second find was in reality not a valuable one, for it
was a mere repetition of the first, with only the variation of another
and distant locality. Yet I gained something; for in the second case, as
in the first, the tragedy took place in a desolate and lonely country,
and so far my theory seemed justified. But the third piece was to me far
more decisive. Again, amongst outland hills, far even from a main road
of traffic, an old man was found done to death, and the instrument of
execution was left beside him. Here, indeed, there were rumour and
conjecture, for the deadly tool was a primitive stone axe, bound by gut
to the wooden handle, and surmises the most extravagant and improbable
were indulged in. Yet, as I thought with a kind of glee, the wildest
conjectures went far astray; and I took the pains to enter into
correspondence with the local doctor, who was called at the inquest. He,
a man of some acuteness, was dumbfounded. 'It will not do to speak of
these things in country places,' he wrote to me; 'but frankly, there is
some hideous mystery here. I have obtained possession of the stone axe,
and have been so curious as to test its powers. I took it into the back
garden of my house one Sunday afternoon when my family and the servants
were all out, and there, sheltered by the poplar hedges, I made my
experiments. I found the thing utterly unmanageable; whether there is
some peculiar balance, some nice adjustment of weights, which require
incessant practice, or whether an effectual blow can be struck only by a
certain trick of the muscles, I do not know; but I can assure you that I
went into the house with but a sorry opinion of my athletic capacities.
I was like an inexperienced man trying "putting the hammer"; the force
exerted seemed to return on oneself, and I found myself hurled backwards
with violence, while the axe fell harmless to the ground. On another
occasion I tried the experiment with a clever woodman of the place; but
this man, who had handled his axe for forty years, could do nothing with
the stone implement, and missed every stroke most ludicrously. In short,
if it were not so supremely absurd, I should say that for four thousand
years no one on earth could have struck an effective blow with the tool
that undoubtedly was used to murder the old man.' This, as may be
imagined, was to me rare news; and afterwards, when I heard the whole
story, and learned that the unfortunate old man had babbled tales of
what might be seen at night on a certain wild hillside, hinting at
unheard-of wonders, and that he had been found cold one morning on the
very hill in question, my exultation was extreme, for I felt I was
leaving conjecture far behind me. But the next step was of still greater
importance. I had possessed for many years an extraordinary stone
seal--a piece of dull black stone, two inches long from the handle to
the stamp, and the stamping end a rough hexagon an inch and a quarter in
diameter. Altogether, it presented the appearance of an enlarged tobacco
stopper of an old-fashioned make. It had been sent to me by an agent in
the East, who informed me that it had been found near the site of the
ancient Babylon. But the characters engraved on the seal were to me an
intolerable puzzle. Somewhat of the cuneiform pattern, there were yet
striking differences, which I detected at the first glance, and all
efforts to read the inscription on the hypothesis that the rules for
deciphering the arrow-headed writing would apply proved futile. A riddle
such as this stung my pride, and at odd moments I would take the Black
Seal out of the cabinet, and scrutinize it with so much idle
perseverance that every letter was familiar to my mind, and I could have
drawn the inscription from memory without the slightest error. Judge,
then, of my surprise when I one day received from a correspondent in the
west of England a letter and an enclosure that positively left me
thunderstruck. I saw carefully traced on a large piece of paper the very
characters of the Black Seal, without alteration of any kind, and above
the inscription my friend had written: _Inscription found on a limestone
rock on the Grey Hills, Monmouthshire. Done in some red earth, and quite
recent._ I turned to the letter. My friend wrote: 'I send you the
enclosed inscription with all due reserve. A shepherd who passed by the
stone a week ago swears that there was then no mark of any kind. The
characters, as I have noted, are formed by drawing some red earth over
the stone, and are of an average height of one inch. They look to me
like a kind of cuneiform character, a good deal altered, but this, of
course, is impossible. It may be either a hoax, or more probably some
scribble of the gipsies, who are plentiful enough in this wild country.
They have, as you are aware, many hieroglyphics which they use in
communicating with one another. I happened to visit the stone in
question two days ago in connection with a rather painful incident which
has occurred here.'

As it may be supposed, I wrote immediately to my friend, thanking him
for the copy of the inscription, and asking him in a casual manner the
history of the incident he mentioned. To be brief, I heard that a woman
named Cradock, who had lost her husband a day before, had set out to
communicate the sad news to a cousin who lived some five miles away. She
took a short cut which led by the Grey Hills. Mrs. Cradock, who was then
quite a young woman, never arrived at her relative's house. Late that
night a farmer, who had lost a couple of sheep, supposed to have
wandered from the flock, was walking over the Grey Hills, with a lantern
and his dog. His attention was attracted by a noise, which he described
as a kind of wailing, mournful and pitiable to hear; and, guided by the
sound, he found the unfortunate Mrs. Cradock crouched on the ground by
the limestone rock, swaying her body to and fro, and lamenting and
crying in so heart-rending a manner that the farmer was, as he says, at
first obliged to stop his ears, or he would have run away. The woman
allowed herself to be taken home, and a neighbour came to see to her
necessities. All the night she never ceased her crying, mixing her
lament with words of some unintelligible jargon, and when the doctor
arrived he pronounced her insane. She lay on her bed for a week, now
wailing, as people said, like one lost and damned for eternity, and now
sunk in a heavy coma; it was thought that grief at the loss of her
husband had unsettled her mind, and the medical man did not at one time
expect her to live. I need not say that I was deeply interested in this
story, and I made my friend write to me at intervals with all the
particulars of the case. I heard then that in the course of six weeks
the woman gradually recovered the use of her faculties, and some months
later she gave birth to a son, christened Jervase, who unhappily proved
to be of weak intellect. Such were the facts known to the village; but
to me, while I whitened at the suggested thought of the hideous
enormities that had doubtless been committed, all this was nothing short
of conviction, and I incautiously hazarded a hint of something like the
truth to some scientific friends. The moment the words had left my lips
I bitterly regretted having spoken, and thus given away the great secret
of my life, but with a good deal of relief mixed with indignation I
found my fears altogether misplaced, for my friends ridiculed me to my
face, and I was regarded as a madman; and beneath a natural anger I
chuckled to myself, feeling as secure amidst these blockheads as if I
had confided what I knew to the desert sands.

But now, knowing so much, I resolved I would know all, and I
concentrated my efforts on the task of deciphering the inscription on
the Black Seal. For many years I made this puzzle the sole object of my
leisure moments, for the greater portion of my time was, of course,
devoted to other duties, and it was only now and then that I could
snatch a week of clear research. If I were to tell the full history of
this curious investigation, this statement would be wearisome in the
extreme, for it would contain simply the account of long and tedious
failure. But what I knew already of ancient scripts I was well equipped
for the chase, as I always termed it to myself. I had correspondents
amongst all the scientific men in Europe, and, indeed, in the world, and
I could not believe that in these days any character, however ancient
and however perplexed, could long resist the search-light I should bring
to bear upon it. Yet in point of fact, it was fully fourteen years
before I succeeded. With every year my professional duties increased and
my leisure became smaller. This no doubt retarded me a good deal; and
yet, when I look back on those years, I am astonished at the vast scope
of my investigation of the Black Seal. I made my bureau a centre, and
from all the world and from all the ages I gathered transcripts of
ancient writing.

Nothing, I resolved, should pass me unawares, and the faintest hint
should be welcomed and followed up. But as one covert after another was
tried and proved empty of result, I began in the course of years to
despair, and to wonder whether the Black Seal were the sole relic of
some race that had vanished from the world, and left no other trace of
its existence--had perished, in fine, as Atlantis is said to have done,
in some great cataclysm, its secrets perhaps drowned beneath the ocean
or moulded into the heart of the hills. The thought chilled my warmth a
little, and though I still persevered, it was no longer with the same
certainty of faith. A chance came to the rescue. I was staying in a
considerable town in the north of England, and took the opportunity of
going over the very creditable museum that had for some time been
established in the place. The curator was one of my correspondents; and,
as we were looking through one of the mineral cases, my attention was
struck by a specimen, a piece of black stone some four inches square,
the appearance of which reminded me in a measure of the Black Seal. I
took it up carelessly, and was turning it over in my hand, when I saw,
to my astonishment, that the under side was inscribed. I said, quietly
enough, to my friend the curator that the specimen interested me, and
that I should be much obliged if he would allow me to take it with me to
my hotel for a couple of days. He, of course, made no objection, and I
hurried to my rooms and found that my first glance had not deceived me.
There were two inscriptions; one in the regular cuneiform character,
another in the character of the Black Seal, and I realized that my task
was accomplished. I made an exact copy of the two inscriptions; and when
I got to my London study, and had the seal before me, I was able
seriously to grapple with the great problem. The interpreting
inscription on the museum specimen, though in itself curious enough, did
not bear on my quest, but the transliteration made me master of the
secret of the Black Seal. Conjucture, of course, had to enter into my
calculations; there was here and there uncertainty about a particular
ideograph, and one sign recurring again and again on the seal baffled me
for many successive nights. But at last the secret stood open before me
in plain English, and I read the key of the awful transmutation of the
hills. The last word was hardly written, when with fingers all trembling
and unsteady I tore the scrap of paper into the minutest fragments, and
saw them flame and blacken in the red hollow of the fire, and then I
crushed the grey films that remained into finest powder. Never since
then have I written those words; never will I write the phrases which
tell how man can be reduced to the slime from which he came, and be
forced to put on the flesh of the reptile and the snake.

There was now but one thing remaining. I knew, but I desired to see, and
I was after some time able to take a house in the neighbourhood of the
Grey Hills, and not far from the cottage where Mrs. Cradock and her son
Jervase resided. I need not go into a full and detailed account of the
apparently inexplicable events which have occurred here, where I am
writing this. I knew that I should find in Jervase Cradock something of
the blood of the 'Little People,' and I found later that he had more
than once encountered his kinsmen in lonely places in that lonely land.
When I was summoned one day to the garden, and found him in a seizure
speaking or hissing the ghastly jargon of the Black Seal, I am afraid
that exultation prevailed over pity. I heard bursting from his lips the
secrets of the underworld, and the word of dread, 'Ishakshar,'
signification of which I must be excused from giving.

But there is one incident I cannot pass over unnoticed. In the waste
hollow of the night I awoke at the sound of those hissing syllables I
knew so well; and on going to the wretched boy's room, I found him
convulsed and foaming at the mouth, struggling on the bed as if he
strove to escape the grasp of writhing demons. I took him down to my
room and lit the lamp, while he lay twisting on the floor, calling on
the power within his flesh to leave him. I saw his body swell and become
distended as a bladder, while the face blackened before my eyes; and
then at the crisis I did what was necessary according to the directions
on the Seal, and putting all scruple on one side, I became a man of
science, observant of what was passing. Yet the sight I had to witness
was horrible, almost beyond the power of human conception and the most
fearful fantasy. Something pushed out from the body there on the floor,
and stretched forth a slimy, wavering tentacle, across the room, grasped
the bust upon the cupboard, and laid it down on my desk.

When it was over, and I was left to walk up and down all the rest of the
night, white and shuddering, with sweat pouring from my flesh, I vainly
tried to reason within myself: I said, truly enough, that I had seen
nothing really supernatural, that a snail pushing out his horns and
drawing them in was but an instance on a smaller scale of what I had
witnessed; and yet horror broke through all such reasonings and left me
shattered and loathing myself for the share I had taken in the night's
work.

There is little more to be said. I am going now to the final trial and
encounter; for I have determined that there shall be nothing wanting,
and I shall meet the 'Little People' face to face. I shall have the
Black Seal and the knowledge of its secrets to help me, and if I
unhappily do not return from my journey, there is no need to conjure up
here a picture of the awfulness of my fate.

Pausing a little at the end of Professor Gregg's statement, Miss Lally
continued her tale in the following words:

Such was the almost incredible story that the professor had left behind
him. When I had finished reading it, it was late at night, but the next
morning I took Morgan with me, and we proceeded to search the Grey Hills
for some trace of the lost professor. I will not weary you with a
description of the savage desolation of that tract of country, a tract
of utterest loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over with grey
limestone boulders, worn by the ravages of time into fantastic
semblances of men and beast. Finally, after many hours of weary
searching, we found what I told you--the watch and chain, and purse, and
the ring--wrapped in a piece of coarse parchment. When Morgan cut the
gut that bound the parcel together, and I saw the professor's property,
I burst into tears, but the sight of the dreaded characters of the Black
Seal repeated on the parchment froze me to silent horror, and I think I
understood for the first time the awful fate that had come upon my late
employer.

I have only to add that Professor Gregg's lawyer treated my account of
what had happened as a fairy tale, and refused even to glance at the
documents I laid before him. It was he who was responsible for the
statement that appeared in the public press, to the effect that
Professor Gregg had been drowned, and that his body must have been swept
into the open sea.

Miss Lally stopped speaking, and looked at Mr. Phillipps, with a glance
of some inquiry. He, for his part, was sunken in a deep reverie of
thought; and when he looked up and saw the bustle of the evening
gathering in the square, men and women hurrying to partake of dinner,
and crowds already besetting the music-halls, all the hum and press of
actual life seemed unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning after an
awakening.



* * *



THE NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER


My name is Leicester; my father, Major-General Wyn Leicester, a
distinguished officer of artillery, succumbed five years ago to a
complicated liver complaint acquired in the deadly climate of India. A
year later my only brother, Francis, came home after a exceptionally
brilliant career at the University, and settled down with the resolution
of a hermit to master what has been well called the great legend of the
law. He was a man who seemed to live in utter indifference to everything
that is called pleasure; and though he was handsomer than most men, and
could talk as merrily and wittily as if he were a mere vagabond, he
avoided society, and shut himself up in a large room at the top of the
house to make himself a lawyer. Ten hours a day of hard reading was at
first his allotted portion; from the first light in the east to the late
afternoon he remained shut up with his books, taking a hasty half-hour's
lunch with me as if he grudged the wasting of the moments, and going out
for a short walk when it began to grow dusk. I thought that such
relentless application must be injurious, and tried to cajole him from
the crabbed textbooks, but his ardour seemed to grow rather than
diminish, and his daily tale of hours increased. I spoke to him
seriously, suggesting some occasional relaxation, if it were but an idle
afternoon with a harmless novel; but he laughed, and said that he read
about feudal tenures when he felt in need of amusement, and scoffed at
the notions of theatres, or a month's fresh air. I confessed that he
looked well, and seemed not to suffer from his labours, but I knew that
such unnatural toil would take revenge at last, and I was not mistaken.
A look of anxiety began to lurk about his eyes, and he seemed languid,
and at last he avowed that he was no longer in perfect health; he was
troubled, he said, with a sensation of dizziness, and awoke now and then
of nights from fearful dreams, terrified and cold with icy sweats. "I am
taking care of myself," he said, "so you must not trouble; I passed the
whole of yesterday afternoon in idleness, leaning back in that
comfortable chair you gave me, and scribbling nonsense on a sheet of
paper. No, no; I will not overdo my work; I shall be well enough in a
week or two, depend upon it."

Yet in spite of his assurances I could see that he grew no better, but
rather worse; he would enter the drawing-room with a face all miserably
wrinkled and despondent, and endeavour to look gaily when my eyes fell
on him, and I thought such symptoms of evil omen, and was frightened
sometimes at the nervous irritation of his movements, and at glances
which I could not decipher. Much against his will, I prevailed on him to
have medical advice, and with an ill grace he called in our old doctor.

Dr. Haberden cheered me after examination of his patient.

"There is nothing really much amiss," he said to me. "No doubt he reads
too hard and eats hastily, and then goes back again to his books in too
great a hurry, and the natural sequence is some digestive trouble and a
little mischief in the nervous system. But I think--I do indeed,
Miss Leicester--that we shall be able to set this all right. I have
written him a prescription which ought to do great things. So you have
no cause for anxiety."

My brother insisted on having the prescription made up by a chemist in
the neighbourhood. It was an odd, oldfashioned shop, devoid of the
studied coquetry and calculated glitter that make so gay a show on the
counters and shelves of the modern apothecary; but Francis liked the old
chemist, and believed in the scrupulous purity of his drugs. The
medicine was sent in due course, and I saw that my brother took it
regularly after lunch and dinner. It was an innocent-looking white
powder, of which a little was dissolved in a glass of cold water; I
stirred it in, and it seemed to disappear, leaving the water clear and
colorless. At first Francis seemed to benefit greatly; the weariness
vanished from his face, and he became more cheerful than he had ever
been since the time when he left school; he talked gaily of reforming
himself, and avowed to me that he had wasted his time.

"I have given too many hours to law," he said, laughing; "I think you
have saved me in the nick of time. Come, I shall be Lord Chancellor yet,
but I must not forget life. You and I will have a holiday together
before long; we will go to Paris and enjoy ourselves, and keep away from
the Bibliothčque Nationale."

I confessed myself delighted with the prospect.

"When shall we go?" I said. "I can start the day after to-morrow if you
like."

"Ah! that is perhaps a little too soon; after all, I do not know London
yet, and I suppose a man ought to give the pleasures of his own country
the first choice. But we will go off together in a week or two, so try
and furbish up your French. I only know law French myself, and I am
afraid that wouldn't do."

We were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed off his medicine with a
parade of carousal as if it had been wine from some choicest bin.

"Has it any particular taste?" I said.

"No; I should not know I was not drinking water," and he got up from his
chair and began to pace up and down the room as if he were undecided as
to what he should do next.

"Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room?" I said; "or would you like
to smoke?"

"No, I think I will take a turn; it seems a pleasant evening. Look at
the afterglow; why, it is as if a great city were burning in flames, and
down there between the dark houses it is raining blood fast. Yes, I will
go out; I may be in soon, but I shall take my key; so good-night, dear,
if I don't see you again."

The door slammed behind him, and I saw him walk lightly down the street,
swinging his malacca cane, and I felt grateful to Dr. Haberden for such
an improvement.

I believe my brother came home very late that night, but he was in a
merry mood the next morning.

"I walked on without thinking where I was going," he said, "enjoying the
freshness of the air, and livened by the crowds as I reached more
frequented quarters. And then I met an old college friend, Orford, in
the press of the pavement, and then--well, we enjoyed ourselves, I
have felt what it is to be young and a man; I find I have blood in my
veins, as other men have. I made an appointment with Orford for
to-night; there will be a little party of us at the restaurant. Yes; I
shall enjoy myself for a week or two, and hear the chimes at midnight,
and then we will go for our little trip together."

Such was the transmutation of my brother's character that in a few days
he became a lover of pleasure, a careless and merry idler of western
pavements, a hunter out of snug restaurants, and a fine critic of
fantastic dancing; he grew fat before my eyes, and said no more of
Paris, for he had clearly found his paradise in London. I rejoiced, and
yet wondered a little; for there was, I thought, something in his gaiety
that indefinitely displeased me, though I could not have defined my
feeling. But by degrees there came a change; he returned still in the
cold hours of the morning, but I heard no more about his pleasures, and
one morning as we sat at breakfast together I looked suddenly into his
eyes and saw a stranger before me.

"Oh, Francis!" I cried. "Oh, Francis, Francis, what have you done?" and
rending sobs cut the words short. I went weeping out of the room; for
though I knew nothing, yet I knew all, and by some odd play of thought I
remembered the evening when he first went abroad, and the picture of the
sunset sky glowed before me; the clouds like a city in burning flames,
and the rain of blood. Yet I did battle with such thoughts, resolving
that perhaps, after all, no great harm had been done, and in the evening
at dinner I resolved to press him to fix a day for our holiday in Paris.
We had talked easily enough, and my brother had just taken his medicine,
which he continued all the while. I was about to begin my topic when the
words forming in my mind vanished, and I wondered for a second what icy
and intolerable weight oppressed my heart and suffocated me as with the
unutterable horror of the coffin-lid nailed down on the living.

We had dined without candles; the room had slowly grown from twilight to
gloom, and the walls and corners were indistinct in the shadow. But from
where I sat I looked out into the street; and as I thought of what I
would say to Francis, the sky began to flush and shine, as it had done
on a well-remembered evening, and in the gap between two dark masses
that were houses an awful pageantry of flame appeared--lurid whorls
of writhed cloud, and utter depths burning, grey masses like the fume
blown from a smoking city, and an evil glory blazing far above shot with
tongues of more ardent fire, and below as if there were a deep pool of
blood. I looked down to where my brother sat facing me, and the words
were shaped on my lips, when I saw his hand resting on the table.
Between the thumb and forefinger of the closed hand there was a mark, a
small patch about the size of a sixpence, and somewhat of the colour of
a bad bruise. Yet, by some sense I cannot define, I knew that what I saw
was no bruise at all; oh! if human flesh could burn with flame, and if
flame could be black as pitch, such was that before me. Without thought
or fashioning of words grey horror shaped within me at the sight, and in
an inner cell it was known to be a brand. For the moment the stained sky
became dark as midnight, and when the light returned to me I was alone
in the silent room, and soon after I heard my brother go out.

Late as it was, I put on my hat and went to Dr. Haberden, and in his
great consulting room, ill lighted by a candle which the doctor brought
in with him, with stammering lips, and a voice that would break in spite
of my resolve, I told him all, from the day on which my brother began to
take the medicine down to the dreadful thing I had seen scarcely half an
hour before.

When I had done, the doctor looked at me for a minute with an expression
of great pity on his face.

"My dear Miss Leicester," he said, "you have evidently been anxious
about your brother; you have been worrying over him, I am sure. Come,
now, is it not so?"

"I have certainly been anxious," I said. "For the last week or two I
have not felt at ease."

"Quite so; you know, of course, what a queer thing the brain is?"

"I understand what you mean; but I was not deceived. I saw what I have
told you with my own eyes."

"Yes, yes of course. But your eyes had been staring at that very curious
sunset we had tonight. That is the only explanation. You will see it in
the proper light to-morrow, I am sure. But, remember, I am always ready
to give any help that is in my power; do not scruple to come to me, or
to send for me if you are in any distress."

I went away but little comforted, all confusion and terror and sorrow,
not knowing where to turn. When my brother and I met the next day, I
looked quickly at him, and noticed, with a sickening at heart, that the
right hand, the hand on which I had clearly seen the patch as of a black
fire, was wrapped up with a handkerchief.

"What is the matter with your hand, Francis?" I said in a steady voice.

"Nothing of consequence. I cut a finger last night, and it bled rather
awkwardly. So I did it up roughly to the best of my ability."

"I will do it neatly for you, if you like."

"No, thank you, dear; this will answer very well. Suppose we have
breakfast; I am quite hungry."

We sat down and I watched him. He scarcely ate or drank at all, but
tossed his meat to the dog when he thought my eyes were turned away;
there was a look in his eyes that I had never yet seen, and the thought
flashed across my mind that it was a look that was scarcely human. I was
firmly convinced that awful and incredible as was the thing I had seen
the night before, yet it was no illusion, no glamour of bewildered
sense, and in the course of the evening I went again to the doctor's
house.

He shook his head with an air puzzled and incredulous, and seemed to
reflect for a few minutes.

"And you say he still keeps up the medicine? But why? As I understand,
all the symptoms he complained of have disappeared long ago; why should
he go on taking the stuff when he is quite well? And by the by, where
did he get it made up? At Sayce's? I never send any one there; the old
man is getting careless. Suppose you come with me to the chemist's; I
should like to have some talk with him."

We walked together to the shop; old Sayce knew Dr. Haberden, and was
quite ready to give any information.

"You have been sending that in to Mr. Leicester for some weeks, I think,
on my prescription," said the doctor, giving the old man a pencilled
scrap of paper.

The chemist put on his great spectacles with trembling uncertainty, and
held up the paper with a shaking hand "Oh, yes," he said, "I have very
little of it left; it is rather an uncommon drug, and I have had it in
stock some time. I must get in some more, if Mr. Leicester goes on with
it."

"Kindly let me have a look at the stuff," said Haberden, and the chemist
gave him a glass bottle. He took out the stopper and smelt the contents,
and looked strangely at the old man.

"Where did you get this?" he said, "and what is it? For one thing, Mr.
Sayce, it is not what I prescribed. Yes, yes, I see the label is right
enough, but I tell you this is not the drug."

"I have had it a long time," said the old man in feeble terror; "I got
it from Burbage's in the usual way. It is not prescribed often, and I
have had it on the shelf for some years. You see there is very little
left."

"You had better give it to me," said Haberden. "I am afraid something
wrong has happened."

We went out of the shop in silence, the doctor carrying the bottle
neatly wrapped in paper under his arm.

"Dr. Haberden," I said, when we had walked a little way--"Dr.
Haberden."

"Yes," he said, looking at me gloomily enough.

"I should like you to tell me what my brother has been taking twice a
day for the last month or so."

"Frankly, Miss Leicester, I don't know. We will speak of this when we
get to my house."

We walked on quickly without another word till we reached Dr.
Haberden's. He asked me to sit down, and began pacing up and down the
room, his face clouded over, as I could see, with no common fears.

"Well," he said at length, "this is all very strange; it is only natural
that you should feel alarmed, and I must confess that my mind is far
from easy. We will put aside, if you please, what you told me last night
and this morning, but the fact remains that for the last few weeks Mr.
Leicester has been impregnating his system with a drug which is
completely unknown to me. I tell you, it is not what I ordered; and what
the stuff in the bottle really is remains to be seen."

He undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted a few grains of the white
powder on to a piece of paper, and peered curiously at it.

"Yes," he said, "it is like the sulphate of quinine, as you say; it is
flaky. But smell it."

He held the bottle to me, and I bent over it. It was a strange, sickly
smell, vaporous and overpowering, like some strong anaesthetic.

"I shall have it analysed," said Haberden; "I have a friend who has
devoted his whole life to chemistry as a science. Then we shall have
something to go upon. No, no; say no more about that other matter; I
cannot listen to that; and take my advice and think no more about it
yourself."

That evening my brother did not go out as usual after dinner.

"I have had my fling," he said with a queer laugh, "and I must go back
to my old ways. A little law will be quite a relaxation after so sharp a
dose of pleasure," and he grinned to himself, and soon after went up to
his room. His hand was still all bandaged.

Dr. Haberden called a few days later.

"I have no special news to give you," he said. "Chambers is out of town,
so I know no more about that stuff than you do. But I should like to see
Mr. Leicester, if he is in."

"He is in his room," I said; "I will tell him you are here."

"No, no, I will go up to him; we will have a little quiet talk together.
I dare say that we have made a good deal of fuss about a very little;
for, after all, whatever the powder may be, it seems to have done him
good."

The doctor went upstairs, and standing in the hall I heard his knock,
and the opening and shutting of the door; and then I waited in the
silent house for an hour, and the stillness grew more and more intense
as the hands of the clock crept round. Then there sounded from above the
noise of a door shut sharply, and the doctor was coming down the stairs.
His footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door; I
drew a long, sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in a
little mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. There was an
unutterable horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holding
the back of a chair with one hand, his lower lip trembled like a
horse's, and he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds before he
spoke.

"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "I have been sitting
in his presence for the last hour. My God! And I am alive and in my
senses! I, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled with
the melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But not this, oh! not
this," and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the
sight of something before him.

"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he said with more composure.
"I can do nothing in this house. Good-bye."

As I watched him totter down the steps; and along the pavement towards
his house, it seemed to me that he had aged by ten years since the
morning.

My brother remained in his room. He called out to me in a voice I hardly
recognized that he was very busy, and would like his meals brought to
his door and left there, and I gave the order to the servants. From that
day it seemed as if the arbitrary conception we call time had been
annihilated for me; I lived in an ever-present sense of horror, going
through the routine of the house mechanically, and only speaking a few
necessary words to the servants. Now and then I went out and paced the
streets for an hour or two and came home again; but whether I were
without or within, my spirit delayed before the closed door of the upper
room, and, shuddering, waited for it to open. I have said that I
scarcely reckoned time; but I suppose it must have been a fortnight
after Dr. Haberden's visit that I came home from my stroll a little
refreshed and lightened. The air was sweet and pleasant, and the hazy
form of green leaves, floating cloud-like in the square, and the smell
of blossoms, had charmed my senses, and I felt happier and walked more
briskly. As I delayed a moment at the verge of the pavement, waiting for
a van to pass by before crossing over to the house, I happened to look
up at the windows, and instantly there was the rush and swirl of deep
cold waters in my ears, my heart leapt up and fell down, down as into a
deep hollow, and I was amazed with a dread and terror without form or
shape. I stretched out a hand blindly through the folds of thick
darkness, from the black and shadowy valley, and held myself from
falling, while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed and tilted,
and the sense of solid things seemed to sink away from under me. I had
glanced up at the window of my brother's study, and at that moment the
blind was drawn aside, and something that had life stared out into the
world. Nay, I cannot say I saw a face or any human likeness; a living
thing, two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they were in the
midst of something as formless as my fear, the symbol and presence of
all evil and all hideous corruption. I stood shuddering and quaking as
with the grip of ague, sick with unspeakable agonies of fear and
loathing, and for five minutes I could not summon force or motion to my
limbs. When I was within the door, I ran up the stairs to my brother's
room and knocked.

"Francis, Francis," I cried, "for Heaven's sake, answer me. What is the
horrible thing in your room? Cast it out, Francis; cast it from you."

I heard a noise as of feet shuffling slowly and awkwardly, and a
choking, gurgling sound, as if some one was struggling to find
utterance, and then the noise of a voice, broken and stifled, and words
that I could scarcely understand.

"There is nothing here," the voice said. "Pray do not disturb me. I am
not very well to-day."

I turned away, horrified, and yet helpless. I could do nothing, and I
wondered why Francis had lied to me, for I had seen the appearance
beyond the glass too plainly to be deceived, though it was but the sight
of a moment. And I sat still, conscious that there had been something
else, something I had seen in the first flash of terror, before those
burning eyes had looked at me.

Suddenly I remembered; as I lifted my face the blind was being drawn
back, and I had had an instant's glance of the thing that was moving it,
and in my recollection I knew that a hideous image was engraved forever
on my brain. It was not a hand; there were no fingers that held the
blind, but a black stump pushed it aside, the mouldering outline and the
clumsy movement as of a beast's paw had glowed into my senses before the
darkling waves of terror had overwhelmed me as I went down quick into
the pit. My mind was aghast at the thought of this, and of the awful
presence that dwelt with my brother in his room; I went to his door and
cried to him again, but no answer came. That night one of the servants
came up to me and told me in a whisper that for three days food had been
regularly placed at the door and left untouched; the maid had knocked
but had received no answer; she had heard the noise of shuffling feet
that I had noticed. Day after day went by, and still my brother's meals
were brought to his door and left untouched; and though I knocked and
called again and again, I could get no answer. The servants began to
talk to me; it appeared they were as alarmed as I; the cook said that
when my brother first shut himself up in his room she used to hear him
come out at night and go about the house; and once, she said, the hall
door had opened and closed again, but for several nights she had heard
no sound.

The climax came at last; it was in the dusk of the evening, and I was
sitting in the darkening dreary room when a terrible shriek jarred and
rang harshly out of the silence, and I heard a frightened scurry of feet
dashing down the stairs. I waited, and the servant-maid staggered into
the room and faced me, white and trembling.

"Oh, Miss Helen!" she whispered; "oh! for the Lord's sake, Miss Helen,
what has happened? Look at my hand, miss; look at that hand!" I drew her
to the window, and saw there was a black wet stain upon her hand.

"I do not understand you," I said. "Will you explain to me?"

"I was doing your room just now," she began. "I was turning down the
bed-clothes, and all of a sudden there was something fell upon my hand,
wet, and I looked up, and the ceiling was black and dripping on me."


I looked hard at her and bit my lip.

"Come with me," I said. "Bring your candle with you."

The room I slept in was beneath my brother's, and as I went in I felt I
was trembling. I looked up at the ceiling, and saw a patch, all black
and wet, and a dew of black drops upon it, and a pool of horrible liquor
soaking into the white bed-clothes.

I ran upstairs and knocked loudly.

"Oh, Francis, Francis, my dear brother," I cried, "what has happened to
you?"

And I listened. There was a sound of choking, and a noise like water
bubbling and regurgitating, but nothing else, and I called louder, but
no answer came.

In spite of what Dr. Haberden had said, I went to him; with tears
streaming down my cheeks I told him all that had happened, and he
listened to me with a face set hard and grim.

"For your father's sake," he said at last, "I will go with you, though I
can do nothing."

We went out together; the streets were dark and silent, and heavy with
heat and a drought of many weeks. I saw the doctor's face white under
the gas-lamps, and when we reached the house his hand was shaking.

We did not hesitate, but went upstairs directly. I held the lamp, and he
called out in a loud, determined voice--"Mr. Leicester, do you
hear me? I insist on seeing you. Answer me at once."

There was no answer, but we both heard that choking noise I have
mentioned.

"Mr. Leicester, I am waiting for you. Open the door this instant, or I
shall break it down." And he called a third time in a voice that rang
and echoed from the walls--"Mr. Leicester! For the last time I order you
to open the door."

"Ah!" he said, after a pause of heavy silence, "we are wasting time
here. Will you be so kind as to get me a poker, or something of the
kind?"

I ran into a little room at the back where odd articles were kept, and
found a heavy adze-like tool that I thought might serve the doctor's
purpose.

"Very good," he said, "that will do, I dare say. I give you notice, Mr.
Leicester," he cried loudly at the keyhole, "that I am now about to
break into your room."

Then I heard the wrench of the adze, and the woodwork split and cracked
under it; with a loud crash the door suddenly burst open, and for a
moment we started back aghast at a fearful screaming cry, no human
voice, but as the roar of a monster, that burst forth inarticulate and
struck at us out of the darkness.

"Hold the lamp," said the doctor, and we went in and glanced quickly
round the room.

"There it is," said Dr. Haberden, drawing a quick breath; "look, in that
corner."

I looked, and a pang of horror seized my heart as with a white-hot iron.
There upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething with
corruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but melting
and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oily bubbles
like boiling pitch. And out of the midst of it shone two burning points
like eyes, and I saw a writhing and stirring as of limbs, and something
moved and lifted up what might have been an arm. The doctor took a step
forward, raised the iron bar and struck at the burning points; he drove
in the weapon, and struck again and again in the fury of loathing.

A week or two later, when I had recovered to some extent from the
terrible shock, Dr. Haberden came to see me.

"I have sold my practice," he began, "and tomorrow I am sailing on a
long voyage. I do not know whether I shall ever return to England; in
all probability I shall buy a little land in California, and settle
there for the remainder of my life. I have brought you this packet,
which you may open and read when you feel able to do so. It contains the
report of Dr. Chambers on what I submitted to him. Good-bye, Miss
Leicester, good-bye."

When he was gone I opened the envelope; I could not wait, and proceeded
to read the papers within. Here is the manuscript, and if you will allow
me, I will read you the astounding story it contains.

"My dear Haberden," the letter began, "I have delayed inexcusably in
answering your questions as to the white substance you sent me. To tell
you the truth, I have hesitated for some time as to what course I should
adopt, for there is a bigotry and orthodox standard in physical science
as in theology, and I knew that if I told you the truth I should offend
rooted prejudices which I once held dear myself. However, I have
determined to be plain with you, and first I must enter into a short
personal explanation.

"You have known me, Haberden, for many years as a scientific man; you
and I have often talked of our profession together, and discussed the
hopeless gulf that opens before the feet of those who think to attain to
truth by any means whatsoever except the beaten way of experiment and
observation in the sphere of material things. I remember the scorn with
which you have spoken to me of men of science who have dabbled a little
in the unseen, and have timidly hinted that perhaps the senses are not,
after all, the eternal, impenetrable bounds of all knowledge, the
everlasting walls beyond which no human being has ever passed. We have
laughed together heartily, and I think justly, at the 'occult' follies
of the day, disguised under various names--the mesmerisms,
spiritualisms, materializations, theosophies, all the rabble rout of
imposture, with their machinery of poor tricks and feeble conjuring, the
true back-parlour of shabby London streets. Yet, in spite of what I have
said, I must confess to you that I am no materialist, taking the word of
course in its usual signification. It is now many years since I have
convinced myself--convinced myself, a sceptic, remember--that
the old ironbound theory is utterly and entirely false. Perhaps this
confession will not wound you so sharply as it would have done twenty
years ago; for I think you cannot have failed to notice that for some
time hypotheses have been advanced by men of pure science which are
nothing less than transcendental, and I suspect that most modern
chemists and biologists of repute would not hesitate to subscribe the
dictum of the old Schoolman, Omnia exeunt in mysterium, which means, I
take it, that every branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source
and final principles vanishes into mystery. I need not trouble you now
with a detailed account of the painful steps which led me to my
conclusions; a few simple experiments suggested a doubt as to my then
standpoint, and a train of thought that rose from circumstances
comparatively trifling brought me far; my old conception of the universe
has been swept away, and I stand in a world that seems as strange and
awful to me as the endless waves of the ocean seen for the first time,
shining, from a peak in Darien. Now I know that the walls of sense that
seemed so impenetrable, that seemed to loom up above the heavens and to
be founded below the depths, and to shut us in for evermore, are no such
everlasting impassable barriers as we fancied, but thinnest and most
airy veils that melt away before the seeker, and dissolve as the early
mist of the morning about the brooks. I know that you never adopted the
extreme materialistic position; you did not go about trying to prove a
universal negative, for your logical sense withheld you from that
crowning absurdity; but I am sure that you will find all that I am
saying strange and repellent to your habits of thought. Yet, Haberden,
what I tell you is the truth, nay, to adopt our common language, the
sole and scientific truth, verified by experience; and the universe is
verily more splendid and more awful than we used to dream. The whole
universe, my friend, is a tremendous sacrament; a mystic, ineffable
force and energy, veiled by an outward form of matter; and man, and the
sun and the other stars, and the flower of the grass, and the crystal in
the test-tube, are each and every one as spiritual, as material, and
subject to an inner working.

"You will perhaps wonder, Haberden, whence all this tends; but I think a
little thought will make it clear. You will understand that from such a
standpoint the whole view of things is changed, and what we thought
incredible and absurd may be possible enough. In short, we must look at
legend and belief with other eyes, and be prepared to accept tales that
had become mere fables. Indeed this is no such great demand. After all,
modern science will concede as much, in a hypocritical manner; you must
not, it is true, believe in witchcraft, but you may credit hypnotism;
ghosts are out of date, but there is a good deal to be said for the
theory of telepathy. Give superstition a Greek name, and believe in it,
should almost be a proverb.

"So much for my personal explanation. You sent me, Haberden, a phial,
stoppered and sealed, containing a small quantity of flaky white powder,
obtained from a chemist who has been dispensing it to one of your
patients. I am not surprised to hear that this powder refused to yield
any results to your analysis. It is a substance which was known to a few
many hundred years ago, but which I never expected to have submitted to
me from the shop of a modern apothecary.

"There seems no reason to doubt the truth of the man's tale; he no doubt
got, as he says, the rather uncommon salt you prescribed from the
wholesale chemist's, and it has probably remained on his shelf for
twenty years, or perhaps longer. Here what we call chance and
coincidence begin to work; during all these years the salt in the bottle
was exposed to certain recurring variations of temperature, variations
probably ranging from 40° to 80°. And, as it happens, such changes,
recurring year after year at irregular intervals, and with varying
degrees of intensity and duration, have constituted a process, and a
process so complicated and so delicate, that I question whether modern
scientific apparatus directed with the utmost precision could produce
the same result.

"The white powder you sent me is something very different from the drug
you prescribed; it is the powder from which the wine of the Sabbath, the
Vinum Sabbati, was prepared. No doubt you have read of the Witches'
Sabbath, and have laughed at the tales which terrified our ancestors;
the black cats, and the broomsticks, and dooms pronounced against some
old woman's cow.

"Since I have known the truth I have often reflected that it is on the
whole a happy thing that such burlesque as this is believed, for it
serves to conceal much that it is better should not be known generally.
However, if you care to read the appendix to Payne Knight's monograph,
you will find that the true Sabbath was something very different, though
the writer has very nicely refrained from printing all he knew. The
secrets of the true Sabbath were the secrets of remote times surviving
into the Middle Ages, secrets of an evil science which existed long
before Aryan man entered Europe. Men and women, seduced from their homes
on specious pretences, were met by beings well qualified to assume, as
they did assume, the part of devils, and taken by their guides to some
desolate and lonely place, known to the initiate by long tradition, and
unknown to all else. Perhaps it was a cave in some bare and windswept
hill, perhaps some inmost recess of a great forest, and there the
Sabbath was held. There, in the blackest hour of night, the Vinum
Sabbati was prepared, and this evil gruel was poured forth and offered
to the neophytes, and they partook of an infernal sacrament; sumentes
calicem principis inferorum, as an old author well expresses it. And
suddenly, each one that had drunk found himself attended by a companion,
a share of glamour and unearthly allurement, beckoning him apart, to
share in joys more exquisite, more piercing than the thrill of any
dream, to the consummation of the marriage of the Sabbath.

"It is hard to write of such things as these, and chiefly because that
shape that allured with loveliness was no hallucination, but, awful as
it is to express, the man himself. By the power of that Sabbath wine, a
few grains of white powder thrown into a glass of water, the house of
life was riven asunder and the human trinity dissolved, and the worm
which never dies, that which lies sleeping within us all, was made
tangible and an external thing, and clothed with a garment of flesh. And
then, in the hour of midnight, the primal fall was repeated and
re-presented, and the awful thing veiled in the mythos of the Tree in
the Garden was done anew. Such was the nuptiae Sabbati.

"I prefer to say no more; you, Haberden, know as well as I do that the
most trivial laws of life are not to be broken with impunity; and for so
terrible an act as this, in which the very inmost place of the temple
was broken open and defiled, a terrible vengeance followed. What began
with corruption ended also with corruption."

Underneath is the following in Dr. Haberden's writing:--

"The whole of the above is unfortunately strictly and entirely true.
Your brother confessed all to me on that morning when I saw him in his
room. My attention was first attracted to the bandaged hand, and I
forced him to show it to me. What I saw made me, a medical man of many
years' standing, grow sick with loathing, and the story I was forced to
listen to was infinitely more frightful than I could have believed
possible. It has tempted me to doubt the Eternal Goodness which can
permit nature to offer such hideous possibilities; and if you had not
with your own eyes seen the end, I should have said to you--disbelieve
it all. I have not, I think, many more weeks to live, but you are young,
and may forget all this. JOSEPH HABERDEN, M.D."

In the course of two or three months I heard that Dr. Haberden had died
at sea shortly after the ship left England.



* * *



THE GREAT GOD PAN


I - THE EXPERIMENT


"I am glad you came, Clarke; very glad indeed.  I was
not sure you could spare the time."

"I was able to make arrangements for a few days; things
are not very lively just now.  But have you no misgivings,
Raymond?  Is it absolutely safe?"

The two men were slowly pacing the terrace in front of
Dr. Raymond's house.  The sun still hung above the western
mountain-line, but it shone with a dull red glow that cast no
shadows, and all the air was quiet; a sweet breath came from the
great wood on the hillside above, and with it, at intervals, the
soft murmuring call of the wild doves.  Below, in the long
lovely valley, the river wound in and out between the lonely
hills, and, as the sun hovered and vanished into the west, a
faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the hills.  Dr.
Raymond turned sharply to his friend.

"Safe?  Of course it is.  In itself the operation is a
perfectly simple one; any surgeon could do it."

"And there is no danger at any other stage?"

"None; absolutely no physical danger whatsoever, I give
you my word.  You are always timid, Clarke, always; but you know
my history.  I have devoted myself to transcendental medicine
for the last twenty years.  I have heard myself called quack and
charlatan and impostor, but all the while I knew I was on the
right path.  Five years ago I reached the goal, and since then
every day has been a preparation for what we shall do tonight."

"I should like to believe it is all true." Clarke knit his brows, and
looked doubtfully at Dr. Raymond. "Are you perfectly sure, Raymond, that
your theory is not a phantasmagoria--a splendid vision, certainly, but a
mere vision after all?"

Dr. Raymond stopped in his walk and turned sharply.
He was a middle-aged man, gaunt and thin, of a pale yellow
complexion, but as he answered Clarke and faced him, there was a
flush on his cheek.

"Look about you, Clarke.  You see the mountain, and
hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods
and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching
to the reed-beds by the river.  You see me standing here beside
you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things--
yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the
solid ground beneath our feet--I say that all these are but
dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from
our eyes.  There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour
and this vision, beyond these 'chases in Arras, dreams in a
career,' beyond them all as beyond a veil.  I do not know whether
any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know,
Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from
before another's eyes.  You may think this all strange nonsense;
it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what
lifting the veil means.  They called it seeing the god Pan."

Clarke shivered; the white mist gathering over the
river was chilly.

"It is wonderful indeed," he said.  "We are standing on
the brink of a strange world, Raymond, if what you say
is true.  I suppose the knife is absolutely necessary?"

"Yes; a slight lesion in the grey matter, that is all;
a trifling rearrangement of certain cells, a microscopical
alteration that would escape the attention of ninety-nine brain
specialists out of a hundred.  I don't want to bother you with
'shop,' Clarke; I might give you a mass of technical detail which
would sound very imposing, and would leave you as enlightened as
you are now.  But I suppose you have read, casually, in
out-of-the-way corners of your paper, that immense strides have
been made recently in the physiology of the brain.  I saw a
paragraph the other day about Digby's theory, and Browne Faber's
discoveries.  Theories and discoveries!  Where they are standing
now, I stood fifteen years ago, and I need not tell you that I
have not been standing still for the last fifteen years.  It
will be enough if I say that five years ago I made the discovery
that I alluded to when I said that ten years ago I reached the
goal.  After years of labour, after years of toiling and groping
in the dark, after days and nights of disappointments and
sometimes of despair, in which I used now and then to tremble
and grow cold with the thought that perhaps there were others
seeking for what I sought, at last, after so long, a pang of
sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journey was at
an end.  By what seemed then and still seems a chance, the
suggestion of a moment's idle thought followed up upon familiar
lines and paths that I had tracked a hundred times already, the
great truth burst upon me, and I saw, mapped out in lines of
sight, a whole world, a sphere unknown; continents and islands,
and great oceans in which no ship has sailed (to my belief)
since a Man first lifted up his eyes and beheld the sun, and the
stars of heaven, and the quiet earth beneath.  You will think
this all high-flown language, Clarke, but it is hard to be
literal.  And yet; I do not know whether what I am hinting at
cannot be set forth in plain and homely terms.  For instance,
this world of ours is pretty well girded now with the telegraph
wires and cables; thought, with something less than the speed
of thought, flashes from sunrise to sunset, from north to south,
across the floods and the desert places.  Suppose that an
electrician of today were suddenly to perceive that he and his
friends have merely been playing with pebbles and mistaking them
for the foundations of the world; suppose that such a man saw
uttermost space lie open before the current, and words of men
flash forth to the sun and beyond the sun into the systems
beyond, and the voice of articulate-speaking men echo in the
waste void that bounds our thought.  As analogies go, that is a
pretty good analogy of what I have done; you can understand now
a little of what I felt as I stood here one evening; it was a
summer evening, and the valley looked much as it does now; I
stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable
gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter
and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim
before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the
earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned.  You may
look in Browne Faber's book, if you like, and you will find
that to the present day men of science are unable to account for
the presence, or to specify the functions of a certain group of
nerve-cells in the brain.  That group is, as it were, land to
let, a mere waste place for fanciful theories.  I am not in the
position of Browne Faber and the specialists, I am perfectly
instructed as to the possible functions of those nerve-centers
in the scheme of things.  With a touch I can bring them into
play, with a touch, I say, I can set free the current, with a
touch I can complete the communication between this world of
sense and--we shall be able to finish the sentence later on.
Yes, the knife is necessary; but think what that knife will
effect.  It will level utterly the solid wall of sense, and
probably, for the first time since man was made, a spirit will
gaze on a spirit-world.  Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!"

"But you remember what you wrote to me?  I thought it
would be requisite that she--"

He whispered the rest into the doctor's ear.

"Not at all, not at all.  That is nonsense.  I assure
you.  Indeed, it is better as it is; I am quite certain of
that."

"Consider the matter well, Raymond.  It's a great
responsibility.  Something might go wrong; you would be a
miserable man for the rest of your days."

"No, I think not, even if the worst happened.  As you
know, I rescued Mary from the gutter, and from almost certain
starvation, when she was a child; I think her life is mine, to
use as I see fit.  Come, it's getting late; we had better go
in."

Dr. Raymond led the way into the house, through the
hall, and down a long dark passage.  He took a key from his
pocket and opened a heavy door, and motioned Clarke into his
laboratory.  It had once been a billiard-room, and was lighted
by a glass dome in the centre of the ceiling, whence there still
shone a sad grey light on the figure of the doctor as he lit a
lamp with a heavy shade and placed it on a table in the middle
of the room.

Clarke looked about him.  Scarcely a foot of wall
remained bare; there were shelves all around laden with bottles
and phials of all shapes and colours, and at one end stood a
little Chippendale book-case.  Raymond pointed to this.

"You see that parchment Oswald Crollius?  He was one of
the first to show me the way, though I don't think he ever found
it himself.  That is a strange saying of his: 'In every grain of
wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.'"

There was not much furniture in the laboratory.  The
table in the centre, a stone slab with a drain in one corner,
the two armchairs on which Raymond and Clarke were sitting; that
was all, except an odd-looking chair at the furthest end of the
room.  Clarke looked at it, and raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, that is the chair," said Raymond.  "We may as
well place it in position."  He got up and wheeled the chair to
the light, and began raising and lowering it, letting down the
seat, setting the back at various angles, and adjusting the
foot-rest.  It looked comfortable enough, and Clarke passed his
hand over the soft green velvet, as the doctor manipulated the
levers.

"Now, Clarke, make yourself quite comfortable.  I have
a couple hours' work before me; I was obliged to leave certain
matters to the last."

Raymond went to the stone slab, and Clarke watched him
drearily as he bent over a row of phials and lit the flame under
the crucible.  The doctor had a small hand-lamp, shaded as the
larger one, on a ledge above his apparatus, and Clarke, who sat
in the shadows, looked down at the great shadowy room, wondering
at the bizarre effects of brilliant light and undefined darkness
contrasting with one another.  Soon he became conscious of an
odd odour, at first the merest suggestion of odour, in the room,
and as it grew more decided he felt surprised that he was not
reminded of the chemist's shop or the surgery.  Clarke found
himself idly endeavouring to analyse the sensation, and half
conscious, he began to think of a day, fifteen years ago, that
he had spent roaming through the woods and meadows near his own
home.  It was a burning day at the beginning of August, the heat
had dimmed the outlines of all things and all distances with a
faint mist, and people who observed the thermometer spoke of an
abnormal register, of a temperature that was almost tropical.
Strangely that wonderful hot day of the fifties rose up again in
Clarke's imagination; the sense of dazzling all-pervading
sunlight seemed to blot out the shadows and the lights of the
laboratory, and he felt again the heated air beating in gusts
about his face, saw the shimmer rising from the turf, and heard
the myriad murmur of the summer.

"I hope the smell doesn't annoy you, Clarke; there's
nothing unwholesome about it.  It may make you a bit sleepy,
that's all."

Clarke heard the words quite distinctly, and knew that
Raymond was speaking to him, but for the life of him he could
not rouse himself from his lethargy.  He could only think of the
lonely walk he had taken fifteen years ago; it was his last look
at the fields and woods he had known since he was a child, and
now it all stood out in brilliant light, as a picture, before
him.  Above all there came to his nostrils the scent of summer,
the smell of flowers mingled, and the odour of the woods, of
cool shaded places, deep in the green depths, drawn forth by the
sun's heat; and the scent of the good earth, lying as it were
with arms stretched forth, and smiling lips, overpowered all.
His fancies made him wander, as he had wandered long ago, from
the fields into the wood, tracking a little path between the
shining undergrowth of beech-trees; and the trickle of water
dropping from the limestone rock sounded as a clear melody in
the dream.  Thoughts began to go astray and to mingle with other
thoughts; the beech alley was transformed to a path between
ilex-trees, and here and there a vine climbed from bough to
bough, and sent up waving tendrils and drooped with purple
grapes, and the sparse grey-green leaves of a wild olive-tree
stood out against the dark shadows of the ilex.  Clarke, in the
deep folds of dream, was conscious that the path from his
father's house had led him into an undiscovered country, and he
was wondering at the strangeness of it all, when suddenly, in
place of the hum and murmur of the summer, an infinite silence
seemed to fall on all things, and the wood was hushed, and for a
moment in time he stood face to face there with a presence, that
was neither man nor beast, neither the living nor the dead, but
all things mingled, the form of all things but devoid of all
form.  And in that moment, the sacrament of body and soul was
dissolved, and a voice seemed to cry "Let us go hence," and
then the darkness of darkness beyond the stars, the darkness of
everlasting.

When Clarke woke up with a start he saw Raymond pouring
a few drops of some oily fluid into a green phial, which he
stoppered tightly.

"You have been dozing," he said; "the journey must have
tired you out.  It is done now.  I am going to fetch Mary; I
shall be back in ten minutes."

Clarke lay back in his chair and wondered.  It seemed
as if he had but passed from one dream into another.  He half
expected to see the walls of the laboratory melt and disappear,
and to awake in London, shuddering at his own sleeping fancies.
But at last the door opened, and the doctor returned, and behind
him came a girl of about seventeen, dressed all in white.  She
was so beautiful that Clarke did not wonder at what the doctor
had written to him.  She was blushing now over face and neck and
arms, but Raymond seemed unmoved.

"Mary," he said, "the time has come.  You are quite
free.  Are you willing to trust yourself to me entirely?"

"Yes, dear."

"Do you hear that, Clarke?  You are my witness.  Here
is the chair, Mary.  It is quite easy.  Just sit in it and lean
back.  Are you ready?"

"Yes, dear, quite ready.  Give me a kiss before you
begin."

The doctor stooped and kissed her mouth, kindly enough.
"Now shut your eyes," he said.  The girl closed her eyelids, as
if she were tired, and longed for sleep, and Raymond placed the
green phial to her nostrils.  Her face grew white, whiter than
her dress; she struggled faintly, and then with the feeling of
submission strong within her, crossed her arms upon her breast
as a little child about to say her prayers.  The bright light
of the lamp fell full upon her, and Clarke watched changes
fleeting over her face as the changes of the hills when the
summer clouds float across the sun.  And then she lay all white
and still, and the doctor turned up one of her eyelids.  She was
quite unconscious.  Raymond pressed hard on one of the levers
and the chair instantly sank back.  Clarke saw him cutting away
a circle, like a tonsure, from her hair, and the lamp was moved
nearer.  Raymond took a small glittering instrument from a
little case, and Clarke turned away shudderingly.  When he
looked again the doctor was binding up the wound he had made.

"She will awake in five minutes."  Raymond was still
perfectly cool.  "There is nothing more to be done; we can only
wait."

The minutes passed slowly; they could hear a slow,
heavy, ticking.  There was an old clock in the passage.  Clarke
felt sick and faint; his knees shook beneath him, he could
hardly stand.

Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn
sigh, and suddenly did the colour that had vanished return to
the girl's cheeks, and suddenly her eyes opened.  Clarke quailed
before them.  They shone with an awful light, looking far away,
and a great wonder fell upon her face, and her hands stretched
out as if to touch what was invisible; but in an instant the
wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful terror.  The
muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook from
head to foot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within
the house of flesh.  It was a horrible sight, and Clarke rushed
forward, as she fell shrieking to the floor.

Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary's bedside.
She was lying wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side,
and grinning vacantly.

"Yes," said the doctor, still quite cool, "it is a
great pity; she is a hopeless idiot.  However, it could not be
helped; and, after all, she has seen the Great God Pan."


II - MR. CLARKE'S MEMOIRS


Mr. Clarke, the gentleman chosen by Dr. Raymond to
witness the strange experiment of the god Pan, was a person in
whose character caution and curiosity were oddly mingled; in his
sober moments he thought of the unusual and eccentric with
undisguised aversion, and yet, deep in his heart, there was a
wide-eyed inquisitiveness with respect to all the more recondite
and esoteric elements in the nature of men.  The latter tendency had
prevailed when he accepted Raymond's invitation, for though his
considered judgment had always repudiated the doctor's theories
as the wildest nonsense, yet he secretly hugged a belief in
fantasy, and would have rejoiced to see that belief confirmed.
The horrors that he witnessed in the dreary laboratory were to a certain
extent salutary; he was conscious of being involved in an affair not
altogether reputable, and for many years afterwards he clung bravely to
the commonplace, and rejected all occasions of occult investigation.
Indeed, on some homeopathic principle, he for some time attended the
seances of distinguished mediums, hoping that the clumsy tricks of these
gentlemen would make him altogether disgusted with mysticism of every
kind, but the remedy, though caustic, was not efficacious. Clarke knew
that he still pined for the unseen, and little by little, the old
passion began to reassert itself, as the face of Mary, shuddering and
convulsed with an unknown terror, faded slowly from his memory. Occupied
all day in pursuits both serious and lucrative, the temptation to relax
in the evening was too great, especially in the winter months, when the
fire cast a warm glow over his snug bachelor apartment, and a bottle of
some choice claret stood ready by his elbow. His dinner digested, he
would make a brief pretence of reading the evening paper, but the mere
catalogue of news soon palled upon him, and Clarke would find himself
casting glances of warm desire in the direction of an old Japanese
bureau, which stood at a pleasant distance from the hearth. Like a boy
before a jam-closet, for a few minutes he would hover indecisive, but
lust always prevailed, and Clarke ended by drawing up his chair,
lighting a candle, and sitting down before the bureau. Its pigeon-holes
and drawers teemed with documents on the most morbid subjects, and in
the well reposed a large manuscript volume, in which he had painfully
entered the gems of his collection. Clarke had a fine contempt for
published literature; the most ghostly story ceased to interest him if
it happened to be printed; his sole pleasure was in the reading,
compiling, and rearranging what he called his "Memoirs to prove the
Existence of the Devil," and engaged in this pursuit the evening seemed
to fly and the night appeared too short.

On one particular evening, an ugly December night, black with fog, and
raw with frost, Clarke hurried over his dinner, and scarcely deigned to
observe his customary ritual of taking up the paper and laying it down
again. He paced two or three times up and down the room, and opened the
bureau, stood still a moment, and sat down. He leant back, absorbed in
one of those dreams to which he was subject, and at length drew out his
book, and opened it at the last entry. There were three or four pages
densely covered with Clarke's round, set penmanship, and at the
beginning he had written in a somewhat larger hand:

Singular Narrative told me by my Friend, Dr. Phillips. He assures me
that all the facts related therein are strictly and wholly True, but
refuses to give either the Surnames of the Persons Concerned, or the
Place where these Extraordinary Events occurred.

Mr. Clarke began to read over the account for the tenth time, glancing
now and then at the pencil notes he had made when it was told him by his
friend. It was one of his humours to pride himself on a certain literary
ability; he thought well of his style, and took pains in arranging the
circumstances in dramatic order. He read the following story:--


The persons concerned in this statement are Helen V., who, if she is
still alive, must now be a woman of twenty-three, Rachel M., since
deceased, who was a year younger than the above, and Trevor W., an
imbecile, aged eighteen. These persons were at the period of the story
inhabitants of a village on the borders of Wales, a place of some
importance in the time of the Roman occupation, but now a scattered
hamlet, of not more than five hundred souls. It is situated on rising
ground, about six miles from the sea, and is sheltered by a large and
picturesque forest.

Some eleven years ago, Helen V. came to the village under rather
peculiar circumstances. It is understood that she, being an orphan, was
adopted in her infancy by a distant relative, who brought her up in his
own house until she was twelve years old. Thinking, however, that it
would be better for the child to have playmates of her own age, he
advertised in several local papers for a good home in a comfortable
farmhouse for a girl of twelve, and this advertisement was answered by
Mr. R., a well-to-do farmer in the above-mentioned village. His
references proving satisfactory, the gentleman sent his adopted daughter
to Mr. R., with a letter, in which he stipulated that the girl should
have a room to herself, and stated that her guardians need be at no
trouble in the matter of education, as she was already sufficiently
educated for the position in life which she would occupy. In fact, Mr.
R. was given to understand that the girl be allowed to find her own
occupations and to spend her time almost as she liked. Mr. R. duly met
her at the nearest station, a town seven miles away from his house, and
seems to have remarked nothing extraordinary about the child except that
she was reticent as to her former life and her adopted father. She was,
however, of a very different type from the inhabitants of the village;
her skin was a pale, clear olive, and her features were strongly marked,
and of a somewhat foreign character. She appears to have settled down
easily enough into farmhouse life, and became a favourite with the
children, who sometimes went with her on her rambles in the forest, for
this was her amusement. Mr. R. states that he has known her to go out by
herself directly after their early breakfast, and not return till after
dusk, and that, feeling uneasy at a young girl being out alone for so
many hours, he communicated with her adopted father, who replied in a
brief note that Helen must do as she chose. In the winter, when the
forest paths are impassable, she spent most of her time in her bedroom,
where she slept alone, according to the instructions of her relative. It
was on one of these expeditions to the forest that the first of the
singular incidents with which this girl is connected occurred, the date
being about a year after her arrival at the village. The preceding
winter had been remarkably severe, the snow drifting to a great depth,
and the frost continuing for an unexampled period, and the summer
following was as noteworthy for its extreme heat. On one of the very
hottest days in this summer, Helen V. left the farmhouse for one of her
long rambles in the forest, taking with her, as usual, some bread and
meat for lunch. She was seen by some men in the fields making for the
old Roman Road, a green causeway which traverses the highest part of the
wood, and they were astonished to observe that the girl had taken off
her hat, though the heat of the sun was already tropical. As it
happened, a labourer, Joseph W. by name, was working in the forest near
the Roman Road, and at twelve o'clock his little son, Trevor, brought
the man his dinner of bread and cheese. After the meal, the boy, who was
about seven years old at the time, left his father at work, and, as he
said, went to look for flowers in the wood, and the man, who could hear
him shouting with delight at his discoveries, felt no uneasiness.
Suddenly, however, he was horrified at hearing the most dreadful
screams, evidently the result of great terror, proceeding from the
direction in which his son had gone, and he hastily threw down his tools
and ran to see what had happened. Tracing his path by the sound, he met
the little boy, who was running headlong, and was evidently terribly
frightened, and on questioning him the man elicited that after picking a
posy of flowers he felt tired, and lay down on the grass and fell
asleep. He was suddenly awakened, as he stated, by a peculiar noise, a
sort of singing he called it, and on peeping through the branches he saw
Helen V. playing on the grass with a "strange naked man," who he seemed
unable to describe more fully. He said he felt dreadfully frightened and
ran away crying for his father. Joseph W. proceeded in the direction
indicated by his son, and found Helen V. sitting on the grass in the
middle of a glade or open space left by charcoal burners. He angrily
charged her with frightening his little boy, but she entirely denied the
accusation and laughed at the child's story of a "strange man," to which
he himself did not attach much credence. Joseph W. came to the
conclusion that the boy had woke up with a sudden fright, as children
sometimes do, but Trevor persisted in his story, and continued in such
evident distress that at last his father took him home, hoping that his
mother would be able to soothe him. For many weeks, however, the boy
gave his parents much anxiety; he became nervous and strange in his
manner, refusing to leave the cottage by himself, and constantly
alarming the household by waking in the night with cries of "The man in
the wood! father! father!"

In course of time, however, the impression seemed to have worn off, and
about three months later he accompanied his father to the home of a
gentleman in the neighborhood, for whom Joseph W. occasionally did work.
The man was shown into the study, and the little boy was left sitting in
the hall, and a few minutes later, while the gentleman was giving W. his
instructions, they were both horrified by a piercing shriek and the
sound of a fall, and rushing out they found the child lying senseless on
the floor, his face contorted with terror. The doctor was immediately
summoned, and after some examination he pronounced the child to be
suffering from a kind of fit, apparently produced by a sudden shock. The
boy was taken to one of the bedrooms, and after some time recovered
consciousness, but only to pass into a condition described by the
medical man as one of violent hysteria. The doctor exhibited a strong
sedative, and in the course of two hours pronounced him fit to walk
home, but in passing through the hall the paroxysms of fright returned
and with additional violence. The father perceived that the child was
pointing at some object, and heard the old cry, "The man in the wood,"
and looking in the direction indicated saw a stone head of grotesque
appearance, which had been built into the wall above one of the doors.
It seems the owner of the house had recently made alterations in his
premises, and on digging the foundations for some offices, the men had
found a curious head, evidently of the Roman period, which had been
placed in the manner described. The head is pronounced by the most
experienced archaeologists of the district to be that of a faun or
satyr. [Dr. Phillips tells me that he has seen the head in question, and
assures me that he has never received such a vivid presentment of
intense evil.]

From whatever cause arising, this second shock seemed too severe for the
boy Trevor, and at the present date he suffers from a weakness of
intellect, which gives but little promise of amending. The matter caused
a good deal of sensation at the time, and the girl Helen was closely
questioned by Mr. R., but to no purpose, she steadfastly denying that
she had frightened or in any way molested Trevor.

The second event with which this girl's name is connected took place
about six years ago, and is of a still more extraordinary character.

At the beginning of the summer of 1882, Helen contracted a friendship of
a peculiarly intimate character with Rachel M., the daughter of a
prosperous farmer in the neighbourhood. This girl, who was a year
younger than Helen, was considered by most people to be the prettier of
the two, though Helen's features had to a great extent softened as she
became older. The two girls, who were together on every available
opportunity, presented a singular contrast, the one with her clear,
olive skin and almost Italian appearance, and the other of the
proverbial red and white of our rural districts. It must be stated that
the payments made to Mr. R. for the maintenance of Helen were known in
the village for their excessive liberality, and the impression was
general that she would one day inherit a large sum of money from her
relative. The parents of Rachel were therefore not averse from their
daughter's friendship with the girl, and even encouraged the intimacy,
though they now bitterly regret having done so. Helen still retained her
extraordinary fondness for the forest, and on several occasions Rachel
accompanied her, the two friends setting out early in the morning, and
remaining in the wood until dusk. Once or twice after these excursions
Mrs. M. thought her daughter's manner rather peculiar; she seemed
languid and dreamy, and as it has been expressed, "different from
herself," but these peculiarities seem to have been thought too trifling
for remark. One evening, however, after Rachel had come home, her mother
heard a noise which sounded like suppressed weeping in the girl's room,
and on going in found her lying, half undressed, upon the bed, evidently
in the greatest distress. As soon as she saw her mother, she exclaimed,
"Ah, mother, mother, why did you let me go to the forest with Helen?"
Mrs. M. was astonished at so strange a question, and proceeded to make
inquiries. Rachel told her a wild story. She said--

Clarke closed the book with a snap, and turned his chair towards the
fire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told his
story, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to
this, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. "My God!" he had
exclaimed, "think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, too
monstrous; such things can never be in this quiet world, where men and
women live and die, and struggle, and conquer, or maybe fail, and fall
down under sorrow, and grieve and suffer strange fortunes for many a
year; but not this, Phillips, not such things as this. There must be
some explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case
were possible, our earth would be a nightmare."

But Phillips had told his story to the end, concluding:

"Her flight remains a mystery to this day; she vanished in broad
sunlight; they saw her walking in a meadow, and a few moments later she
was not there."

Clarke tried to conceive the thing again, as he sat by the fire, and
again his mind shuddered and shrank back, appalled before the sight of
such awful, unspeakable elements enthroned as it were, and triumphant in
human flesh. Before him stretched the long dim vista of the green
causeway in the forest, as his friend had described it; he saw the
swaying leaves and the quivering shadows on the grass, he saw the
sunlight and the flowers, and far away, far in the long distance, the
two figures moved toward him. One was Rachel, but the other?

Clarke had tried his best to disbelieve it all, but at the end of the
account, as he had written it in his book, he had placed the
inscription:

ET DIABOLUS INCARNATE EST. ET HOMO FACTUS EST.


III - THE CITY OF RESURRECTIONS


"Herbert! Good God! Is it possible?"

"Yes, my name's Herbert. I think I know your face, too, but I don't
remember your name. My memory is very queer."

"Don't you recollect Villiers of Wadham?"

"So it is, so it is. I beg your pardon, Villiers, I didn't think I was
begging of an old college friend. Good-night."

"My dear fellow, this haste is unnecessary. My rooms are close by, but
we won't go there just yet. Suppose we walk up Shaftesbury Avenue a
little way? But how in heaven's name have you come to this pass,
Herbert?"

"It's a long story, Villiers, and a strange one too, but you can hear it
if you like."

"Come on, then. Take my arm, you don't seem very strong."

The ill-assorted pair moved slowly up Rupert Street; the one in dirty,
evil-looking rags, and the other attired in the regulation uniform of a
man about town, trim, glossy, and eminently well-to-do. Villiers had
emerged from his restaurant after an excellent dinner of many courses,
assisted by an ingratiating little flask of Chianti, and, in that frame
of mind which was with him almost chronic, had delayed a moment by the
door, peering round in the dimly-lighted street in search of those
mysterious incidents and persons with which the streets of London teem
in every quarter and every hour. Villiers prided himself as a practised
explorer of such obscure mazes and byways of London life, and in this
unprofitable pursuit he displayed an assiduity which was worthy of more
serious employment. Thus he stood by the lamp-post surveying the
passers-by with undisguised curiosity, and with that gravity known only
to the systematic diner, had just enunciated in his mind the formula:
"London has been called the city of encounters; it is more than that, it
is the city of Resurrections," when these reflections were suddenly
interrupted by a piteous whine at his elbow, and a deplorable appeal for
alms. He looked around in some irritation, and with a sudden shock found
himself confronted with the embodied proof of his somewhat stilted
fancies. There, close beside him, his face altered and disfigured by
poverty and disgrace, his body barely covered by greasy ill-fitting
rags, stood his old friend Charles Herbert, who had matriculated on the
same day as himself, with whom he had been merry and wise for twelve
revolving terms. Different occupations and varying interests had
interrupted the friendship, and it was six years since Villiers had seen
Herbert; and now he looked upon this wreck of a man with grief and
dismay, mingled with a certain inquisitiveness as to what dreary chain
of circumstances had dragged him down to such a doleful pass. Villiers
felt together with compassion all the relish of the amateur in
mysteries, and congratulated himself on his leisurely speculations
outside the restaurant.

They walked on in silence for some time, and more than one passer-by
stared in astonishment at the unaccustomed spectacle of a well-dressed
man with an unmistakable beggar hanging on to his arm, and, observing
this, Villiers led the way to an obscure street in Soho. Here he
repeated his question.

"How on earth has it happened, Herbert? I always understood you would
succeed to an excellent position in Dorsetshire. Did your father
disinherit you? Surely not?"

"No, Villiers; I came into all the property at my poor father's death;
he died a year after I left Oxford. He was a very good father to me, and
I mourned his death sincerely enough. But you know what young men are; a
few months later I came up to town and went a good deal into society. Of
course I had excellent introductions, and I managed to enjoy myself very
much in a harmless sort of way. I played a little, certainly, but never
for heavy stakes, and the few bets I made on races brought me in
money--only a few pounds, you know, but enough to pay for cigars and
such petty pleasures. It was in my second season that the tide turned.
Of course you have heard of my marriage?"

"No, I never heard anything about it."

"Yes, I married, Villiers.  I met a girl, a girl of the
most wonderful and most strange beauty, at the house of some
people whom I knew.  I cannot tell you her age; I never knew it,
but, so far as I can guess, I should think she must have been
about nineteen when I made her acquaintance.  My friends had
come to know her at Florence; she told them she was an orphan,
the child of an English father and an Italian mother, and she
charmed them as she charmed me.  The first time I saw her was at
an evening party.  I was standing by the door talking to a
friend, when suddenly above the hum and babble of conversation I
heard a voice which seemed to thrill to my heart.  She was
singing an Italian song.  I was introduced to her that evening,
and in three months I married Helen.  Villiers, that woman, if I
can call her woman, corrupted my soul.  The night of the wedding
I found myself sitting in her bedroom in the hotel, listening to
her talk.  She was sitting up in bed, and I listened to her as
she spoke in her beautiful voice, spoke of things which even now
I would not dare whisper in the blackest night, though I stood
in the midst of a wilderness.   You, Villiers, you may think you
know life, and London, and what goes on day and night in this
dreadful city; for all I can say you may have heard the talk of
the vilest, but I tell you you can have no conception of what I
know, not in your most fantastic, hideous dreams can you have
imaged forth the faintest shadow of what I have heard--and
seen.  Yes, seen.  I have seen the incredible, such horrors that
even I myself sometimes stop in the middle of the street and ask
whether it is possible for a man to behold such things and live.
In a year, Villiers, I was a ruined man, in body and soul--in
body and soul."

"But your property, Herbert?  You had land in Dorset."

"I sold it all; the fields and woods, the dear old
house--everything."

"And the money?"

"She took it all from me."

"And then left you?"

"Yes; she disappeared one night.  I don't know where
she went, but I am sure if I saw her again it would kill me.
The rest of my story is of no interest; sordid misery, that is
all.  You may think, Villiers, that I have exaggerated and
talked for effect; but I have not told you half.  I could tell
you certain things which would convince you, but you would never
know a happy day again.  You would pass the rest of your life,
as I pass mine, a haunted man, a man who has seen hell."

Villiers took the unfortunate man to his rooms, and
gave him a meal.  Herbert could eat little, and scarcely touched
the glass of wine set before him.  He sat moody and silent by
the fire, and seemed relieved when Villiers sent him away with a
small present of money.

"By the way, Herbert," said Villiers, as they parted at
the door, "what was your wife's name?  You said Helen, I think?
Helen what?"

"The name she passed under when I met her was Helen
Vaughan, but what her real name was I can't say.  I don't think
she had a name.  No, no, not in that sense.  Only human beings
have names, Villiers; I can't say anymore.  Good-bye; yes, I
will not fail to call if I see any way in which you can help me.
Good-night."

The man went out into the bitter night, and Villiers
returned to his fireside.  There was something about Herbert
which shocked him inexpressibly; not his poor rags nor the marks
which poverty had set upon his face, but rather an indefinite
terror which hung about him like a mist.  He had acknowledged
that he himself was not devoid of blame; the woman, he had
avowed, had corrupted him body and soul, and Villiers felt that
this man, once his friend, had been an actor in scenes evil
beyond the power of words.  His story needed no confirmation: he
himself was the embodied proof of it.  Villiers mused curiously
over the story he had heard, and wondered whether he had heard
both the first and the last of it.  "No," he thought, "certainly
not the last, probably only the beginning.  A case like this is
like a nest of Chinese boxes; you open one after the other and
find a quainter workmanship in every box.  Most likely poor
Herbert is merely one of the outside boxes; there are stranger
ones to follow."

Villiers could not take his mind away from Herbert and
his story, which seemed to grow wilder as the night wore on.
The fire seemed to burn low, and the chilly air of the morning
crept into the room; Villiers got up with a glance over his
shoulder, and, shivering slightly, went to bed.

A few days later he saw at his club a gentleman of his
acquaintance, named Austin, who was famous for his intimate
knowledge of London life, both in its tenebrous and luminous
phases.  Villiers, still full of his encounter in Soho and its
consequences, thought Austin might possibly be able to shed some
light on Herbert's history, and so after some casual talk he
suddenly put the question:

"Do you happen to know anything of a man named Herbert
--Charles Herbert?"

Austin turned round sharply and stared at Villiers with
some astonishment.

"Charles Herbert?  Weren't you in town three years ago?
No; then you have not heard of the Paul Street case?  It caused
a good deal of sensation at the time."

"What was the case?"

"Well, a gentleman, a man of very good position, was
found dead, stark dead, in the area of a certain house in Paul
Street, off Tottenham Court Road.  Of course the police did not
make the discovery; if you happen to be sitting up all night and
have a light in your window, the constable will ring the bell,
but if you happen to be lying dead in somebody's area, you will
be left alone.  In this instance, as in many others, the alarm
was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don't mean a common
tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business
or pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets
at five o'clock in the morning.  This individual was, as he
said, 'going home,' it did not appear whence or whither, and had
occasion to pass through Paul Street between four and five a.m.
Something or other caught his eye at Number 20; he said,
absurdly enough, that the house had the most unpleasant
physiognomy he had ever observed, but, at any rate, he glanced
down the area and was a good deal astonished to see a man lying
on the stones, his limbs all huddled together, and his face
turned up.  Our gentleman thought his face looked peculiarly
ghastly, and so set off at a run in search of the nearest
policeman.  The constable was at first inclined to treat the
matter lightly, suspecting common drunkenness; however, he came,
and after looking at the man's face, changed his tone, quickly
enough.  The early bird, who had picked up this fine worm, was
sent off for a doctor, and the policeman rang and knocked at the
door till a slatternly servant girl came down looking more than
half asleep.  The constable pointed out the contents of the area
to the maid, who screamed loudly enough to wake up the street,
but she knew nothing of the man; had never seen him at the
house, and so forth.  Meanwhile, the original discoverer had
come back with a medical man, and the next thing was to get into
the area.  The gate was open, so the whole quartet stumped down
the steps.  The doctor hardly needed a moment's examination; he
said the poor fellow had been dead for several hours, and it was
then the case began to get interesting.  The dead man had not
been robbed, and in one of his pockets were papers identifying
him as--well, as a man of good family and means, a favourite
in society, and nobody's enemy, as far as could be known.  I
don't give his name, Villiers, because it has nothing to do with
the story, and because it's no good raking up these affairs
about the dead when there are no relations living.  The next
curious point was that the medical men couldn't agree as to how
he met his death.  There were some slight bruises on his
shoulders, but they were so slight that it looked as if he had
been pushed roughly out of the kitchen door, and not thrown over
the railings from the street or even dragged down the steps.
But there were positively no other marks of violence about him,
certainly none that would account for his death; and when they
came to the autopsy there wasn't a trace of poison of any kind.
Of course the police wanted to know all about the people at
Number 20, and here again, so I have heard from private sources,
one or two other very curious points came out.  It appears that
the occupants of the house were a Mr.  and Mrs. Charles Herbert;
he was said to be a landed proprietor, though it struck most
people that Paul Street was not exactly the place to look for
country gentry.  As for Mrs. Herbert, nobody seemed to know
who or what she was, and, between ourselves, I fancy the divers
after her history found themselves in rather strange waters.  Of
course they both denied knowing anything about the deceased, and
in default of any evidence against them they were discharged.
But some very odd things came out about them.  Though it was
between five and six in the morning when the dead man was
removed, a large crowd had collected, and several of the
neighbours ran to see what was going on.  They were pretty free
with their comments, by all accounts, and from these it appeared
that Number 20 was in very bad odour in Paul Street.  The
detectives tried to trace down these rumours to some solid
foundation of fact, but could not get hold of anything.  People
shook their heads and raised their eyebrows and thought the
Herberts rather 'queer,' 'would rather not be seen going into
their house,' and so on, but there was nothing tangible.  The
authorities were morally certain the man met his death in some
way or another in the house and was thrown out by the kitchen
door, but they couldn't prove it, and the absence of any
indications of violence or poisoning left them helpless.  An odd
case, wasn't it?  But curiously enough, there's something more
that I haven't told you.  I happened to know one of the doctors
who was consulted as to the cause of death, and some time after
the inquest I met him, and asked him about it.  'Do you really
mean to tell me,' I said, 'that you were baffled by the case,
that you actually don't know what the man died of?' 'Pardon me,'
he replied, 'I know perfectly well what caused death.  Blank
died of fright, of sheer, awful terror; I never saw features so
hideously contorted in the entire course of my practice, and I
have seen the faces of a whole host of dead.'  The doctor was
usually a cool customer enough, and a certain vehemence in his
manner struck me, but I couldn't get anything more out of him.
I suppose the Treasury didn't see their way to prosecuting the
Herberts for frightening a man to death; at any rate, nothing
was done, and the case dropped out of men's minds.  Do you
happen to know anything of Herbert?"

"Well," replied Villiers, "he was an old college friend
of mine."

"You don't say so?  Have you ever seen his wife?"

"No, I haven't.  I have lost sight of Herbert for many
years."

"It's queer, isn't it, parting with a man at the college gate or at
Paddington, seeing nothing of him for years, and then finding him pop up
his head in such an odd place. But I should like to have seen Mrs.
Herbert; people said extraordinary things about her."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, I hardly know how to tell you.  Everyone who saw
her at the police court said she was at once the most beautiful
woman and the most repulsive they had ever set eyes on.  I have
spoken to a man who saw her, and I assure you he positively
shuddered as he tried to describe the woman, but he couldn't
tell why.  She seems to have been a sort of enigma; and I expect
if that one dead man could have told tales, he would have told
some uncommonly queer ones.  And there you are again in another
puzzle; what could a respectable country gentleman like Mr.
Blank (we'll call him that if you don't mind) want in such a
very queer house as Number 20?  It's altogether a very odd case,
isn't it?"

"It is indeed, Austin; an extraordinary case.  I
didn't think, when I asked you about my old friend, I should
strike on such strange metal.  Well, I must be off; good-day."

Villiers went away, thinking of his own conceit of the
Chinese boxes; here was quaint workmanship indeed.


IV - THE DISCOVERY IN PAUL STREET


A few months after Villiers' meeting with Herbert, Mr.
Clarke was sitting, as usual, by his after-dinner hearth,
resolutely guarding his fancies from wandering in the direction
of the bureau.  For more than a week he had succeeded in keeping
away from the "Memoirs," and he cherished hopes of a complete
self-reformation; but, in spite of his endeavours, he could not
hush the wonder and the strange curiosity that the last case he
had written down had excited within him.  He had put the case,
or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific
friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer,
and on this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to
rationalize the story, when a sudden knock at the door roused
him from his meditations.

"Mr. Villiers to see you sir."

"Dear me, Villiers, it is very kind of you to look me
up; I have not seen you for many months; I should think nearly a
year.  Come in, come in.  And how are you, Villiers?  Want any
advice about investments?"

"No, thanks, I fancy everything I have in that way is
pretty safe.  No, Clarke, I have really come to consult you
about a rather curious matter that has been brought under my
notice of late.  I am afraid you will think it all rather absurd
when I tell my tale.  I sometimes think so myself, and that's
just what I made up my mind to come to you, as I know you're a
practical man."

Mr. Villiers was ignorant of the "Memoirs to prove the
Existence of the Devil."

"Well, Villiers, I shall be happy to give you my
advice, to the best of my ability.  What is the nature of the
case?"

"It's an extraordinary thing altogether.  You know my
ways; I always keep my eyes open in the streets, and in my time
I have chanced upon some queer customers, and queer cases too,
but this, I think, beats all.  I was coming out of a restaurant
one nasty winter night about three months ago; I had had a
capital dinner and a good bottle of Chianti, and I stood for a
moment on the pavement, thinking what a mystery there is about
London streets and the companies that pass along them.  A bottle
of red wine encourages these fancies, Clarke, and I dare say I
should have thought a page of small type, but I was cut short by
a beggar who had come behind me, and was making the usual
appeals.  Of course I looked round, and this beggar turned out
to be what was left of an old friend of mine, a man named
Herbert.  I asked him how he had come to such a wretched pass,
and he told me.  We walked up and down one of those long and
dark Soho streets, and there I listened to his story.  He said
he had married a beautiful girl, some years younger than
himself, and, as he put it, she had corrupted him body and
soul.  He wouldn't go into details; he said he dare not, that
what he had seen and heard haunted him by night and day, and
when I looked in his face I knew he was speaking the truth.
There was something about the man that made me shiver.  I don't
know why, but it was there.  I gave him a little money and sent
him away, and I assure you that when he was gone I gasped for
breath.  His presence seemed to chill one's blood."

"Isn't this all just a little fanciful, Villiers?  I
suppose the poor fellow had made an imprudent marriage, and, in
plain English, gone to the bad."

"Well, listen to this."  Villiers told Clarke the story
he had heard from Austin.

"You see," he concluded, "there can be but little doubt
that this Mr.  Blank, whoever he was, died of sheer terror; he
saw something so awful, so terrible, that it cut short his life.
And what he saw, he most certainly saw in that house, which,
somehow or other, had got a bad name in the neighbourhood.  I
had the curiosity to go and look at the place for myself.  It's
a saddening kind of street; the houses are old enough to be mean
and dreary, but not old enough to be quaint.  As far as I could
see most of them are let in lodgings, furnished and unfurnished,
and almost every door has three bells to it.  Here and there the
ground floors have been made into shops of the commonest kind;
it's a dismal street in every way.  I found Number 20 was to
let, and I went to the agent's and got the key.  Of course I
should have heard nothing of the Herberts in that quarter, but
I asked the man, fair and square, how long they had left the
house and whether there had been other tenants in the meanwhile.
He looked at me queerly for a minute, and told me the Herberts
had left immediately after the unpleasantness, as he called it,
and since then the house had been empty."

Mr. Villiers paused for a moment.

"I have always been rather fond of going over empty
houses; there's a sort of fascination about the desolate empty
rooms, with the nails sticking in the walls, and the dust thick
upon the window-sills.  But I didn't enjoy going over Number 20,
Paul Street.  I had hardly put my foot inside the passage when I
noticed a queer, heavy feeling about the air of the house.  Of
course all empty houses are stuffy, and so forth, but this was
something quite different; I can't describe it to you, but it
seemed to stop the breath.  I went into the front room and the
back room, and the kitchens downstairs; they were all dirty and
dusty enough, as you would expect, but there was something
strange about them all.  I couldn't define it to you, I only
know I felt queer.  It was one of the rooms on the first floor,
though, that was the worst.  It was a largish room, and once on
a time the paper must have been cheerful enough, but when I saw
it, paint, paper, and everything were most doleful.  But the
room was full of horror; I felt my teeth grinding as I put my
hand on the door, and when I went in, I thought I should have
fallen fainting to the floor.  However, I pulled myself
together, and stood against the end wall, wondering what on
earth there could be about the room to make my limbs tremble,
and my heart beat as if I were at the hour of death.  In one
corner there was a pile of newspapers littered on the floor, and
I began looking at them; they were papers of three or four years
ago, some of them half torn, and some crumpled as if they had
been used for packing.  I turned the whole pile over, and
amongst them I found a curious drawing; I will show it to you
presently.  But I couldn't stay in the room; I felt it was
overpowering me.  I was thankful to come out, safe and sound,
into the open air.  People stared at me as I walked along the
street, and one man said I was drunk.  I was staggering about
from one side of the pavement to the other, and it was as much
as I could do to take the key back to the agent and get home.  I
was in bed for a week, suffering from what my doctor called
nervous shock and exhaustion.  One of those days I was reading
the evening paper, and happened to notice a paragraph headed:
'Starved to Death.'  It was the usual style of thing; a model
lodging-house in Marylebone, a door locked for several days, and
a dead man in his chair when they broke in.  'The deceased,' said
the paragraph, 'was known as Charles Herbert, and is believed to
have been once a prosperous country gentleman.  His name was
familiar to the public three years ago in connection with the
mysterious death in Paul Street, Tottenham Court Road, the
deceased being the tenant of the house Number 20, in the area of
which a gentleman of good position was found dead under
circumstances not devoid of suspicion.'  A tragic ending, wasn't
it?  But after all, if what he told me were true, which I am
sure it was, the man's life was all a tragedy, and a tragedy of
a stranger sort than they put on the boards."

"And that is the story, is it?" said Clarke musingly.

"Yes, that is the story."

"Well, really, Villiers, I scarcely know what to say about it. There
are, no doubt, circumstances in the case which seem peculiar, the
finding of the dead man in the area of Herbert's house, for instance,
and the extraordinary opinion of the physician as to the cause of death;
but, after all, it is conceivable that the facts may be explained in a
straightforward manner. As to your own sensations, when you went to see
the house, I would suggest that they were due to a vivid imagination;
you must have been brooding, in a semi-conscious way, over what you had
heard. I don't exactly see what more can be said or done in the matter;
you evidently think there is a mystery of some kind, but Herbert is
dead; where then do you propose to look?"

"I propose to look for the woman; the woman whom he married.  She is
the mystery."

The two men sat silent by the fireside; Clarke secretly congratulating
himself on having successfully kept up the character of advocate of the
commonplace, and Villiers wrapped in his gloomy fancies.

"I think I will have a cigarette," he said at last, and put his hand in
his pocket to feel for the cigarette-case.

"Ah!" he said, starting slightly, "I forgot I had something to show you.
You remember my saying that I had found a rather curious sketch amongst
the pile of old newspapers at the house in Paul Street? Here it is."

Villiers drew out a small thin parcel from his pocket. It was covered
with brown paper, and secured with string, and the knots were
troublesome. In spite of himself Clarke felt inquisitive; he bent
forward on his chair as Villiers painfully undid the string, and
unfolded the outer covering. Inside was a second wrapping of tissue, and
Villiers took it off and handed the small piece of paper to Clarke
without a word.

There was dead silence in the room for five minutes or more; the two man
sat so still that they could hear the ticking of the tall old-fashioned
clock that stood outside in the hall, and in the mind of one of them the
slow monotony of sound woke up a far, far memory. He was looking
intently at the small pen-and-ink sketch of the woman's head; it had
evidently been drawn with great care, and by a true artist, for the
woman's soul looked out of the eyes, and the lips were parted with a
strange smile. Clarke gazed still at the face; it brought to his memory
one summer evening, long ago; he saw again the long lovely valley, the
river winding between the hills, the meadows and the cornfields, the
dull red sun, and the cold white mist rising from the water. He heard a
voice speaking to him across the waves of many years, and saying
"Clarke, Mary will see the god Pan!" and then he was standing in the
grim room beside the doctor, listening to the heavy ticking of the
clock, waiting and watching, watching the figure lying on the green char
beneath the lamplight. Mary rose up, and he looked into her eyes, and
his heart grew cold within him.

"Who is this woman?" he said at last. His voice was dry and hoarse.

"That is the woman who Herbert married."

Clarke looked again at the sketch; it was not Mary after all. There
certainly was Mary's face, but there was something else, something he
had not seen on Mary's features when the white-clad girl entered the
laboratory with the doctor, nor at her terrible awakening, nor when she
lay grinning on the bed. Whatever it was, the glance that came from
those eyes, the smile on the full lips, or the expression of the whole
face, Clarke shuddered before it at his inmost soul, and thought,
unconsciously, of Dr. Phillip's words, "the most vivid presentment of
evil I have ever seen." He turned the paper over mechanically in his
hand and glanced at the back.

"Good God! Clarke, what is the matter? You are as white as death."

Villiers had started wildly from his chair, as Clarke fell back with a
groan, and let the paper drop from his hands.

"I don't feel very well, Villiers, I am subject to these attacks. Pour
me out a little wine; thanks, that will do. I shall feel better in a few
minutes."

Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had
done.

"You saw that?" he said. "That's how I identified it as being a portrait
of Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel now?"

"Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think I quite
catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the
picture?"

"This word--'Helen'--was written on the back. Didn't I tell you her name
was Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan."

Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.

"Now, don't you agree with me," said Villiers, "that in the story I have
told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there are
some very strange points?"

"Yes, Villiers," Clarke muttered, "it is a strange story indeed; a
strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be
able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,
Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week."


V - THE LETTER OF ADVICE


"Do you know, Austin," said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing
sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, "do you know I am
convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts is a
mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to you
that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just seen
him."

"You had seen him? Where?"

"He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable
plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,
or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this--he had
been ruined by his wife."

"In what manner?"

"He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,
body and soul. The man is dead now."

"And what has become of his wife?"

"Ah, that's what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner or
later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of
business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this
extraordinary letter."

Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously. It
ran as follows:--

"MY DEAR VILLIERS,--I have thought over the matter on which you
consulted me the other night, and my advice to you is this. Throw the
portrait into the fire, blot out the story from your mind. Never give it
another thought, Villiers, or you will be sorry. You will think, no
doubt, that I am in possession of some secret information, and to a
certain extent that is the case. But I only know a little; I am like a
traveller who has peered over an abyss, and has drawn back in terror.
What I know is strange enough and horrible enough, but beyond my
knowledge there are depths and horrors more frightful still, more
incredible than any tale told of winter nights about the fire. I have
resolved, and nothing shall shake that resolve, to explore no whit
farther, and if you value your happiness you will make the same
determination.

"Come and see me by all means; but we will talk on more cheerful topics
than this."

Austin folded the letter methodically, and returned it to Villiers.

"It is certainly an extraordinary letter," he said, "what does he mean
by the portrait?"

"Ah! I forgot to tell you I have been to Paul Street and have made a
discovery."

Villiers told his story as he had told it to Clarke, and Austin listened
in silence. He seemed puzzled.

"How very curious that you should experience such an
unpleasant sensation in that room!" he said at length.  "I
hardly gather that it was a mere matter of the imagination; a
feeling of repulsion, in short."

"No, it was more physical than mental.  It was as if I
were inhaling at every breath some deadly fume, which seemed to
penetrate to every nerve and bone and sinew of my body.  I felt
racked from head to foot, my eyes began to grow dim; it was like
the entrance of death."

"Yes, yes, very strange certainly.  You see, your
friend confesses that there is some very black story connected
with this woman.  Did you notice any particular emotion in him
when you were telling your tale?"

"Yes, I did.  He became very faint, but he assured me
that it was a mere passing attack to which he was subject."

"Did you believe him?"

"I did at the time, but I don't now.  He heard what I
had to say with a good deal of indifference, till I showed him
the portrait.  It was then that he was seized with the attack of
which I spoke.  He looked ghastly, I assure you."

"Then he must have seen the woman before.  But there
might be another explanation; it might have been the name, and
not the face, which was familiar to him.  What do you think?"

"I couldn't say.  To the best of my belief it was after
turning the portrait in his hands that he nearly dropped from
the chair.  The name, you know, was written on the back."

"Quite so.  After all, it is impossible to come to any
resolution in a case like this.  I hate melodrama, and nothing
strikes me as more commonplace and tedious than the ordinary
ghost story of commerce; but really, Villiers, it looks as if
there were something very queer at the bottom of all this."

The two men had, without noticing it, turned up Ashley
Street, leading northward from Piccadilly.  It was a long
street, and rather a gloomy one, but here and there a brighter
taste had illuminated the dark houses with flowers, and gay
curtains, and a cheerful paint on the doors.  Villiers glanced
up as Austin stopped speaking, and looked at one of these
houses; geraniums, red and white, drooped from every sill, and
daffodil-coloured curtains were draped back from each window.

"It looks cheerful, doesn't it?" he said.

"Yes, and the inside is still more cheery.  One of the
pleasantest houses of the season, so I have heard.  I haven't
been there myself, but I've met several men who have, and they
tell me it's uncommonly jovial."

"Whose house is it?"

"A Mrs. Beaumont's."

"And who is she?"

"I couldn't tell you.  I have heard she comes from
South America, but after all, who she is is of little
consequence.  She is a very wealthy woman, there's no doubt of
that, and some of the best people have taken her up.  I hear she
has some wonderful claret, really marvellous wine, which must
have cost a fabulous sum.  Lord Argentine was telling me about
it; he was there last Sunday evening.  He assures me he has
never tasted such a wine, and Argentine, as you know, is an
expert.  By the way, that reminds me, she must be an oddish sort
of woman, this Mrs. Beaumont.  Argentine asked her how old the
wine was, and what do you think she said?  'About a thousand
years, I believe.' Lord Argentine thought she was chaffing him,
you know, but when he laughed she said she was speaking quite
seriously and offered to show him the jar.  Of course, he
couldn't say anything more after that; but it seems rather
antiquated for a beverage, doesn't it?  Why, here we are at my
rooms.  Come in, won't you?"

"Thanks, I think I will.  I haven't seen the
curiosity-shop for a while."

It was a room furnished richly, yet oddly, where every jar and bookcase
and table, and every rug and jar and ornament seemed to be a thing
apart, preserving each its own individuality.

"Anything fresh lately?" said Villiers after a while.

"No; I think not; you saw those queer jugs, didn't you?
I thought so.  I don't think I have come across anything for the
last few weeks."

Austin glanced around the room from cupboard to
cupboard, from shelf to shelf, in search of some new oddity.
His eyes fell at last on an odd chest, pleasantly and quaintly
carved, which stood in a dark corner of the room.

"Ah," he said, "I was forgetting, I have got something
to show you." Austin unlocked the chest, drew out a thick quarto
volume, laid it on the table, and resumed the cigar he had put
down.

"Did you know Arthur Meyrick the painter, Villiers?"

"A little; I met him two or three times at the house of
a friend of mine.  What has become of him?  I haven't heard his
name mentioned for some time."

"He's dead."

"You don't say so!  Quite young, wasn't he?"

"Yes; only thirty when he died."

"What did he die of?"

"I don't know.  He was an intimate friend of mine, and
a thoroughly good fellow.  He used to come here and talk to me
for hours, and he was one of the best talkers I have met.  He
could even talk about painting, and that's more than can be said
of most painters.  About eighteen months ago he was feeling
rather overworked, and partly at my suggestion he went off on a
sort of roving expedition, with no very definite end or aim
about it.  I believe New York was to be his first port, but I
never heard from him.  Three months ago I got this book, with a
very civil letter from an English doctor practising at Buenos
Ayres, stating that he had attended the late Mr. Meyrick during
his illness, and that the deceased had expressed an earnest wish
that the enclosed packet should be sent to me after his death.
That was all."

"And haven't you written for further particulars?"

"I have been thinking of doing so.  You would advise me
to write to the doctor?"

"Certainly.  And what about the book?"

"It was sealed up when I got it.  I don't think the
doctor had seen it."

"It is something very rare?  Meyrick was a collector,
perhaps?"

"No, I think not, hardly a collector.  Now, what do you
think of these Ainu jugs?"

"They are peculiar, but I like them.  But aren't you
going to show me poor Meyrick's legacy?"

"Yes, yes, to be sure.  The fact is, it's rather a
peculiar sort of thing, and I haven't shown it to any one.  I
wouldn't say anything about it if I were you.  There it is."

Villiers took the book, and opened it at haphazard.

"It isn't a printed volume, then?" he said.

"No.  It is a collection of drawings in black and white
by my poor friend Meyrick."

Villiers turned to the first page, it was blank; the
second bore a brief inscription, which he read:


Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus
est; lucet nocturnis ignibus, chorus Aegipanum undique
personatur: audiuntur et cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum
per oram maritimam.


On the third page was a design which made Villiers
start and look up at Austin; he was gazing abstractedly out of
the window.  Villiers turned page after page, absorbed, in spite
of himself, in the frightful Walpurgis Night of evil, strange
monstrous evil, that the dead artist had set forth in hard black
and white.  The figures of Fauns and Satyrs and Aegipans danced
before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, the dance on the
mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in green vineyards,
by rocks and desert places, passed before him: a world before
which the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder.
Villiers whirled over the remaining pages; he had seen enough,
but the picture on the last leaf caught his eye, as he almost
closed the book.

"Austin!"

"Well, what is it?"

"Do you know who that is?"

It was a woman's face, alone on the white page.

"Know who it is?  No, of course not."

"I do."

"Who is it?"

"It is Mrs. Herbert."

"Are you sure?"

"I am perfectly sure of it.  Poor Meyrick!  He is one
more chapter in her history."

"But what do you think of the designs?"

"They are frightful.  Lock the book up again, Austin.
If I were you I would burn it; it must be a terrible companion
even though it be in a chest."

"Yes, they are singular drawings.  But I wonder what
connection there could be between Meyrick and Mrs. Herbert, or
what link between her and these designs?"

"Ah, who can say?  It is possible that the matter may
end here, and we shall never know, but in my own opinion this
Helen Vaughan, or Mrs. Herbert, is only the beginning.  She
will come back to London, Austin; depend on it, she will come
back, and we shall hear more about her then.  I doubt it will
be very pleasant news."


VI - THE SUICIDES


Lord Argentine was a great favourite in London Society. At twenty he had
been a poor man, decked with the surname of an illustrious family, but
forced to earn a livelihood as best he could, and the most speculative
of money-lenders would not have entrusted him with fifty pounds on the
chance of his ever changing his name for a title, and his poverty for a
great fortune. His father had been near enough to the fountain of good
things to secure one of the family livings, but the son, even if he had
taken orders, would scarcely have obtained so much as this, and moreover
felt no vocation for the ecclesiastical estate. Thus he fronted the
world with no better armour than the bachelor's gown and the wits of a
younger son's grandson, with which equipment he contrived in some way to
make a very tolerable fight of it. At twenty-five Mr. Charles Aubernon
saw himself still a man of struggles and of warfare with the world, but
out of the seven who stood before him and the high places of his family
three only remained. These three, however, were "good lives," but yet
not proof against the Zulu assegais and typhoid fever, and so one
morning Aubernon woke up and found himself Lord Argentine, a man of
thirty who had faced the difficulties of existence, and had conquered.
The situation amused him immensely, and he resolved that riches should
be as pleasant to him as poverty had always been. Argentine, after some
little consideration, came to the conclusion that dining, regarded as a
fine art, was perhaps the most amusing pursuit open to fallen humanity,
and thus his dinners became famous in London, and an invitation to his
table a thing covetously desired. After ten years of lordship and
dinners Argentine still declined to be jaded, still persisted in
enjoying life, and by a kind of infection had become recognized as the
cause of joy in others, in short, as the best of company. His sudden and
tragical death therefore caused a wide and deep sensation. People could
scarcely believe it, even though the newspaper was before their eyes,
and the cry of "Mysterious Death of a Nobleman" came ringing up from the
street. But there stood the brief paragraph: "Lord Argentine was found
dead this morning by his valet under distressing circumstances. It is
stated that there can be no doubt that his lordship committed suicide,
though no motive can be assigned for the act. The deceased nobleman was
widely known in society, and much liked for his genial manner and
sumptuous hospitality. He is succeeded by," etc., etc.

By slow degrees the details came to light, but the case still remained a
mystery. The chief witness at the inquest was the deceased's valet, who
said that the night before his death Lord Argentine had dined with a
lady of good position, whose named was suppressed in the newspaper
reports. At about eleven o'clock Lord Argentine had returned, and
informed his man that he should not require his services till the next
morning. A little later the valet had occasion to cross the hall and was
somewhat astonished to see his master quietly letting himself out at the
front door. He had taken off his evening clothes, and was dressed in a
Norfolk coat and knickerbockers, and wore a low brown hat. The valet had
no reason to suppose that Lord Argentine had seen him, and though his
master rarely kept late hours, thought little of the occurrence till the
next morning, when he knocked at the bedroom door at a quarter to nine
as usual. He received no answer, and, after knocking two or three times,
entered the room, and saw Lord Argentine's body leaning forward at an
angle from the bottom of the bed. He found that his master had tied a
cord securely to one of the short bed-posts, and, after making a running
noose and slipping it round his neck, the unfortunate man must have
resolutely fallen forward, to die by slow strangulation. He was dressed
in the light suit in which the valet had seen him go out, and the doctor
who was summoned pronounced that life had been extinct for more than
four hours. All papers, letters, and so forth seemed in perfect order,
and nothing was discovered which pointed in the most remote way to any
scandal either great or small. Here the evidence ended; nothing more
could be discovered. Several persons had been present at the
dinner-party at which Lord Augustine had assisted, and to all these he
seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet, indeed, said he thought
his master appeared a little excited when he came home, but confessed
that the alteration in his manner was very slight, hardly noticeable,
indeed. It seemed hopeless to seek for any clue, and the suggestion that
Lord Argentine had been suddenly attacked by acute suicidal mania was
generally accepted.

It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks, three more
gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two others men of good
position and ample means, perished miserably in the almost precisely the
same manner. Lord Swanleigh was found one morning in his dressing-room,
hanging from a peg affixed to the wall, and Mr. Collier-Stuart and Mr.
Herries had chosen to die as Lord Argentine. There was no explanation in
either case; a few bald facts; a living man in the evening, and a body
with a black swollen face in the morning. The police had been forced to
confess themselves powerless to arrest or to explain the sordid murders
of Whitechapel; but before the horrible suicides of Piccadilly and
Mayfair they were dumbfoundered, for not even the mere ferocity which
did duty as an explanation of the crimes of the East End, could be of
service in the West. Each of these men who had resolved to die a
tortured shameful death was rich, prosperous, and to all appearances in
love with the world, and not the acutest research could ferret out any
shadow of a lurking motive in either case. There was a horror in the
air, and men looked at one another's faces when they met, each wondering
whether the other was to be the victim of the fifth nameless tragedy.
Journalists sought in vain in their scrapbooks for materials whereof to
concoct reminiscent articles; and the morning paper was unfolded in many
a house with a feeling of awe; no man knew when or where the next blow
would light.

A short while after the last of these terrible events, Austin came to
see Mr. Villiers. He was curious to know whether Villiers had succeeded
in discovering any fresh traces of Mrs. Herbert, either through Clarke
or by other sources, and he asked the question soon after he had sat
down.

"No," said Villiers, "I wrote to Clarke, but he remains obdurate, and I
have tried other channels, but without any result. I can't find out what
became of Helen Vaughan after she left Paul Street, but I think she must
have gone abroad. But to tell the truth, Austin, I haven't paid much
attention to the matter for the last few weeks; I knew poor Herries
intimately, and his terrible death has been a great shock to me, a great
shock."

"I can well believe it," answered Austin gravely, "you know Argentine
was a friend of mine. If I remember rightly, we were speaking of him
that day you came to my rooms."

"Yes; it was in connection with that house in Ashley Street, Mrs.
Beaumont's house. You said something about Argentine's dining there."

"Quite so. Of course you know it was there Argentine dined the night
before--before his death."

"No, I had not heard that."

"Oh, yes; the name was kept out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.
Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in a
terrible state for sometime after."

A curious look came over Villiers' face; he seemed undecided whether to
speak or not. Austin began again.

"I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the account
of Argentine's death. I didn't understand it at the time, and I don't
now. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding for what
possible cause he--or any of the others for the matter of that--could
have resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner. You know how
men babble away each other's characters in London, you may be sure any
buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought to light in
such a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken place. As for the
theory of mania, that is very well, of course, for the coroner's jury,
but everybody knows that it's all nonsense. Suicidal mania is not
small-pox."

Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent, also, watching
his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across his face;
he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the
considerations he was resolving left him still silent. Austin tried to
shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as the
labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of the
more pleasant incidents and adventures of the season.

"That Mrs. Beaumont," he said, "of whom we were speaking, is a great
success; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other night
at Fulham's; she is really a remarkable woman."

"You have met Mrs. Beaumont?"

"Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called very
handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which I
didn't like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange.
And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going
home, I had a curious feeling that very expression was in some way or
another familiar to me."

"You must have seen her in the Row."

"No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that which
makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seen anyone
like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vague but
persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that odd feeling
one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and wondrous lands
and phantom personages appear familiar and accustomed."

Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room, possibly in search
of something on which to turn the conversation. His eyes fell on an old
chest somewhat like that in which the artist's strange legacy lay hid
beneath a Gothic scutcheon.

"Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?" he asked.

"Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his illness and death. I
don't expect to have an answer for another three weeks or a month. I
thought I might as well inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwoman
named Herbert, and if so, whether the doctor could give me any
information about her. But it's very possible that Meyrick fell in with
her at New York, or Mexico, or San Francisco; I have no idea as to the
extent or direction of his travels."

"Yes, and it's very possible that the woman may have more than one
name."

"Exactly. I wish I had thought of asking you to lend me the portrait of
her which you possess. I might have enclosed it in my letter to Dr.
Matthews."

"So you might; that never occurred to me. We might send it now. Hark!
what are those boys calling?"

While the two men had been talking together a confused noise of shouting
had been gradually growing louder. The noise rose from the eastward and
swelled down Piccadilly, drawing nearer and nearer, a very torrent of
sound; surging up streets usually quiet, and making every window a frame
for a face, curious or excited. The cries and voices came echoing up the
silent street where Villiers lived, growing more distinct as they
advanced, and, as Villiers spoke, an answer rang up from the pavement:

"The West End Horrors; Another Awful Suicide; Full Details!"

Austin rushed down the stairs and bought a paper and read out the
paragraph to Villiers as the uproar in the street rose and fell. The
window was open and the air seemed full of noise and terror.

"Another gentleman has fallen a victim to the terrible epidemic of
suicide which for the last month has prevailed in the West End. Mr.
Sidney Crashaw, of Stoke House, Fulham, and King's Pomeroy, Devon, was
found, after a prolonged search, hanging dead from the branch of a tree
in his garden at one o'clock today. The deceased gentleman dined last
night at the Carlton Club and seemed in his usual health and spirits. He
left the club at about ten o'clock, and was seen walking leisurely up
St. James's Street a little later. Subsequent to this his movements
cannot be traced. On the discovery of the body medical aid was at once
summoned, but life had evidently been long extinct. So far as is known,
Mr. Crashaw had no trouble or anxiety of any kind. This painful suicide,
it will be remembered, is the fifth of the kind in the last month. The
authorities at Scotland Yard are unable to suggest any explanation of
these terrible occurrences."

Austin put down the paper in mute horror.

"I shall leave London to-morrow," he said, "it is a city of nightmares.
How awful this is, Villiers!"

Mr. Villiers was sitting by the window quietly looking out into the
street. He had listened to the newspaper report attentively, and the
hint of indecision was no longer on his face.

"Wait a moment, Austin," he replied, "I have made up my mind to mention
a little matter that occurred last night. It stated, I think, that
Crashaw was last seen alive in St. James's Street shortly after ten?"

"Yes, I think so. I will look again. Yes, you are quite right."

"Quite so. Well, I am in a position to contradict that statement at all
events. Crashaw was seen after that; considerably later indeed."

"How do you know?"

"Because I happened to see Crashaw myself at about two o'clock this
morning."

"You saw Crashaw? You, Villiers?"

"Yes, I saw him quite distinctly; indeed, there were but a few feet
between us."

"Where, in Heaven's name, did you see him?"

"Not far from here. I saw him in Ashley Street. He was just leaving a
house."

"Did you notice what house it was?"

"Yes. It was Mrs. Beaumont's."

"Villiers! Think what you are saying; there must be some mistake. How
could Crashaw be in Mrs. Beaumont's house at two o'clock in the morning?
Surely, surely, you must have been dreaming, Villiers; you were always
rather fanciful."

"No; I was wide awake enough. Even if I had been dreaming as you say,
what I saw would have roused me effectually."

"What you saw? What did you see? Was there anything strange about
Crashaw? But I can't believe it; it is impossible."

"Well, if you like I will tell you what I saw, or if you please, what I
think I saw, and you can judge for yourself."

"Very good, Villiers."

The noise and clamour of the street had died away, though now and then
the sound of shouting still came from the distance, and the dull, leaden
silence seemed like the quiet after an earthquake or a storm. Villiers
turned from the window and began speaking.

"I was at a house near Regent's Park last night, and when I came away
the fancy took me to walk home instead of taking a hansom. It was a
clear pleasant night enough, and after a few minutes I had the streets
pretty much to myself. It's a curious thing, Austin, to be alone in
London at night, the gas-lamps stretching away in perspective, and the
dead silence, and then perhaps the rush and clatter of a hansom on the
stones, and the fire starting up under the horse's hoofs. I walked along
pretty briskly, for I was feeling a little tired of being out in the
night, and as the clocks were striking two I turned down Ashley Street,
which, you know, is on my way. It was quieter than ever there, and the
lamps were fewer; altogether, it looked as dark and gloomy as a forest
in winter. I had done about half the length of the street when I heard a
door closed very softly, and naturally I looked up to see who was abroad
like myself at such an hour. As it happens, there is a street lamp close
to the house in question, and I saw a man standing on the step. He had
just shut the door and his face was towards me, and I recognized Crashaw
directly. I never knew him to speak to, but I had often seen him, and I
am positive that I was not mistaken in my man. I looked into his face
for a moment, and then--I will confess the truth--I set off at a good
run, and kept it up till I was within my own door."

"Why?"

"Why? Because it made my blood run cold to see that man's face. I could
never have supposed that such an infernal medley of passions could have
glared out of any human eyes; I almost fainted as I looked. I knew I had
looked into the eyes of a lost soul, Austin, the man's outward form
remained, but all hell was within it. Furious lust, and hate that was
like fire, and the loss of all hope and horror that seemed to shriek
aloud to the night, though his teeth were shut; and the utter blackness
of despair. I am sure that he did not see me; he saw nothing that you or
I can see, but what he saw I hope we never shall. I do not know when he
died; I suppose in an hour, or perhaps two, but when I passed down
Ashley Street and heard the closing door, that man no longer belonged to
this world; it was a devil's face I looked upon."

There was an interval of silence in the room when Villiers ceased
speaking. The light was failing, and all the tumult of an hour ago was
quite hushed. Austin had bent his head at the close of the story, and
his hand covered his eyes.

"What can it mean?" he said at length.

"Who knows, Austin, who knows? It's a black business, but I think we had
better keep it to ourselves, for the present at any rate. I will see if
I cannot learn anything about that house through private channels of
information, and if I do light upon anything I will let you know."


VII - THE ENCOUNTER IN SOHO


Three weeks later Austin received a note from Villiers, asking him to
call either that afternoon or the next. He chose the nearer date, and
found Villiers sitting as usual by the window, apparently lost in
meditation on the drowsy traffic of the street. There was a bamboo table
by his side, a fantastic thing, enriched with gilding and queer painted
scenes, and on it lay a little pile of papers arranged and docketed as
neatly as anything in Mr. Clarke's office.

"Well, Villiers, have you made any discoveries in the last three weeks?"

"I think so; I have here one or two memoranda which struck me as
singular, and there is a statement to which I shall call your
attention."

"And these documents relate to Mrs. Beaumont? It was really Crashaw whom
you saw that night standing on the doorstep of the house in Ashley
Street?"

"As to that matter my belief remains unchanged, but neither my inquiries
nor their results have any special relation to Crashaw. But my
investigations have had a strange issue. I have found out who Mrs.
Beaumont is!"

"Who is she? In what way do you mean?"

"I mean that you and I know her better under another name."

"What name is that?"

"Herbert."

"Herbert!" Austin repeated the word, dazed with astonishment.

"Yes, Mrs. Herbert of Paul Street, Helen Vaughan of earlier adventures
unknown to me. You had reason to recognize the expression of her face;
when you go home look at the face in Meyrick's book of horrors, and you
will know the sources of your recollection."

"And you have proof of this?"

"Yes, the best of proof; I have seen Mrs. Beaumont, or shall we say Mrs.
Herbert?"

"Where did you see her?"

"Hardly in a place where you would expect to see a lady who lives in
Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the
meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an
appointment, though not with her, and she was precise to both time and
place."

"All this seems very wonderful, but I cannot call it incredible. You
must remember, Villiers, that I have seen this woman, in the ordinary
adventure of London society, talking and laughing, and sipping her
coffee in a commonplace drawing-room with commonplace people. But you
know what you are saying."

"I do; I have not allowed myself to be led by surmises or fancies. It
was with no thought of finding Helen Vaughan that I searched for Mrs.
Beaumont in the dark waters of the life of London, but such has been the
issue."

"You must have been in strange places, Villiers."

"Yes, I have been in very strange places. It would have been useless,
you know, to go to Ashley Street, and ask Mrs. Beaumont to give me a
short sketch of her previous history. No; assuming, as I had to assume,
that her record was not of the cleanest, it would be pretty certain that
at some previous time she must have moved in circles not quite so
refined as her present ones. If you see mud at the top of a stream, you
may be sure that it was once at the bottom. I went to the bottom. I have
always been fond of diving into Queer Street for my amusement, and I
found my knowledge of that locality and its inhabitants very useful. It
is, perhaps, needless to say that my friends had never heard the name of
Beaumont, and as I had never seen the lady, and was quite unable to
describe her, I had to set to work in an indirect way. The people there
know me; I have been able to do some of them a service now and again, so
they made no difficulty about giving their information; they were aware
I had no communication direct or indirect with Scotland Yard. I had to
cast out a good many lines, though, before I got what I wanted, and when
I landed the fish I did not for a moment suppose it was my fish. But I
listened to what I was told out of a constitutional liking for useless
information, and I found myself in possession of a very curious story,
though, as I imagined, not the story I was looking for. It was to this
effect. Some five or six years ago, a woman named Raymond suddenly made
her appearance in the neighbourhood to which I am referring. She was
described to me as being quite young, probably not more than seventeen
or eighteen, very handsome, and looking as if she came from the country.
I should be wrong in saying that she found her level in going to this
particular quarter, or associating with these people, for from what I
was told, I should think the worst den in London far too good for her.
The person from whom I got my information, as you may suppose, no great
Puritan, shuddered and grew sick in telling me of the nameless infamies
which were laid to her charge. After living there for a year, or perhaps
a little more, she disappeared as suddenly as she came, and they saw
nothing of her till about the time of the Paul Street case. At first she
came to her old haunts only occasionally, then more frequently, and
finally took up her abode there as before, and remained for six or eight
months. It's of no use my going into details as to the life that woman
led; if you want particulars you can look at Meyrick's legacy. Those
designs were not drawn from his imagination. She again disappeared, and
the people of the place saw nothing of her till a few months ago. My
informant told me that she had taken some rooms in a house which he
pointed out, and these rooms she was in the habit of visiting two or
three times a week and always at ten in the morning. I was led to expect
that one of these visits would be paid on a certain day about a week
ago, and I accordingly managed to be on the look-out in company with my
cicerone at a quarter to ten, and the hour and the lady came with equal
punctuality. My friend and I were standing under an archway, a little
way back from the street, but she saw us, and gave me a glance that I
shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me; I knew
Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont she had quite gone
out of my head. She went into the house, and I watched it till four
o'clock, when she came out, and then I followed her. It was a long
chase, and I had to be very careful to keep a long way in the
background, and yet not lose sight of the woman. She took me down to the
Strand, and then to Westminster, and then up St. James's Street, and
along Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley Street;
the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came into my mind, but
it seemed too impossible to be true. I waited at the corner, keeping my
eye on her all the time, and I took particular care to note the house at
which she stopped. It was the house with the gay curtains, the home of
flowers, the house out of which Crashaw came the night he hanged himself
in his garden. I was just going away with my discovery, when I saw an
empty carriage come round and draw up in front of the house, and I came
to the conclusion that Mrs. Herbert was going out for a drive, and I was
right. There, as it happened, I met a man I know, and we stood talking
together a little distance from the carriage-way, to which I had my
back. We had not been there for ten minutes when my friend took off his
hat, and I glanced round and saw the lady I had been following all day.
'Who is that?' I said, and his answer was 'Mrs. Beaumont; lives in
Ashley Street.' Of course there could be no doubt after that. I don't
know whether she saw me, but I don't think she did. I went home at once,
and, on consideration, I thought that I had a sufficiently good case
with which to go to Clarke."

"Why to Clarke?"

"Because I am sure that Clarke is in possession of facts about this
woman, facts of which I know nothing."

"Well, what then?"

Mr. Villiers leaned back in his chair and looked reflectively at Austin
for a moment before he answered:

"My idea was that Clarke and I should call on Mrs. Beaumont."

"You would never go into such a house as that? No, no, Villiers, you
cannot do it. Besides, consider; what result..."

"I will tell you soon. But I was going to say that my information does
not end here; it has been completed in an extraordinary manner.

"Look at this neat little packet of manuscript; it is paginated, you
see, and I have indulged in the civil coquetry of a ribbon of red tape.
It has almost a legal air, hasn't it? Run your eye over it, Austin. It
is an account of the entertainment Mrs. Beaumont provided for her
choicer guests. The man who wrote this escaped with his life, but I do
not think he will live many years. The doctors tell him he must have
sustained some severe shock to the nerves."

Austin took the manuscript, but never read it. Opening the neat pages at
haphazard his eye was caught by a word and a phrase that followed it;
and, sick at heart, with white lips and a cold sweat pouring like water
from his temples, he flung the paper down.

"Take it away, Villiers, never speak of this again. Are you made of
stone, man? Why, the dread and horror of death itself, the thoughts of
the man who stands in the keen morning air on the black platform, bound,
the bell tolling in his ears, and waits for the harsh rattle of the
bolt, are as nothing compared to this. I will not read it; I should
never sleep again."

"Very good. I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but
after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day, and in
dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive
gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great
God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of
something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath
which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret
forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the
souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken
under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be
spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to
the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish tale.
But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that
may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh;
that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can
it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness
before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?"

Villiers was pacing up and down the room, and the beads of sweat stood
out on his forehead. Austin sat silent for a while, but Villiers saw him
make a sign upon his breast.

"I say again, Villiers, you will surely never enter such a house as
that? You would never pass out alive."

"Yes, Austin, I shall go out alive--I, and Clarke with me."

"What do you mean? You cannot, you would not dare..."

"Wait a moment. The air was very pleasant and fresh this morning; there
was a breeze blowing, even through this dull street, and I thought I
would take a walk. Piccadilly stretched before me a clear, bright vista,
and the sun flashed on the carriages and on the quivering leaves in the
park. It was a joyous morning, and men and women looked at the sky and
smiled as they went about their work or their pleasure, and the wind
blew as blithely as upon the meadows and the scented gorse. But somehow
or other I got out of the bustle and the gaiety, and found myself
walking slowly along a quiet, dull street, where there seemed to be no
sunshine and no air, and where the few foot-passengers loitered as they
walked, and hung indecisively about corners and archways. I walked
along, hardly knowing where I was going or what I did there, but feeling
impelled, as one sometimes is, to explore still further, with a vague
idea of reaching some unknown goal. Thus I forged up the street, noting
the small traffic of the milk-shop, and wondering at the incongruous
medley of penny pipes, black tobacco, sweets, newspapers, and comic
songs which here and there jostled one another in the short compass of a
single window. I think it was a cold shudder that suddenly passed
through me that first told me that I had found what I wanted. I looked
up from the pavement and stopped before a dusty shop, above which the
lettering had faded, where the red bricks of two hundred years ago had
grimed to black; where the windows had gathered to themselves the dust
of winters innumerable. I saw what I required; but I think it was five
minutes before I had steadied myself and could walk in and ask for it in
a cool voice and with a calm face. I think there must even then have
been a tremor in my words, for the old man who came out of the back
parlour, and fumbled slowly amongst his goods, looked oddly at me as he
tied the parcel. I paid what he asked, and stood leaning by the counter,
with a strange reluctance to take up my goods and go. I asked about the
business, and learnt that trade was bad and the profits cut down sadly;
but then the street was not what it was before traffic had been
diverted, but that was done forty years ago, 'just before my father
died,' he said. I got away at last, and walked along sharply; it was a
dismal street indeed, and I was glad to return to the bustle and the
noise. Would you like to see my purchase?"

Austin said nothing, but nodded his head slightly; he still looked white
and sick. Villiers pulled out a drawer in the bamboo table, and showed
Austin a long coil of cord, hard and new; and at one end was a running
noose.

"It is the best hempen cord," said Villiers, "just as it used to be made
for the old trade, the man told me. Not an inch of jute from end to
end."

Austin set his teeth hard, and stared at Villiers, growing whiter as he
looked.

"You would not do it," he murmured at last. "You would not have blood on
your hands. My God!" he exclaimed, with sudden vehemence, "you cannot
mean this, Villiers, that you will make yourself a hangman?"

"No. I shall offer a choice, and leave Helen Vaughan alone with this
cord in a locked room for fifteen minutes. If when we go in it is not
done, I shall call the nearest policeman. That is all."

"I must go now. I cannot stay here any longer; I cannot bear this.
Good-night."

"Good-night, Austin."

The door shut, but in a moment it was open again, and Austin stood,
white and ghastly, in the entrance.

"I was forgetting," he said, "that I too have something to tell. I have
received a letter from Dr. Harding of Buenos Ayres. He says that he
attended Meyrick for three weeks before his death."

"And does he say what carried him off in the prime of life? It was not
fever?"

"No, it was not fever. According to the doctor, it was an utter collapse
of the whole system, probably caused by some severe shock. But he states
that the patient would tell him nothing, and that he was consequently at
some disadvantage in treating the case."

"Is there anything more?"

"Yes. Dr. Harding ends his letter by saying: 'I think this is all the
information I can give you about your poor friend. He had not been long
in Buenos Ayres, and knew scarcely any one, with the exception of a
person who did not bear the best of characters, and has since left--a
Mrs. Vaughan.'"


VIII - THE FRAGMENTS


[Amongst the papers of the well-known physician, Dr. Robert Matheson, of
Ashley Street, Piccadilly, who died suddenly, of apoplectic seizure, at
the beginning of 1892, a leaf of manuscript paper was found, covered
with pencil jottings. These notes were in Latin, much abbreviated, and
had evidently been made in great haste. The MS. was only deciphered with
difficulty, and some words have up to the present time evaded all the
efforts of the expert employed. The date, "XXV Jul. 1888," is written on
the right-hand corner of the MS. The following is a translation of Dr.
Matheson's manuscript.]

"Whether science would benefit by these brief notes if they could be
published, I do not know, but rather doubt. But certainly I shall never
take the responsibility of publishing or divulging one word of what is
here written, not only on account of my oath given freely to those two
persons who were present, but also because the details are too
abominable. It is probably that, upon mature consideration, and after
weighting the good and evil, I shall one day destroy this paper, or at
least leave it under seal to my friend D., trusting in his discretion,
to use it or to burn it, as he may think fit.

"As was befitting, I did all that my knowledge suggested to make sure
that I was suffering under no delusion. At first astounded, I could
hardly think, but in a minute's time I was sure that my pulse was steady
and regular, and that I was in my real and true senses. I then fixed my
eyes quietly on what was before me.

"Though horror and revolting nausea rose up within me, and an odour of
corruption choked my breath, I remained firm. I was then privileged or
accursed, I dare not say which, to see that which was on the bed, lying
there black like ink, transformed before my eyes. The skin, and the
flesh, and the muscles, and the bones, and the firm structure of the
human body that I had thought to be unchangeable, and permanent as
adamant, began to melt and dissolve.

"I know that the body may be separated into its elements by external
agencies, but I should have refused to believe what I saw. For here
there was some internal force, of which I knew nothing, that caused
dissolution and change.

"Here too was all the work by which man had been made repeated before my
eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself,
and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts
whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the
depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which
makes organism, always remained, while the outward form changed.

"The light within the room had turned to blackness, not the darkness of
night, in which objects are seen dimly, for I could see clearly and
without difficulty. But it was the negation of light; objects were
presented to my eyes, if I may say so, without any medium, in such a
manner that if there had been a prism in the room I should have seen no
colours represented in it.

"I watched, and at last I saw nothing but a substance as jelly. Then the
ladder was ascended again...[here the MS. is illegible]...for one
instance I saw a Form, shaped in dimness before me, which I will not
further describe. But the symbol of this form may be seen in ancient
sculptures, and in paintings which survived beneath the lava, too foul
to be spoken of... as a horrible and unspeakable shape, neither man nor
beast, was changed into human form, there came finally death.

"I who saw all this, not without great horror and loathing of soul, here
write my name, declaring all that I have set on this paper to be true.

"ROBERT MATHESON, Med. Dr."

* * *

...Such, Raymond, is the story of what I know and what I have seen. The
burden of it was too heavy for me to bear alone, and yet I could tell it
to none but you. Villiers, who was with me at the last, knows nothing of
that awful secret of the wood, of how what we both saw die, lay upon the
smooth, sweet turf amidst the summer flowers, half in sun and half in
shadow, and holding the girl Rachel's hand, called and summoned those
companions, and shaped in solid form, upon the earth we tread upon, the
horror which we can but hint at, which we can only name under a figure.
I would not tell Villiers of this, nor of that resemblance, which struck
me as with a blow upon my heart, when I saw the portrait, which filled
the cup of terror at the end. What this can mean I dare not guess. I
know that what I saw perish was not Mary, and yet in the last agony
Mary's eyes looked into mine. Whether there can be any one who can show
the last link in this chain of awful mystery, I do not know, but if
there be any one who can do this, you, Raymond, are the man. And if you
know the secret, it rests with you to tell it or not, as you please.

I am writing this letter to you immediately on my getting back to town.
I have been in the country for the last few days; perhaps you may be
able to guess in which part. While the horror and wonder of London was
at its height--for "Mrs. Beaumont," as I have told you, was well known
in society--I wrote to my friend Dr. Phillips, giving some brief
outline, or rather hint, of what happened, and asking him to tell me the
name of the village where the events he had related to me occurred. He
gave me the name, as he said with the less hesitation, because Rachel's
father and mother were dead, and the rest of the family had gone to a
relative in the State of Washington six months before. The parents, he
said, had undoubtedly died of grief and horror caused by the terrible
death of their daughter, and by what had gone before that death. On the
evening of the day which I received Phillips' letter I was at Caermaen,
and standing beneath the mouldering Roman walls, white with the winters
of seventeen hundred years, I looked over the meadow where once had
stood the older temple of the "God of the Deeps," and saw a house
gleaming in the sunlight. It was the house where Helen had lived. I
stayed at Caermaen for several days. The people of the place, I found,
knew little and had guessed less. Those whom I spoke to on the matter
seemed surprised that an antiquarian (as I professed myself to be)
should trouble about a village tragedy, of which they gave a very
commonplace version, and, as you may imagine, I told nothing of what I
knew. Most of my time was spent in the great wood that rises just above
the village and climbs the hillside, and goes down to the river in the
valley; such another long lovely valley, Raymond, as that on which we
looked one summer night, walking to and fro before your house. For many
an hour I strayed through the maze of the forest, turning now to right
and now to left, pacing slowly down long alleys of undergrowth, shadowy
and chill, even under the midday sun, and halting beneath great oaks;
lying on the short turf of a clearing where the faint sweet scent of
wild roses came to me on the wind and mixed with the heavy perfume of
the elder, whose mingled odour is like the odour of the room of the
dead, a vapour of incense and corruption. I stood at the edges of the
wood, gazing at all the pomp and procession of the foxgloves towering
amidst the bracken and shining red in the broad sunshine, and beyond
them into deep thickets of close undergrowth where springs boil up from
the rock and nourish the water-weeds, dank and evil. But in all my
wanderings I avoided one part of the wood; it was not till yesterday
that I climbed to the summit of the hill, and stood upon the ancient
Roman road that threads the highest ridge of the wood. Here they had
walked, Helen and Rachel, along this quiet causeway, upon the pavement
of green turf, shut in on either side by high banks of red earth, and
tall hedges of shining beech, and here I followed in their steps,
looking out, now and again, through partings in the boughs, and seeing
on one side the sweep of the wood stretching far to right and left, and
sinking into the broad level, and beyond, the yellow sea, and the land
over the sea. On the other side was the valley and the river and hill
following hill as wave on wave, and wood and meadow, and cornfield, and
white houses gleaming, and a great wall of mountain, and far blue peaks
in the north. And so at least I came to the place. The track went up a
gentle slope, and widened out into an open space with a wall of thick
undergrowth around it, and then, narrowing again, passed on into the
distance and the faint blue mist of summer heat. And into this pleasant
summer glade Rachel passed a girl, and left it, who shall say what? I
did not stay long there.

In a small town near Caermaen there is a museum, containing for the most
part Roman remains which have been found in the neighbourhood at various
times. On the day after my arrival in Caermaen I walked over to the town
in question, and took the opportunity of inspecting the museum. After I
had seen most of the sculptured stones, the coffins, rings, coins, and
fragments of tessellated pavement which the place contains, I was shown
a small square pillar of white stone, which had been recently discovered
in the wood of which I have been speaking, and, as I found on inquiry,
in that open space where the Roman road broadens out. On one side of the
pillar was an inscription, of which I took a note. Some of the letters
have been defaced, but I do not think there can be any doubt as to those
which I supply. The inscription is as follows:

DEVOMNODENTI FLAVIVSSENILISPOSSVIT PROPTERNVPTIAS QUASVIDITSVBVMRA

"To the great god Nodens (the god of the Great Deep or Abyss) Flavius
Senilis has erected this pillar on account of the marriage which he saw
beneath the shade."

The custodian of the museum informed me that local antiquaries were much
puzzled, not by the inscription, or by any difficulty in translating it,
but as to the circumstance or rite to which allusion is made.

* * *

...And now, my dear Clarke, as to what you tell me about Helen Vaughan,
whom you say you saw die under circumstances of the utmost and almost
incredible horror. I was interested in your account, but a good deal,
nay all, of what you told me I knew already. I can understand the
strange likeness you remarked in both the portrait and in the actual
face; you have seen Helen's mother. You remember that still summer night
so many years ago, when I talked to you of the world beyond the shadows,
and of the god Pan. You remember Mary. She was the mother of Helen
Vaughan, who was born nine months after that night.

Mary never recovered her reason. She lay, as you saw her, all the while
upon her bed, and a few days after the child was born she died. I fancy
that just at the last she knew me; I was standing by the bed, and the
old look came into her eyes for a second, and then she shuddered and
groaned and died. It was an ill work I did that night when you were
present; I broke open the door of the house of life, without knowing or
caring what might pass forth or enter in. I recollect your telling me at
the time, sharply enough, and rightly too, in one sense, that I had
ruined the reason of a human being by a foolish experiment, based on an
absurd theory. You did well to blame me, but my theory was not all
absurdity. What I said Mary would see she saw, but I forgot that no
human eyes can look on such a sight with impunity. And I forgot, as I
have just said, that when the house of life is thus thrown open, there
may enter in that for which we have no name, and human flesh may become
the veil of a horror one dare not express. I played with energies which
I did not understand, you have seen the ending of it. Helen Vaughan did
well to bind the cord about her neck and die, though the death was
horrible. The blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed, changing
and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and
from beast to worse than beast, all the strange horror that you witness,
surprises me but little. What you say the doctor whom you sent for saw
and shuddered at I noticed long ago; I knew what I had done the moment
the child was born, and when it was scarcely five years old I surprised
it, not once or twice but several times with a playmate, you may guess
of what kind. It was for me a constant, an incarnate horror, and after a
few years I felt I could bear it no more, and I sent Helen Vaughan away.
You know now what frightened the boy in the wood. The rest of the
strange story, and all else that you tell me, as discovered by your
friend, I have contrived to learn from time to time, almost to the last
chapter. And now Helen is with her companions...


* * *



THE WHITE PEOPLE


PROLOGUE


'Sorcery and sanctity,' said Ambrose, 'these are the only realities.
Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.'

Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this
mouldering house in a northern suburb, through an old garden to the room
where Ambrose the recluse dozed and dreamed over his books.

'Yes,' he went on, 'magic is justified of her children. There are many,
I think, who eat dry crusts and drink water, with a joy infinitely
sharper than anything within the experience of the "practical" epicure.'

'You are speaking of the saints?'

'Yes, and of the sinners, too. I think you are falling into the very
general error of confining the spiritual world to the supremely good;
but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The
merely carnal, sensual man can no more be a great sinner than he can be
a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we
muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner
sense of things, and, consequently, our wickedness and our goodness are
alike second-rate, unimportant.'

'And you think the great sinner, then, will be an ascetic, as well as
the great saint?'

'Great people of all kinds forsake the imperfect copies and go to the
perfect originals. I have no doubt but that many of the very highest
among the saints have never done a "good action" (using the words in
their ordinary sense). And, on the other hand, there have been those who
have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done
an "ill deed."'

He went out of the room for a moment, and Cotgrave, in high delight,
turned to his friend and thanked him for the introduction.

'He's grand,' he said. 'I never saw that kind of lunatic before.'

Ambrose returned with more whisky and helped the two men in a liberal
manner. He abused the teetotal sect with ferocity, as he handed the
seltzer, and pouring out a glass of water for himself, was about to
resume his monologue, when Cotgrave broke in--

'I can't stand it, you know,' he said, 'your paradoxes are too
monstrous. A man may be a great sinner and yet never do anything sinful!
Come!'

'You're quite wrong,' said Ambrose. 'I never make paradoxes; I wish I
could. I merely said that a man may have an exquisite taste in Romanée
Conti, and yet never have even smelt four ale. That's all, and it's more
like a truism than a paradox, isn't it? Your surprise at my remark is
due to the fact that you haven't realized what sin is. Oh, yes, there is
a sort of connexion between Sin with the capital letter, and actions
which are commonly called sinful: with murder, theft, adultery, and so
forth. Much the same connexion that there is between the A, B, C and
fine literature. But I believe that the misconception--it is all but
universal--arises in great measure from our looking at the matter
through social spectacles. We think that a man who does evil to _us_ and
to his neighbours must be very evil. So he is, from a social standpoint;
but can't you realize that Evil in its essence is a lonely thing, a
passion of the solitary, individual soul? Really, the average murderer,
_quâ_ murderer, is not by any means a sinner in the true sense of the
word. He is simply a wild beast that we have to get rid of to save our
own necks from his knife. I should class him rather with tigers than
with sinners.'

'It seems a little strange.'

'I think not. The murderer murders not from positive qualities, but from
negative ones; he lacks something which non-murderers possess. Evil, of
course, is wholly positive--only it is on the wrong side. You may
believe me that sin in its proper sense is very rare; it is probable
that there have been far fewer sinners than saints. Yes, your standpoint
is all very well for practical, social purposes; we are naturally
inclined to think that a person who is very disagreeable to us must be a
very great sinner! It is very disagreeable to have one's pocket picked,
and we pronounce the thief to be a very great sinner. In truth, he is
merely an undeveloped man. He cannot be a saint, of course; but he may
be, and often is, an infinitely better creature than thousands who have
never broken a single commandment. He is a great nuisance to _us_, I
admit, and we very properly lock him up if we catch him; but between his
troublesome and unsocial action and evil--Oh, the connexion is of the
weakest.'

It was getting very late. The man who had brought Cotgrave had probably
heard all this before, since he assisted with a bland and judicious
smile, but Cotgrave began to think that his 'lunatic' was turning into a
sage.

'Do you know,' he said, 'you interest me immensely? You think, then,
that we do not understand the real nature of evil?'

'No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it.
We take the very numerous infractions of our social "bye-laws"--the very
necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company
together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of "sin" and "evil."
But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any
_horror_ at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the
seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of
our day?

'Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous
importance to the "sin" of meddling with our pockets (and our wives)
that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin.'

'And what is sin?' said Cotgrave.

'I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your
feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you,
and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with
horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird
song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to
swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at
night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

'Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is.'

'Look here,' said the third man, hitherto placid, 'you two seem pretty
well wound up. But I'm going home. I've missed my tram, and I shall have
to walk.'

Ambrose and Cotgrave seemed to settle down more profoundly when the
other had gone out into the early misty morning and the pale light of
the lamps.

'You astonish me,' said Cotgrave. 'I had never thought of that. If that
is really so, one must turn everything upside down. Then the essence of
sin really is----'

'In the taking of heaven by storm, it seems to me,' said Ambrose. 'It
appears to me that it is simply an attempt to penetrate into another and
higher sphere in a forbidden manner. You can understand why it is so
rare. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres,
higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are
amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints,
and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius,
who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the
whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint.'

'There is something profoundly unnatural about Sin? Is that what you
mean?'

'Exactly. Holiness requires as great, or almost as great, an effort; but
holiness works on lines that _were_ natural once; it is an effort to
recover the ecstasy that was before the Fall. But sin is an effort to
gain the ecstasy and the knowledge that pertain alone to angels and in
making this effort man becomes a demon. I told you that the mere
murderer is not _therefore_ a sinner; that is true, but the sinner is
sometimes a murderer. Gilles de Raiz is an instance. So you see that
while the good and the evil are unnatural to man as he now is--to man
the social, civilized being--evil is unnatural in a much deeper sense
than good. The saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the
sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he
repeats the Fall.'

'But are you a Catholic?' said Cotgrave.

'Yes; I am a member of the persecuted Anglican Church.'

'Then, how about those texts which seem to reckon as sin that which you
would set down as a mere trivial dereliction?'

'Yes; but in one place the word "sorcerers" comes in the same sentence,
doesn't it? That seems to me to give the key-note. Consider: can you
imagine for a moment that a false statement which saves an innocent
man's life is a sin? No; very good, then, it is not the mere liar who is
excluded by those words; it is, above all, the "sorcerers" who use the
material life, who use the failings incidental to material life as
instruments to obtain their infinitely wicked ends. And let me tell you
this: our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with
materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness
if we encountered it.'

'But shouldn't we experience a certain horror--a terror such as you
hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang--in the mere presence of
an evil man?'

'We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror you
speak of, even animals experience it. But with most of us convention and
civilization and education have blinded and deafened and obscured the
natural reason. No, sometimes we may recognize evil by its hatred of the
good--one doesn't need much penetration to guess at the influence which
dictated, quite unconsciously, the "Blackwood" review of Keats--but this
is purely incidental; and, as a rule, I suspect that the Hierarchs of
Tophet pass quite unnoticed, or, perhaps, in certain cases, as good but
mistaken men.'

'But you used the word "unconscious" just now, of Keats' reviewers. Is
wickedness ever unconscious?'

'Always. It must be so. It is like holiness and genius in this as in
other points; it is a certain rapture or ecstasy of the soul; a
transcendent effort to surpass the ordinary bounds. So, surpassing
these, it surpasses also the understanding, the faculty that takes note
of that which comes before it. No, a man may be infinitely and horribly
wicked and never suspect it. But I tell you, evil in this, its certain
and true sense, is rare, and I think it is growing rarer.'

'I am trying to get hold of it all,' said Cotgrave. 'From what you say, I
gather that the true evil differs generically from that which we call
evil?'

'Quite so. There is, no doubt, an analogy between the two; a resemblance
such as enables us to use, quite legitimately, such terms as the "foot
of the mountain" and the "leg of the table." And, sometimes, of course,
the two speak, as it were, in the same language. The rough miner, or
"puddler," the untrained, undeveloped "tiger-man," heated by a quart or
two above his usual measure, comes home and kicks his irritating and
injudicious wife to death. He is a murderer. And Gilles de Raiz was a
murderer. But you see the gulf that separates the two? The "word," if I
may so speak, is accidentally the same in each case, but the "meaning"
is utterly different. It is flagrant "Hobson Jobson" to confuse the two,
or rather, it is as if one supposed that Juggernaut and the Argonauts
had something to do etymologically with one another. And no doubt the
same weak likeness, or analogy, runs between all the "social" sins and
the real spiritual sins, and in some cases, perhaps, the lesser may be
"schoolmasters" to lead one on to the greater--from the shadow to the
reality. If you are anything of a Theologian, you will see the
importance of all this.'

'I am sorry to say,' remarked Cotgrave, 'that I have devoted very little
of my time to theology. Indeed, I have often wondered on what grounds
theologians have claimed the title of Science of Sciences for their
favourite study; since the "theological" books I have looked into have
always seemed to me to be concerned with feeble and obvious pieties, or
with the kings of Israel and Judah. I do not care to hear about those
kings.'

Ambrose grinned.

'We must try to avoid theological discussion,' he said. 'I perceive that
you would be a bitter disputant. But perhaps the "dates of the kings"
have as much to do with theology as the hobnails of the murderous
puddler with evil.'

'Then, to return to our main subject, you think that sin is an esoteric,
occult thing?'

'Yes. It is the infernal miracle as holiness is the supernal. Now and
then it is raised to such a pitch that we entirely fail to suspect its
existence; it is like the note of the great pedal pipes of the organ,
which is so deep that we cannot hear it. In other cases it may lead to
the lunatic asylum, or to still stranger issues. But you must never
confuse it with mere social misdoing. Remember how the Apostle, speaking
of the "other side," distinguishes between "charitable" actions and
charity. And as one may give all one's goods to the poor, and yet lack
charity; so, remember, one may avoid every crime and yet be a sinner'

'Your psychology is very strange to me,' said Cotgrave, 'but I confess I
like it, and I suppose that one might fairly deduce from your premisses
the conclusion that the real sinner might very possibly strike the
observer as a harmless personage enough?'

'Certainly, because the true evil has nothing to do with social life or
social laws, or if it has, only incidentally and accidentally. It is a
lonely passion of the soul--or a passion of the lonely soul--whichever
you like. If, by chance, we understand it, and grasp its full
significance, then, indeed, it will fill us with horror and with awe.
But this emotion is widely distinguished from the fear and the disgust
with which we regard the ordinary criminal, since this latter is largely
or entirely founded on the regard which we have for our own skins or
purses. We hate a murder, because we know that we should hate to be
murdered, or to have any one that we like murdered. So, on the "other
side," we venerate the saints, but we don't "like" them as well as our
friends. Can you persuade yourself that you would have "enjoyed" St.
Paul's company? Do you think that you and I would have "got on" with Sir
Galahad?

'So with the sinners, as with the saints. If you met a very evil man,
and recognized his evil; he would, no doubt, fill you with horror and
awe; but there is no reason why you should "dislike" him. On the
contrary, it is quite possible that if you could succeed in putting the
sin out of your mind you might find the sinner capital company, and in a
little while you might have to reason yourself back into horror. Still,
how awful it is. If the roses and the lilies suddenly sang on this
coming morning; if the furniture began to move in procession, as in De
Maupassant's tale!'

'I am glad you have come back to that comparison,' said Cotgrave,
'because I wanted to ask you what it is that corresponds in humanity to
these imaginary feats of inanimate things. In a word--what is sin? You
have given me, I know, an abstract definition, but I should like a
concrete example.'

'I told you it was very rare,' said Ambrose, who appeared willing to
avoid the giving of a direct answer. 'The materialism of the age, which
has done a good deal to suppress sanctity, has done perhaps more to
suppress evil. We find the earth so very comfortable that we have no
inclination either for ascents or descents. It would seem as if the
scholar who decided to "specialize" in Tophet, would be reduced to
purely antiquarian researches. No palaeontologist could show you a
_live_ pterodactyl.'

'And yet you, I think, have "specialized," and I believe that your
researches have descended to our modern times.'

'You are really interested, I see. Well, I confess, that I have dabbled
a little, and if you like I can show you something that bears on the
very curious subject we have been discussing.'

Ambrose took a candle and went away to a far, dim corner of the room.
Cotgrave saw him open a venerable bureau that stood there, and from some
secret recess he drew out a parcel, and came back to the window where
they had been sitting.

Ambrose undid a wrapping of paper, and produced a green pocket-book.

'You will take care of it?' he said. 'Don't leave it lying about. It is
one of the choicer pieces in my collection, and I should be very sorry
if it were lost.'

He fondled the faded binding.

'I knew the girl who wrote this,' he said. 'When you read it, you will
see how it illustrates the talk we have had to-night. There is a sequel,
too, but I won't talk of that.

'There was an odd article in one of the reviews some months ago,' he
began again, with the air of a man who changes the subject. 'It was
written by a doctor--Dr. Coryn, I think, was the name. He says that a
lady, watching her little girl playing at the drawing-room window,
suddenly saw the heavy sash give way and fall on the child's fingers.
The lady fainted, I think, but at any rate the doctor was summoned, and
when he had dressed the child's wounded and maimed fingers he was
summoned to the mother. She was groaning with pain, and it was found
that three fingers of her hand, corresponding with those that had been
injured on the child's hand, were swollen and inflamed, and later, in
the doctor's language, purulent sloughing set in.'

Ambrose still handled delicately the green volume.

'Well, here it is,' he said at last, parting with difficulty, it seemed,
from his treasure.

'You will bring it back as soon as you have read it,' he said, as they
went out into the hall, into the old garden, faint with the odour of
white lilies.

There was a broad red band in the east as Cotgrave turned to go, and
from the high ground where he stood he saw that awful spectacle of
London in a dream.


THE GREEN BOOK


The morocco binding of the book was faded, and the colour had grown
faint, but there were no stains nor bruises nor marks of usage. The book
looked as if it had been bought 'on a visit to London' some seventy or
eighty years ago, and had somehow been forgotten and suffered to lie
away out of sight. There was an old, delicate, lingering odour about it,
such an odour as sometimes haunts an ancient piece of furniture for a
century or more. The end-papers, inside the binding, were oddly
decorated with coloured patterns and faded gold. It looked small, but
the paper was fine, and there were many leaves, closely covered with
minute, painfully formed characters.

I found this book (the manuscript began) in a drawer in the old bureau
that stands on the landing. It was a very rainy day and I could not go
out, so in the afternoon I got a candle and rummaged in the bureau.
Nearly all the drawers were full of old dresses, but one of the small
ones looked empty, and I found this book hidden right at the back. I
wanted a book like this, so I took it to write in. It is full of
secrets. I have a great many other books of secrets I have written,
hidden in a safe place, and I am going to write here many of the old
secrets and some new ones; but there are some I shall not put down at
all. I must not write down the real names of the days and months which I
found out a year ago, nor the way to make the Aklo letters, or the Chian
language, or the great beautiful Circles, nor the Mao Games, nor the
chief songs. I may write something about all these things but not the
way to do them, for peculiar reasons. And I must not say who the Nymphs
are, or the Dôls, or Jeelo, or what voolas mean. All these are most
secret secrets, and I am glad when I remember what they are, and how
many wonderful languages I know, but there are some things that I call
the secrets of the secrets of the secrets that I dare not think of
unless I am quite alone, and then I shut my eyes, and put my hands over
them and whisper the word, and the Alala comes. I only do this at night
in my room or in certain woods that I know, but I must not describe
them, as they are secret woods. Then there are the Ceremonies, which are
all of them important, but some are more delightful than others--there
are the White Ceremonies, and the Green Ceremonies, and the Scarlet
Ceremonies. The Scarlet Ceremonies are the best, but there is only one
place where they can be performed properly, though there is a very nice
imitation which I have done in other places. Besides these, I have the
dances, and the Comedy, and I have done the Comedy sometimes when the
others were looking, and they didn't understand anything about it. I was
very little when I first knew about these things.

When I was very small, and mother was alive, I can remember remembering
things before that, only it has all got confused. But I remember when I
was five or six I heard them talking about me when they thought I was
not noticing. They were saying how queer I was a year or two before, and
how nurse had called my mother to come and listen to me talking all to
myself, and I was saying words that nobody could understand. I was
speaking the Xu language, but I only remember a very few of the words,
as it was about the little white faces that used to look at me when I
was lying in my cradle. They used to talk to me, and I learnt their
language and talked to them in it about some great white place where
they lived, where the trees and the grass were all white, and there were
white hills as high up as the moon, and a cold wind. I have often
dreamed of it afterwards, but the faces went away when I was very
little. But a wonderful thing happened when I was about five. My nurse
was carrying me on her shoulder; there was a field of yellow corn, and
we went through it, it was very hot. Then we came to a path through a
wood, and a tall man came after us, and went with us till we came to a
place where there was a deep pool, and it was very dark and shady. Nurse
put me down on the soft moss under a tree, and she said: 'She can't get
to the pond now.' So they left me there, and I sat quite still and
watched, and out of the water and out of the wood came two wonderful
white people, and they began to play and dance and sing. They were a
kind of creamy white like the old ivory figure in the drawing-room; one
was a beautiful lady with kind dark eyes, and a grave face, and long
black hair, and she smiled such a strange sad smile at the other, who
laughed and came to her. They played together, and danced round and
round the pool, and they sang a song till I fell asleep. Nurse woke me
up when she came back, and she was looking something like the lady had
looked, so I told her all about it, and asked her why she looked like
that. At first she cried, and then she looked very frightened, and
turned quite pale. She put me down on the grass and stared at me, and I
could see she was shaking all over. Then she said I had been dreaming,
but I knew I hadn't. Then she made me promise not to say a word about it
to anybody, and if I did I should be thrown into the black pit. I was
not frightened at all, though nurse was, and I never forgot about it,
because when I shut my eyes and it was quite quiet, and I was all alone,
I could see them again, very faint and far away, but very splendid; and
little bits of the song they sang came into my head, but I couldn't sing
it.

I was thirteen, nearly fourteen, when I had a very singular adventure,
so strange that the day on which it happened is always called the White
Day. My mother had been dead for more than a year, and in the morning I
had lessons, but they let me go out for walks in the afternoon. And this
afternoon I walked a new way, and a little brook led me into a new
country, but I tore my frock getting through some of the difficult
places, as the way was through many bushes, and beneath the low branches
of trees, and up thorny thickets on the hills, and by dark woods full of
creeping thorns. And it was a long, long way. It seemed as if I was
going on for ever and ever, and I had to creep by a place like a tunnel
where a brook must have been, but all the water had dried up, and the
floor was rocky, and the bushes had grown overhead till they met, so
that it was quite dark. And I went on and on through that dark place; it
was a long, long way. And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I
was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that tore me as I
went through them, and I cried out because I was smarting all over, and
then I found that I was climbing, and I went up and up a long way, till
at last the thicket stopped and I came out crying just under the top of
a big bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all about on
the grass, and here and there a little twisted, stunted tree came out
from under a stone, like a snake. And I went up, right to the top, a
long way. I never saw such big ugly stones before; they came out of the
earth some of them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where
they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a long, long
way. I looked out from them and saw the country, but it was strange. It
was winter time, and there were black terrible woods hanging from the
hills all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black
curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I
had ever seen before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were
other hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of them; it
all looked black, and everything had a voor over it. It was all so still
and silent, and the sky was heavy and grey and sad, like a wicked
voorish dome in Deep Dendo. I went on into the dreadful rocks. There
were hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men;
I could see their faces as if they would jump at me out of the stone,
and catch hold of me, and drag me with them back into the rock, so that
I should always be there. And there were other rocks that were like
animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and
others were like words that I could not say, and others like dead people
lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and
my heart was full of wicked songs that they put into it; and I wanted to
make faces and twist myself about in the way they did, and I went on and
on a long way till at last I liked the rocks, and they didn't frighten
me any more. I sang the songs I thought of; songs full of words that
must not be spoken or written down. Then I made faces like the faces on
the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay
down flat on the ground like the dead ones, and I went up to one that
was grinning, and put my arms round him and hugged him. And so I went on
and on through the rocks till I came to a round mound in the middle of
them. It was higher than a mound, it was nearly as high as our house,
and it was like a great basin turned upside down, all smooth and round
and green, with one stone, like a post, sticking up at the top. I
climbed up the sides, but they were so steep I had to stop or I should
have rolled all the way down again, and I should have knocked against
the stones at the bottom, and perhaps been killed. But I wanted to get
up to the very top of the big round mound, so I lay down flat on my
face, and took hold of the grass with my hands and drew myself up, bit
by bit, till I was at the top. Then I sat down on the stone in the
middle, and looked all round about. I felt I had come such a long, long
way, just as if I were a hundred miles from home, or in some other
country, or in one of the strange places I had read about in the 'Tales
of the Genie' and the 'Arabian Nights,' or as if I had gone across the
sea, far away, for years and I had found another world that nobody had
ever seen or heard of before, or as if I had somehow flown through the
sky and fallen on one of the stars I had read about where everything is
dead and cold and grey, and there is no air, and the wind doesn't blow.
I sat on the stone and looked all round and down and round about me. It
was just as if I was sitting on a tower in the middle of a great empty
town, because I could see nothing all around but the grey rocks on the
ground. I couldn't make out their shapes any more, but I could see them
on and on for a long way, and I looked at them, and they seemed as if
they had been arranged into patterns, and shapes, and figures. I knew
they couldn't be, because I had seen a lot of them coming right out of
the earth, joined to the deep rocks below, so I looked again, but still
I saw nothing but circles, and small circles inside big ones, and
pyramids, and domes, and spires, and they seemed all to go round and
round the place where I was sitting, and the more I looked, the more I
saw great big rings of rocks, getting bigger and bigger, and I stared so
long that it felt as if they were all moving and turning, like a great
wheel, and I was turning, too, in the middle. I got quite dizzy and
queer in the head, and everything began to be hazy and not clear, and I
saw little sparks of blue light, and the stones looked as if they were
springing and dancing and twisting as they went round and round and
round. I was frightened again, and I cried out loud, and jumped up from
the stone I was sitting on, and fell down. When I got up I was so glad
they all looked still, and I sat down on the top and slid down the
mound, and went on again. I danced as I went in the peculiar way the
rocks had danced when I got giddy, and I was so glad I could do it quite
well, and I danced and danced along, and sang extraordinary songs that
came into my head. At last I came to the edge of that great flat hill,
and there were no more rocks, and the way went again through a dark
thicket in a hollow. It was just as bad as the other one I went through
climbing up, but I didn't mind this one, because I was so glad I had
seen those singular dances and could imitate them. I went down, creeping
through the bushes, and a tall nettle stung me on my leg, and made me
burn, but I didn't mind it, and I tingled with the boughs and the
thorns, but I only laughed and sang. Then I got out of the thicket into
a close valley, a little secret place like a dark passage that nobody
ever knows of, because it was so narrow and deep and the woods were so
thick round it. There is a steep bank with trees hanging over it, and
there the ferns keep green all through the winter, when they are dead
and brown upon the hill, and the ferns there have a sweet, rich smell
like what oozes out of fir trees. There was a little stream of water
running down this valley, so small that I could easily step across it. I
drank the water with my hand, and it tasted like bright, yellow wine,
and it sparkled and bubbled as it ran down over beautiful red and yellow
and green stones, so that it seemed alive and all colours at once. I
drank it, and I drank more with my hand, but I couldn't drink enough, so
I lay down and bent my head and sucked the water up with my lips. It
tasted much better, drinking it that way, and a ripple would come up to
my mouth and give me a kiss, and I laughed, and drank again, and
pretended there was a nymph, like the one in the old picture at home,
who lived in the water and was kissing me. So I bent low down to the
water, and put my lips softly to it, and whispered to the nymph that I
would come again. I felt sure it could not be common water, I was so
glad when I got up and went on; and I danced again and went up and up
the valley, under hanging hills. And when I came to the top, the ground
rose up in front of me, tall and steep as a wall, and there was nothing
but the green wall and the sky. I thought of 'for ever and for ever,
world without end, Amen'; and I thought I must have really found the end
of the world, because it was like the end of everything, as if there
could be nothing at all beyond, except the kingdom of Voor, where the
light goes when it is put out, and the water goes when the sun takes it
away. I began to think of all the long, long way I had journeyed, how I
had found a brook and followed it, and followed it on, and gone through
bushes and thorny thickets, and dark woods full of creeping thorns. Then
I had crept up a tunnel under trees, and climbed a thicket, and seen all
the grey rocks, and sat in the middle of them when they turned round,
and then I had gone on through the grey rocks and come down the hill
through the stinging thicket and up the dark valley, all a long, long
way. I wondered how I should get home again, if I could ever find the
way, and if my home was there any more, or if it were turned and
everybody in it into grey rocks, as in the _Arabian Nights_. So I sat
down on the grass and thought what I should do next. I was tired, and my
feet were hot with walking, and as I looked about I saw there was a
wonderful well just under the high, steep wall of grass. All the ground
round it was covered with bright, green, dripping moss; there was every
kind of moss there, moss like beautiful little ferns, and like palms and
fir trees, and it was all green as jewellery, and drops of water hung on
it like diamonds. And in the middle was the great well, deep and shining
and beautiful, so clear that it looked as if I could touch the red sand
at the bottom, but it was far below. I stood by it and looked in, as if
I were looking in a glass. At the bottom of the well, in the middle of
it, the red grains of sand were moving and stirring all the time, and I
saw how the water bubbled up, but at the top it was quite smooth, and
full and brimming. It was a great well, large like a bath, and with the
shining, glittering green moss about it, it looked like a great white
jewel, with green jewels all round. My feet were so hot and tired that I
took off my boots and stockings, and let my feet down into the water,
and the water was soft and cold, and when I got up I wasn't tired any
more, and I felt I must go on, farther and farther, and see what was on
the other side of the wall. I climbed up it very slowly, going sideways
all the time, and when I got to the top and looked over, I was in the
queerest country I had seen, stranger even than the hill of the grey
rocks. It looked as if earth-children had been playing there with their
spades, as it was all hills and hollows, and castles and walls made of
earth and covered with grass. There were two mounds like big beehives,
round and great and solemn, and then hollow basins, and then a steep
mounting wall like the ones I saw once by the seaside where the big guns
and the soldiers were. I nearly fell into one of the round hollows, it
went away from under my feet so suddenly, and I ran fast down the side
and stood at the bottom and looked up. It was strange and solemn to look
up. There was nothing but the grey, heavy sky and the sides of the
hollow; everything else had gone away, and the hollow was the whole
world, and I thought that at night it must be full of ghosts and moving
shadows and pale things when the moon shone down to the bottom at the
dead of the night, and the wind wailed up above. It was so strange and
solemn and lonely, like a hollow temple of dead heathen gods. It
reminded me of a tale my nurse had told me when I was quite little; it
was the same nurse that took me into the wood where I saw the beautiful
white people. And I remembered how nurse had told me the story one
winter night, when the wind was beating the trees against the wall, and
crying and moaning in the nursery chimney. She said there was, somewhere
or other, a hollow pit, just like the one I was standing in, everybody
was afraid to go into it or near it, it was such a bad place. But once
upon a time there was a poor girl who said she would go into the hollow
pit, and everybody tried to stop her, but she would go. And she went
down into the pit and came back laughing, and said there was nothing
there at all, except green grass and red stones, and white stones and
yellow flowers. And soon after people saw she had most beautiful emerald
earrings, and they asked how she got them, as she and her mother were
quite poor. But she laughed, and said her earrings were not made of
emeralds at all, but only of green grass. Then, one day, she wore on her
breast the reddest ruby that any one had ever seen, and it was as big as
a hen's egg, and glowed and sparkled like a hot burning coal of fire.
And they asked how she got it, as she and her mother were quite poor.
But she laughed, and said it was not a ruby at all, but only a red
stone. Then one day she wore round her neck the loveliest necklace that
any one had ever seen, much finer than the queen's finest, and it was
made of great bright diamonds, hundreds of them, and they shone like all
the stars on a night in June. So they asked her how she got it, as she
and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said they were not
diamonds at all, but only white stones. And one day she went to the
Court, and she wore on her head a crown of pure angel-gold, so nurse
said, and it shone like the sun, and it was much more splendid than the
crown the king was wearing himself, and in her ears she wore the
emeralds, and the big ruby was the brooch on her breast, and the great
diamond necklace was sparkling on her neck. And the king and queen
thought she was some great princess from a long way off, and got down
from their thrones and went to meet her, but somebody told the king and
queen who she was, and that she was quite poor. So the king asked why
she wore a gold crown, and how she got it, as she and her mother were so
poor. And she laughed, and said it wasn't a gold crown at all, but only
some yellow flowers she had put in her hair. And the king thought it was
very strange, and said she should stay at the Court, and they would see
what would happen next. And she was so lovely that everybody said that
her eyes were greener than the emeralds, that her lips were redder than
the ruby, that her skin was whiter than the diamonds, and that her hair
was brighter than the golden crown. So the king's son said he would
marry her, and the king said he might. And the bishop married them, and
there was a great supper, and afterwards the king's son went to his
wife's room. But just when he had his hand on the door, he saw a tall,
black man, with a dreadful face, standing in front of the door, and a
voice said--

_Venture not upon your life, This is mine own wedded wife._

Then the king's son fell down on the ground in a fit. And they came and
tried to get into the room, but they couldn't, and they hacked at the
door with hatchets, but the wood had turned hard as iron, and at last
everybody ran away, they were so frightened at the screaming and
laughing and shrieking and crying that came out of the room. But next
day they went in, and found there was nothing in the room but thick
black smoke, because the black man had come and taken her away. And on
the bed there were two knots of faded grass and a red stone, and some
white stones, and some faded yellow flowers. I remembered this tale of
nurse's while I was standing at the bottom of the deep hollow; it was so
strange and solitary there, and I felt afraid. I could not see any
stones or flowers, but I was afraid of bringing them away without
knowing, and I thought I would do a charm that came into my head to keep
the black man away. So I stood right in the very middle of the hollow,
and I made sure that I had none of those things on me, and then I walked
round the place, and touched my eyes, and my lips, and my hair in a
peculiar manner, and whispered some queer words that nurse taught me to
keep bad things away. Then I felt safe and climbed up out of the hollow,
and went on through all those mounds and hollows and walls, till I came
to the end, which was high above all the rest, and I could see that all
the different shapes of the earth were arranged in patterns, something
like the grey rocks, only the pattern was different. It was getting
late, and the air was indistinct, but it looked from where I was
standing something like two great figures of people lying on the grass.
And I went on, and at last I found a certain wood, which is too secret
to be described, and nobody knows of the passage into it, which I found
out in a very curious manner, by seeing some little animal run into the
wood through it. So I went after the animal by a very narrow dark way,
under thorns and bushes, and it was almost dark when I came to a kind of
open place in the middle. And there I saw the most wonderful sight I
have ever seen, but it was only for a minute, as I ran away directly,
and crept out of the wood by the passage I had come by, and ran and ran
as fast as ever I could, because I was afraid, what I had seen was so
wonderful and so strange and beautiful. But I wanted to get home and
think of it, and I did not know what might not happen if I stayed by the
wood. I was hot all over and trembling, and my heart was beating, and
strange cries that I could not help came from me as I ran from the wood.
I was glad that a great white moon came up from over a round hill and
showed me the way, so I went back through the mounds and hollows and
down the close valley, and up through the thicket over the place of the
grey rocks, and so at last I got home again. My father was busy in his
study, and the servants had not told about my not coming home, though
they were frightened, and wondered what they ought to do, so I told them
I had lost my way, but I did not let them find out the real way I had
been. I went to bed and lay awake all through the night, thinking of
what I had seen. When I came out of the narrow way, and it looked all
shining, though the air was dark, it seemed so certain, and all the way
home I was quite sure that I had seen it, and I wanted to be alone in my
room, and be glad over it all to myself, and shut my eyes and pretend it
was there, and do all the things I would have done if I had not been so
afraid. But when I shut my eyes the sight would not come, and I began to
think about my adventures all over again, and I remembered how dusky and
queer it was at the end, and I was afraid it must be all a mistake,
because it seemed impossible it could happen. It seemed like one of
nurse's tales, which I didn't really believe in, though I was frightened
at the bottom of the hollow; and the stories she told me when I was
little came back into my head, and I wondered whether it was really
there what I thought I had seen, or whether any of her tales could have
happened a long time ago. It was so queer; I lay awake there in my room
at the back of the house, and the moon was shining on the other side
towards the river, so the bright light did not fall upon the wall. And
the house was quite still. I had heard my father come upstairs, and just
after the clock struck twelve, and after the house was still and empty,
as if there was nobody alive in it. And though it was all dark and
indistinct in my room, a pale glimmering kind of light shone in through
the white blind, and once I got up and looked out, and there was a great
black shadow of the house covering the garden, looking like a prison
where men are hanged; and then beyond it was all white; and the wood
shone white with black gulfs between the trees. It was still and clear,
and there were no clouds on the sky. I wanted to think of what I had
seen but I couldn't, and I began to think of all the tales that nurse
had told me so long ago that I thought I had forgotten, but they all
came back, and mixed up with the thickets and the grey rocks and the
hollows in the earth and the secret wood, till I hardly knew what was
new and what was old, or whether it was not all dreaming. And then I
remembered that hot summer afternoon, so long ago, when nurse left me by
myself in the shade, and the white people came out of the water and out
of the wood, and played, and danced, and sang, and I began to fancy that
nurse told me about something like it before I saw them, only I couldn't
recollect exactly what she told me. Then I wondered whether she had been
the white lady, as I remembered she was just as white and beautiful, and
had the same dark eyes and black hair; and sometimes she smiled and
looked like the lady had looked, when she was telling me some of her
stories, beginning with 'Once on a time,' or 'In the time of the
fairies.' But I thought she couldn't be the lady, as she seemed to have
gone a different way into the wood, and I didn't think the man who came
after us could be the other, or I couldn't have seen that wonderful
secret in the secret wood. I thought of the moon: but it was afterwards
when I was in the middle of the wild land, where the earth was made into
the shape of great figures, and it was all walls, and mysterious
hollows, and smooth round mounds, that I saw the great white moon come
up over a round hill. I was wondering about all these things, till at
last I got quite frightened, because I was afraid something had happened
to me, and I remembered nurse's tale of the poor girl who went into the
hollow pit, and was carried away at last by the black man. I knew I had
gone into a hollow pit too, and perhaps it was the same, and I had done
something dreadful. So I did the charm over again, and touched my eyes
and my lips and my hair in a peculiar manner, and said the old words
from the fairy language, so that I might be sure I had not been carried
away. I tried again to see the secret wood, and to creep up the passage
and see what I had seen there, but somehow I couldn't, and I kept on
thinking of nurse's stories. There was one I remembered about a young
man who once upon a time went hunting, and all the day he and his hounds
hunted everywhere, and they crossed the rivers and went into all the
woods, and went round the marshes, but they couldn't find anything at
all, and they hunted all day till the sun sank down and began to set
behind the mountain. And the young man was angry because he couldn't
find anything, and he was going to turn back, when just as the sun
touched the mountain, he saw come out of a brake in front of him a
beautiful white stag. And he cheered to his hounds, but they whined and
would not follow, and he cheered to his horse, but it shivered and stood
stock still, and the young man jumped off the horse and left the hounds
and began to follow the white stag all alone. And soon it was quite
dark, and the sky was black, without a single star shining in it, and
the stag went away into the darkness. And though the man had brought his
gun with him he never shot at the stag, because he wanted to catch it,
and he was afraid he would lose it in the night. But he never lost it
once, though the sky was so black and the air was so dark, and the stag
went on and on till the young man didn't know a bit where he was. And
they went through enormous woods where the air was full of whispers and
a pale, dead light came out from the rotten trunks that were lying on
the ground, and just as the man thought he had lost the stag, he would
see it all white and shining in front of him, and he would run fast to
catch it, but the stag always ran faster, so he did not catch it. And
they went through the enormous woods, and they swam across rivers, and
they waded through black marshes where the ground bubbled, and the air
was full of will-o'-the-wisps, and the stag fled away down into rocky
narrow valleys, where the air was like the smell of a vault, and the man
went after it. And they went over the great mountains and the man heard
the wind come down from the sky, and the stag went on and the man went
after. At last the sun rose and the young man found he was in a country
that he had never seen before; it was a beautiful valley with a bright
stream running through it, and a great, big round hill in the middle.
And the stag went down the valley, towards the hill, and it seemed to be
getting tired and went slower and slower, and though the man was tired,
too, he began to run faster, and he was sure he would catch the stag at
last. But just as they got to the bottom of the hill, and the man
stretched out his hand to catch the stag, it vanished into the earth,
and the man began to cry; he was so sorry that he had lost it after all
his long hunting. But as he was crying he saw there was a door in the
hill, just in front of him, and he went in, and it was quite dark, but
he went on, as he thought he would find the white stag. And all of a
sudden it got light, and there was the sky, and the sun shining, and
birds singing in the trees, and there was a beautiful fountain. And by
the fountain a lovely lady was sitting, who was the queen of the
fairies, and she told the man that she had changed herself into a stag
to bring him there because she loved him so much. Then she brought out a
great gold cup, covered with jewels, from her fairy palace, and she
offered him wine in the cup to drink. And he drank, and the more he
drank the more he longed to drink, because the wine was enchanted. So he
kissed the lovely lady, and she became his wife, and he stayed all that
day and all that night in the hill where she lived, and when he woke he
found he was lying on the ground, close to where he had seen the stag
first, and his horse was there and his hounds were there waiting, and he
looked up, and the sun sank behind the mountain. And he went home and
lived a long time, but he would never kiss any other lady because he had
kissed the queen of the fairies, and he would never drink common wine
any more, because he had drunk enchanted wine. And sometimes nurse told
me tales that she had heard from her great-grandmother, who was very
old, and lived in a cottage on the mountain all alone, and most of these
tales were about a hill where people used to meet at night long ago, and
they used to play all sorts of strange games and do queer things that
nurse told me of, but I couldn't understand, and now, she said,
everybody but her great-grandmother had forgotten all about it, and
nobody knew where the hill was, not even her great-grandmother. But she
told me one very strange story about the hill, and I trembled when I
remembered it. She said that people always went there in summer, when it
was very hot, and they had to dance a good deal. It would be all dark at
first, and there were trees there, which made it much darker, and people
would come, one by one, from all directions, by a secret path which
nobody else knew, and two persons would keep the gate, and every one as
they came up had to give a very curious sign, which nurse showed me as
well as she could, but she said she couldn't show me properly. And all
kinds of people would come; there would be gentle folks and village
folks, and some old people and boys and girls, and quite small children,
who sat and watched. And it would all be dark as they came in, except in
one corner where some one was burning something that smelt strong and
sweet, and made them laugh, and there one would see a glaring of coals,
and the smoke mounting up red. So they would all come in, and when the
last had come there was no door any more, so that no one else could get
in, even if they knew there was anything beyond. And once a gentleman
who was a stranger and had ridden a long way, lost his path at night,
and his horse took him into the very middle of the wild country, where
everything was upside down, and there were dreadful marshes and great
stones everywhere, and holes underfoot, and the trees looked like
gibbet-posts, because they had great black arms that stretched out
across the way. And this strange gentleman was very frightened, and his
horse began to shiver all over, and at last it stopped and wouldn't go
any farther, and the gentleman got down and tried to lead the horse, but
it wouldn't move, and it was all covered with a sweat, like death. So
the gentleman went on all alone, going farther and farther into the wild
country, till at last he came to a dark place, where he heard shouting
and singing and crying, like nothing he had ever heard before. It all
sounded quite close to him, but he couldn't get in, and so he began to
call, and while he was calling, something came behind him, and in a
minute his mouth and arms and legs were all bound up, and he fell into a
swoon. And when he came to himself, he was lying by the roadside, just
where he had first lost his way, under a blasted oak with a black trunk,
and his horse was tied beside him. So he rode on to the town and told
the people there what had happened, and some of them were amazed; but
others knew. So when once everybody had come, there was no door at all
for anybody else to pass in by. And when they were all inside, round in
a ring, touching each other, some one began to sing in the darkness, and
some one else would make a noise like thunder with a thing they had on
purpose, and on still nights people would hear the thundering noise far,
far away beyond the wild land, and some of them, who thought they knew
what it was, used to make a sign on their breasts when they woke up in
their beds at dead of night and heard that terrible deep noise, like
thunder on the mountains. And the noise and the singing would go on and
on for a long time, and the people who were in a ring swayed a little to
and fro; and the song was in an old, old language that nobody knows now,
and the tune was queer. Nurse said her great-grandmother had known some
one who remembered a little of it, when she was quite a little girl, and
nurse tried to sing some of it to me, and it was so strange a tune that
I turned all cold and my flesh crept as if I had put my hand on
something dead. Sometimes it was a man that sang and sometimes it was a
woman, and sometimes the one who sang it did it so well that two or
three of the people who were there fell to the ground shrieking and
tearing with their hands. The singing went on, and the people in the
ring kept swaying to and fro for a long time, and at last the moon would
rise over a place they called the Tole Deol, and came up and showed them
swinging and swaying from side to side, with the sweet thick smoke
curling up from the burning coals, and floating in circles all around
them. Then they had their supper. A boy and a girl brought it to them;
the boy carried a great cup of wine, and the girl carried a cake of
bread, and they passed the bread and the wine round and round, but they
tasted quite different from common bread and common wine, and changed
everybody that tasted them. Then they all rose up and danced, and secret
things were brought out of some hiding place, and they played
extraordinary games, and danced round and round and round in the
moonlight, and sometimes people would suddenly disappear and never be
heard of afterwards, and nobody knew what had happened to them. And they
drank more of that curious wine, and they made images and worshipped
them, and nurse showed me how the images were made one day when we were
out for a walk, and we passed by a place where there was a lot of wet
clay. So nurse asked me if I would like to know what those things were
like that they made on the hill, and I said yes. Then she asked me if I
would promise never to tell a living soul a word about it, and if I did
I was to be thrown into the black pit with the dead people, and I said I
wouldn't tell anybody, and she said the same thing again and again, and
I promised. So she took my wooden spade and dug a big lump of clay and
put it in my tin bucket, and told me to say if any one met us that I was
going to make pies when I went home. Then we went on a little way till
we came to a little brake growing right down into the road, and nurse
stopped, and looked up the road and down it, and then peeped through the
hedge into the field on the other side, and then she said, "Quick!" and
we ran into the brake, and crept in and out among the bushes till we had
gone a good way from the road. Then we sat down under a bush, and I
wanted so much to know what nurse was going to make with the clay, but
before she would begin she made me promise again not to say a word about
it, and she went again and peeped through the bushes on every side,
though the lane was so small and deep that hardly anybody ever went
there. So we sat down, and nurse took the clay out of the bucket, and
began to knead it with her hands, and do queer things with it, and turn
it about. And she hid it under a big dock-leaf for a minute or two and
then she brought it out again, and then she stood up and sat down, and
walked round the clay in a peculiar manner, and all the time she was
softly singing a sort of rhyme, and her face got very red. Then she sat
down again, and took the clay in her hands and began to shape it into a
doll, but not like the dolls I have at home, and she made the queerest
doll I had ever seen, all out of the wet clay, and hid it under a bush
to get dry and hard, and all the time she was making it she was singing
these rhymes to herself, and her face got redder and redder. So we left
the doll there, hidden away in the bushes where nobody would ever find
it. And a few days later we went the same walk, and when we came to that
narrow, dark part of the lane where the brake runs down to the bank,
nurse made me promise all over again, and she looked about, just as she
had done before, and we crept into the bushes till we got to the green
place where the little clay man was hidden. I remember it all so well,
though I was only eight, and it is eight years ago now as I am writing
it down, but the sky was a deep violet blue, and in the middle of the
brake where we were sitting there was a great elder tree covered with
blossoms, and on the other side there was a clump of meadowsweet, and
when I think of that day the smell of the meadowsweet and elder blossom
seems to fill the room, and if I shut my eyes I can see the glaring blue
sky, with little clouds very white floating across it, and nurse who
went away long ago sitting opposite me and looking like the beautiful
white lady in the wood. So we sat down and nurse took out the clay doll
from the secret place where she had hidden it, and she said we must 'pay
our respects,' and she would show me what to do, and I must watch her
all the time. So she did all sorts of queer things with the little clay
man, and I noticed she was all streaming with perspiration, though we
had walked so slowly, and then she told me to 'pay my respects,' and I
did everything she did because I liked her, and it was such an odd game.
And she said that if one loved very much, the clay man was very good, if
one did certain things with it, and if one hated very much, it was just
as good, only one had to do different things, and we played with it a
long time, and pretended all sorts of things. Nurse said her
great-grandmother had told her all about these images, but what we did
was no harm at all, only a game. But she told me a story about these
images that frightened me very much, and that was what I remembered that
night when I was lying awake in my room in the pale, empty darkness,
thinking of what I had seen and the secret wood. Nurse said there was
once a young lady of the high gentry, who lived in a great castle. And
she was so beautiful that all the gentlemen wanted to marry her, because
she was the loveliest lady that anybody had ever seen, and she was kind
to everybody, and everybody thought she was very good. But though she
was polite to all the gentlemen who wished to marry her, she put them
off, and said she couldn't make up her mind, and she wasn't sure she
wanted to marry anybody at all. And her father, who was a very great
lord, was angry, though he was so fond of her, and he asked her why she
wouldn't choose a bachelor out of all the handsome young men who came to
the castle. But she only said she didn't love any of them very much, and
she must wait, and if they pestered her, she said she would go and be a
nun in a nunnery. So all the gentlemen said they would go away and wait
for a year and a day, and when a year and a day were gone, they would
come back again and ask her to say which one she would marry. So the day
was appointed and they all went away; and the lady had promised that in
a year and a day it would be her wedding day with one of them. But the
truth was, that she was the queen of the people who danced on the hill
on summer nights, and on the proper nights she would lock the door of
her room, and she and her maid would steal out of the castle by a secret
passage that only they knew of, and go away up to the hill in the wild
land. And she knew more of the secret things than any one else, and more
than any one knew before or after, because she would not tell anybody
the most secret secrets. She knew how to do all the awful things, how to
destroy young men, and how to put a curse on people, and other things
that I could not understand. And her real name was the Lady Avelin, but
the dancing people called her Cassap, which meant somebody very wise, in
the old language. And she was whiter than any of them and taller, and
her eyes shone in the dark like burning rubies; and she could sing songs
that none of the others could sing, and when she sang they all fell down
on their faces and worshipped her. And she could do what they called
shib-show, which was a very wonderful enchantment. She would tell the
great lord, her father, that she wanted to go into the woods to gather
flowers, so he let her go, and she and her maid went into the woods
where nobody came, and the maid would keep watch. Then the lady would
lie down under the trees and begin to sing a particular song, and she
stretched out her arms, and from every part of the wood great serpents
would come, hissing and gliding in and out among the trees, and shooting
out their forked tongues as they crawled up to the lady. And they all
came to her, and twisted round her, round her body, and her arms, and
her neck, till she was covered with writhing serpents, and there was
only her head to be seen. And she whispered to them, and she sang to
them, and they writhed round and round, faster and faster, till she told
them to go. And they all went away directly, back to their holes, and on
the lady's breast there would be a most curious, beautiful stone, shaped
something like an egg, and coloured dark blue and yellow, and red, and
green, marked like a serpent's scales. It was called a glame stone, and
with it one could do all sorts of wonderful things, and nurse said her
great-grandmother had seen a glame stone with her own eyes, and it was
for all the world shiny and scaly like a snake. And the lady could do a
lot of other things as well, but she was quite fixed that she would not
be married. And there were a great many gentlemen who wanted to marry
her, but there were five of them who were chief, and their names were
Sir Simon, Sir John, Sir Oliver, Sir Richard, and Sir Rowland. All the
others believed she spoke the truth, and that she would choose one of
them to be her man when a year and a day was done; it was only Sir
Simon, who was very crafty, who thought she was deceiving them all, and
he vowed he would watch and try if he could find out anything. And
though he was very wise he was very young, and he had a smooth, soft
face like a girl's, and he pretended, as the rest did, that he would not
come to the castle for a year and a day, and he said he was going away
beyond the sea to foreign parts. But he really only went a very little
way, and came back dressed like a servant girl, and so he got a place in
the castle to wash the dishes. And he waited and watched, and he
listened and said nothing, and he hid in dark places, and woke up at
night and looked out, and he heard things and he saw things that he
thought were very strange. And he was so sly that he told the girl that
waited on the lady that he was really a young man, and that he had
dressed up as a girl because he loved her so very much and wanted to be
in the same house with her, and the girl was so pleased that she told
him many things, and he was more than ever certain that the Lady Avelin
was deceiving him and the others. And he was so clever, and told the
servant so many lies, that one night he managed to hide in the Lady
Avelin's room behind the curtains. And he stayed quite still and never
moved, and at last the lady came. And she bent down under the bed, and
raised up a stone, and there was a hollow place underneath, and out of
it she took a waxen image, just like the clay one that I and nurse had
made in the brake. And all the time her eyes were burning like rubies.
And she took the little wax doll up in her arms and held it to her
breast, and she whispered and she murmured, and she took it up and she
laid it down again, and she held it high, and she held it low, and she
laid it down again. And she said, "Happy is he that begat the bishop,
that ordered the clerk, that married the man, that had the wife, that
fashioned the hive, that harboured the bee, that gathered the wax that
my own true love was made of." And she brought out of an aumbry a great
golden bowl, and she brought out of a closet a great jar of wine, and
she poured some of the wine into the bowl, and she laid her mannikin
very gently in the wine, and washed it in the wine all over. Then she
went to a cupboard and took a small round cake and laid it on the
image's mouth, and then she bore it softly and covered it up. And Sir
Simon, who was watching all the time, though he was terribly frightened,
saw the lady bend down and stretch out her arms and whisper and sing,
and then Sir Simon saw beside her a handsome young man, who kissed her
on the lips. And they drank wine out of the golden bowl together, and
they ate the cake together. But when the sun rose there was only the
little wax doll, and the lady hid it again under the bed in the hollow
place. So Sir Simon knew quite well what the lady was, and he waited and
he watched, till the time she had said was nearly over, and in a week
the year and a day would be done. And one night, when he was watching
behind the curtains in her room, he saw her making more wax dolls. And
she made five, and hid them away. And the next night she took one out,
and held it up, and filled the golden bowl with water, and took the doll
by the neck and held it under the water. Then she said--

_Sir Dickon, Sir Dickon, your day is done, You shall be drowned in the
water wan._

And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Richard had been
drowned at the ford. And at night she took another doll and tied a
violet cord round its neck and hung it up on a nail. Then she said--

_Sir Rowland, your life has ended its span,
High on a tree I see you hang._

And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Rowland had been
hanged by robbers in the wood. And at night she took another doll, and
drove her bodkin right into its heart. Then she said--

_Sir Noll, Sir Noll, so cease your life,
Your heart is piercčd with the knife._

And the next day news came to the castle that Sir Oliver had fought in a
tavern, and a stranger had stabbed him to the heart. And at night she
took another doll, and held it to a fire of charcoal till it was melted.
Then she said--

_Sir John, return, and turn to clay,
In fire of fever you waste away._

And the next day news came to the castle that Sir John had died in a
burning fever. So then Sir Simon went out of the castle and mounted his
horse and rode away to the bishop and told him everything. And the
bishop sent his men, and they took the Lady Avelin, and everything she
had done was found out. So on the day after the year and a day, when she
was to have been married, they carried her through the town in her
smock, and they tied her to a great stake in the market-place, and
burned her alive before the bishop with her wax image hung round her
neck. And people said the wax man screamed in the burning of the flames.
And I thought of this story again and again as I was lying awake in my
bed, and I seemed to see the Lady Avelin in the market-place, with the
yellow flames eating up her beautiful white body. And I thought of it so
much that I seemed to get into the story myself, and I fancied I was the
lady, and that they were coming to take me to be burnt with fire, with
all the people in the town looking at me. And I wondered whether she
cared, after all the strange things she had done, and whether it hurt
very much to be burned at the stake. I tried again and again to forget
nurse's stories, and to remember the secret I had seen that afternoon,
and what was in the secret wood, but I could only see the dark and a
glimmering in the dark, and then it went away, and I only saw myself
running, and then a great moon came up white over a dark round hill.
Then all the old stories came back again, and the queer rhymes that
nurse used to sing to me; and there was one beginning 'Halsy cumsy Helen
musty,' that she used to sing very softly when she wanted me to go to
sleep. And I began to sing it to myself inside of my head, and I went to
sleep.

The next morning I was very tired and sleepy, and could hardly do my
lessons, and I was very glad when they were over and I had had my
dinner, as I wanted to go out and be alone. It was a warm day, and I
went to a nice turfy hill by the river, and sat down on my mother's old
shawl that I had brought with me on purpose. The sky was grey, like the
day before, but there was a kind of white gleam behind it, and from
where I was sitting I could look down on the town, and it was all still
and quiet and white, like a picture. I remembered that it was on that
hill that nurse taught me to play an old game called 'Troy Town,' in
which one had to dance, and wind in and out on a pattern in the grass,
and then when one had danced and turned long enough the other person
asks you questions, and you can't help answering whether you want to or
not, and whatever you are told to do you feel you have to do it. Nurse
said there used to be a lot of games like that that some people knew of,
and there was one by which people could be turned into anything you
liked and an old man her great-grandmother had seen had known a girl who
had been turned into a large snake. And there was another very ancient
game of dancing and winding and turning, by which you could take a
person out of himself and hide him away as long as you liked, and his
body went walking about quite empty, without any sense in it. But I came
to that hill because I wanted to think of what had happened the day
before, and of the secret of the wood. From the place where I was
sitting I could see beyond the town, into the opening I had found, where
a little brook had led me into an unknown country. And I pretended I was
following the brook over again, and I went all the way in my mind, and
at last I found the wood, and crept into it under the bushes, and then
in the dusk I saw something that made me feel as if I were filled with
fire, as if I wanted to dance and sing and fly up into the air, because
I was changed and wonderful. But what I saw was not changed at all, and
had not grown old, and I wondered again and again how such things could
happen, and whether nurse's stories were really true, because in the
daytime in the open air everything seemed quite different from what it
was at night, when I was frightened, and thought I was to be burned
alive. I once told my father one of her little tales, which was about a
ghost, and asked him if it was true, and he told me it was not true at
all, and that only common, ignorant people believed in such rubbish. He
was very angry with nurse for telling me the story, and scolded her, and
after that I promised her I would never whisper a word of what she told
me, and if I did I should be bitten by the great black snake that lived
in the pool in the wood. And all alone on the hill I wondered what was
true. I had seen something very amazing and very lovely, and I knew a
story, and if I had really seen it, and not made it up out of the dark,
and the black bough, and the bright shining that was mounting up to the
sky from over the great round hill, but had really seen it in truth,
then there were all kinds of wonderful and lovely and terrible things to
think of, so I longed and trembled, and I burned and got cold. And I
looked down on the town, so quiet and still, like a little white
picture, and I thought over and over if it could be true. I was a long
time before I could make up my mind to anything; there was such a
strange fluttering at my heart that seemed to whisper to me all the time
that I had not made it up out of my head, and yet it seemed quite
impossible, and I knew my father and everybody would say it was dreadful
rubbish. I never dreamed of telling him or anybody else a word about it,
because I knew it would be of no use, and I should only get laughed at
or scolded, so for a long time I was very quiet, and went about thinking
and wondering; and at night I used to dream of amazing things, and
sometimes I woke up in the early morning and held out my arms with a
cry. And I was frightened, too, because there were dangers, and some
awful thing would happen to me, unless I took great care, if the story
were true. These old tales were always in my head, night and morning,
and I went over them and told them to myself over and over again, and
went for walks in the places where nurse had told them to me; and when I
sat in the nursery by the fire in the evenings I used to fancy nurse was
sitting in the other chair, and telling me some wonderful story in a low
voice, for fear anybody should be listening. But she used to like best
to tell me about things when we were right out in the country, far from
the house, because she said she was telling me such secrets, and walls
have ears. And if it was something more than ever secret, we had to hide
in brakes or woods; and I used to think it was such fun creeping along a
hedge, and going very softly, and then we would get behind the bushes or
run into the wood all of a sudden, when we were sure that none was
watching us; so we knew that we had our secrets quite all to ourselves,
and nobody else at all knew anything about them. Now and then, when we
had hidden ourselves as I have described, she used to show me all sorts
of odd things. One day, I remember, we were in a hazel brake,
overlooking the brook, and we were so snug and warm, as though it was
April; the sun was quite hot, and the leaves were just coming out. Nurse
said she would show me something funny that would make me laugh, and
then she showed me, as she said, how one could turn a whole house upside
down, without anybody being able to find out, and the pots and pans
would jump about, and the china would be broken, and the chairs would
tumble over of themselves. I tried it one day in the kitchen, and I
found I could do it quite well, and a whole row of plates on the dresser
fell off it, and cook's little work-table tilted up and turned right
over 'before her eyes,' as she said, but she was so frightened and
turned so white that I didn't do it again, as I liked her. And
afterwards, in the hazel copse, when she had shown me how to make things
tumble about, she showed me how to make rapping noises, and I learnt how
to do that, too. Then she taught me rhymes to say on certain occasions,
and peculiar marks to make on other occasions, and other things that her
great-grandmother had taught her when she was a little girl herself. And
these were all the things I was thinking about in those days after the
strange walk when I thought I had seen a great secret, and I wished
nurse were there for me to ask her about it, but she had gone away more
than two years before, and nobody seemed to know what had become of her,
or where she had gone. But I shall always remember those days if I live
to be quite old, because all the time I felt so strange, wondering and
doubting, and feeling quite sure at one time, and making up my mind, and
then I would feel quite sure that such things couldn't happen really,
and it began all over again. But I took great care not to do certain
things that might be very dangerous. So I waited and wondered for a long
time, and though I was not sure at all, I never dared to try to find
out. But one day I became sure that all that nurse said was quite true,
and I was all alone when I found it out. I trembled all over with joy
and terror, and as fast as I could I ran into one of the old brakes
where we used to go--it was the one by the lane, where nurse made the
little clay man--and I ran into it, and I crept into it; and when I came
to the place where the elder was, I covered up my face with my hands and
lay down flat on the grass, and I stayed there for two hours without
moving, whispering to myself delicious, terrible things, and saying some
words over and over again. It was all true and wonderful and splendid,
and when I remembered the story I knew and thought of what I had really
seen, I got hot and I got cold, and the air seemed full of scent, and
flowers, and singing. And first I wanted to make a little clay man, like
the one nurse had made so long ago, and I had to invent plans and
stratagems, and to look about, and to think of things beforehand,
because nobody must dream of anything that I was doing or going to do,
and I was too old to carry clay about in a tin bucket. At last I thought
of a plan, and I brought the wet clay to the brake, and did everything
that nurse had done, only I made a much finer image than the one she had
made; and when it was finished I did everything that I could imagine and
much more than she did, because it was the likeness of something far
better. And a few days later, when I had done my lessons early, I went
for the second time by the way of the little brook that had led me into
a strange country. And I followed the brook, and went through the
bushes, and beneath the low branches of trees, and up thorny thickets on
the hill, and by dark woods full of creeping thorns, a long, long way.
Then I crept through the dark tunnel where the brook had been and the
ground was stony, till at last I came to the thicket that climbed up the
hill, and though the leaves were coming out upon the trees, everything
looked almost as black as it was on the first day that I went there. And
the thicket was just the same, and I went up slowly till I came out on
the big bare hill, and began to walk among the wonderful rocks. I saw
the terrible voor again on everything, for though the sky was brighter,
the ring of wild hills all around was still dark, and the hanging woods
looked dark and dreadful, and the strange rocks were as grey as ever;
and when I looked down on them from the great mound, sitting on the
stone, I saw all their amazing circles and rounds within rounds, and I
had to sit quite still and watch them as they began to turn about me,
and each stone danced in its place, and they seemed to go round and
round in a great whirl, as if one were in the middle of all the stars
and heard them rushing through the air. So I went down among the rocks
to dance with them and to sing extraordinary songs; and I went down
through the other thicket, and drank from the bright stream in the close
and secret valley, putting my lips down to the bubbling water; and then
I went on till I came to the deep, brimming well among the glittering
moss, and I sat down. I looked before me into the secret darkness of the
valley, and behind me was the great high wall of grass, and all around
me there were the hanging woods that made the valley such a secret
place. I knew there was nobody here at all besides myself, and that no
one could see me. So I took off my boots and stockings, and let my feet
down into the water, saying the words that I knew. And it was not cold
at all, as I expected, but warm and very pleasant, and when my feet were
in it I felt as if they were in silk, or as if the nymph were kissing
them. So when I had done, I said the other words and made the signs, and
then I dried my feet with a towel I had brought on purpose, and put on
my stockings and boots. Then I climbed up the steep wall, and went into
the place where there are the hollows, and the two beautiful mounds, and
the round ridges of land, and all the strange shapes. I did not go down
into the hollow this time, but I turned at the end, and made out the
figures quite plainly, as it was lighter, and I had remembered the story
I had quite forgotten before, and in the story the two figures are
called Adam and Eve, and only those who know the story understand what
they mean. So I went on and on till I came to the secret wood which must
not be described, and I crept into it by the way I had found. And when I
had gone about halfway I stopped, and turned round, and got ready, and I
bound the handkerchief tightly round my eyes, and made quite sure that I
could not see at all, not a twig, nor the end of a leaf, nor the light
of the sky, as it was an old red silk handkerchief with large yellow
spots, that went round twice and covered my eyes, so that I could see
nothing. Then I began to go on, step by step, very slowly. My heart beat
faster and faster, and something rose in my throat that choked me and
made me want to cry out, but I shut my lips, and went on. Boughs caught
in my hair as I went, and great thorns tore me; but I went on to the end
of the path. Then I stopped, and held out my arms and bowed, and I went
round the first time, feeling with my hands, and there was nothing. I
went round the second time, feeling with my hands, and there was
nothing. Then I went round the third time, feeling with my hands, and
the story was all true, and I wished that the years were gone by, and
that I had not so long a time to wait before I was happy for ever and
ever.

Nurse must have been a prophet like those we read of in the Bible.
Everything that she said began to come true, and since then other things
that she told me of have happened. That was how I came to know that her
stories were true and that I had not made up the secret myself out of my
own head. But there was another thing that happened that day. I went a
second time to the secret place. It was at the deep brimming well, and
when I was standing on the moss I bent over and looked in, and then I
knew who the white lady was that I had seen come out of the water in the
wood long ago when I was quite little. And I trembled all over, because
that told me other things. Then I remembered how sometime after I had
seen the white people in the wood, nurse asked me more about them, and I
told her all over again, and she listened, and said nothing for a long,
long time, and at last she said, 'You will see her again.' So I
understood what had happened and what was to happen. And I understood
about the nymphs; how I might meet them in all kinds of places, and they
would always help me, and I must always look for them, and find them in
all sorts of strange shapes and appearances. And without the nymphs I
could never have found the secret, and without them none of the other
things could happen. Nurse had told me all about them long ago, but she
called them by another name, and I did not know what she meant, or what
her tales of them were about, only that they were very queer. And there
were two kinds, the bright and the dark, and both were very lovely and
very wonderful, and some people saw only one kind, and some only the
other, but some saw them both. But usually the dark appeared first, and
the bright ones came afterwards, and there were extraordinary tales
about them. It was a day or two after I had come home from the secret
place that I first really knew the nymphs. Nurse had shown me how to
call them, and I had tried, but I did not know what she meant, and so I
thought it was all nonsense. But I made up my mind I would try again, so
I went to the wood where the pool was, where I saw the white people, and
I tried again. The dark nymph, Alanna, came, and she turned the pool of
water into a pool of fire. . . .


EPILOGUE


'That's a very queer story,' said Cotgrave, handing back the green book
to the recluse, Ambrose. 'I see the drift of a good deal, but there are
many things that I do not grasp at all. On the last page, for example,
what does she mean by "nymphs"?'

'Well, I think there are references throughout the manuscript to certain
"processes" which have been handed down by tradition from age to age.
Some of these processes are just beginning to come within the purview of
science, which has arrived at them--or rather at the steps which lead to
them--by quite different paths. I have interpreted the reference to
"nymphs" as a reference to one of these processes.'

'And you believe that there are such things?'

'Oh, I think so. Yes, I believe I could give you convincing evidence on
that point. I am afraid you have neglected the study of alchemy? It is a
pity, for the symbolism, at all events, is very beautiful, and moreover
if you were acquainted with certain books on the subject, I could recall
to your mind phrases which might explain a good deal in the manuscript
that you have been reading.'

'Yes; but I want to know whether you seriously think that there is any
foundation of fact beneath these fancies. Is it not all a department of
poetry; a curious dream with which man has indulged himself?'

'I can only say that it is no doubt better for the great mass of people
to dismiss it all as a dream. But if you ask my veritable belief--that
goes quite the other way. No; I should not say belief, but rather
knowledge. I may tell you that I have known cases in which men have
stumbled quite by accident on certain of these "processes," and have
been astonished by wholly unexpected results. In the cases I am thinking
of there could have been no possibility of "suggestion" or sub-conscious
action of any kind. One might as well suppose a schoolboy "suggesting"
the existence of Aeschylus to himself, while he plods mechanically
through the declensions.

'But you have noticed the obscurity,' Ambrose went on, 'and in this
particular case it must have been dictated by instinct, since the writer
never thought that her manuscripts would fall into other hands. But the
practice is universal, and for most excellent reasons. Powerful and
sovereign medicines, which are, of necessity, virulent poisons also, are
kept in a locked cabinet. The child may find the key by chance, and
drink herself dead; but in most cases the search is educational, and the
phials contain precious elixirs for him who has patiently fashioned the
key for himself.'

'You do not care to go into details?'

'No, frankly, I do not. No, you must remain unconvinced. But you saw how
the manuscript illustrates the talk we had last week?'

'Is this girl still alive?'

'No. I was one of those who found her. I knew the father well; he was a
lawyer, and had always left her very much to herself. He thought of
nothing but deeds and leases, and the news came to him as an awful
surprise. She was missing one morning; I suppose it was about a year
after she had written what you have read. The servants were called, and
they told things, and put the only natural interpretation on them--a
perfectly erroneous one.

'They discovered that green book somewhere in her room, and I found her
in the place that she described with so much dread, lying on the ground
before the image.'

'It was an image?'

'Yes, it was hidden by the thorns and the thick undergrowth that had
surrounded it. It was a wild, lonely country; but you know what it was
like by her description, though of course you will understand that the
colours have been heightened. A child's imagination always makes the
heights higher and the depths deeper than they really are; and she had,
unfortunately for herself, something more than imagination. One might
say, perhaps, that the picture in her mind which she succeeded in a
measure in putting into words, was the scene as it would have appeared
to an imaginative artist. But it is a strange, desolate land.'

'And she was dead?'

'Yes. She had poisoned herself--in time. No; there was not a word to be
said against her in the ordinary sense. You may recollect a story I told
you the other night about a lady who saw her child's fingers crushed by
a window?'

'And what was this statue?'

'Well, it was of Roman workmanship, of a stone that with the centuries
had not blackened, but had become white and luminous. The thicket had
grown up about it and concealed it, and in the Middle Ages the followers
of a very old tradition had known how to use it for their own purposes.
In fact it had been incorporated into the monstrous mythology of the
Sabbath. You will have noted that those to whom a sight of that shining
whiteness had been vouchsafed by chance, or rather, perhaps, by apparent
chance, were required to blindfold themselves on their second approach.
That is very significant.'

'And is it there still?'

'I sent for tools, and we hammered it into dust and fragments.'

'The persistence of tradition never surprises me,' Ambrose went on after
a pause. 'I could name many an English parish where such traditions as
that girl had listened to in her childhood are still existent in occult
but unabated vigour. No, for me, it is the "story" not the "sequel",
which is strange and awful, for I have always believed that wonder is of
the soul.'


* * *



THE INMOST LIGHT


I


One evening in autumn, when the deformities of London were veiled in
faint blue mist, and its vistas and far-reaching streets seemed
splendid, Mr. Charles Salisbury was slowly pacing down Rupert Street,
drawing nearer to his favourite restaurant by slow degrees. His eyes
were downcast in study of the pavement, and thus it was that as he
passed in at the narrow door a man who had come up from the lower end of
the street jostled against him.

'I beg your pardon--wasn't looking where I was going. Why, it's Dyson!'

'Yes, quite so. How are you, Salisbury?'

'Quite well. But where have you been, Dyson? I don't think I can have
seen you for the last five years?'

'No; I dare say not. You remember I was getting rather hard up when you
came to my place at Charlotte Street?'

'Perfectly. I think I remember your telling me that you owed five weeks'
rent, and that you had parted with your watch for a comparatively small
sum.'

'My dear Salisbury, your memory is admirable. Yes, I was hard up. But
the curious thing is that soon after you saw me I became harder up. My
financial state was described by a friend as "stone broke." I don't
approve of slang, mind you, but such was my condition. But suppose we go
in; there might be other people who would like to dine--it's a human
weakness, Salisbury.'

'Certainly; come along. I was wondering as I walked down whether the
corner table were taken. It has a velvet back you know.'

'I know the spot; it's vacant. Yes, as I was saying, I became even
harder up.'

'What did you do then?' asked Salisbury, disposing of his hat, and
settling down in the corner of the seat, with a glance of fond
anticipation at the _menu_.

'What did I do? Why, I sat down and reflected. I had a good classical
education, and a positive distaste for business of any kind: that was
the capital with which I faced the world. Do you know, I have heard
people describe olives as nasty! What lamentable Philistinism! I have
often thought, Salisbury, that I could write genuine poetry under the
influence of olives and red wine. Let us have Chianti; it may not be
very good, but the flasks are simply charming.'

'It is pretty good here. We may as well have a big flask.'

'Very good. I reflected, then, on my want of prospects, and I determined
to embark in literature.'

'Really; that was strange. You seem in pretty comfortable circumstances,
though.'

'Though! What a satire upon a noble profession. I am afraid, Salisbury,
you haven't a proper idea of the dignity of an artist. You see me
sitting at my desk--or at least you can see me if you care to call--with
pen and ink, and simple nothingness before me, and if you come again in
a few hours you will (in all probability) find a creation!'

'Yes, quite so. I had an idea that literature was not remunerative.'

'You are mistaken; its rewards are great. I may mention, by the way,
that shortly after you saw me I succeeded to a small income. An uncle
died, and proved unexpectedly generous.'

'Ah, I see. That must have been convenient.'

'It was pleasant--undeniably pleasant. I have always considered it in
the light of an endowment of my researches. I told you I was a man of
letters; it would, perhaps, be more correct to describe myself as a man
of science.'

'Dear me, Dyson, you have really changed very much in the last few
years. I had a notion, don't you know, that you were a sort of idler
about town, the kind of man one might meet on the north side of
Piccadilly every day from May to July.'

'Exactly. I was even then forming myself, though all unconsciously. You
know my poor father could not afford to send me to the University. I
used to grumble in my ignorance at not having completed my education.
That was the folly of youth, Salisbury; my University was Piccadilly.
There I began to study the great science which still occupies me.'

'What science do you mean?'

'The science of the great city; the physiology of London; literally and
metaphysically the greatest subject that the mind of man can conceive.
What an admirable _salmi_ this is; undoubtedly the final end of the
pheasant. Yet I feel sometimes positively overwhelmed with the thought
of the vastness and complexity of London. Paris a man may get to
understand thoroughly with a reasonable amount of study; but London is
always a mystery. In Paris you may say: 'Here live the actresses, here
the Bohemians, and the _Ratés_'; but it is different in London. You may
point out a street, correctly enough, as the abode of washerwomen; but,
in that second floor, a man may be studying Chaldee roots, and in the
garret over the way a forgotten artist is dying by inches.'

'I see you are Dyson, unchanged and unchangeable,' said Salisbury,
slowly sipping his Chianti. 'I think you are misled by a too fervid
imagination; the mystery of London exists only in your fancy. It seems
to me a dull place enough. We seldom hear of a really artistic crime in
London, whereas I believe Paris abounds in that sort of thing.'

'Give me some more wine. Thanks. You are mistaken, my dear fellow, you
are really mistaken. London has nothing to be ashamed of in the way of
crime. Where we fail is for want of Homers, not Agamemnons. _Carent quia
vate sacro_, you know.'

'I recall the quotation. But I don't think I quite follow you.'

'Well, in plain language, we have no good writers in London who make a
speciality of that kind of thing. Our common reporter is a dull dog;
every story that he has to tell is spoilt in the telling. His idea of
horror and of what excites horror is so lamentably deficient. Nothing
will content the fellow but blood, vulgar red blood, and when he can get
it he lays it on thick, and considers that he has produced a telling
article. It's a poor notion. And, by some curious fatality, it is the
most commonplace and brutal murders which always attract the most
attention and get written up the most. For instance, I dare say that you
never heard of the Harlesden case?'

'No; no, I don't remember anything about it.'

'Of course not. And yet the story is a curious one. I will tell you over
our coffee. Harlesden, you know, or I expect you don't know, is quite on
the out-quarters of London; something curiously different from your fine
old crusted suburb like Norwood or Hampstead, different as each of these
is from the other. Hampstead, I mean, is where you look for the head of
your great China house with his three acres of land and pine-houses,
though of late there is the artistic substratum; while Norwood is the
home of the prosperous middle-class family who took the house 'because
it was near the Palace,' and sickened of the Palace six months
afterwards; but Harlesden is a place of no character. It's too new to
have any character as yet. There are the rows of red houses and the rows
of white houses and the bright green Venetians, and the blistering
doorways, and the little backyards they call gardens, and a few feeble
shops, and then, just as you think you're going to grasp the physiognomy
of the settlement, it all melts away.'

'How the dickens is that? The houses don't tumble down before one's
eyes, I suppose!'

'Well, no, not exactly that. But Harlesden as an entity disappears. Your
street turns into a quiet lane, and your staring houses into elm trees,
and the back-gardens into green meadows. You pass instantly from town to
country; there is no transition as in a small country town, no soft
gradations of wider lawns and orchards, with houses gradually becoming
less dense, but a dead stop. I believe the people who live there mostly
go into the City. I have seen once or twice a laden bus bound
thitherwards. But however that may be, I can't conceive a greater
loneliness in a desert at midnight than there is there at mid-day. It is
like a city of the dead; the streets are glaring and desolate, and as
you pass it suddenly strikes you that this too is part of London. Well,
a year or two ago there was a doctor living there; he had set up his
brass plate and his red lamp at the very end of one of those shining
streets, and from the back of the house, the fields stretched away to
the north. I don't know what his reason was in settling down in such an
out-of-the-way place, perhaps Dr. Black, as we call him, was a
far-seeing man and looked ahead. His relations, so it appeared
afterwards, had lost sight of him for many years and didn't even know he
was a doctor, much less where he lived. However, there he was settled in
Harlesden, with some fragments of a practice, and an uncommonly pretty
wife. People used to see them walking out together in the summer
evenings soon after they came to Harlesden, and, so far as could be
observed, they seemed a very affectionate couple. These walks went on
through the autumn, and then ceased, but, of course, as the days grew
dark and the weather cold, the lanes near Harlesden might be expected to
lose many of their attractions. All through the winter nobody saw
anything of Mrs. Black, the doctor used to reply to his patients'
inquiries that she was a "little out of sorts, would be better, no
doubt, in the spring." But the spring came, and the summer, and no Mrs.
Black appeared, and at last people began to rumour and talk amongst
themselves, and all sorts of queer things were said at "high teas,"
which you may possibly have heard are the only form of entertainment
known in such suburbs. Dr. Black began to surprise some very odd looks
cast in his direction, and the practice, such as it was, fell off before
his eyes. In short, when the neighbours whispered about the matter, they
whispered that Mrs. Black was dead, and that the doctor had made away
with her. But this wasn't the case; Mrs. Black was seen alive in June.
It was a Sunday afternoon, one of those few exquisite days that an
English climate offers, and half London had strayed out into the fields,
north, south, east, and west to smell the scent of the white May, and to
see if the wild roses were yet in blossom in the hedges. I had gone out
myself early in the morning, and had had a long ramble, and somehow or
other as I was steering homeward I found myself in this very Harlesden
we have been talking about. To be exact, I had a glass of beer in the
"General Gordon", the most flourishing house in the neighbourhood, and
as I was wandering rather aimlessly about, I saw an uncommonly tempting
gap in a hedgerow, and resolved to explore the meadow beyond. Soft grass
is very grateful to the feet after the infernal grit strewn on suburban
sidewalks, and after walking about for some time I thought I should like
to sit down on a bank and have a smoke. While I was getting out my
pouch, I looked up in the direction of the houses, and as I looked I
felt my breath caught back, and my teeth began to chatter, and the stick
I had in one hand snapped in two with the grip I gave it. It was as if I
had had an electric current down my spine, and yet for some moment of
time which seemed long, but which must have been very short, I caught
myself wondering what on earth was the matter. Then I knew I what had
made my very heart shudder and my bones grind together in an agony. As I
glanced up I had looked straight towards the last house in the row
before me, and in an upper window of that house I had seen for some
short fraction of a second a face. It was the face of a woman, and yet
it was not human. You and I, Salisbury, have heard in our time, as we
sat in our seats in church in sober English fashion, of a lust that
cannot be satiated and of a fire that is unquenchable, but few of us
have any notion what these words mean. I hope you never may, for as I
saw that face at the window, with the blue sky above me and the warm air
playing in gusts about me, I knew I had looked into another
world--looked through the window of a commonplace, brand-new house, and
seen hell open before me. When the first shock was over, I thought once
or twice that I should have fainted; my face streamed with a cold sweat,
and my breath came and went in sobs, as if I had been half drowned. I
managed to get up at last, and walk round to the street, and there I saw
the name "Dr. Black" on the post by the front gate. As fate or my luck
would have it, the door opened and a man came down the steps as I passed
by. I had no doubt it was the doctor himself. He was of a type rather
common in London; long and thin, with a pasty face and a dull black
moustache. He gave me a look as we passed each other on the pavement,
and though it was merely the casual glance which one foot-passenger
bestows on another, I felt convinced in my mind that here was an ugly
customer to deal with. As you may imagine, I went my way a good deal
puzzled and horrified too by what I had seen; for I had paid another
visit to the "General Gordon", and had got together a good deal of the
common gossip of the place about the Blacks. I didn't mention the fact
that I had seen a woman's face in the window; but I heard that Mrs.
Black had been much admired for her beautiful golden hair, and round
what had struck me with such a nameless terror, there was a mist of
flowing yellow hair, as it were an aureole of glory round the visage of
a satyr. The whole thing bothered me in an indescribable manner; and
when I got home I tried my best to think of the impression I had
received as an illusion, but it was no use. I knew very well I had seen
what I have tried to describe to you, and I was morally certain that I
had seen Mrs. Black. And then there was the gossip of the place, the
suspicion of foul play, which I knew to be false, and my own conviction
that there was some deadly mischief or other going on in that bright red
house at the corner of Devon Road: how to construct a theory of a
reasonable kind out of these two elements. In short, I found myself in a
world of mystery; I puzzled my head over it and filled up my leisure
moments by gathering together odd threads of speculation, but I never
moved a step towards any real solution, and as the summer days went on
the matter seemed to grow misty and indistinct, shadowing some vague
terror, like a nightmare of last month. I suppose it would before long
have faded into the background of my brain--I should not have forgotten
it, for such a thing could never be forgotten--but one morning as I was
looking over the paper my eye was caught by a heading over some two
dozen lines of small type. The words I had seen were simply: "The
Harlesden Case," and I knew what I was going to read. Mrs. Black was
dead. Black had called in another medical man to certify as to cause of
death, and something or other had aroused the strange doctor's
suspicions and there had been an inquest and _post-mortem_. And the
result? That, I will confess, did astonish me considerably; it was the
triumph of the unexpected. The two doctors who made the autopsy were
obliged to confess that they could not discover the faintest trace of
any kind of foul play; their most exquisite tests and reagents failed to
detect the presence of poison in the most infinitesimal quantity. Death,
they found, had been caused by a somewhat obscure and scientifically
interesting form of brain disease. The tissue of the brain and the
molecules of the grey matter had undergone a most extraordinary series
of changes; and the younger of the two doctors, who has some reputation,
I believe, as a specialist in brain trouble, made some remarks in giving
his evidence which struck me deeply at the time, though I did not then
grasp their full significance. He said: "At the commencement of the
examination I was astonished to find appearances of a character entirely
new to me, notwithstanding my somewhat large experience. I need not
specify these appearances at present, it will be sufficient for me to
state that as I proceeded in my task I could scarcely believe that the
brain before me was that of a human being at all." There was some
surprise at this statement, as you may imagine, and the coroner asked
the doctor if he meant that the brain resembled that of an animal. "No,"
he replied, "I should not put it in that way. Some of the appearances I
noticed seemed to point in that direction, but others, and these were
the more surprising, indicated a nervous organization of a wholly
different character from that either of man or the lower animals." It
was a curious thing to say, but of course the jury brought in a verdict
of death from natural causes, and, so far as the public was concerned,
the case came to an end. But after I had read what the doctor said I
made up my mind that I should like to know a good deal more, and I set
to work on what seemed likely to prove an interesting investigation. I
had really a good deal of trouble, but I was successful in a measure.
Though why--my dear fellow, I had no notion at the time. Are you aware
that we have been here nearly four hours? The waiters are staring at us.
Let's have the bill and be gone.'

The two men went out in silence, and stood a moment in the cool air,
watching the hurrying traffic of Coventry Street pass before them to the
accompaniment of the ringing bells of hansoms and the cries of the
newsboys; the deep far murmur of London surging up ever and again from
beneath these louder noises.

'It is a strange case, isn't it?' said Dyson at length. 'What do you
think of it?'

'My dear fellow. I haven't heard the end, so I will reserve my opinion.
When will you give me the sequel?'

'Come to my rooms some evening; say next Thursday. Here's the address.
Good-night; I want to get down to the Strand.' Dyson hailed a passing
hansom, and Salisbury turned northward to walk home to his lodgings.


II


Mr. Salisbury, as may have been gathered from the few remarks which he
had found it possible to introduce in the course of the evening, was a
young gentleman of a peculiarly solid form of intellect, coy and
retiring before the mysterious and the uncommon, with a constitutional
dislike of paradox. During the restaurant dinner he had been forced to
listen in almost absolute silence to a strange tissue of improbabilities
strung together with the ingenuity of a born meddler in plots and
mysteries, and it was with a feeling of weariness that he crossed
Shaftesbury Avenue, and dived into the recesses of Soho, for his
lodgings were in a modest neighbourhood to the north of Oxford Street.
As he walked he speculated on the probable fate of Dyson, relying on
literature, unbefriended by a thoughtful relative, and could not help
concluding that so much subtlety united to a too vivid imagination would
in all likelihood have been rewarded with a pair of sandwich-boards or a
super's banner. Absorbed in this train of thought, and admiring the
perverse dexterity which could transmute the face of a sickly woman and
a case of brain disease into the crude elements of romance, Salisbury
strayed on through the dimly-lighted streets, not noticing the gusty
wind which drove sharply round corners and whirled the stray rubbish of
the pavement into the air in eddies, while black clouds gathered over
the sickly yellow moon. Even a stray drop or two of rain blown into his
face did not rouse him from his meditations, and it was only when with a
sudden rush the storm tore down upon the street that he began to
consider the expediency of finding some shelter. The rain, driven by the
wind, pelted down with the violence of a thunderstorm, dashing up from
the stones and hissing through the air, and soon a perfect torrent of
water coursed along the kennels and accumulated in pools over the
choked-up drains. The few stray passengers who had been loafing rather
than walking about the street had scuttered away, like frightened
rabbits, to some invisible places of refuge, and though Salisbury
whistled loud and long for a hansom, no hansom appeared. He looked about
him, as if to discover how far he might be from the haven of Oxford
Street, but strolling carelessly along, he had turned out of his way,
and found himself in an unknown region, and one to all appearance devoid
even of a public-house where shelter could be bought for the modest sum
of twopence. The street lamps were few and at long intervals, and burned
behind grimy glasses with the sickly light of oil, and by this wavering
glimmer Salisbury could make out the shadowy and vast old houses of
which the street was composed. As he passed along, hurrying, and
shrinking from the full sweep of the rain, he noticed the innumerable
bell-handles, with names that seemed about to vanish of old age graven
on brass plates beneath them, and here and there a richly carved
penthouse overhung the door, blackening with the grime of fifty years.
The storm seemed to grow more and more furious; he was wet through, and
a new hat had become a ruin, and still Oxford Street seemed as far off
as ever; it was with deep relief that the dripping man caught sight of a
dark archway which seemed to promise shelter from the rain if not from
the wind. Salisbury took up his position in the driest corner and looked
about him; he was standing in a kind of passage contrived under part of
a house, and behind him stretched a narrow footway leading between blank
walls to regions unknown. He had stood there for some time, vainly
endeavouring to rid himself of some of his superfluous moisture, and
listening for the passing wheel of a hansom, when his attention was
aroused by a loud noise coming from the direction of the passage behind,
and growing louder as it drew nearer. In a couple of minutes he could
make out the shrill, raucous voice of a woman, threatening and
renouncing and making the very stones echo with her accents, while now
and then a man grumbled and expostulated. Though to all appearance
devoid of romance, Salisbury had some relish for street rows, and was,
indeed, somewhat of an amateur in the more amusing phases of
drunkenness; he therefore composed himself to listen and observe with
something of the air of a subscriber to grand opera. To his annoyance,
however, the tempest seemed suddenly to be composed, and he could hear
nothing but the impatient steps of the woman and the slow lurch of the
man as they came towards him. Keeping back in the shadow of the wall, he
could see the two drawing nearer; the man was evidently drunk, and had
much ado to avoid frequent collision with the wall as he tacked across
from one side to the other, like some bark beating up against a wind.
The woman was looking straight in front of her, with tears streaming
from her blazing eyes, but suddenly as they went by the flame blazed up
again, and she burst forth into a torrent of abuse, facing round upon
her companion.

'You low rascal, you mean, contemptible cur,' she went on, after an
incoherent storm of curses, 'you think I'm to work and slave for you
always, I suppose, while you're after that Green Street girl and
drinking every penny you've got? But you're mistaken, Sam--indeed, I'll
bear it no longer. Damn you, you dirty thief, I've done with you and
your master too, so you can go your own errands, and I only hope they'll
get you into trouble.'

The woman tore at the bosom of her dress, and taking something out that
looked like paper, crumpled it up and flung it away. It fell at
Salisbury's feet. She ran out and disappeared in the darkness, while the
man lurched slowly into the street, grumbling indistinctly to himself in
a perplexed tone of voice. Salisbury looked out after him, and saw him
maundering along the pavement, halting now and then and swaying
indecisively, and then starting off at some fresh tangent. The sky had
cleared, and white fleecy clouds were fleeting across the moon, high in
the heaven. The light came and went by turns, as the clouds passed by,
and, turning round as the clear, white rays shone into the passage,
Salisbury saw the little ball of crumpled paper which the woman had cast
down. Oddly curious to know what it might contain, he picked it up and
put it in his pocket, and set out afresh on his journey.


III


Salisbury was a man of habit. When he got home, drenched to the skin,
his clothes hanging lank about him, and a ghastly dew besmearing his
hat, his only thought was of his health, of which he took studious care.
So, after changing his clothes and encasing himself in a warm
dressing-gown, he proceeded to prepare a sudorific in the shape of hot
gin and water, warming the latter over one of those spirit-lamps which
mitigate the austerities of the modern hermit's life. By the time this
preparation had been exhibited, and Salisbury's disturbed feelings had
been soothed by a pipe of tobacco, he was able to get into bed in a
happy state of vacancy, without a thought of his adventure in the dark
archway, or of the weird fancies with which Dyson had seasoned his
dinner. It was the same at breakfast the next morning, for Salisbury
made a point of not thinking of anything until that meal was over; but
when the cup and saucer were cleared away, and the morning pipe was lit,
he remembered the little ball of paper, and began fumbling in the
pockets of his wet coat. He did not remember into which pocket he had
put it, and as he dived now into one and now into another, he
experienced a strange feeling of apprehension lest it should not be
there at all, though he could not for the life of him have explained the
importance he attached to what was in all probability mere rubbish. But
he sighed with relief when his fingers touched the crumpled surface in
an inside pocket, and he drew it out gently and laid it on the little
desk by his easy chair with as much care as if it had been some rare
jewel. Salisbury sat smoking and staring at his find for a few minutes,
an odd temptation to throw the thing in the fire and have done with it
struggling with as odd a speculation as to its possible contents, and as
to the reason why the infuriated woman should have flung a bit of paper
from her with such vehemence. As might be expected, it was the latter
feeling that conquered in the end, and yet it was with something like
repugnance that he at last took the paper and unrolled it, and laid it
out before him. It was a piece of common dirty paper, to all appearance
torn out of a cheap exercise-book, and in the middle were a few lines
written in a queer cramped hand. Salisbury bent his head and stared
eagerly at it for a moment, drawing a long breath, and then fell back in
his chair gazing blankly before him, till at last with a sudden
revulsion he burst into a peal of laughter, so long and loud and
uproarious that the landlady's baby in the floor below awoke from sleep
and echoed his mirth with hideous yells. But he laughed again and again,
and took the paper up to read a second time what seemed such meaningless
nonsense.

'Q. has had to go and see his friends in Paris,' it began. 'Traverse
Handel S. "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice
around the maple-tree."'

Salisbury took up the paper and crumpled it as the angry woman had done,
and aimed it at the fire. He did not throw it there, however, but tossed
it carelessly into the well of the desk, and laughed again. The sheer
folly of the thing offended him, and he was ashamed of his own eager
speculation, as one who pores over the high-sounding announcements in
the agony column of the daily paper, and finds nothing but advertisement
and triviality. He walked to the window, and stared out at the languid
morning life of his quarter; the maids in slatternly print dresses
washing door-steps, the fish-monger and the butcher on their rounds, and
the tradesmen standing at the doors of their small shops, drooping for
lack of trade and excitement. In the distance a blue haze gave some
grandeur to the prospect, but the view as a whole was depressing, and
would only have interested a student of the life of London, who finds
something rare and choice in its every aspect. Salisbury turned away in
disgust, and settled himself in the easy-chair, upholstered in a bright
shade of green, and decked with yellow gimp, which was the pride and
attraction of the apartments. Here he composed himself to his morning's
occupation--the perusal of a novel that dealt with sport and love in a
manner that suggested the collaboration of a stud-groom and a ladies'
college. In an ordinary way, however, Salisbury would have been carried
on by the interest of the story up to lunch-time, but this morning he
fidgeted in and out of his chair, took the book up and laid it down
again, and swore at last to himself and at himself in mere irritation.

In point of fact the jingle of the paper found in the archway had 'got
into his head,' and do what he would he could not help muttering over
and over, 'Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice
around the maple-tree.' It became a positive pain, like the foolish
burden of a music-hall song, everlastingly quoted, and sung at all hours
of the day and night, and treasured by the street boys as an unfailing
resource for six months together. He went out into the streets, and
tried to forget his enemy in the jostling of the crowds and the roar and
clatter of the traffic, but presently he would find himself stealing
quietly aside, and pacing some deserted byway, vainly puzzling his
brains, and trying to fix some meaning to phrases that were meaningless.
It was a positive relief when Thursday came, and he remembered that he
had made an appointment to go and see Dyson; the flimsy reveries of the
self-styled man of letters appeared entertaining when compared with this
ceaseless iteration, this maze of thought from which there seemed no
possibility of escape. Dyson's abode was in one of the quietest of the
quiet streets that lead down from the Strand to the river, and when
Salisbury passed from the narrow stairway into his friend's room, he saw
that the uncle had been beneficent indeed. The floor glowed and flamed
with all the colours of the East; it was, as Dyson pompously remarked,
'a sunset in a dream,' and the lamplight, the twilight of London
streets, was shut out with strangely worked curtains, glittering here
and there with threads of gold. In the shelves of an oak _armoire_ stood
jars and plates of old French china, and the black and white of etchings
not to be found in the Haymarket or in Bond Street, stood out against
the splendour of a Japanese paper. Salisbury sat down on the settle by
the hearth, and sniffed and mingled fumes of incense and tobacco,
wondering and dumb before all this splendour after the green rep and the
oleographs, the gilt-framed mirror, and the lustres of his own
apartment.

'I am glad you have come,' said Dyson. 'Comfortable little room, isn't
it? But you don't look very well, Salisbury. Nothing disagreed with you,
has it?'

'No; but I have been a good deal bothered for the last few days. The
fact is I had an odd kind of--of--adventure, I suppose I may call it,
that night I saw you, and it has worried me a good deal. And the
provoking part of it is that it's the merest nonsense--but, however, I
will tell you all about it, by and by. You were going to let me have the
rest of that odd story you began at the restaurant.'

'Yes. But I am afraid, Salisbury, you are incorrigible. You are a slave
to what you call matter of fact. You know perfectly well that in your
heart you think the oddness in that case is of my making, and that it is
all really as plain as the police reports. However, as I have begun, I
will go on. But first we will have something to drink, and you may as
well light your pipe.'

Dyson went up to the oak cupboard, and drew from its depths a rotund
bottle and two little glasses, quaintly gilded.

'It's Benedictine,' he said. 'You'll have some, won't you?'

Salisbury assented, and the two men sat sipping and smoking reflectively
for some minutes before Dyson began.

'Let me see,' he said at last, 'we were at the inquest, weren't we? No,
we had done with that. Ah, I remember. I was telling you that on the
whole I had been successful in my inquiries, investigation, or whatever
you like to call it, into the matter. Wasn't that where I left off?'

'Yes, that was it. To be precise, I think "though" was the last word you
said on the matter.'

'Exactly. I have been thinking it all over since the other night, and I
have come to the conclusion that that "though" is a very big "though"
indeed. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have had to confess that
what I found out, or thought I found out, amounts in reality to nothing.
I am as far away from the heart of the case as ever. However, I may as
well tell you what I do know. You may remember my saying that I was
impressed a good deal by some remarks of one of the doctors who gave
evidence at the inquest. Well, I determined that my first step must be
to try if I could get something more definite and intelligible out of
that doctor. Somehow or other I managed to get an introduction to the
man, and he gave me an appointment to come and see him.

'He turned out to be a pleasant, genial fellow; rather young and not in
the least like the typical medical man, and he began the conference by
offering me whisky and cigars. I didn't think it worth while to beat
about the bush, so I began by saying that part of his evidence at the
Harlesden inquest struck me as very peculiar, and I gave him the printed
report, with the sentences in question underlined. He just glanced at
the slip, and gave me a queer look.

'"It struck you as peculiar, did it?" said he. "Well, you must remember
that the Harlesden case was very peculiar. In fact, I think I may
safely say that in some features it was unique--quite unique."

'"Quite so," I replied, "and that's exactly why it interests me, and
why I want to know more about it. And I thought that if anybody could
give me any information it would be you. What is your opinion of
the matter?"

'It was a pretty downright sort of question, and my doctor looked rather
taken aback.

'"Well," he said, "as I fancy your motive in inquiring into the question
must be mere curiosity, I think I may tell you my opinion with tolerable
freedom. So, Mr. Dyson? if you want to know my theory, it is this:
I believe that Dr. Black killed his wife."

'"But the verdict," I answered, "the verdict was given from your own
evidence."

'"Quite so; the verdict was given in accordance with the evidence of my
colleague and myself, and, under the circumstances, I think the jury
acted very sensibly. In fact, I don't see what else they could have
done. But I stick to my opinion, mind you, and I say this also. I don't
wonder at Black's doing what I firmly believe he did. I think he was
justified."

'"Justified! How could that be?" I asked. I was astonished, as you may
imagine, at the answer I had got. The doctor wheeled round his chair and
looked steadily at me for a moment before he answered.

'"I suppose you are not a man of science yourself? No; then it would be
of no use my going into detail. I have always been firmly opposed myself
to any partnership between physiology and psychology. I believe that
both are bound to suffer. No one recognizes more decidedly than I do the
impassable gulf, the fathomless abyss that separates the world of
consciousness from the sphere of matter. We know that every change of
consciousness is accompanied by a rearrangement of the molecules in the
grey matter; and that is all. What the link between them is, or why they
occur together, we do not know, and the most authorities believe that we
never can know. Yet, I will tell you that as I did my work, the knife in
my hand, I felt convinced, in spite of all theories, that what lay
before me was not the brain of a dead woman--not the brain of a human
being at all. Of course I saw the face; but it was quite placid, devoid
of all expression. It must have been a beautiful face, no doubt, but I
can honestly say that I would not have looked in that face when there
was life behind it for a thousand guineas, no, nor for twice that sum."'

'"My dear sir," I said, "you surprise me extremely. You say that it was
not the brain of a human being. What was it, then?"

'"The brain of a devil." He spoke quite coolly, and never moved a
muscle. "The brain of a devil," he repeated, "and I have no doubt that
Black found some way of putting an end to it. I don't blame him if he
did. Whatever Mrs. Black was, she was not fit to stay in this world.
Will you have anything more? No? Good-night, good-night."

'It was a queer sort of opinion to get from a man of science, wasn't it?
When he was saying that he would not have looked on that face when alive
for a thousand guineas, or two thousand guineas, I was thinking of the
face I had seen, but I said nothing. I went again to Harlesden, and
passed from one shop to another, making small purchases, and trying to
find out whether there was anything about the Blacks which was not
already common property, but there was very little to hear. One of the
tradesmen to whom I spoke said he had known the dead woman well; she
used to buy of him such quantities of grocery as were required for their
small household, for they never kept a servant, but had a charwoman in
occasionally, and she had not seen Mrs. Black for months before she
died. According to this man Mrs. Black was "a nice lady," always kind
and considerate, and so fond of her husband and he of her, as everyone
thought. And yet, to put the doctor's opinion on one side, I knew what I
had seen. And then after thinking it over, and putting one thing with
another, it seemed to me that the only person likely to give me much
assistance would be Black himself, and I made up my mind to find him. Of
course he wasn't to be found in Harlesden; he had left, I was told,
directly after the funeral. Everything in the house had been sold, and
one fine day Black got into the train with a small portmanteau, and
went, nobody knew where. It was a chance if he were ever heard of again,
and it was by a mere chance that I came across him at last. I was
walking one day along Gray's Inn Road, not bound for anywhere in
particular, but looking about me, as usual, and holding on to my hat,
for it was a gusty day in early March, and the wind was making the
treetops in the Inn rock and quiver. I had come up from the Holborn end,
and I had almost got to Theobald's Road when I noticed a man walking in
front of me, leaning on a stick, and to all appearance very feeble.
There was something about his look that made me curious, I don't know
why, and I began to walk briskly with the idea of overtaking him, when
of a sudden his hat blew off and came bounding along the pavement to my
feet. Of course I rescued the hat, and gave it a glance as I went
towards its owner. It was a biography in itself; a Piccadilly maker's
name in the inside, but I don't think a beggar would have picked it out
of the gutter. Then I looked up and saw Dr. Black of Harlesden waiting
for me. A queer thing, wasn't it? But, Salisbury, what a change! When I
saw Dr. Black come down the steps of his house at Harlesden he was an
upright man, walking firmly with well-built limbs; a man, should say, in
the prime of his life. And now before me there crouched this wretched
creature, bent and feeble, with shrunken cheeks, and hair that was
whitening fast, and limbs that trembled and shook together, and misery
in his eyes. He thanked me for bringing him his hat, saying, "I don't
think I should ever have got it, I can't run much now. A gusty day, sir,
isn't it?" and with this he was turning away, but by little and little I
contrived to draw him into the current of conversation, and we walked
together eastward. I think the man would have been glad to get rid of
me; but I didn't intend to let him go, and he stopped at last in front
of a miserable house in a miserable street. It was, I verily believe,
one of the most wretched quarters I have ever seen: houses that must
have been sordid and hideous enough when new, that had gathered foulness
with every year, and now seemed to lean and totter to their fall. "I
live up there," said Black, pointing to the tiles, "not in the front--in
the back. I am very quiet there. I won't ask you to come in now, but
perhaps some other day----" I caught him up at that, and told him I
should be only too glad to come and see him. He gave me an odd sort of
glance, as if he were wondering what on earth I or anybody else could
care about him, and I left him fumbling with his latch-key. I think you
will say I did pretty well when I tell you that within a few weeks I had
made myself an intimate friend of Black's. I shall never forget the
first time I went to his room; I hope I shall never see such abject,
squalid misery again. The foul paper, from which all pattern or trace of
a pattern had long vanished, subdued and penetrated with the grime of
the evil street, was hanging in mouldering pennons from the wall. Only
at the end of the room was it possible to stand upright, and the sight
of the wretched bed and the odour of corruption that pervaded the place
made me turn faint and sick. Here I found him munching a piece of bread;
he seemed surprised to find that I had kept my promise, but he gave me
his chair and sat on the bed while we talked. I used to go to see him
often, and we had long conversations together, but he never mentioned
Harlesden or his wife. I fancy that he supposed me ignorant of the
matter, or thought that if I had heard of it, I should never connect the
respectable Dr. Black of Harlesden with a poor garreteer in the
backwoods of London. He was a strange man, and as we sat together
smoking, I often wondered whether he were mad or sane, for I think the
wildest dreams of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians would appear plain and
sober fact compared with the theories I have heard him earnestly advance
in that grimy den of his. I once ventured to hint something of the sort
to him. I suggested that something he had said was in flat contradiction
to all science and all experience. "No," he answered, "not all
experience, for mine counts for something. I am no dealer in unproved
theories; what I say I have proved for myself, and at a terrible cost.
There is a region of knowledge which you will never know, which wise men
seeing from afar off shun like the plague, as well they may, but into
that region I have gone. If you knew, if you could even dream of what
may be done, of what one or two men have done in this quiet world of
ours, your very soul would shudder and faint within you. What you have
heard from me has been but the merest husk and outer covering of true
science--that science which means death, and that which is more awful
than death, to those who gain it. No, when men say that there are
strange things in the world, they little know the awe and the terror
that dwell always with them and about them." There was a sort of
fascination about the man that drew me to him, and I was quite sorry to
have to leave London for a month or two; I missed his odd talk. A few
days after I came back to town I thought I would look him up, but when I
gave the two rings at the bell that used to summon him, there was no
answer. I rang and rang again, and was just turning to go away, when the
door opened and a dirty woman asked me what I wanted. From her look I
fancy she took me for a plain-clothes officer after one of her lodgers,
but when I inquired if Mr. Black were in, she gave me a stare of another
kind. "There's no Mr. Black lives here," she said. "He's gone. He's dead
this six weeks. I always thought he was a bit queer in his head, or else
had been and got into some trouble or other. He used to go out every
morning from ten till one, and one Monday morning we heard him come in,
and go into his room and shut the door, and a few minutes after, just as
we was a-sitting down to our dinner, there was such a scream that I
thought I should have gone right off. And then we heard a stamping, and
down he came, raging and cursing most dreadful, swearing he had been
robbed of something that was worth millions. And then he just dropped
down in the passage, and we thought he was dead. We got him up to his
room, and put him on his bed, and I just sat there and waited, while my
'usband he went for the doctor. And there was the winder wide open, and
a little tin box he had lying on the floor open and empty, but of course
nobody could possible have got in at the winder, and as for him having
anything that was worth anything, it's nonsense, for he was often weeks
and weeks behind with his rent, and my 'usband he threatened often and
often to turn him into the street, for, as he said, we've got a living
to myke like other people--and, of course, that's true; but, somehow, I
didn't like to do it, though he was an odd kind of a man, and I fancy
had been better off. And then the doctor came and looked at him, and
said as he couldn't do nothing, and that night he died as I was
a-sitting by his bed; and I can tell you that, with one thing and
another, we lost money by him, for the few bits of clothes as he had
were worth next to nothing when they came to be sold." I gave the woman
half a sovereign for her trouble, and went home thinking of Dr. Black
and the epitaph she had made him, and wondering at his strange fancy
that he had been robbed. I take it that he had very little to fear on
that score, poor fellow; but I suppose that he was really mad, and died
in a sudden access of his mania. His landlady said that once or twice
when she had had occasion to go into his room (to dun the poor wretch
for his rent, most likely), he would keep her at the door for about a
minute, and that when she came in she would find him putting away his
tin box in the corner by the window; I suppose he had become possessed
with the idea of some great treasure, and fancied himself a wealthy man
in the midst of all his misery. _Explicit_, my tale is ended, and you
see that though I knew Black, I knew nothing of his wife or of the
history of her death--That's the Harlesden case, Salisbury, and I think
it interests me all the more deeply because there does not seem the
shadow of a possibility that I or any one else will ever know more about
it. What do you think of it?'

'Well, Dyson, I must say that I think you have contrived to surround the
whole thing with a mystery of your own making. I go for the doctor's
solution: Black murdered his wife, being himself in all probability an
undeveloped lunatic.'

'What? Do you believe, then, that this woman was something too awful,
too terrible to be allowed to remain on the earth? You will remember
that the doctor said it was the brain of a devil?'

'Yes, yes, but he was speaking, of course, metaphorically. It's really
quite a simple matter if you only look at it like that.'

'Ah, well, you may be right; but yet I am sure you are not. Well, well,
it's not good discussing it any more. A little more Benedictine? That's
right; try some of this tobacco. Didn't you say that you had been
bothered by something--something which happened that night we dined
together?'

'Yes, I have been worried, Dyson, worried a great deal. I----But it's
such a trivial matter--indeed, such an absurdity--that I feel ashamed to
trouble you with it.'

'Never mind, let's have it, absurd or not.'

With many hesitations, and with much inward resentment of the folly of
the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd
intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting
to hear Dyson burst out into a roar of laughter.

'Isn't it too bad that I should let myself be bothered by such stuff as
that?' he asked, when he had stuttered out the jingle once, and
twice, and thrice.

Dyson had listened to it all gravely, even to the end, and meditated for
a few minutes in silence.

'Yes,' he said at length, 'it was a curious chance, your taking shelter
in that archway just as those two went by. But I don't know that I
should call what was written on the paper nonsense; it is bizarre
certainly but I expect it has a meaning for somebody. Just repeat it
again, will you, and I will write it down. Perhaps we might find a
cipher of some sort, though I hardly think we shall.'

Again had the reluctant lips of Salisbury slowly to stammer out the
rubbish that he abhorred, while Dyson jotted it down on a slip of paper.

'Look over it, will you?' he said, when it was done; 'it may be
important that I should have every word in its place. Is that all
right?'

'Yes; that is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out
of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must be
going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is pretty strong.
Good-night.'

'I suppose you would like to hear from me, if I did find out anything?'

'No, not I; I don't want to hear about the thing again. You may regard
the discovery, if it is one, as your own.'

'Very well. Good-night.'


IV


A good many hours after Salisbury had returned to the company of the
green rep chairs, Dyson still sat at his desk, itself a Japanese
romance, smoking many pipes, and meditating over his friend's story. The
bizarre quality of the inscription which had annoyed Salisbury was to
him an attraction, and now and again he took it up and scanned
thoughtfully what he had written, especially the quaint jingle at the
end. It was a token, a symbol, he decided, and not a cipher, and the
woman who had flung it away was in all probability entirely ignorant of
its meaning; she was but the agent of the 'Sam' she had abused and
discarded, and he too was again the agent of some one unknown; possibly
of the individual styled Q, who had been forced to visit his French
friends. But what to make of 'Traverse Handel S.' Here was the root and
source of the enigma, and not all the tobacco of Virginia seemed likely
to suggest any clue here. It seemed almost hopeless, but Dyson regarded
himself as the Wellington of mysteries, and went to bed feeling assured
that sooner or later he would hit upon the right track. For the next few
days he was deeply engaged in his literary labours, labours which were a
profound mystery even to the most intimate of his friends, who searched
the railway bookstalls in vain for the result of so many hours spent at
the Japanese bureau in company with strong tobacco and black tea. On
this occasion Dyson confined himself to his room for four days, and it
was with genuine relief that he laid down his pen and went out into the
streets in quest of relaxation and fresh air. The gas-lamps were being
lighted, and the fifth edition of the evening papers was being howled
through the streets, and Dyson, feeling that he wanted quiet, turned
away from the clamorous Strand, and began to trend away to the
north-west. Soon he found himself in streets that echoed to his
footsteps, and crossing a broad new thoroughfare, and verging still to
the west, Dyson discovered that he had penetrated to the depths of Soho.
Here again was life; rare vintages of France and Italy, at prices which
seemed contemptibly small, allured the passer-by; here were cheeses,
vast and rich, here olive oil, and here a grove of Rabelaisian sausages;
while in a neighbouring shop the whole Press of Paris appeared to be on
sale. In the middle of the roadway a strange miscellany of nations
sauntered to and fro, for there cab and hansom rarely ventured; and from
window over window the inhabitants looked forth in pleased contemplation
of the scene. Dyson made his way slowly along, mingling with the crowd
on the cobble-stones, listening to the queer babel of French and German,
and Italian and English, glancing now and again at the shop windows with
their levelled batteries of bottles, and had almost gained the end of
the street, when his attention was arrested by a small shop at the
corner, a vivid contrast to its neighbours. It was the typical shop of
the poor quarter; a shop entirely English. Here were vended tobacco and
sweets, cheap pipes of clay and cherry-wood; penny exercise-books and
pen-holders jostled for precedence with comic songs, and story papers
with appalling cuts showed that romance claimed its place beside the
actualities of the evening paper, the bills of which fluttered at the
doorway. Dyson glanced up at the name above the door, and stood by the
kennel trembling, for a sharp pang, the pang of one who has made a
discovery, had for a moment left him incapable of motion. The name over
the shop was Travers. Dyson looked up again, this time at the corner of
the wall above the lamppost, and read in white letters on a blue ground
the words 'Handel Street, W.C.' and the legend was repeated in fainter
letters just below. He gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and without
more ado walked boldly into the shop, and stared full in the face of the
fat man who was sitting behind the counter. The fellow rose to his feet,
and returned the stare a little curiously, and then began in stereotyped
phrase--

'What can I do for you, sir?'

Dyson enjoyed the situation and a dawning perplexity on the man's face.
He propped his stick carefully against the counter and leaning over it,
said slowly and impressively--

'Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around the
maple-tree.'

Dyson had calculated on his words producing an effect, and he was not
disappointed. The vendor of the miscellanies gasped, open-mouthed like a
fish, and steadied himself against the counter. When he spoke, after a
short interval, it was in a hoarse mutter, tremulous and unsteady.

'Would you mind saying that again, sir? I didn't quite catch it.'

'My good man, I shall most certainly do nothing of the kind. You heard
what I said perfectly well. You have got a clock in your shop, I see; an
admirable time-keeper, I have no doubt. Well, I give you a minute by
your own clock.'

The man looked about him in a perplexed indecision, and Dyson felt that
it was time to be bold.

'Look here, Travers, the time is nearly up. You have heard of Q, I
think. Remember, I hold your life in my hands. Now!'

Dyson was shocked at the result of his own audacity. The man shrank and
shrivelled in terror, the sweat poured down a face of ashy white, and he
held up his hands before him.

'Mr. Davies, Mr. Davies, don't say that--don't for Heaven's sake. I
didn't know you at first, I didn't indeed. Good God! Mr. Davies, you
wouldn't ruin me? I'll get it in a moment.'

'You had better not lose any more time.'

The man slunk piteously out of his own shop, and went into a back
parlour. Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of
keys, and the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a
small package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and still,
full of terror, handed it to Dyson.

'I'm glad to be rid of it,' he said. 'I'll take no more jobs of this
sort.'

Dyson took the parcel and his stick, and walked out of the shop with a
nod, turning round as he passed the door. Travers had sunk into his
seat, his face still white with terror, with one hand over his eyes, and
Dyson speculated a good deal as he walked rapidly away as to what queer
chords those could be on which he had played so roughly. He hailed the
first hansom he could see and drove home, and when he had lit his
hanging lamp, and laid his parcel on the table, he paused for a moment,
wondering on what strange thing the lamplight would soon shine. He
locked his door, and cut the strings, and unfolded the paper layer after
layer, and came at last to a small wooden box, simply but solidly made.
There was no lock, and Dyson had simply to raise the lid, and as he did
so he drew a long breath and started back. The lamp seemed to glimmer
feebly like a single candle, but the whole room blazed with light--and
not with light alone, but with a thousand colours, with all the glories
of some painted window; and upon the walls of his room and on the
familiar furniture, the glow flamed back and seemed to flow again to its
source, the little wooden box. For there upon a bed of soft wool lay the
most splendid jewel, a jewel such as Dyson had never dreamed of, and
within it shone the blue of far skies, and the green of the sea by the
shore, and the red of the ruby, and deep violet rays, and in the middle
of all it seemed aflame as if a fountain of fire rose up, and fell, and
rose again with sparks like stars for drops. Dyson gave a long deep
sigh, and dropped into his chair, and put his hands over his eyes to
think. The jewel was like an opal, but from a long experience of the
shop-windows he knew there was no such thing as an opal one-quarter or
one-eighth of its size. He looked at the stone again, with a feeling
that was almost awe, and placed it gently on the table under the lamp,
and watched the wonderful flame that shone and sparkled in its centre,
and then turned to the box, curious to know whether it might contain
other marvels. He lifted the bed of wool on which the opal had reclined,
and saw beneath, no more jewels, but a little old pocket-book, worn and
shabby with use. Dyson opened it at the first leaf, and dropped the book
again appalled. He had read the name of the owner, neatly written in
blue ink:

STEVEN BLACK, M.D.,
Oranmore,
Devon Road,
Harlesden.

It was several minutes before Dyson could bring himself to open the book
a second time; he remembered the wretched exile in his garret; and his
strange talk, and the memory too of the face he had seen at the window,
and of what the specialist had said, surged up in his mind, and as he
held his finger on the cover, he shivered, dreading what might be
written within. When at last he held it in his hand, and turned the
pages, he found that the first two leaves were blank, but the third was
covered with clear, minute writing, and Dyson began to read with the
light of the opal flaming in his eyes.


V


'Ever since I was a young man'--the record began--'I devoted all my
leisure and a good deal of time that ought to have been given to other
studies to the investigation of curious and obscure branches of
knowledge. What are commonly called the pleasures of life had never any
attractions for me, and I lived alone in London, avoiding my fellow
students, and in my turn avoided by them as a man self-absorbed and
unsympathetic. So long as I could gratify my desire of knowledge of a
peculiar kind, knowledge of which the very existence is a profound
secret to most men, I was intensely happy, and I have often spent whole
nights sitting in the darkness of my room, and thinking of the strange
world on the brink of which I trod. My professional studies, however,
and the necessity of obtaining a degree, for some time forced my more
obscure employment into the background, and soon after I had qualified I
met Agnes, who became my wife. We took a new house in this remote
suburb, and I began the regular routine of a sober practice, and for
some months lived happily enough, sharing in the life about me, and only
thinking at odd intervals of that occult science which had once
fascinated my whole being. I had learnt enough of the paths I had begun
to tread to know that they were beyond all expression difficult and
dangerous, that to persevere meant in all probability the wreck of a
life, and that they led to regions so terrible, that the mind of man
shrinks appalled at the very thought. Moreover, the quiet and the peace
I had enjoyed since my marriage had wiled me away to a great extent from
places where I knew no peace could dwell. But suddenly--I think indeed
it was the work of a single night, as I lay awake on my bed gazing into
the darkness--suddenly, I say, the old desire, the former longing,
returned, and returned with a force that had been intensified ten times
by its absence; and when the day dawned and I looked out of the window,
and saw with haggard eyes the sunrise in the east, I knew that my doom
had been pronounced; that as I had gone far, so now I must go farther
with unfaltering steps. I turned to the bed where my wife was sleeping
peacefully, and lay down again, weeping bitter tears, for the sun had
set on our happy life and had risen with a dawn of terror to us both. I
will not set down here in minute detail what followed; outwardly I went
about the day's labour as before, saying nothing to my wife. But she
soon saw that I had changed; I spent my spare time in a room which I had
fitted up as a laboratory, and often I crept upstairs in the grey dawn
of the morning, when the light of many lamps still glowed over London;
and each night I had stolen a step nearer to that great abyss which I
was to bridge over, the gulf between the world of consciousness and the
world of matter. My experiments were many and complicated in their
nature, and it was some months before I realised whither they all
pointed, and when this was borne in upon me in a moment's time, I felt
my face whiten and my heart still within me. But the power to draw back,
the power to stand before the doors that now opened wide before me and
not to enter in, had long ago been absent; the way was closed, and I
could only pass onward. My position was as utterly hopeless as that of
the prisoner in an utter dungeon, whose only light is that of the
dungeon above him; the doors were shut and escape was impossible.
Experiment after experiment gave the same result, and I knew, and shrank
even as the thought passed through my mind, that in the work I had to do
there must be elements which no laboratory could furnish, which no
scales could ever measure. In that work, from which even I doubted to
escape with life, life itself must enter; from some human being there
must be drawn that essence which men call the soul, and in its place
(for in the scheme of the world there is no vacant chamber)--in its
place would enter in what the lips can hardly utter, what the mind
cannot conceive without a horror more awful than the horror of death
itself. And when I knew this, I knew also on whom this fate would fall;
I looked into my wife's eyes. Even at that hour, if I had gone out and
taken a rope and hanged myself, I might have escaped, and she also, but
in no other way. At last I told her all. She shuddered, and wept, and
called on her dead mother for help, and asked me if I had no mercy, and
I could only sigh. I concealed nothing from her; I told her what she
would become, and what would enter in where her life had been; I told
her of all the shame and of all the horror. You who will read this when
I am dead--if indeed I allow this record to survive--you who have opened
the box and have seen what lies there, if you could understand what lies
hidden in that opal! For one night my wife consented to what I asked of
her, consented with the tears running down her beautiful face, and hot
shame flushing red over her neck and breast, consented to undergo this
for me. I threw open the window, and we looked together at the sky and
the dark earth for the last time; it was a fine star-light night, and
there was a pleasant breeze blowing: and I kissed her on her lips, and
her tears ran down upon my face. That night she came down to my
laboratory, and there, with shutters bolted and barred down, with
curtains drawn thick and close, so that the very stars might be shut out
from the sight of that room, while the crucible hissed and boiled over
the lamp, I did what had to be done, and led out what was no longer a
woman. But on the table the opal flamed and sparkled with such light as
no eyes of man have ever gazed on, and the rays of the flame that was
within it flashed and glittered, and shone even to my heart. My wife had
only asked one thing of me; that when there came at last what I had told
her, I would kill her. I have kept that promise.'

There was nothing more. Dyson let the little pocket-book fall, and
turned and looked again at the opal with its flaming inmost light, and
then with unutterable irresistible horror surging up in his heart,
grasped the jewel, and flung it on the ground, and trampled it beneath
his heel. His face was white with terror as he turned away, and for a
moment stood sick and trembling, and then with a start he leapt across
the room and steadied himself against the door. There was an angry hiss,
as of steam escaping under great pressure, and as he gazed, motionless,
a volume of heavy yellow smoke was slowly issuing from the very centre
of the jewel, and wreathing itself in snakelike coils above it. And then
a thin white flame burst forth from the smoke, and shot up into the air
and vanished; and on the ground there lay a thing like a cinder, black
and crumbling to the touch.


* *



THE SHINING PYRAMID


1. The Arrow-head Character


"Haunted, you said?"

"Yes, haunted. Don't you remember, when I saw you three years ago, you
told me about your place in the west with the ancient woods hanging all
about it, and the wild, domed hills, and the ragged land? It has always
remained a sort of enchanted picture in my mind as I sit at my desk and
hear the traffic rattling in the Street in the midst of whirling London.
But when did you come up?"

"The fact is, Dyson, I have only just got out of the train. I drove to
the station early this morning and caught the 10.45."

"Well, I am very glad you looked in on me. How have you been getting on
since we last met? There is no Mrs. Vaughan, I suppose?"

"No," said Vaughan, "I am still a hermit, like yourself. I have done
nothing but loaf about."

Vaughan had lit his pipe and sat in the elbow chair, fidgeting and
glancing about him in a somewhat dazed and restless manner. Dyson had
wheeled round his chair when his visitor entered and sat with one arm
fondly reclining on the desk of his bureau, and touching the litter of
manuscript.

"And you are still engaged in the old task?" said Vaughan, pointing to
the pile of papers and the teeming pigeon-holes.

"Yes, the vain pursuit of literature, as idle as alchemy, and as
entrancing. But you have come to town for some time I suppose; what
shall we do to-night?"

"Well. I rather wanted you to try a few days with me down in the west.
It would do you a lot of good. I'm sure."

"You are very kind, Vaughan, but London in September is hard to leave.
Doré could not have designed anything more wonderful and mystic than
Oxford Street as I saw it the other evening; the sunset flaming, the
blue haze transmuting the plain street into a road 'far in the spiritual
city.'"

"I should like you to come down though. You would enjoy roaming over our
hills. Does this racket go on all day and night? It quite bewilders me;
I wonder how you can work through it. I am sure you would revel in the
great peace of my old home among the woods."

Vaughan lit his pipe again, and looked anxiously at Dyson to see if his
inducements had had any effect, but the man of letters shook his head,
smiling, and vowed in his heart a firm allegiance to the streets.

"You cannot tempt me," he said.

'Well, you may be right. Perhaps, after all, I was wrong to speak of the
peace of the country. There, when a tragedy does occur, it is like a
stone thrown into a pond; the circles of disturbance keep on widening,
and it seems as if the water would never be still again."

"Have you ever any tragedies where you are?"

"I can hardly say that. But I was a good deal disturbed about a month
ago by something that happened; it may or may not have been a tragedy in
the usual sense of the word."

"What was the occurrence?"

"Well, the fact is a girl disappeared in a way which seems highly
mysterious. Her parents, people of the name of Trevor, are well-to-do
farmers, and their eldest daughter Annie was a sort of village beauty;
she was really remarkably handsome. One afternoon she thought she would
go and see her aunt, a widow who farms her own land, and as the two
houses are only about five or six miles apart, she started off, telling
her parents she would take the short cut over the hills. She never got
to her aunt's, and she never was seen again. That's putting it in a few
words."

"What an extraordinary thing! I suppose there are no disused mines, are
there, on the hills? I don't think you quite run to anything so
formidable as a precipice?"

"No; the path the girl must have taken had no pitfalls of any
description; it is just a track over wild, bare hillside, far, even from
a byroad. One may walk for miles without meeting a soul, but it is
perfectly safe."

"And what do people say about it?"

"Oh, they talk nonsense--among themselves. You have no notion as to how
superstitious English cottagers are in out-of-the-way parts like mine.
They are as bad as the Irish, every whit, and even more secretive."

"But what do they say?"

"Oh, the poor girl is supposed to have 'gone with the fairies,' or to
have been 'taken by the fairies.' Such stuff!" he went on, "one would
laugh if it were not for the real tragedy of the case."

Dyson looked somewhat interested.

"Yes," he said, "'fairies' certainly strike a little curiously on the
ear in these days. But what do the police say? I presume they do not
accept the fairy-tale hypothesis?"

"No; but they seem quite at fault. What I am afraid of is that Annie
Trevor must have fallen in with some scoundrels on her way. Castletown
is a large seaport, you know, and some of the worst of the foreign
sailors occasionally desert their ships and go on the tramp up and down
the country. Not many years ago a Spanish sailor named Garcia murdered a
whole family for the sake of plunder that was not worth sixpence. They
are hardly human, some of these fellows, and I am dreadfully afraid the
poor girl must have come to an awful end."

"But no foreign sailor was seen by anyone about the country?"

"No; there is certainly that; and of course country people are quick to
notice anyone whose appearance and dress are a little out of the common.
Still it seems as if my theory were the only possible explanation."

"There are no data to go upon," said Dyson, thoughtfully. "There was no
question of a love affair, or anything of the kind, I suppose?"

"Oh, no, not a hint of such a thing. I am sure if Annie were alive she
would have contrived to let her mother know of her safety."

"No doubt, no doubt. Still it is barely possible that she is alive and
yet unable to communicate with her friends. But all this must have
disturbed you a good deal."

"Yes, it did; I hate a mystery, and especially a mystery which is
probably the veil of horror. But frankly, Dyson, I want to make a clean
breast of it; I did not come here to tell you all this."

"Of course not," said Dyson, a little surprised at Vaughan's uneasy
manner. "You came to have a chat on more cheerful topics."

"No, I did not. What I have been telling you about happened a month ago,
but something which seems likely to affect me more personally has taken
place within the last few days, and to be quite plain, I came up to town
with the idea that you might be able to help me. You recollect that
curious case you spoke to me about on our last meeting; something about
a spectacle-maker."

"Oh, yes, I remember that. I know I was quite proud of my acumen at the
time; even to this day the police have no idea why those peculiar yellow
spectacles were wanted. But, Vaughan, you really look quite put out; I
hope there is nothing serious?"

"No, I think I have been exaggerating, and I want you to reassure me.
But what has happened is very odd."

"And what has happened?"

"I am sure that you will laugh at me, but this is the story. You must
know there is a path, a right of way, that goes through my land, and to
be precise, close to the wall of the kitchen garden. It is not used by
many people; a woodman now and again finds it useful, and five or six
children who go to school in the village pass twice a day. Well, a few
days ago I was taking a walk about the place before breakfast, and I
happened to stop to fill my pipe just by the large doors in the garden
wall. The wood, I must tell you, comes to within a few feet of the wall,
and the track I spoke of runs right in the shadow of the trees. I
thought the shelter from a brisk wind that was blowing rather pleasant,
and I stood there smoking with my eyes on the ground. Then something
caught my attention. Just under the wall, on the short grass; a number
of small flints were arranged in a pattern; something like this": and
Mr. Vaughan caught at a pencil and piece of paper, and dotted down a few
strokes.

"You see," he went on, "there were, I should think, twelve little stones
neatly arranged in lines, and spaced at equal distances, as I have shown
it on the paper. They were pointed stones, and the points were very
carefully directed one way."

"Yes," said Dyson, without much interest, "no doubt the children you
have mentioned had been playing there on their way from school.
Children, as you know, are very fond of making such devices with oyster
shells or flints or flowers, or with whatever comes in their way."

"So I thought; I just noticed these flints were arranged in a sort of
pattern and then went on. But the next morning I was taking the same
round, which, as a matter of fact, is habitual with me, and again I saw
at the same spot a device in flints. This time it was really a curious
pattern; something like the spokes of a wheel, all meeting at a common
centre, and this centre formed by a device which looked like a bowl;
all, you understand done in flints."

"You are right," said Dyson, "that seems odd enough. Still it is
reasonable that your half-a-dozen school children are responsible for
these fantasies in stone."

"Well, I thought I would set the matter at rest. The children pass the
gate every evening at half-past five, and I walked by at six, and found
the device just as I had left it in the morning. The next day I was up
and about at a quarter to seven, and I found the whole thing had been
changed. There was a pyramid outlined in flints upon the grass. The
children I saw going by an hour and a half later, and they ran past the
spot without glancing to right or left. In the evening I watched them
going home, and this morning when I got to the gate at six o'clock there
was a thing like a half moon waiting for me."

"So then the series runs thus: firstly ordered lines, then, the device
of the spokes and the bowl, then the pyramid, and finally, this morning,
the half moon. That is the order, isn't it?"

"Yes; that is right. But do you know it has made me feel very uneasy? I
suppose it seems absurd, but I can't help thinking that some kind of
signalling is going on under my nose, and that sort of thing is
disquieting."

"But what have you to dread? You have no enemies?"

"No; but I have some very valuable old plate."

"You are thinking of burglars then?" said Dyson, with an accent of
considerable interest, "but you must know your neighbours. Are there any
suspicious characters about?"

"Not that I am aware of. But you remember what I told you of the
sailors."

"Can you trust your servants?"

"Oh, perfectly. The plate is preserved in a strong room; the butler, an
old family servant, alone knows where the key is kept. There is nothing
wrong there. Still, everybody is aware that I have a lot of old silver,
and all country folks are given to gossip. In that way information may
have got abroad in very undesirable quarters."

"Yes, but I confess there seems something a little unsatisfactory in the
burglar theory. Who is signalling to whom? I cannot see my way to
accepting such an explanation. What put the plate into your head in
connection with these flints signs, or whatever one may call them?"

"It was the figure of the Bowl," said Vaughan. "I happen to possess a
very large and very valuable Charles II punch-bowl. The chasing is
really exquisite, and the thing is worth a lot of money. The sign I
described to you was exactly the same shape as my punch-bowl."

"A queer coincidence certainly. But the other figures or devices: you
have nothing shaped like a pyramid?"

"Ah, you will think that queerer. As it happens, this punch-bowl of
mine, together with a set of rare old ladles, is kept in a mahogany
chest of a pyramidal shape. The four sides slope upwards, the narrow
towards the top."

"I confess all this interests me a good deal," said Dyson. "let us go on
then. What about the other figures; how about the Army, as we may call
the first sign, and the Crescent or Half moon?"

"Ah, there is no reference that I can make out of these two. Still, you
see I have some excuse for curiosity at all events. I should be very
vexed to lose any of the old plate; nearly all the pieces have been in
the family for generations. And I cannot get it out of my head that some
scoundrels mean to rob me, and are communicating with one another every
night."

"Frankly," said Dyson, "I can make nothing of it; I am as much in the
dark as yourself. Your theory seems certainly the only possible
explanation, and yet the difficulties are immense."

He leaned back in his chair, and the two men faced each other, frowning,
and perplexed by so bizarre a problem.

"By the way," said Dyson, after a long pause, "what is your geological
formation down there?"

Mr. Vaughan looked up, a good deal surprised by the question.

"Old red sandstone and limestone, I believe," he said. "We are just
beyond the coal measures, you know."

"But surely there are no flints either in the sandstone or the
limestone?"

"No, I never see any flints in the fields. I confess that did strike me
as a little curious."

"I should think so! It is very important. By the way, what size were the
flints used in making these devices?"

"I happen to have brought one with me; I took it this morning."

"From the Half moon?"

"Exactly. Here it is."

He handed over a small flint, tapering to a point, and about three
inches in length.

Dyson's face blazed up with excitement as he took the thing from
Vaughan.

"Certainly," he said, after a moment's pause, "you have some curious
neighbours in your country. I hardly think they can harbour any designs
on your punch-bowl. Do you know this is a flint arrowhead of vast
antiquity, and not only that, but an arrow-head of a unique kind? I have
seen specimens from all parts of the world, but there are features about
this thing that are quite peculiar." He laid down his pipe, and took out
a book from a drawer.

"We shall just have time to catch the 5.45 to Castletown," he said.


2. The Eyes on the Wall


Mr. Dyson drew in a long breath of the air of the hills and felt all the
enchantment of the scene about him. It was very early morning, and he
stood on the terrace in the front of the house.

Vaughan's ancestor had built on the lower slope of a great hill, in the
shelter of a deep and ancient wood that gathered on three sides about
the house, and on the fourth side, the southwest, the land fell gently
away and sank to the valley, where a brook wound in and out in mystic
esses, and the dark and gleaming alders tracked the stream's course to
the eye. On the terrace in the sheltered place no wind blew, and far
beyond, the trees were still. Only one sound broke in upon the silence,
and Dyson heard the noise of the brook singing far below, the song of
clear and shining water rippling over the stones, whispering and
murmuring as it sank to dark deep pools.

Across the stream, just below the house, rose a grey stone bridge,
vaulted and buttressed, a fragment of the Middle Ages, and then beyond
the bridge the hills rose again, vast and rounded like bastions, covered
here and there with dark woods and thickets of undergrowth, but the
heights were all bare of trees, showing only grey turf and patches of
bracken, touched here and there with the gold of fading fronds; Dyson
looked to the north and south, and still he saw the wall of the hills,
and the ancient woods, and the stream drawn in and out between them; all
grey and dim with morning mist beneath a grey sky in a hushed and
haunted air.

Mr. Vaughan's voice broke in upon the silence.

"I thought you would be too tired to be about so early," he said. "I see
you are admiring the view. It is very pretty, isn't it, though I suppose
old Meyrick Vaughan didn't think much about the scenery when he built
the house. A queer grey, old place, isn't it?"

"Yes, and how it fits into the surroundings; it seems of a piece with
the grey hills and the grey bridge below."

"I am afraid I have brought you down on false pretences, Dyson," said
Vaughan, as they began to walk up and down the terrace. "I have been to
the place, and there is not a sign of anything this morning."

"Ah, indeed. Well, suppose we go round together."

They walked across the lawn and went by a path through the ilex
shrubbery to the back of the house. There Vaughan pointed out the track
leading down to the valley and up to the heights above the wood, and
presently they stood beneath the garden wall, by the door.

"Here, you see, it was," said Vaughan, pointing to a spot on the turf.
"I was standing just where you are now that morning I first saw the
flints."

"Yes, quite so. That morning it was the Army, as I call it; then the
Bowl, then the Pyramid, and, yesterday, the Half moon. What a queer old
stone that is," he went on, pointing to a block of limestone rising out
of the turf just beneath the wall. 'It looks like a sort of dwarf
pillar, but I suppose it is natural."

"Oh, yes, I think so. I imagine it was brought here, though, as we stand
on the red sandstone. No doubt it was used as a foundation stone for
some older building."

"Very likely," Dyson was peering about him attentively, looking from the
ground to the wall, and from the wall to the deep wood that hung almost
over the garden and made the place dark even in the morning.

"Look here," said Dyson at length, "it is certainly a case of children
this time. Look at that." He was bending down and staring at the dull
red surface of the mellowed bricks of the wall.

Vaughan came up and looked hard where Dyson's finger was pointing, and
could scarcely distinguish a faint mark in deeper red.

"What is it?" he said. "I can make nothing of it."

"Look a little more closely. Don't you see it is an attempt to draw the
human eye?"

"Ah, now I see what you mean. My sight is not very sharp. Yes, so it is,
it is meant for an eye, no doubt, as you say. I thought the children
learnt drawing at school."

"Well, it is an odd eye enough. Do you notice the peculiar almond shape;
almost like the eye of a Chinaman?"

Dyson looked meditatively at the work of the undeveloped artist, and
scanned the wall again, going down on his knees in the minuteness of his
inquisition.

"I should like very much," he said at length, "to know how a child in
this out of the way place could have any idea of the shape of the
Mongolian eye. You see the average child has a very distinct impression
of the subject; he draws a circle, or something like a circle, and put a
dot in the centre. I don't think any child imagines that the eye is
really made like that; it's just a convention of infantile art. But this
almond-shaped thing puzzles me extremely. Perhaps it may be derived from
a gilt Chinaman on a tea-canister in the grocer's shop. Still that's
hardly likely."

"But why are you so sure it was done by a child?"

"Why! Look at the height. These old-fashioned bricks are little more
than two inches thick; there are twenty courses from the ground to the
sketch if we call it so; that gives a height of three and a half feet.
Now, just imagine you are going to draw something on this wall. Exactly;
your pencil, if you had one, would touch the wall somewhere on the level
with your eyes, that is, more than five feet from the ground. It seems,
therefore, a very simple deduction to conclude that this eye on the wall
was drawn by a child about ten years old."

"Yes, I had not thought of that. Of course one of the children must have
done it."

"I suppose so; and yet as I said, there is something singularly
unchildlike about those two lines, and the eyeball itself, you see, is
almost an oval. To my mind, the thing has an odd, ancient air; and a
touch that is not altogether pleasant. I cannot help fancying that if we
could see a whole face from the same hand it would not be altogether
agreeable. However, that is nonsense, after all, and we are not getting
farther in our investigations. It is odd that the flint series has come
to such an abrupt end."

The two men walked away towards the house, and as they went in at the
porch there was a break in the grey sky, and a gleam of sunshine on the
grey hill before them.

All the day Dyson prowled meditatively about the fields and woods
surrounding the house. He was thoroughly and completely puzzled by the
trivial circumstances he proposed to elucidate, and now he again took
the flint arrow-head from his pocket, turning it over and examining it
with deep attention. There was something about the thing that was
altogether different from the specimens he had seen at the museums and
private collections; the shape was of a distinct type, and around the
edge there was a line of little punctured dots, apparently a suggestion
of ornament. Who, thought Dyson, could possess such things in so remote
a place; and who, possessing the flints, could have put them to the
fantastic use of designing meaningless figures under Vaughan's garden
wall? The rank absurdity of the whole affair offended him unutterably;
and as one theory after another rose in his mind only to be rejected, he
felt strongly tempted to take the next train back to town. He had seen
the silver plate which Vaughan treasured, and had inspected the
punch-bowl, the gem of the collection, with close attention; and what he
saw and his interview with the butler convinced him that a plot to rob
the strong box was out of the limits of enquiry. The chest in which the
bowl was kept, a heavy piece of mahogany, evidently dating from the
beginning of the century, was certainly strongly suggestive of a
pyramid, and Dyson was at first inclined to the inept manoeuvres of the
detective, but a little sober thought convinced him of the impossibility
of the burglary hypothesis, and he cast wildly about for something more
satisfying. He asked Vaughan if there were any gipsies in the
neighbourhood, and heard that the Romany had not been seen for years.
This dashed him a good deal, as he knew the gipsy habit of leaving queer
hieroglyphics on the line of march, and had been much elated when the
thought occurred to him. He was facing Vaughan by the old-fashioned
hearth when he put the question, and leaned back in his chair in disgust
at the destruction of his theory.

"It is odd," said Vaughan, "but the gipsies never trouble us here. Now
and then the farmers find traces of fires in the wildest part of the
hills, but nobody seems to know who the fire-lighters are."

"Surely that looks like gipsies?"

"No, not in such places as those. Tinkers and gipsies and wanderers of
all sorts stick to the roads and don't go very far from the farmhouses."

"Well, I can make nothing of it. I saw the children going by this
afternoon, and, as you say, they ran straight on. So we shall have no
more eyes on the wall at all events."

"No, I must waylay them one of these days and find out who is the
artist."

The next morning when Vaughan strolled in his usual course from the lawn
to the back of the house he found Dyson already awaiting him by the
garden door, and evidently in a state of high excitement, for he
beckoned furiously with his hand, and gesticulated violently.

"What is it?" asked Vaughan. "The flints again?"

"No; but took here, look at the wall. There; don't you see it?"

"There's another of those eyes!"

"Exactly. Drawn, you see, at a little distance from the first, almost on
the same level, but slightly lower."

"What on earth is one to make of it? It couldn't have been done by the
children; it wasn't there last night, and they won't pass for another
hour. What can it mean?"

"I think the very devil is at the bottom of all this," said Dyson. "Of
course, one cannot resist the conclusion that these infernal almond eyes
are to be set down to the same agency as the devices in the arrow-heads;
and where that conclusion is to lead us is more than I can tell. For my
part, I have to put a strong check on my imagination, or it would run
wild."

"Vaughan," he said, as they turned away from the wall, "has it struck
you that there is one point--a very curious point--in common between the
figures done in flints and the eyes drawn on the wall?"

"What is that?" asked Vaughan, on whose face there had fallen a certain
shadow of indefinite dread.

"It is this. We know that the signs of the Army, the Bowl, the Pyramid,
and the Half moon must have been done at night. Presumably they were
meant to be seen at night. Well, precisely the same reasoning applies to
those eyes on the wall."

"I do not quite see your point."

"Oh, surely. The nights are dark just now, and have been very cloudy, I
know, since I came down. Moreover, those overhanging trees would throw
that wall into deep shadow even on a clear night."

"Well?"

"What struck me was this. What very peculiarly sharp eyesight, they,
whoever 'they' are, must have to be able to arrange arrow-heads in
intricate order in the blackest shadow of the wood, and then draw the
eyes on the wall without a trace of bungling, or a false line."

"I have read of persons confined in dungeons for many years who have
been able to see quite well in the dark," said Vaughan.

"Yes," said Dyson, "there was the abbé in Monte Cristo. But it is a
singular point."


3. The Search for the Bowl


"Who was that old man that touched his hat to you just now?" said Dyson,
as they came to the bend of the lane near the house.

"Oh, that was old Trevor. He looks very broken, poor old fellow."

"Who is Trevor?"

"Don't you remember? I told you the story that afternoon I came to your
rooms--about a girl named Annie Trevor, who disappeared in the most
inexplicable manner about five weeks ago. That was her father."

"Yes, yes, I recollect now. To tell the truth I had forgotten all about
it. And nothing has been heard of the girl?"

"Nothing whatever. The police are quite at fault."

"I am afraid I did not pay very much attention to the details you gave
me. Which way did the girl go?"

"Her path would take her right across those wild hills above the house:
the nearest point in the track must be about two miles from here."

"Is it near that little hamlet I saw yesterday?"

"You mean Croesyceiliog, where the children came from? No; it goes more
to the north."

"Ah, I have never been that way."

They went into the house, and Dyson shut himself up in his room, sunk
deep in doubtful thought, but yet with the shadow of a suspicion growing
within him that for a while haunted his brain, all vague and fantastic,
refusing to take definite form. He was sitting by the open window and
looking out on the valley and saw, as if in a picture, the intricate
winding of the brook, the grey bridge, and the vast hills rising beyond;
all still and without a breath of wind to stir the mystic hanging woods,
and the evening sunshine glowed warm on the bracken, and down below a
faint mist, pure white, began to rise from the stream. Dyson sat by the
window as the day darkened and the huge bastioned hills loomed vast and
vague, and the woods became dim and more shadowy: and the fancy that had
seized him no longer appeared altogether impossible. He passed the rest
of the evening in a reverie, hardly hearing what Vaughan said; and when
he took his candle in the hall, he paused a moment before bidding his
friend good-night.

"I want a good rest," he said. "I have got some work to do to-morrow."

"Some writing, you mean?"

"No. I am going to look for the Bowl."

"The Bowl! If you mean my punch-bowl, that is safe in the chest."

"I don't mean the punch-bowl. You may take my word for it that your
plate has never been threatened. No; I will not bother you with any
suppositions. We shall in all probability have something much stronger
than suppositions before long. Good-night, Vaughan."

The next morning Dyson set off after breakfast. He took the path by the
garden wall, and noted that there were now eight of the weird almond
eyes dimly outlined on the brick.

"Six days more," he said to himself, but as he thought over the theory
he had formed, he shrank, in spite of strong conviction, from such a
wildly incredible fancy. He struck up through the dense shadows of the
wood, and at length came out on the bare hillside, and climbed higher
and higher over the slippery turf, keeping well to the north, and
following the indications given him by Vaughan. As he went on, he seemed
to mount ever higher above the world of human life and customary things;
to his right he looked at a fringe of orchard and saw a faint blue smoke
rising like a pillar; there was the hamlet from which the children came
to school, and there the only sign of life, for the woods embowered and
concealed Vaughan's old grey house. As he reached what seemed the summit
of the hill, he realized for the first time the desolate loneliness and
strangeness of the land; there was nothing but grey sky and grey hill, a
high, vast plain that seemed to stretch on for ever and ever, and a
faint glimpse of a blue-peaked mountain far away and to the north. At
length he came to the path, a slight track scarcely noticeable, and from
its position and by what Vaughan had told him he knew that it was the
way the lost girl, Annie Trevor, must have taken. He followed the path
on the bare hill-top, noticing the great limestone rocks that cropped
out of the turf, grim and hideous, and of an aspect as forbidding as an
idol of the South Seas; and suddenly he halted, astonished, although he
had found what he searched for.

Almost without warning the ground shelved suddenly away on all sides,
and Dyson looked down into a circular depression, which might well have
been a Roman amphitheatre, and the ugly crags of limestone rimmed it
round as if with a broken wall. Dyson walked round the hollow, and noted
the position of the stones, and then turned on his way home.

"This," he thought to himself, "is more than curious. The Bowl is
discovered, but where is the Pyramid?"

"My dear Vaughan," he said, when he got back, "I may tell you that I
have found the Bowl, and that it is all I shall tell you for the
present. We have six days of absolute inaction before us; there is
really nothing to be done."


4. The Secret of the Pyramid


"I have just been round the garden," said Vaughan one morning. "I have
been counting those infernal eyes, and I find there are fourteen of
them. For heaven's sake, Dyson, tell me what the meaning of it all is."

"I should be very sorry to attempt to do so. I may have guessed this or
that, but I always make it a principle to keep my guesses to myself.
Besides, it is really not worth while anticipating events; you will
remember my telling you that we had six days of inaction before us?
Well, this is the sixth day, and the last of idleness. To-night, I
propose we take a stroll."

"A stroll! Is that all the action you mean to take?"

"Well, it may show you some very curious things. To be plain, I want you
to start with me at nine o'clock this evening for the hills. We may have
to be out all night, so you had better wrap up well, and bring some of
that brandy."

"Is it a joke?" asked Vaughan, who was bewildered with strange events
and strange surmises.

"No, I don't think there is much joke in it. Unless I am much mistaken
we shall find a very serious explanation of the puzzle. You will come
with me, I am sure?"

"Very good. Which way do you want to go?"

"By the path you told me of; the path Annie Trevor is supposed to have
taken."

Vaughan looked white at the mention of the girl's name.

"I did not think you were on that track," he said. "I thought it was the
affair of those devices in flint and of the eyes on the wall that you
were engaged on. It's no good saying any more, but I will go with you."

At a quarter to nine that evening the two men set out, taking the path
through the wood, and up the hill-side. It was a dark and heavy night,
the sky was thick with clouds, and the valley full of mist, and all the
way they seemed to walk in a world of shadow and gloom, hardly speaking,
and afraid to break the haunted silence. They came out at last on the
steep hill-side, and instead of the oppression of the wood there was the
long, dim sweep of the turf, and higher, the fantastic limestone rocks
hinted horror through the darkness, and the wind sighed as it passed
across the mountain to the sea, and in its passage beat chill about
their hearts. They seemed to walk on and on for hours, and the dim
outline of the hill still stretched before them, and the haggard rocks
still loomed through the darkness, when suddenly Dyson whispered,
drawing his breath quickly, and coming close to his companion:

"Here," he said, "we will lie down. I do not think there is anything
yet."

"I know the place," said Vaughan, after a moment. "I have often been by
in the daytime. The country people are afraid to come here, I believe;
it is supposed to be a fairies' castle, or something of the kind. But
why on earth have we come here?"

"Speak a little lower," said Dyson. "It might not do us any good if we
are overheard."

"Overheard here! There is not a soul within three miles of us."

"Possibly not; indeed, I should say certainly not. But there might be a
body somewhat nearer."

"I don't understand you in the least," said Vaughan, whispering to
humour Dyson, "but why have we come here?"

"Well, you see this hollow before us is the Bowl. I think we better not
talk even in whispers."

They lay full length upon the turf; the rock between their faces and the
Bowl, and now and again, Dyson, slouching his dark, soft hat over his
forehead, put out the glint of an eye, and in a moment drew back, not
daring to take a prolonged view. Again he laid an ear to the ground and
listened, and the hours went by, and the darkness seemed to blacken, and
the faint sigh of the wind was the only sound.

Vaughan grew impatient with this heaviness of silence, this watching for
indefinite terror; for to him there was no shape or form of
apprehension, and he began to think the whole vigil a dreary farce.

"How much longer is this to last?" he whispered to Dyson, and Dyson who
had been holding his breath in the agony of attention put his mouth to
Vaughan's ear and said:

"Will you listen?" with pauses between each syllable, and in the voice
with which the priest pronounces the awful words.

Vaughan caught the ground with his hands, and stretched forward,
wondering what he was to hear. At first there was nothing, and then a
low and gentle noise came very softly from the Bowl, a faint sound,
almost indescribable, but as if one held the tongue against the roof of
the mouth and expelled the breath. He listened eagerly and presently the
noise grew louder, and became a strident and horrible hissing as if the
pit beneath boiled with fervent heat, and Vaughan, unable to remain in
suspense any longer, drew his cap half over his face in imitation of
Dyson, and looked down to the hollow below.

It did, in truth, stir and seethe like an infernal caldron. The whole of
the sides and bottom tossed and writhed with vague and restless forms
that passed to and fro without the sound of feet, and gathered thick
here and there and seemed to speak to one another in those tones of
horrible sibilance, like the hissing of snakes, that he had heard. It
was as if the sweet turf and the cleanly earth had suddenly become
quickened with some foul writhing growth. Vaughan could not draw back
his face, though he felt Dyson's finger touch him, but he peered into
the quaking mass and saw faintly that there were things like faces and
human limbs, and yet he felt his inmost soul chill with the sure belief
that no fellow soul or human thing stirred in all that tossing and
hissing host. He looked aghast, choking back sobs of horror, and at
length the loathsome forms gathered thickest about some vague object in
the middle of the hollow, and the hissing of their speech grew more
venomous, and he saw in the uncertain light the abominable limbs, vague
and yet too plainly seen, writhe and intertwine, and he thought he
heard, very faint, a low human moan striking through the noise of speech
that was not of man. At his heart something seemed to whisper ever "the
worm of corruption, the worm that dieth not," and grotesquely the image
was pictured to his imagination of a piece of putrid offal stirring
through and through with bloated and horrible creeping things. The
writhing of the dusky limbs continued, they seemed clustered round the
dark form in the middle of the hollow, and the sweat dripped and poured
off Vaughan's forehead, and fell cold on his hand beneath his face.

Then, it seemed done in an instant, the loathsome mass melted and fell
away to the sides of the Bowl, and for a moment Vaughan saw in the
middle of the hollow the tossing of human arms.

But a spark gleamed beneath, a fire kindled, and as the voice of a woman
cried out loud in a shrill scream of utter anguish and terror, a great
pyramid of flame spired up like a bursting of a pent fountain, and threw
a blaze of light upon the whole mountain. In that instant Vaughan saw
the myriads beneath; the things made in the form of men but stunted like
children hideously deformed, the faces with the almond eyes burning with
evil and unspeakable lusts; the ghastly yellow of the mass of naked
flesh and then as if by magic the place was empty, while the fire roared
and crackled, and the flames shone abroad.

"You have seen the Pyramid," said Dyson in his ear, "the Pyramid of
fire."


5. The Little People


"Then you recognize the thing?"

"Certainly. It is a brooch that Annie Trevor used to wear on Sundays; I
remember the pattern. But where did you find it? You don't mean to say
that you have discovered the girl?"

"My dear Vaughan, I wonder you have not guessed where I found the
brooch. You have not forgotten last night already?"

"Dyson," said the other, speaking very seriously, "I have been turning
it over in my mind this morning while you have been out. I have thought
about what I saw, or perhaps I should say about what I thought I saw,
and the only conclusion I can come to is this, that the thing won't bear
recollection. As men live, I have lived soberly and honestly, in the
fear of God, all my days, and all I can do is believe that I suffered
from some monstrous delusion, from some phantasmagoria of the bewildered
senses. You know we went home together in silence, not a word passed
between us as to what I fancied I saw; had we not better agree to keep
silence on the subject? When I took my walk in the peaceful morning
sunshine, I thought all the earth seemed full of praise, and passing by
that wall I noticed there were no more signs recorded, and I blotted out
those that remained. The mystery is over, and we can live quietly again.
I think some poison has been working for the last few weeks; I have trod
on the verge of madness, but I am sane now."

Mr. Vaughan had spoken earnestly, and bent forward in his chair and
glanced at Dyson with something of entreaty.

"My dear Vaughan," said the other, after a pause, "what's the use of
this? It is much too late to take that tone; we have gone too deep.
Besides you know as well as I that there is no delusion in the case; I
wish there were with all my heart. No, in justice to myself I must tell
you the whole story, so far as I know it."

"Very good," said Vaughan with a sigh, "if you must, you must."

"Then," said Dyson, "we will begin with the end if you please. I found
this brooch you have just identified in the place we have called the
Bowl. There was a heap of grey ashes, as if a fire had been burning,
indeed, the embers were still hot, and this brooch was lying on the
ground, just outside the range of the flame. It must have dropped
accidentally from the dress of the person who was wearing it. No, don't
interrupt me; we can pass now to the beginning, as we have had the end.
Let us go back to that day you came to see me in my rooms in London. So
far as I can remember, soon after you came in you mentioned, in a
somewhat casual manner, that an unfortunate and mysterious incident had
occurred in your part of the country; a girl named Annie Trevor had gone
to see a relative, and had disappeared. I confess freely that what you
said did not greatly interest me; there are so many reasons which may
make it extremely convenient for a man and more especially a woman to
vanish from the circle of their relations and friends. I suppose, if we
were to consult the police, one would find that in London somebody
disappears mysteriously every other week, and the officers would, no
doubt, shrug their shoulders, and tell you that by the law of averages
it could not be otherwise. So I was very culpably careless to your
story, and besides, here is another reason for my lack of interest; your
tale was inexplicable. You could only suggest a blackguard sailor on the
tramp, but I discarded the explanation immediately."

For many reasons, but chiefly because the occasional criminal, the
amateur in brutal crime, is always found out, especially if he selects
the country as the scene of his operations. You will remember the case
of that Garcia you mentioned; he strolled into a railway station the day
after the murder, his trousers covered with blood, and the works of the
Dutch clock, his loot, tied in a neat parcel. So rejecting this, your
only suggestion, the whole tale became, as I say, inexplicable, and,
therefore, profoundly uninteresting. Yes, therefore, it is a perfectly
valid conclusion. Do you ever trouble your head about problems which you
know to be insoluble? Did you ever bestow much thought on the old puzzle
of Achilles and the tortoise? Of course not, because you knew it was a
hopeless quest, and so when you told me the story of a country girl who
had disappeared I simply placed the whole thing down in the category of
the insoluble, and thought no more about the matter. I was mistaken, so
it has turned out; but if you remember, you immediately passed on to an
affair which interested you more intensely, because personally, I need
not go over the very singular narrative of the flint signs, at first I
thought it all trivial, probably some children's game, and if not that a
hoax of some sort; but your showing me the arrow-head awoke my acute
interest. Here, I saw, there was something widely removed from the
commonplace, and matter of real curiosity; and as soon as I came here I
set to work to find the solution, repeating to myself again and again
the signs you had described. First came the sign we have agreed to call
the Army; a number of serried lines of flints, all pointing in the same
way. Then the lines, like the spokes of a wheel, all converging towards
the figure of a Bowl, then the triangle or Pyramid, and last of all the
Half moon. I confess that I exhausted conjecture in my efforts to unveil
this mystery, and as you will understand it was a duplex or rather
triplex problem. For I had not merely to ask myself: what do these
figures mean? but also, who can possibly be responsible for the
designing of them? And again, who can possibly possess such valuable
things, and knowing their value thus throw them down by the wayside?
This line of thought led me to suppose that the person or persons in
question did not know the value of unique flint arrow-heads, and yet
this did not lead me far, for a well-educated man might easily be
ignorant on such a subject. Then came the complication of the eye on the
wall, and you remember that we could not avoid the conclusion that in
the two cases the same agency was at work. The peculiar position of
these eyes on the wall made me inquire if there was such a thing as a
dwarf anywhere in the neighbourhood, but I found that there was not, and
I knew that the children who pass by every day had nothing to do with
the matter. Yet I felt convinced that whoever drew the eyes must be from
three and a half to four feet high, since, as I pointed out at the time,
anyone who draws on a perpendicular surface chooses by instinct a spot
about level with his face. Then again, there was the question of the
peculiar shape of the eyes; that marked Mongolian character of which the
English countryman could have no conception, and for a final cause of
confusion the obvious fact that the designer or designers must be able
practically to see in the dark. As you remarked, a man who has been
confined for many years in an extremely dark cell or dungeon might
acquire that power; but since the days of Edmond Dantés, where would
such a prison be found in Europe? A sailor, who had been immured for a
considerable period in some horrible Chinese oubliette, seemed the
individual I was in search of, and though it looked improbable, it was
not absolutely impossible that a sailor or, let us say, a man employed
on shipboard, should be a dwarf. But how to account for my imaginary
sailor being in possession of prehistoric arrow-heads? And the possession
granted, what was the meaning and object of these mysterious signs of
flint, and the almond-shaped eyes? Your theory of a contemplated
burglary I saw, nearly from the first, to be quite untenable, and I
confess I was utterly at a loss for a working hypothesis. It was a mere
accident which put me on the track; we passed poor old Trevor, and your
mention of his name and of the disappearance of his daughter, recalled
the story which I had forgotten, or which remained unheeded. Here, then,
I said to myself, is another problem, uninteresting, it is true, by
itself; but what if it prove to be in relation with all these enigmas
which torture me? I shut myself in my room, and endeavoured to dismiss
all prejudice from my mind, and I went over everything de novo, assuming
for theory's sake that the disappearance of Annie Trevor had some
connection with the flint signs and the eyes on the wall. This
assumption did not lead me very far, and I was on the point of giving
the whole problem up in despair, when a possible significance of the
Bowl struck me. As you know there is a 'Devil's Punch-bowl' in Surrey,
and I saw that the symbol might refer to some feature in the country.
Putting the two extremes together, I determined to look for the Bowl
near the path which the lost girl had taken, and you know how I found
it. I interpreted the sign by what I knew, and read the first, the Army,
thus:

'there is to be a gathering or assembly at the Bowl in a fortnight (that
is the Half moon) to see the Pyramid, or to build the Pyramid.'

The eyes, drawn one by one, day by day, evidently checked off the days,
and I knew that there would be fourteen and no more. Thus far the way
seemed pretty plain; I would not trouble myself to inquire as to the
nature of the assembly, or as to who was to assemble in the loneliest
and most dreaded place among these lonely hills. In Ireland or China or
the West of America the question would have been easily answered; a
muster of the disaffected, the meeting of a secret society; vigilantes
summoned to report: the thing would be simplicity itself; but in this
quiet corner of England, inhabited by quiet folk, no such suppositions
were possible for a moment. But I knew that I should have an opportunity
of seeing and watching the assembly, and I did not care to perplex
myself with hopeless research; and in place of reasoning a wild fancy
entered into judgment: I remembered what people had said about Annie
Trevor's disappearance, that she had been 'taken by the fairies.' I tell
you, Vaughan, I am a sane man as you are, my brain is not, I trust, mere
vacant space to let to any wild improbability, and I tried my best to
thrust the fantasy away. And the hint came of the old name of fairies,
'the little people,' and the very probable belief that they represent a
tradition of the prehistoric Turanian inhabitants of the country, who
were cave dwellers: and then I realized with a shock that I was looking
for a being under four feet in height, accustomed to live in darkness,
possessing stone instruments, and familiar with the Mongolian cast of
features! I say this, Vaughan, that I should be ashamed to hint at such
visionary stuff to you, if it were not for that which you saw with your
very eyes last night, and I say that I might doubt the evidence of my
senses, if they were not confirmed by yours. But you and I cannot look
each other in the face and pretend delusion; as you lay on the turf
beside me I felt your flesh shrink and quiver, and I saw your eyes in
the light of the flame. And so I tell you without any shame what was in
my mind last night as we went through the wood and climbed the hill, and
lay hidden beneath the rock.

"There was one thing that should have been most evident that puzzled me
to the very last. I told you how I read the sign of the Pyramid; the
assembly was to see a pyramid, and the true meaning of the symbol
escaped me to the last moment. The old derivation from up, fire, though
false, should have set me on the track, but it never occurred to me.

"I think I need say very little more. You know we were quite helpless,
even if we had foreseen what was to come. Ah, the particular place where
these signs were displayed? Yes, that is a curious question. But this
house is, so far as I can judge, in a pretty central situation amongst
the hills; and possibly, who can say yes or no, that queer, old
limestone pillar by your garden wall was a place of meeting before the
Celt set foot in Britain. But there is one thing I must add: I don't
regret our inability to rescue the wretched girl. You saw the appearance
of those things that gathered thick and writhed in the Bowl; you may be
sure that what lay bound in the midst of them was no longer fit for
earth."

"So?" said Vaughan.

"So she passed in the Pyramid of Fire," said Dyson, "and they passed
again to the underworld, to the places beneath the hills."


* * *



THE BOWMEN


It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of
the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But
it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on the day when ruin
and disaster came so near that their shadow fell over London far away;
and, without any certain news, the hearts of men failed within them
and grew faint; as if the agony of the army in the battlefield had
entered into their souls.

On this dreadful day, then, when three hundred thousand men in arms
with all their artillery swelled like a flood against the little
English company, there was one point above all other points in our
battle line that was for a time in awful danger, not merely of defeat,
but of utter annihilation. With the permission of the Censorship and
of the military expert, this corner may, perhaps, be described as a
salient, and if this angle were crushed and broken, then the English
force as a whole would be shattered, the Allied left would be turned,
and Sedan would inevitably follow.

All the morning the German guns had thundered and shrieked against
this corner, and against the thousand or so of men who held it. The
men joked at the shells, and found funny names for them, and had bets
about them, and greeted them with scraps of music-hall songs. But the
shells came on and burst, and tore good Englishmen limb from limb, and
tore brother from brother, and as the heat of the day increased so did
the fury of that terrific cannonade. There was no help, it seemed. The
English artillery was good, but there was not nearly enough of it; it
was being steadily battered into scrap iron.

There comes a moment in a storm at sea when people say to one another,
"It is at its worst; it can blow no harder," and then there is a blast
ten times more fierce than any before it. So it was in these British
trenches.

There were no stouter hearts in the whole world than the hearts of
these men; but even they were appalled as this seven-times-heated
hell of the German cannonade fell upon them and overwhelmed them and
destroyed them. And at this very moment they saw from their trenches
that a tremendous host was moving against their lines. Five hundred of
the thousand remained, and as far as they could see the German
infantry was pressing on against them, column upon column, a grey
world of men, ten thousand of them, as it appeared afterwards.

There was no hope at all. They shook hands, some of them. One man
improvised a new version of the battlesong, "Good-bye, good-bye to
Tipperary," ending with "And we shan't get there." And they all went
on firing steadily. The officers pointed out that such an opportunity
for high-class, fancy shooting might never occur again; the Germans
dropped line after line; the Tipperary humorist asked, "What price
Sidney Street?" And the few machine guns did their best. But everybody
knew it was of no use. The dead grey bodies lay in companies and
battalions, as others came on and on and on, and they swarmed and
stirred and advanced from beyond and beyond.

"World without end. Amen," said one of the British soldiers with some
irrelevance as he took aim and fired. And then he remembered--he says
he cannot think why or wherefore--a queer vegetarian restaurant in
London where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets
made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates
in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue,
with the motto, _Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius_--May St. George be a
present help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin and
other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the grey
advancing mass--300 yards away--he uttered the pious vegetarian
motto. He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had
to clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out
as he did so that the King's ammunition cost money and was not lightly
to be wasted in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans.

For as the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something
between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The
roar of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead
of it, he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a
thunder-peal crying, "Array, array, array!"

His heart grew hot as a burning coal, it grew cold as ice within him,
as it seemed to him that a tumult of voices answered to his summons.
He heard, or seemed to hear, thousands shouting: "St. George! St.
George!"

"Ha! messire; ha! sweet Saint, grant us good deliverance!"

"St. George for merry England!"

"Harow! Harow! Monseigneur St. George, succour us."

"Ha! St. George! Ha! St. George! a long bow and a strong bow."

"Heaven's Knight, aid us!"

And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond the
trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were
like men who drew the bow, and with another shout their cloud of
arrows flew singing and tingling through the air towards the German
hosts.

The other men in the trench were firing all the while. They had no
hope; but they aimed just as if they had been shooting at Bisley.
Suddenly one of them lifted up his voice in the plainest English,
"Gawd help us!" he bellowed to the man next to him, "but we're
blooming marvels! Look at those grey... gentlemen, look at them! D'ye
see them? They're not going down in dozens, nor in 'undreds; it's
thousands, it is. Look! look! there's a regiment gone while I'm
talking to ye."

"Shut it!" the other soldier bellowed, taking aim, "what are ye
gassing about!"

But he gulped with astonishment even as he spoke, for, indeed, the
grey men were falling by the thousands. The English could hear the
guttural scream of the German officers, the crackle of their revolvers
as they shot the reluctant; and still line after line crashed to the
earth.

All the while the Latin-bred soldier heard the cry: "Harow! Harow!
Monseigneur, dear saint, quick to our aid! St. George help us!"

"High Chevalier, defend us!"

The singing arrows fled so swift and thick that they darkened the air;
the heathen horde melted from before them.

"More machine guns!" Bill yelled to Tom.

"Don't hear them," Tom yelled back. "But, thank God, anyway; they've
got it in the neck."

In fact, there were ten thousand dead German soldiers left before that
salient of the English army, and consequently there was no Sedan. In
Germany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great General
Staff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shells
containing an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were
discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man who
knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew also
that St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to help the English.



* * *



THE GREAT RETURN


1. The Rumour of the Marvellous


There are strange things lost and forgotten in obscure corners of the
newspaper. I often think that the most extraordinary item of
intelligence that I have read in print appeared a few years ago in the
London press. It came from a well-known and most respected news agency;
I imagine it was in all the papers. It was astounding.

The circumstances necessary--not to the understanding of this paragraph,
for that is out of the question--but, we will say, to the understanding
of the events which made it possible, are these. We had invaded Tibet,
and there had been trouble in the hierarchy of that country, and a
personage known as the Tashi Lama had taken refuge with us in India. He
went on pilgrimage from one Buddhist shrine to another, and came at last
to a holy mountain of Buddhism, the name of which I have forgotten. And
thus the morning paper:

His Holiness the Tashi Lama then ascended the Mountain and was
transfigured--Reuter.

That was all. And from that day to this I have never heard a word of
explanation or comment on this amazing statement.

There was no more, it seemed, to be said. "Reuter," apparently, thought
he had made his simple statement of the facts of the case, had thereby
done his duty, and so it all ended. Nobody, so far as I know, ever wrote
to any paper asking what Reuter meant by it, or what the Tashi Lama
meant by it. I suppose the fact was that nobody cared twopence about the
matter; and so this strange event--if there were any such event--was
exhibited to us for a moment, and the lantern show revolved to other
spectacles.

This is an extreme instance of the manner in which the marvellous is
flashed out to us and then withdrawn behind its black veils and
concealments; but I have known of other cases. Now and again, at
intervals of a few years, there appear in the newspapers strange stories
of the strange doings of what are technically called "poltergeists."
Some house, often a lonely farm, is suddenly subjected to an infernal
bombardment. Great stones crash through the windows, thunder down the
chimneys, impelled by no visible hand. The plates and cups and saucers
are whirled from the dresser into the middle of the kitchen, no one can
say how or by what agency. Upstairs the big bedstead and an old chest or
two are heard bounding on the floor as if in a mad ballet. Now and then
such doings as these excite a whole neighbourhood; sometimes a London
paper sends a man down to make an investigation. He writes half a column
of description on the Monday, a couple of paragraphs on the Tuesday, and
then returns to town. Nothing has been explained, the matter vanishes
away; and nobody cares. The tale trickles for a day or two through the
press, and then instantly disappears, like an Australian stream, into
the bowels of darkness. It is possible, I suppose, that this singular
incuriousness as to marvellous events and reports is not wholly
unaccountable. It may be that the events in question are, as it were,
psychic accidents and misadventures. They are not meant to happen, or,
rather, to be manifested. They belong to the world on the other side of
the dark curtain; and it is only by some queer mischance that a corner
of that curtain is twitched aside for an instant. Then--for an
instant--we see; but the personages whom Mr. Kipling calls the Lords of
Life and Death take care that we do not see too much. Our business is
with things higher and things lower, with things different, anyhow; and
on the whole we are not suffered to distract ourselves with that which
does not really concern us. The transfiguration of the Lama and the
tricks of the poltergeist are evidently no affairs of ours; we raise an
uninterested eyebrow and pass on--to poetry or to statistics.


Be it noted; I am not professing any fervent personal belief in the
reports to which I have alluded. For all I know, the Lama, in spite of
Reuter, was not transfigured, and the poltergeist, in spite of the late
Mr. Andrew Lang, may in reality be only mischievous Polly, the servant
girl at the farm. And to go farther: I do not know that I should be
justified in putting either of these cases of the marvellous in line
with a chance paragraph that caught my eye last summer; for this had
not, on the face of it at all events, anything wildly out of the common.
Indeed, I dare say that I should not have read it, should not have seen
it, if it had not contained the name of a place which I had once
visited, which had then moved me in an odd manner that I could not
understand. Indeed, I am sure that this particular paragraph deserves to
stand alone, for even if the poltergeist be a real poltergeist, it
merely reveals the psychic whimsicality of some region that is not our
region. There were better things and more relevant things behind the few
lines dealing with Llantrisant, the little town by the sea in
Arfonshire.

Not on the surface, I must say, for the cutting--I have preserved
it--reads as follows:

LLANTRISANT.--The season promises very favourably: temperature of the
sea yesterday at noon, 65 deg. Remarkable occurrences are supposed to
have taken place during the recent Revival. The lights have not been
observed lately. The Crown. The Fisherman's Rest.

The style was odd certainly; knowing a little of newspapers, I could see
that the figure called, I think, "tmesis," or "cutting," had been
generously employed; the exuberances of the local correspondent had been
pruned by a Fleet Street expert. And these poor men are often hurried;
but what did those "lights" mean? What strange matters had the vehement
blue pencil blotted out and brought to naught?

That was my first thought, and then, thinking still of Llantrisant and
how I had first discovered it and found it strange, I read the paragraph
again, and was saddened almost to see, as I thought, the obvious
explanation. I had forgotten for the moment that it was war-time, that
scares and rumours and terrors about traitorous signals and flashing
lights were current everywhere by land and sea; someone, no doubt, had
been watching innocent farmhouse windows and thoughtless fanlights of
lodging-houses; these were the "lights" that had not been observed
lately.

I found out afterwards that the Llantrisant correspondent had no such
treasonous lights in his mind, but something very different. Still; what
do we know? He may have been mistaken, "the great rose of fire" that
came over the deep may have been the port light of a coasting-ship. Did
it shine at last from the old chapel on the headland? Possibly; or
possibly it was the doctor's lamp at Sarnau, some miles away. I have had
wonderful opportunities lately of analysing the marvels of lying,
conscious and unconscious; and indeed almost incredible feats in this
way can be performed. If I incline to the less likely explanation of the
"lights" at Llantrisant, it is merely because this explanation seems to
me to be altogether congruous with the "remarkable occurrences" of the
newspaper paragraph.

After all, if rumour and gossip and hearsay are crazy things to be
utterly neglected and laid aside: on the other hand, evidence is
evidence, and when a couple of reputable surgeons assert, as they do
assert in the case of Olwen Phillips, Croeswen, Llantrisant, that there
has been a "kind of resurrection of the body," it is merely foolish to
say that these things don't happen. The girl was a mass of tuberculosis,
she was within a few hours of death; she is now full of life. And so, I
do not believe that the rose of fire was merely a ship's light,
magnified and transformed by dreaming Welsh sailors.


But now I am going forward too fast. I have not dated the paragraph, so
I cannot give the exact day of its appearance, but I think it was
somewhere between the second and third week of June. I cut it out partly
because it was about Llantrisant, partly because of the "remarkable
occurrences." I have an appetite for these matters, though I also have
this misfortune, that I require evidence before I am ready to credit
them, and I have a sort of lingering hope that some day I shall be able
to elaborate some scheme or theory of such things.

But in the meantime, as a temporary measure, I hold what I call the
doctrine of the jig-saw puzzle. That is: this remarkable occurrence, and
that, and the other may be, and usually are, of no significance.
Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make
clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble
eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that
are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your
set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last
that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research
grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form
confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies,
corroborates, explains each separate piece.

So; it was within a week or ten days after I had read the paragraph
about Llantrisant and had cut it out that I got a letter from a friend
who was taking an early holiday in those regions.

"You will be interested," he wrote, "to hear that they have taken to
ritualistic practices at Llantrisant. I went into the church the other
day, and instead of smelling like a damp vault as usual, it was
positively reeking with incense."

I knew better than that. The old parson was a firm Evangelical; he would
rather have burnt sulphur in his church than incense any day. So I could
not make out this report at all; and went down to Arfon a few weeks
later determined to investigate this and any other remarkable occurrence
at Llantrisant.


2. Odours of Paradise


I went down to Arfon in the very heat and bloom and fragrance of the
wonderful summer that they were enjoying there. In London there was no
such weather; it rather seemed as if the horror and fury of the war had
mounted to the very skies and were there reigning. In the mornings the
sun burnt down upon the city with a heat that scorched and consumed; but
then clouds heavy and horrible would roll together from all quarters of
the heavens, and early in the afternoon the air would darken, and a
storm of thunder and lightning, and furious, hissing rain would fall
upon the streets. Indeed, the torment of the world was in the London
weather. The city wore a terrible vesture; within our hearts was dread;
without we were clothed in black clouds and angry fire.

It is certain that I cannot show in any words the utter peace of that
Welsh coast to which I came; one sees, I think, in such a change a
figure of the passage from the disquiets and the fears of earth to the
peace of paradise. A land that seemed to be in a holy, happy dream, a
sea that changed all the while from olivine to emerald, from emerald to
sapphire, from sapphire to amethyst, that washed in white foam at the
bases of the firm, grey rocks, and about the huge crimson bastions that
hid the western bays and inlets of the waters; to this land I came, and
to hollows that were purple and odorous with wild thyme, wonderful with
many tiny, exquisite flowers. There was benediction in centaury, pardon
in eyebright, joy in lady's slipper; and so the weary eyes were
refreshed, looking now at the little flowers and the happy bees about
them, now on the magic mirror of the deep, changing from marvel to
marvel with the passing of the great white clouds, with the brightening
of the sun. And the ears, torn with jangle and racket and idle, empty
noise, were soothed and comforted by the ineffable, unutterable,
unceasing murmur, as the tides swam to and fro, uttering mighty, hollow
voices in the caverns of the rocks.


For three or four days I rested in the sun and smelt the savour of the
blossoms and of the salt water, and then, refreshed, I remembered that
there was something queer about Llantrisant that I might as well
investigate. It was no great thing that I thought to find, for, it will
be remembered, I had ruled out the apparent oddity of the reporter's--or
commissioner's?--reference to lights, on the ground that he must have
been referring to some local panic about signalling to the enemy; who
had certainly torpedoed a ship or two off Lundy in the Bristol Channel.
All that I had to go upon was the reference to the "remarkable
occurrences" at some revival, and then that letter of Jackson's, which
spoke of Llantrisant church as "reeking" with incense, a wholly
incredible and impossible state of things. Why, old Mr. Evans, the
rector, looked upon coloured stoles as the very robe of Satan and his
angels, as things dear to the heart of the Pope of Rome. But as to
incense! As I have already familiarly observed, I knew better.

But as a hard matter of fact, this may be worth noting: when I went over
to Llantrisant on Monday, August 9th, I visited the church, and it was
still fragrant and exquisite with the odour of rare gums that had fumed
there.


Now I happened to have a slight acquaintance with the rector. He was a
most courteous and delightful old man, and on my last visit he had come
across me in the churchyard, as I was admiring the very fine Celtic
cross that stands there. Besides the beauty of the interlaced ornament
there is an inscription in Ogham on one of the edges, concerning which
the learned dispute; it is altogether one of the more famous crosses of
Celtdom. Mr. Evans, I say, seeing me looking at the cross, came up and
began to give me, the stranger, a resume--somewhat of a shaky and
uncertain resume, I found afterwards--of the various debates and
questions that had arisen as to the exact meaning of the inscription,
and I was amused to detect an evident but underlying belief of his own:
that the supposed Ogham characters were, in fact, due to boys' mischief
and weather and the passing of the ages. But then I happened to put a
question as to the sort of stone of which the cross was made, and the
rector brightened amazingly. He began to talk geology, and, I think,
demonstrated that the cross or the material for it must have been
brought to Llantrisant from the south-west coast of Ireland. This struck
me as interesting, because it was curious evidence of the migrations of
the Celtic saints, whom the rector, I was delighted to find, looked upon
as good Protestants, though shaky on the subject of crosses; and so,
with concessions on my part, we got on very well. Thus, with all this to
the good, I was emboldened to call upon him.

I found him altered. Not that he was aged; indeed, he was rather made
young, with a singular brightening upon his face, and something of joy
upon it that I had not seen before, that I have seen on very few faces
of men. We talked of the war, of course, since that is not to be
avoided; of the farming prospects of the county; of general things, till
I ventured to remark that I had been in the church, and had been
surprised to find it perfumed with incense.

"You have made some alterations in the service since I was here last?
You use incense now?"

The old man looked at me strangely, and hesitated.

"No," he said, "there has been no change. I use no incense in the
church. I should not venture to do so."

"But," I was beginning, "the whole church is as if High Mass had just
been sung there, and--"

He cut me short, and there was a certain grave solemnity in his manner
that struck me almost with awe.

"I know you are a railer," he said, and the phrase coming from this mild
old gentleman astonished me unutterably. "You are a railer and a bitter
railer; I have read articles that you have written, and I know your
contempt and your hatred for those you call Protestants in your
derision; though your grandfather, the vicar of Caerleon-on-Usk, called
himself Protestant and was proud of it, and your great-grand-uncle
Hezekiah, _ffeiriad coch yr Castletown_--the Red Priest of
Castletown--was a great man with the Methodists in his day, and the
people flocked by their thousands when he administered the Sacrament. I
was born and brought up in Glamorganshire, and old men have wept as they
told me of the weeping and contrition that there was when the Red Priest
broke the Bread and raised the Cup. But you are a railer, and see
nothing but the outside and the show. You are not worthy of this mystery
that has been done here."

I went out from his presence rebuked indeed, and justly rebuked; but
rather amazed. It is curiously true that the Welsh are still one people,
one family almost, in a manner that the English cannot understand, but I
had never thought that this old clergyman would have known anything of
my ancestry or their doings. And as for my articles and suchlike, I knew
that the country clergy sometimes read, but I had fancied my
pronouncements sufficiently obscure, even in London, much more in Arfon.
But so it happened, and so I had no explanation from the rector of
Llantrisant of the strange circumstance, that his church was full of
incense and odours of paradise.


I went up and down the ways of Llantrisant wondering, and came to the
harbour, which is a little place, with little quays where some small
coasting trade still lingers. A brigantine was at anchor here, and very
lazily in the sunshine they were loading it with anthracite; for it is
one of the oddities of Llantrisant that there is a small colliery in the
heart of the wood on the hillside. I crossed a causeway which parts the
outer harbour from the inner harbour, and settled down on a rocky beach
hidden under a leafy hill. The tide was going out, and some children
were playing on the wet sand, while two ladies--their mothers, I
suppose--talked together as they sat comfortably on their rugs at a
little distance from me.

At first they talked of the war, and I made myself deaf, for of that
talk one gets enough, and more than enough, in London. Then there was a
period of silence, and the conversation had passed to quite a different
topic when I caught the thread of it again. I was sitting on the further
side of a big rock, and I do not think that the two ladies had noticed
my approach. However, though they spoke of strange things, they spoke of
nothing which made it necessary for me to announce my presence.

"And, after all," one of them was saying, "what is it all about? I can't
make out what is come to the people."

This speaker was a Welshwoman; I recognized the clear, overemphasized
consonants, and a faint suggestion of an accent. Her friend came from
the Midlands, and it turned out that they had only known each other for
a few days. Theirs was a friendship of the beach and of bathing; such
friendships are common at small seaside places.

"There is certainly something odd about the people here. I have never
been to Llantrisant before, you know; indeed, this is the first time
we've been in Wales for our holidays, and knowing nothing about the ways
of the people and not being accustomed to hear Welsh spoken, I thought,
perhaps, it must be my imagination. But you think there really is
something a little queer?"

"I can tell you this: that I have been in two minds whether I should not
write to my husband and ask him to take me and the children away. You
know where I am at Mrs. Morgan's, and the Morgans' sitting-room is just
the other side of the passage, and sometimes they leave the door open,
so that I can hear what they say quite plainly. And you see I understand
the Welsh, though they don't know it. And I hear them saying the most
alarming things!"

"What sort of things?"

"Well, indeed, it sounds like some kind of a religious service, but it's
not Church of England, I know that. Old Morgan begins it, and the wife
and children answer. Something like: 'Blessed be God for the messengers
of Paradise.' `Blessed be His Name for Paradise in the meat and in the
drink.' 'Thanksgiving for the old offering.' 'Thanksgiving for the
appearance of the old altar.' 'Praise for the joy of the ancient
garden.' 'Praise for the return of those that have been long absent.'
And all that sort of thing. It is nothing but madness."

"Depend upon it," said the lady from the Midlands, "there's no real harm
in it. They're Dissenters; some new sect, I dare say. You know some
Dissenters are very queer in their ways."

"All that is like no Dissenters that I have ever known in all my life
whatever," replied the Welsh lady somewhat vehemently, with a very
distinct intonation of the land. "And have you heard them speak of the
bright light that shone at midnight from the church?"


3. A Secret in a Secret Place


Now here was I altogether at a loss and quite bewildered. The children
broke into the conversation of the two ladies and cut it short, just as
the midnight lights from the church came on the field, and when the
little girls and boys went back again to the sands whooping, the tide of
talk had turned, and Mrs. Harland and Mrs. Williams were quite safe and
at home with Janey's measles, and a wonderful treatment for infantile
ear-ache, as exemplified in the case of Trevor. There was no more to be
got out of them, evidently, so I left the beach, crossed the harbour
causeway, and drank beer at the Fisherman's Rest till it was time to
climb up two miles of deep lane and catch the train for Penvro, where I
was staying. And I went up the lane, as I say, in a kind of amazement;
and not so much, I think, because of evidences and hints of things
strange to the senses, such as the savour of incense where no incense
had smoked for three hundred and fifty years and more, or the story of
bright light shining from the dark, closed church at dead of night, as
because of that sentence of thanksgiving "for paradise in meat and in
drink."

For the sun went down and the evening fell as I climbed the long hill
through the deep woods and the high meadows, and the scent of all the
green things rose from the earth and from the heart of the wood, and at
a turn of the lane far below was the misty glimmer of the still sea, and
from far below its deep murmur sounded as it washed on the little
hidden, enclosed bay where Llantrisant stands. And I thought, if there
be paradise in meat and in drink, so much the more is there paradise in
the scent of the green leaves at evening and in the appearance of the
sea and in the redness of the sky; and there came to me a certain vision
of a real world about us all the while, of a language that was only
secret because we would not take the trouble to listen to it and discern
it.

It was almost dark when I got to the station, and here were the few
feeble oil lamps lit, glimmering in that lonely land, where the way is
long from farm to farm. The train came on its way, and I got into it;
and just as we moved from the station I noticed a group under one of
those dim lamps. A woman and her child had got out, and they were being
welcomed by a man who had been waiting for them. I had not noticed his
face as I stood on the platform, but now I saw it as he pointed down the
hill towards Llantrisant, and I think I was almost frightened.

He was a young man, a farmer's son, I would say, dressed in rough brown
clothes, and as different from old Mr. Evans, the rector, as one man
might be from another. But on his face, as I saw it in the lamp-light,
there was the like brightening that I had seen on the face of the
rector. It was an illuminated face, glowing with an ineffable joy, and I
thought it rather gave light to the platform lamp than received light
from it. The woman and her child, I inferred, were strangers to the
place, and had come to pay a visit to the young man's family. They had
looked about them in bewilderment, half alarmed, before they saw him;
and then his face was radiant in their sight, and it was easy to see
that all their troubles were ended and over. A wayside station and a
darkening country; and it was as if they were welcomed by shining,
immortal gladness--even into paradise.


But though there seemed in a sense light all about my ways, I was myself
still quite bewildered. I could see, indeed, that something strange had
happened or was happening in the little town hidden under the hill, but
there was so far no clue to the mystery, or rather, the clue had been
offered to me, and I had not taken it, I had not even known that it was
there; since we do not so much as see what we have determined, without
judging, to be incredible, even though it be held up before our eyes.
The dialogue that the Welsh Mrs. Williams had reported to her English
friend might have set me on the right way; but the right way was outside
all my limits of possibility, outside the circle of my thought. The
palaeontologist might see monstrous, significant marks in the slime of a
river bank, but he would never draw the conclusions that his own
peculiar science would seem to suggest to him; he would choose any
explanation rather than the obvious, since the obvious would also be the
outrageous--according to our established habit of thought, which we deem
final.


The next day I took all these strange things with me for consideration
to a certain place that I knew of not far from Penvro. I was now in the
early stages of the jig-saw process, or rather I had only a few pieces
before me, and--to continue the figure--my difficulty was this: that
though the markings on each piece seemed to have design and
significance, yet I could not make the wildest guess as to the nature of
the whole picture, of which these were the parts. I had clearly seen
that there was a great secret; I had seen that on the face of the young
farmer on the platform of Llantrisant station; and in my mind there was
all the while the picture of him going down the dark, steep, winding
lane that led to the town and the sea, going down through the heart of
the wood, with light about him.

But there was bewilderment in the thought of this, and in the endeavour
to match it with the perfumed church and the scraps, of talk that I had
heard and the rumour of midnight brightness; and though Penvro is by no
means populous, I thought I would go to a certain solitary place called
the Old Camp Head, which looks towards Cornwall and to the great deeps
that roll beyond Cornwall to the far ends of the world; a place where
fragments of dreams--they seemed such then--might, perhaps, be gathered
into the clearness of vision.

It was some years since I had been to the Head, and I had gone on that
last time and on a former visit by the cliffs, a rough and difficult
path. Now I chose a landward way, which the county map seemed to
justify, though doubtfully, as regarded the last part of the journey.
So, I went inland and climbed the hot summer by-roads, till I came at
last to a lane which gradually turned turfy and grass-grown, and then on
high ground, ceased to be. It left me at a gate in a hedge of old
thorns; and across the field beyond there seemed to be some faint
indications of a track. One would judge that sometimes men did pass by
that way, but not often.

It was high ground but not within sight of the sea. But the breath of
the sea blew about the hedge of thorns, and came with a keen savour to
the nostrils. The ground sloped gently from the gate and then rose again
to a ridge, where a white farmhouse stood all alone. I passed by this
farmhouse, threading an uncertain way, followed a hedgerow doubtfully;
and saw suddenly before me the Old Camp, and beyond it the sapphire
plain of waters and the mist where sea and sky met. Steep from my feet
the hill fell away, a land of gorse-blossom, red-gold and mellow, of
glorious purple heather. It fell into a hollow that went down, shining
with rich green bracken, to the glimmering sea; and before me and beyond
the hollow rose a height of turf, bastioned at the summit with the
awful, age-old walls of the Old Camp; green, rounded circumvallations,
wall within wall, tremendous, with their myriad years upon them.

Within these smoothed, green mounds, looking across the shining and
changing of the waters in the happy sunlight, I took out the bread and
cheese and beer that I had carried in a bag, and ate and drank, and lit
my pipe, and set myself to think over the enigmas of Llantrisant. And I
had scarcely done so when, a good deal to my annoyance, a man came
climbing up over the green ridges, and took up his stand close by, and
stared out to sea. He nodded to me, and began with "Fine weather for the
harvest" in the approved manner, and so sat down and engaged me in a net
of talk. He was of Wales, it seemed, but from a different part of the
country, and was staying for a few days with relations--at the white
farmhouse which I had passed on my way. His tale of nothing flowed on to
his pleasure and my pain, till he fell suddenly on Llantrisant and its
doings. I listened then with wonder, and here is his tale condensed.
Though it must be clearly understood that the man's evidence was only
second-hand; he had heard it from his cousin, the farmer.

So, to be brief, it appeared that there had been a long feud at
Llantrisant between a local solicitor, Lewis Prothero (we will say), and
a farmer named James. There had been a quarrel about some trifle, which
had grown more and more bitter as the two parties forgot the merits of
the original dispute, and by some means or other, which I could not well
understand, the lawyer had got the small freeholder "under his thumb."
James, I think, had given a bill of sale in a bad season, and Prothero
had bought it up; and the end was that the farmer was turned out of the
old house, and was lodging in a cottage. People said he would have to
take a place on his own farm as a labourer; he went about in dreadful
misery, piteous to see. It was thought by some that he might very well
murder the lawyer, if he met him.

They did meet, in the middle of the market-place at Llantrisant one
Saturday in June. The farmer was a little black man, and he gave a shout
of rage, and the people were rushing at him to keep him off Prothero.

"And then," said my informant, "I will tell you what happened. This
lawyer, as they tell me, he is a great big brawny fellow, with a big jaw
and a wide mouth, and a red face and red whiskers. And there he was in
his black coat and his high hard hat, and all his money at his back, as
you may say. And, indeed, he did fall down on his knees in the dust
there in the street in front of Philip James, and every one could see
that terror was upon him. And he did beg Philip James's pardon, and beg
of him to have mercy, and he did implore him by God and man and the
saints of paradise. And my cousin, John Jenkins, Penmawr, he do tell me
that the tears were falling from Lewis Prothero's eyes like the rain.
And he put his hand into his pocket and drew out the deed of Pantyreos,
Philip James's old farm that was, and did give him the farm back and a
hundred pounds for the stock that was on it, and two hundred pounds, all
in notes of the bank, for amendment and consolation.

"And then, from what they do tell me, all the people did go mad, crying
and weeping and calling out all manner of things at the top of their
voices. And at last nothing would do but they must all go up to the
churchyard, and there Philip James and Lewis Prothero they swear
friendship to one another for a long age before the old cross, and
everyone sings praises. And my cousin he do declare to me that there
were men standing in that crowd that he did never see before in
Llantrisant in all his life, and his heart was shaken within him as if
it had been in a whirlwind."

I had listened to all this in silence. I said then:

"What does your cousin mean by that? Men that he had never seen in
Llantrisant? What men?"

"The people," he said very slowly, "call them the Fishermen." And
suddenly there came into my mind the Rich Fisherman who in the old
legend guards the holy mystery of the Graal.


4. The Ringing of the Bell


So far I have not told the story of the things of Llantrisant, but
rather the story of how I stumbled upon them and among them, perplexed
and wholly astray, seeking, but yet not knowing at all what I sought;
bewildered now and again by circumstances which seemed to me wholly
inexplicable; devoid, not so much of the key to the enigma, but of the
key to the nature of the enigma. You cannot begin to solve a puzzle till
you know what the puzzle is about. "Yards divided by minutes," said the
mathematical master to me long ago, "will give neither pigs, sheep, nor
oxen." He was right; though his manner on this and on all other
occasions was highly offensive. This is enough of the personal process,
as I may call it; and here follows the story of what happened at
Llantrisant last summer, the story as I pieced it together at last.

It all began, it appears, on a hot day, early in last June; so far as I
can make out, on the first Saturday in the month. There was a deaf old
woman, a Mrs. Parry, who lived by herself in a lonely cottage a mile or
so from the town. She came into the marketplace early on the Saturday
morning in a state of some excitement, and as soon as she had taken up
her usual place on the pavement by the churchyard, with her ducks and
eggs and a few very early potatoes, she began to tell her neighbours
about her having heard the sound of a great bell. The good women on each
side smiled at one another behind Mrs. Parry's back, for one had to bawl
into her ear before she could make out what one meant; and Mrs.
Williams, Penycoed, bent over and yelled: "What bell should that be,
Mrs. Parry? There's no church near you up at Penrhiw. Do you hear what
nonsense she talks?" said Mrs. Williams in a low voice to Mrs. Morgan.
"As if she could hear any bell, whatever."

"What makes you talk nonsense yourself?" said Mrs. Parry, to the
amazement of the two women. "I can hear a bell as well as you, Mrs.
Williams, and as well as your whispers either."

And there is the fact, which is not to be disputed; though the
deductions from it may be open to endless disputations; this old woman
who had been all but stone deaf for twenty years--the defect had always
been in her family--could suddenly hear on this June morning as well as
anybody else. And her two old friends stared at her, and it was some
time before they had appeased her indignation, and induced her to talk
about the bell.

It had happened in the early morning, which was very misty. She had been
gathering sage in her garden, high on a round hill looking over the sea.
And there came in her ears a sort of throbbing and singing and
trembling, "as if there were music coming out of the earth," and then
something seemed to break in her head, and all the birds began to sing
and make melody together, and the leaves of the poplars round the garden
fluttered in the breeze that rose from the sea, and the cock crowed far
off at Twyn, and the dog barked down in Kemeys Valley. But above all
these sounds, unheard for so many years, there thrilled the deep and
chanting note of the bell, "like a bell and a man's voice singing at
once."

They stared again at her and at one another. "Where did it sound from?"
asked one. "It came sailing across the sea," answered Mrs. Parry quite
composedly, "and I did hear it coming nearer and nearer to the land."

"Well, indeed," said Mrs. Morgan, "it was a ship's bell then, though I
can't make out why they would be ringing like that."

"It was not ringing on any ship, Mrs. Morgan," said Mrs. Parry.

"Then where do you think it was ringing?"

"_Ym mharadwys_," replies Mrs. Parry. Now that means "in paradise," and
the two others changed the conversation quickly. They thought that Mrs.
Parry had got back her hearing suddenly--such things did happen now and
then--and that the shock had made her "a bit queer." And this
explanation would no doubt have stood its ground, if it had not been for
other experiences. Indeed, the local doctor (who had treated Mrs. Parry
for a dozen years, not for her deafness, which he took to be hopeless
and beyond cure, but for a tiresome and recurrent winter cough), sent an
account of the case to a colleague at Bristol, suppressing, naturally
enough, the reference to paradise. The Bristol physician gave it as his
opinion that the symptoms were absolutely what might have been expected.
"You have here, in all probability," he wrote, "the sudden breaking down
of an old obstruction in the aural passage, and I should quite expect
this process to be accompanied by tinnitus of a pronounced and even
violent character."


But for the other experiences? As the morning wore on and drew to noon,
high market, and to the utmost brightness of that summer day, all the
stalls and the streets were full of rumours and of awed faces. Now from
one lonely farm, now from another, men and women came and told the story
of how they had listened in the early morning with thrilling hearts to
the thrilling music of a bell that was like no bell ever heard before.
And it seemed that many people in the town had been roused, they knew
not how, from sleep; waking up, as one of them said, as if bells were
ringing and the organ playing, and a choir of sweet voices singing all
together: "There were such melodies and songs that my heart was full of
joy."

And a little past noon some fishermen who had been out all night
returned, and brought a wonderful story into the town of what they had
heard in the mist; and one of them said he had seen something go by at a
little distance from his boat. "It was all golden and bright," he said,
"and there was glory about it." Another fisherman declared: "There was a
song upon the water that was like heaven."

And here I would say in parenthesis that on returning to town I sought
out a very old friend of mine, a man who has devoted a lifetime to
strange and esoteric studies. I thought that I had a tale that would
interest him profoundly, but I found that he heard me with a good deal
of indifference. And at this very point of the sailors' stories I
remember saying: "Now what do you make of that? Don't you think it's
extremely curious ?" He replied: "I hardly think so. Possibly the
sailors were lying; possibly it happened as they say. Well; that sort of
thing has always been happening." I give my friend's opinion; I make no
comment on it.

Let it be noted that there was something remarkable as to the manner in
which the sound of the bell was heard--or supposed to be heard. There
are, no doubt, mysteries in sounds as in all else; indeed, I am informed
that during one of the horrible outrages that have been perpetrated on
London during this autumn there was an instance of a great block of
workmen's dwellings in which the only person who heard the crash of a
particular bomb falling was an old deaf woman, who had been fast asleep
till the moment of the explosion. This is strange enough of a sound that
was entirely in the natural (and horrible) order; and so it was at
Llantrisant, where the sound was either a collective auditory
hallucination or a manifestation of what is conveniently, if
inaccurately, called the supernatural order.

For the thrill of the bell did not reach to all ears--or hearts. Deaf
Mrs. Parry heard it in her lonely cottage garden, high above the misty
sea; but then, in a farm on the other or western side of Llantrisant, a
little child, scarcely three years old, was the only one out of a
household of ten people who heard anything. He called out in stammering
baby Welsh something that sounded like "_Clychau fawr, clychau
fawr_"--the great bells, the great bells--and his mother wondered what
he was talking about. Of the crews of half a dozen trawlers that were
swinging from side to side in the mist, not more than four men had any
tale to tell. And so it was that for an hour or two the man who had
heard nothing suspected his neighbour, who had heard marvels, of lying;
and it was some time before the mass of evidence coming from all manners
of diverse and remote quarters convinced the people that there was a
true story here. A might suspect B, his neighbour, of making up a tale;
but when C, from some place on the hills five miles away, and D, the
fisherman on the waters, each had a like report, then it was clear that
something had happened.


And even then, as they told me, the signs to be seen upon the people
were stranger than the tales told by them and among them. It has struck
me that many people in reading some of the phrases that I have reported
will dismiss them with laughter as very poor and fantastic inventions;
fishermen, they will say, do not speak of "a song like heaven" or of "a
glory about it." And I dare say this would be a just enough criticism if
I were reporting English fishermen; but, odd though it may be, Wales has
not yet lost the last shreds of the grand manner. And let it be
remembered also that in most cases such phrases are translated from
another language, that is, from the Welsh.

So, they come trailing, let us say, fragments of the cloud of glory in
their common speech; and so, on this Saturday, they began to display,
uneasily enough in many cases, their consciousness that the things that
were reported were of their ancient right and former custom. The
comparison is not quite fair; but conceive Hardy's old Durbeyfield
suddenly waking from long slumber to find himself in a noble
thirteenth-century hall, waited on by kneeling pages, smiled on by sweet
ladies in silken cotehardies.

So by evening time there had come to the old people the recollection of
stories that their fathers had told them as they sat round the hearth of
winter nights, fifty, sixty, seventy years ago; stories of the wonderful
bell of Teilo Sant, that had sailed across the glassy seas from Syon,
that was called a portion of paradise, "and the sound of its ringing was
like the perpetual choir of the angels."

Such things were remembered by the old and told to the young that
evening, in the streets of the town and in the deep lanes that climbed
far hills. The sun went down to the mountain red with fire like a burnt
offering, the sky turned violet, the sea was purple, as one told another
of the wonder that had returned to the land after long ages.


5. The Rose of Fire


It was during the next nine days, counting from that Saturday early in
June--the first Saturday in June, as I believe--that Llantrisant and all
the regions about became possessed either by an extraordinary set of
hallucinations or by a visitation of great marvels.

This is not the place to strike the balance between the two
possibilities. The evidence is, no doubt, readily available; the matter
is open to systematic investigation.

But this may be said: The ordinary man, in the ordinary passages of his
life, accepts in the main the evidence of his senses, and is entirely
right in doing so. He says that he sees a cow, that he sees a stone
wall, and that the cow and the stone wall are "there." This is very well
for all the practical purposes of life, but I believe that the
metaphysicians are by no means so easily satisfied as to the reality of
the stone wall and the cow. Perhaps they might allow that both objects
are "there" in the sense that one's reflection is in a glass; there is
an actuality, but is there a reality external to oneself? In any event,
it is solidly agreed that, supposing a real existence, this much is
certain--it is not in the least like our conception of it. The ant and
the microscope will quickly convince us that we do not see things as
they really are, even supposing that we see them at all. If we could
"see" the real cow she would appear utterly incredible, as incredible as
the things I am to relate.

Now, there is nothing that I know much more unconvincing than the
stories of the red light on the sea. Several sailors, men on small
coasting ships, who were working up or down the Channel on that Saturday
night, spoke of "seeing" the red light, and it must be said that there
is a very tolerable agreement in their tales. All make the time as
between midnight of the Saturday and one o'clock on the Sunday morning.
Two of those sailor-men are precise as to the time of the apparition;
they fix it by elaborate calculations of their own as occurring at 12.20
a.m. And the story?

A red light, a burning spark seen far away in the darkness, taken at the
first moment of seeing for a signal, and probably an enemy signal. Then
it approached at a tremendous speed, and one man said he took it to be the
port light of some new kind of navy motor boat which was developing a
rate hitherto unheard of, a hundred or a hundred and fifty knots an
hour. And then, in the third instant of the sight, it was clear that
this was no earthly speed. At first a red spark in the farthest
distance; then a rushing lamp; and then, as if in an incredible point of
time, it swelled into a vast rose of fire that filled all the sea and
all the sky and hid the stars and possessed the land. "I thought the end
of the world had come," one of the sailors said.

And then, an instant more, and it was gone from them, and four of them
say that there was a red spark on Chapel Head, where the old grey chapel
of St. Teilo stands, high above the water, in a cleft of the limestone
rocks.

And thus the sailors; and thus their tales are incredible; but _they_
are not incredible. I believe that men of the highest eminence in
physical science have testified to the occurrence of phenomena every
whit as marvellous, to things as absolutely opposed to all natural
order, as we conceive it; and it may be said that nobody minds them.
"That sort of thing has always been happening," as my friend remarked to
me. But the men, whether or no the fire had ever been without them,
there was no doubt that it was now within them, for it burned in their
eyes. They were purged as if they had passed through the Furnace of the
Sages governed with Wisdom that the alchemists know. They spoke without
much difficulty of what they had seen, or had seemed to see, with their
eyes, but hardly at all of what their hearts had known when for a moment
the glory of the fiery rose had been about them.

For some weeks afterwards they were still, as it were, amazed; almost, I
would say, incredulous. If there had been nothing more than the splendid
and fiery appearance, showing and vanishing, I do believe that they
themselves would have discredited their own senses and denied the truth
of their own tales. And one does not dare to say whether they would not
have been right. Men like Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge are
certainly to be heard with respect, and they bear witness to all manner
of apparent eversions of laws which we, or most of us, consider far more
deeply founded than the ancient hills. They may be justified; but in our
hearts we doubt. We cannot wholly believe in inner sincerity that the
solid table did rise, without mechanical reason or cause, into the air,
and so defy that which we name the "law of gravitation." I know what may
be said on the other side; I know that there is no true question of
"law" in the case; that the law of gravitation really means just this:
that I have never seen a table rising without mechanical aid, or an
apple, detached from the bough, soaring to the skies instead of falling
to the ground. The so-called law is just the sum of common observation
and nothing more; yet I say, in our hearts we do not believe that the
tables rise; much less do we believe in the rose of fire that for a
moment swallowed up the skies and seas and shores of the Welsh coast
last June.

And the men who saw it would have invented fairy tales to account for
it, I say again, if it had not been for that which was within them.

They said, all of them and it was certain now that they spoke the truth,
that in the moment of the vision, every pain and ache and malady in
their bodies had passed away. One man had been vilely drunk on venomous
spirit, procured at Jobson's Hole down by the Cardiff Docks. He was
horribly ill; he had crawled up from his bunk for a little fresh air;
and in an instant his horrors and his deadly nausea had left him.
Another man was almost desperate with the raging hammering pain of an
abscess on a tooth; he says that when the red flame came near he felt as
if a dull, heavy blow had fallen on his jaw, and then the pain was quite
gone; he could scarcely believe that there had been any pain there.

And they all bear witness to an extraordinary exaltation of the senses.
It is indescribable, this; for they cannot describe it. They are amazed,
again; they do not in the least profess to know what happened; but there
is no more possibility of shaking their evidence than there is a
possibility of shaking the evidence of a man who says that water is wet
and fire hot.

"I felt a bit queer afterwards," said one of them, "and I steadied
myself by the mast, and I can't tell how I felt as I touched it. I
didn't know that touching a thing like a mast could be better than a big
drink when you're thirsty, or a soft pillow when you're sleepy."

I heard other instances of this state of things, as I must vaguely call
it, since I do not know what else to call it. But I suppose we can all
agree that to the man in average health, the average impact of the
external world on his senses is a matter of indifference. The average
impact; a harsh scream, the bursting of a motor tire, any violent
assault on the aural nerves will annoy him, and he may say "damn." Then,
on the other hand, the man who is not "fit" will easily be annoyed and
irritated by someone pushing past him in a crowd, by the ringing of a
bell, by the sharp closing of a book.

But so far as I could judge from the talk of these sailors, the average
impact of the external world had become to them a fountain of pleasure.
Their nerves were on edge, but an edge to receive exquisite sensuous
impressions. The touch of the rough mast, for example; that was a joy
far greater than is the joy of fine silk to some luxurious skins; they
drank water and stared as if they had been _fins gourmets_ tasting an
amazing wine; the creak and whine of their ship on its slow way were as
exquisite as the rhythm and song of a Bach fugue to an amateur of music.

And then, within; these rough fellows have their quarrels and strifes
and variances and envyings like the rest of us; but that was all over
between them that had seen the rosy light; old enemies shook hands
heartily, and roared with laughter as they confessed one to another what
fools they had been.

"I can't exactly say how it has happened or what has happened at all,"
said one, "but if you have all the world and the glory of it, how can
you fight for fivepence?"


The church of Llantrisant is a typical example of a Welsh parish church,
before the evil and horrible period of "restoration." This lower world
is a palace of lies, and of all foolish lies there is none more insane
than a certain vague fable about the mediaeval freemasons, a fable which
somehow imposed itself upon the cold intellect of Hallam the historian.
The story is, in brief, that throughout the Gothic period, at any rate,
the art and craft of church building were executed by wandering guilds
of "freemasons," possessed of various secrets of building and adornment,
which they employed wherever they went. If this nonsense were true, the
Gothic of Cologne would be as the Gothic of Colne, and the Gothic of
Arles like to the Gothic of Abingdon. It is so grotesquely untrue that
almost every county, let alone every country, has its distinctive style
in Gothic architecture. Arfon is in the west of Wales; its churches have
marks and features which distinguish them from the churches in the east
of Wales. The Llantrisant church has that primitive division between
nave and chancel which only very foolish people decline to recognize as
equivalent to the Oriental iconostasis and as the origin of the Western
rood-screen. A solid wall divided the church into two portions; in the
centre was a narrow opening with a rounded arch, through which those who
sat towards the middle of the church could see the small, red-carpeted
altar and the three roughly shaped lancet windows above it.

The "reading pew" was on the outer side of this wall of partition, and
here the rector did his service, the choir being grouped in seats about
him. On the inner side were the pews of certain privileged houses of the
town and district.

On the Sunday morning the people were all in their accustomed places,
not without a certain exultation in their eyes, not without a certain
expectation of they knew not what. The bells stopped ringing, the
rector, in his old-fashioned, ample surplice, entered the reading-desk,
and gave out the hymn: "My God, and is Thy table spread."

And, as the singing began, all the people who were in the pews within
the wall came out of them and streamed through the archway into the
nave. They took what places they could find up and down the church, and
the rest of the congregation looked at them in amazement.

Nobody knew what had happened. Those whose seats were next to the aisle
tried to peer into the chancel, to see what had happened or what was
going on there. But somehow the light flamed so brightly from the
windows above the altar, those being the only windows in the chancel,
one small lancet in the south wall excepted, that no one could see
anything at all.

"It was as if a veil of gold adorned with jewels was hanging there," one
man said; and indeed there are a few odds and scraps of old painted
glass left in the eastern lancets.

But there were few in the church who did not hear now and again voices
speaking beyond the veil.


6. Olwen's Dream


The well-to-do and dignified personages who left their pews in the
chancel of Llantrisant church and came hurrying into the nave could give
no explanation of what they had done. They felt, they said, that they
"had to go," and to go quickly; they were driven out, as it were, by a
secret, irresistible command. But all who were present in the church
that morning were amazed, though all exulted in their hearts; for they,
like the sailors who saw the rose of fire on the waters, were filled
with a joy that was literally ineffable, since they could not utter it
or interpret it to themselves.

And they too, like the sailors, were transmuted, or the world was
transmuted for them. They experienced what the doctors call a sense of
_bien ętre_, but a _bien ętre_ raised to the highest power. Old men felt
young again, eyes that had been growing dim now saw clearly, and saw a
world that was like paradise, the same world, it is true, but a world
rectified and glowing, as if an inner flame shone in all things, and
behind all things.

And the difficulty in recording this state is this, that it is so rare
an experience that no set language to express it is in existence. A
shadow of its raptures and ecstasies is found in the highest poetry;
there are phrases in ancient books telling of the Celtic saints that
dimly hint at it; some of the old Italian masters of painting had known
it, for the light of it shines in their skies and about the battlements
of their cities that are founded on magic hills. But these are but
broken hints.

It is not poetic to go to Apothecaries' Hall for similes. But for many
years I kept by me an article from the _Lancet_ or the _British Medical
Journal_--I forget which--in which a doctor gave an account of certain
experiments he had conducted with a drug called the Mescal Button, or
Anhelonium Lewinii. He said that while under the influence of the drug
he had but to shut his eyes, and immediately before him there would rise
incredible Gothic cathedrals, of such majesty and splendour and glory
that no heart had ever conceived. They seemed to surge from the depths
to the very heights of heaven, their spires swayed amongst the clouds
and the stars, they were fretted with admirable imagery. And as he
gazed, he would presently become aware that all the stones were living
stones, that they were quickening and palpitating, and then that they
were glowing jewels, say, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, opals, but of
hues that the mortal eye had never seen.

That description gives, I think, some faint notion of the nature of the
transmuted world into which these people by the sea had entered, a world
quickened and glorified and full of pleasures. Joy and wonder were on
all faces; but the deepest joy and the greatest wonder were on the face
of the rector. For he had heard through the veil the Greek word for
"holy," three times repeated. And he, who had once been a horrified
assistant at High Mass in a foreign church, recognized the perfume of
incense that filled the place from end to end.


It was on that Sunday night that Olwen Phillips of Croeswen dreamed her
wonderful dream. She was a girl of sixteen, the daughter of small
farming people, and for many months she had been doomed to certain
death. Consumption, which flourishes in that damp, warm climate, had
laid hold of her; not only her lungs but her whole system was a mass of
tuberculosis. As is common enough, she had enjoyed many fallacious brief
recoveries in the early stages of the disease, but all hope had long
been over, and now for the last few weeks she had seemed to rush
vehemently to death. The doctor had come on the Saturday morning,
bringing with him a colleague. They had both agreed that the girl's case
was in its last stages. "She cannot possibly last more than a day or
two," said the local doctor to her mother. He came again on the Sunday
morning and found his patient perceptibly worse, and soon afterwards she
sank into a heavy sleep, and her mother thought that she would never
wake from it.

The girl slept in an inner room communicating with the room occupied by
her father and mother. The door between was kept open, so that Mrs.
Phillips could hear her daughter if she called to her in the night. And
Olwen called to her mother that night, just as the dawn was breaking. It
was no faint summons from a dying bed that came to the mother's ears,
but a loud cry that rang through the house, a cry of great gladness.
Mrs. Phillips started up from sleep in wild amazement, wondering what
could have happened. And then she saw Olwen, who had not been able to
rise from her bed for many weeks past, standing in the doorway in the
faint light of the growing day. The girl called to her mother: "Mam!
mam! It is all over. I am quite well again."

Mrs. Phillips roused her husband, and they sat up in bed staring, not
knowing on earth, as they said afterwards, what had been done with the
world. Here was their poor girl wasted to a shadow, lying on her
death-bed, and the life sighing from her with every breath, and her
voice, when she last uttered it, so weak that one had to put one's ear
to her mouth. And here in a few hours she stood up before them; and even
in that faint light they could see that she was changed almost beyond
knowing. And, indeed, Mrs. Phillips said that for a moment or two she
fa