 The Amputated Arms by Jürgen Wilhelm Bergzö. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Roger Clifson. The Amputated Arms by Jürgen Wilhelm Bergzö. It happened when I was about 18 or 19 years old, began Dr. Simpson. I was studying at the university and being coached in anatomy by my old friend Soling. He was an amusing fellow this Soling, full of jokes and whimsical ideas, and equally merry whether he was working at the dissecting table or brewing a punch for a jovial crowd. He had but one thought, if one might call it so, and that was his exaggerated idea of punctuality. He grumbled if you were late two minutes. Any longer delay would spoil the entire evening for him. He himself was never known to be late, at least not during the entire years of my studying. One Wednesday evening our little circle of friends met as usual in my room at seven o'clock. I had made the customary preparations for the meeting, had borrowed three chairs I had but one myself, had cleaned all my pipes and had persuaded hands to take the breakfast dishes from the sofa and carry them downstairs. One by one my friends arrived. The clock struck seven, and to our great astonishment Soling had not yet appeared. One, two, even five minutes passed before we heard him run upstairs and knock at the door with his characteristic short blows. When he entered the room he looked so angry and at the same time so upset that I cried out, What's the matter, Soling? You look as if you've been robbed. That's exactly what has happened, replied Soling angrily, but it was no ordinary sneak-thief, he added, hanging his overcoat behind the door. What have you lost? asked my neighbour Nansen. Both arms from the new skeleton I've just recently received from the hospital, said Soling, with an expression as if his last scent had been taken from him. It's vandalism! We burst out into loud laughter at this remarkable answer, but Soling continued, Can you imagine it? Both arms are gone, cut off at the shoulder-joint, and the strangest part of it is that the same thing has been done to my shabby old skeleton, which stands in my bedroom. There wasn't an arm on either of them. That's too bad, I remarked, for we were just going to study the anatomy of the arm tonight. Osteology! corrected Soling gravely. Get out your skeleton, little Simpson. It isn't as good as mine, but it will do for this evening. I went to the corner where my anatomical treasures were hidden behind a green curtain. The museum was what Soling called it, but my astonishment was great when I found my skeleton in its accustomed place and wearing as usual my student's uniform, but without arms. The devil! cried Soling. That was done by the same person who robbed me. The arms are taken off at the shoulder-joint in exactly the same manner. You did it, Simpson! I declared my innocence, very angry at the abuse of my fine skeleton. While Nansen cried, Wait a moment, I'll bring in mine. There hasn't been a soul in my room since this morning. I can swear to that. I'll be back in an instant. He hurried into his room, but returned in a few moments greatly depressed and somewhat ashamed. The skeleton was in its usual place, but the arms were gone, cut off at the shoulder in exactly the same manner as mine. The affair, mysterious in itself, had now come to be a serious matter. We lost ourselves in suggestions and explanations, none of which seemed to throw any light on the subject. Finally we sent a messenger to the other side of the house where, as I happen to know, was a new skeleton which the young student Ravin had recently received from the janitor of the hospital. Ravin had gone out and taken the key with him. The messenger whom we had sent to the rooms of the Iceland students returned with the information that one of them had used the only skeleton they possessed to pummel the other with, and that consequently only the thigh-bends were left unbroken. What were we to do? We couldn't understand the matter at all. Soling scalded and cursed and the company was about to break up when we heard someone coming noisily upstairs. The door was thrown open and a tall, thin figure appeared on the threshold, our good friend Neil's Day. He was a strange chap this Neil's Day, the true type of a species seldom found nowadays. He was no longer young, and by reason of a queer chain of circumstances as he expressed it he'd been through nearly all the professions and could produce papers proving that he'd been on the pointed passing not one, but three examinations. He had begun with theology, but the story of the quarrel between Jacob and Esau had led him to take up the study of law. As a law student he had come across an interesting poisoning case which had proved to him that a study of medicine was extremely necessary for lawyers, and he'd taken up the study of medicine with such energy that he'd forgotten all his law and was about to take his last examinations at the age of forty. Neil's Day took the story of our troubles very seriously. Every pot has two handles, he began. Every sausage, two ends. Every question, two sides. Except this one. This has three. Applause. When we look at it from the legal point of view there can be no doubt that it belongs in the category of ordinary theft. But from the fact that the thief took only the arms when he might have taken the entire skeleton we must conclude that he is not in a responsible condition of mind which therefore introduces a medical side to the affair. From a legal point of view the thief must be convicted for robbery or at least for the illegal appropriation of the property of others. But from the medical point of view we must acquit him because he is not responsible for his acts. Here we have two professions quarreling with one another and who shall say which is right? But now I will introduce the theological point of view and raise the entire affair up to a higher plane. Providence, in the material shape of a patron of mine in the country whose children I have inoculated with the juice of wisdom has sent me two fat geese and two first-class ducks. These animals are to be cooked and eaten this evening in Madison's establishment and I invite this honoured company to join me there. Personally I look upon the disappearance of these arms as an all-wise intervention of Providence which sets its own inscrutable wisdom up against the wisdom which we would otherwise have heard from the lips of my venerable friend, Soling. Day's confused speech was received with laughter and applause and Soling's weak protests were lost in the general delight of the invitation. I have often noticed that such improvised festivities are usually the most enjoyable and so it was for us that evening. Neil's Day treated us to his ducks and to his most amusing jokes. Soling sang his best songs. Our jovial host Madison told his wittiest stories and the merriment was in full swing when we heard cries in the street and then a rush of confused noises broken by screams of pain. There's been an accident, cried Soling, running out the door. We all followed him and discovered that a pair of runaway horses had thrown a carriage against a tree hurling the driver from his box under the wheels. His right arm had been broken near the shoulder. In the twinkling of an eye the hall of festivities was transformed into an emergency hospital. Soling shook his head as he examined the injury and ordered the transport of the patient to the city hospital. It was his belief that the arm would have to be amputated, cut off at the shoulder joint just as had been the case with our skeleton. Damned odd coincidence, isn't it, he remarked to me. Our merry mood had vanished and we took our way, quiet and depressed, through the old avenues toward our home. For the first time in its existence possibly, our venerable barracks, as we call the dormitory, saw its occupants returning home from an evening's bout just as the night watchman intoned his eleven o'clock verse. Just eleven, exclaimed Soling. It's too early to go to bed and too late to go anywhere else. We'll go up to your room, little Simpson, and see if we can't have some sort of lesson this evening. You have your coloured plates and we'll try to get along with them. It's a nuisance that we should have lost those arms just this evening. The doctor can have all the arms and legs he wants, grinned hands, who came out of the doorway just in time to hear Soling's last word. What do you mean, hands? asked Soling in astonishment. It'll be easy enough to get them, said Hans. They've torn down the planking around the Holy Trinity Churchyard and dug out the earth to build a new wall. I saw it myself as I came past the church. Lord, what a lot of bones they've dug out there! There's arms and legs and heads, many more than the doctor could possibly need. Much good that does us! answered Soling. They shut the gates at seven o'clock and it's after eleven already. Oh yes, they shut them, grinned hands again. But there's another way to get in. If you go through the gate of the porcelain factory and over the courtyard, and through the mill in the fourth courtyard that leads out into Spring Street, there you will see where the planking is torn down and you can get into the churchyard easily. Hands, you're a genius! explained Soling in delight. Here, Simpson, you know that factory inside out. You're so friendly with that fellow Utzon who lives there. Run along to him and let him give you the key of the mill. It will be easy to find an arm that isn't too much decayed. Hurry along now, the rest of us will wait for you upstairs. To be quite candid, I must confess that I was not particularly eager to fulfill Soling's command. I was at an age to have still a sufficient amount of reverence for death and the grave and the mysterious occurrence of the stolen arms still ran through my mind. But I was still more afraid of Soling's irony and of the laughter of my comrades, so I trotted off as carelessly as if I had been sent to buy a package of cigarettes. It was some time before I could arouse the old janitor of the factory from his peaceful slumbers. I told him that I had an important message for Utzon and hurried upstairs the latter's room. Utzon was a strictly moral character. Knowing this, I was prepared to have him refuse me the key which would let me into the fourth courtyard and from there into the cemetery. As I expected, Utzon took the matter very seriously. He closed the Hebrew Bible which he'd been studying as I entered, turning up his lamp and looked at me in astonishment as I made my request. Why, my dear Simpson, it is a most sinful deed that you're about to do, he said gravely. Take my vice and desist. You will get no key from me for any such course. The piece of the grave is sacred. No man dare disturb it. And how about the grave-digger? He puts the newly dead down beside the old corpses and lives as peacefully as anyone else. He is doing his duty, answered Utzon calmly, but to disturb the piece of the grave from sheer daring with the fumes of the punch still in your head, that is a different matter that will surely be punished. His words irritated me. It is not very flattering, particularly if one is not yet twenty, to be told that you're about to perform a daring deed simply because you are drunk. Without any further reply to his protests, I took the key from its place on the wall and ran downstairs two steps at a time, vowing to myself that I would take home an arm and let cost what it would. I would show Utzon and Soling and all the rest what a devil of a fellow I was. My heart beat rapidly as I stole through the long dark corridor past the ruins of the old convent of St. Clara into the so-called Third Courtyard. Here I took a lantern from the hall, lit it and crossed to the mill where the clay was prepared for the factory. The tall wheels and cylinders with their straps and bolts looked like weird creatures of the night in the dim light of my tallow candle. I felt my courage sinking even here, but I pulled myself together, opened the last door with my key, and stepped out into the fourth courtyard. A moment later I stood on the dividing line between the cemetery and the factory. The entire length of the tall, blackened planking had been torn down. The pieces of it lay about, and the earth had been dug up to considerable depth to make a foundation for a new wall between life and death. The uncanny emptiness of the clay seized upon me. I halted involuntarily as if to harden myself against it. It was a raw, cold, stormy evening. The clouds flew past the moon in jagged fragments so that the churchyard with its white crosses and stones lay now in full light, now in dim shadow. Now and then a rush of wind rattled over the graves, roared through the leafless trees, bent the complaining bushes, and caught itself in the little eddy at the corner of the church, only to escape again over the roofs, turning the old weather vane with a sharp scream of the rusty iron. I looked toward the left. There I saw several weird white shapes moving gently in the moonlight. White sheets, I said to myself. It's nothing but white sheets! This drying of linen in the churchyard ought to be stopped. I turned in the opposite direction and saw a heap of bones scarce two paces distant from me. Holding my lat and lower, I approached them and stretched out my hand. There was a rattling in the heap, something warm and soft touched my fingers. I started and shivered. Then I exclaimed, The rats! Nothing but the rats in the churchyard! I must not get frightened. It would be so foolish they would laugh at me. Where the devil is that arm? I can't find one that isn't broken. With trembling knees and in feverish haste I examined one heap after another. The light in my lat and flickered in the wind and suddenly went out. The foul smell of the smoking wick rose to my face and I felt as if I were about to faint. It took all my energy to recover my control. I walked two or three steps ahead and saw at a little distance a coffin which had been still in good shape when taken out of the earth. I approached it and saw that it was of old fashion shape, made of heavy oak and boards that were already rotting. On its cover was a metal plate with an illegible inscription. That wood was so brittle that it would have been very easy for me to open the coffin with any sort of a tool. I looked about me and saw a hatchet and a couple of spades lying near the fence. I took one of the latter, put its flat end between the boards. The old coffin fell apart with a dull crackling protest. I turned my head aside, put my hand in through the opening, felt about and taking a firm hold on one arm of the skeleton, I loosened it from the body with a quick jerk. The movement loosened the head as well and it rolled out through the opening right to my very feet. I took up the skull to lay it in the coffin again and then I saw a greenish phosphorescent glimmer in its empty eye sockets, a glimmer which came and went. Mad terror shook me at the sight. I looked up at the house in the distance then back again to the skull. The empty sockets shone more brightly than before. I felt that I must have some natural explanation for this appearance where I would go mad. I took up the head again and never in my life have I had so overpowering an impression of the might of death and decay than in this moment. Myriads of disgusting, clammy insects poured out of every opening of the skull and a couple of shining worm-like centipedes, geophiles the scientists call them, crawled about in the eye sockets. I threw the skull back into the coffin, sprang over the heaps of bones without even taking time to pick up my lantern and ran like a hunted thing through the dark mill over the factory courtyards until I reached the outer gate. Here I washed the arm at the fountain and smoothed my disarranged clothing. I hid my booty under my overcoat, nodded to the sleepy old janitor as he opened the door to me and a few moments later I entered my own room with an expression that I had attempted to make quite calm and careless. What the devil is the matter with you, Simpson? cried Soling as he saw me. Have you seen a ghost? Or is the punch wearing off already? We thought you'd never come why it's nearly twelve o'clock. Without a word I drew back my overcoat and laid my booty on the table. By all the devils, exclaimed Soling in anatomical enthusiasm, where did you find that superb arm? Simpson knows what he's about all right. It's a girl's arm, isn't it beautiful? Just look at the hand, how fine and delicate it is. Must have worn a number six glove. There's a pretty hand to caress and kiss. The arm passed from one to the other amid general admiration. Every word that was said increased my disgust for myself and for what I had done. It was a woman's arm, then. What sort of a woman might she have been? Young and beautiful possibly. Her brother's pride, her parents' joy. She had faded away in her youth, cared for by loving hands and tender thoughts. She had fallen asleep gently and those who had loved her had desired to give her in death the peace she had enjoyed throughout her lifetime. For this they had made her coffin of thick, heavy, open boards. And this hand, loved and missed by so many, it lay there now on an anatomical table, encircled by clouds of tobacco-spoke, stared at by curious glances and made the object, of course, jokes. Oh, God, how terrible it was! I must have that arm, exclaimed Soling when the first burst of admiration had passed. When I bleach it and touch it up with varnish, it will be a superb specimen. I'll take it home with me. No, I exclaimed. I can't permit it. It was wrong of me to bring it away from the churchyard. I'm going right back to put the arm in its place. Well, will you listen to that? cried Soling amid the hearty laughter of the others. Simpson, so lyric! He certainly must be drunk. I must have that arm at any cost. Not much, cut in Neil's day. You have no right to it. It was buried in the earth and dug out again. It is a find, and all the rest of us have just as much right to it as you have. Yes, every one of us has some share in it, said someone else. But what are you going to do about it, remarked Soling? It would be vandalism to break up that arm. What God has joined together, let no man put a sunder, he concluded with Pethos. Let's auction it off, exclaimed Day. I will be the auctioneer, and this ski to the graveyard will serve me for a hammer. The laughter broke out anew, as Day took his place solemnly at the head of the table, and began to find out the following announcement. I hereby notify all present that on the 25th of November at twelve o'clock at midnight, in corridor number five of the student barracks, a lady's arm in excellent condition, with all its appurtenances of wrist bones, joints, and fingertips, is to be offered at public auction. The buyer can have possession of his purchase immediately after the auction, and a credit of six weeks will be given to any reliable customer. I bid a Danish shilling. One mark, cried Soling mockingly. Two cried someone else. Far, exclaimed Soling. It's worth it. Why don't you join in, Simpson? You'd look as if you were sitting in a hornet's nest. I bid one mark more, and Soling raised me a taller. There were no more bids, the hammer fell, and the arm belonged to Soling. Here, take this, he said, handing me a marked piece. It's part of your commission as a grave robber. You shall have the rest later, unless you prefer that I should turn it over to the drinking fund. With these words, Soling wrapped the arm in a newspaper, and the gay crowd ran noisily down the stairs and through the streets until their singing and laughter were lost in the distance. I stood alone, still dazed and bewildered, staring at the piece of money in my hand. My thoughts were far too much excited that I should hope to sleep. I turned up my lamp and took out one of my books to try and study myself into a quieter mood, but without success. Suddenly I heard a sound like that of a swinging pendulum. I raised my head and listened attentively. There was no clock either in my room or in the neighbouring ones, but I could still hear the sound. At the same moment my lamp began to flicker. The oil was apparently exhausted. I was about to rise to fill it again when my eyes fell upon the door and I saw the graveyard key which I'd hung there moving slowly back and forth with a rhythmic swing. Just as its motion seemed about to die away, it would receive a gentle push as from an unseen hand would swing back and forth more than ever. I stood there with open mouth and staring eyes. Ice-cold chills ran down my back and drops of perspiration stood out on my forehead. Finally I could endure it no longer. I sprang to the door, seized the key with both hands and put it on my desk under a pile of heavy books. Then I breathed a sigh of relief. My lamp was about to go out and I discovered that I had no more oil. With feverish haste I threw my clothes off, blew out the light and sprang into bed as if to smother my fears. But once alone in the darkness the fears grew worse than ever. They grew into dreams and visions. It seemed to me as if I were out in the graveyard again and heard the screaming of the rusty weather-vein as the wind turned it. Then I was in the mill again, the wheels were turning and stretching out ghostly hands to draw me into the yawning moor of the machine. Then again I found myself in a long, low, pitch-black corridor followed by something I could not see, something that drove me to the mouth of a bottomless abyss. I would start up out of my half-sleep, listen and look about me, and then fall back again into an uneasy slumber. Suddenly something fell from the ceiling onto the bed and buzz-buzz-buzz sounded about my head. It was a huge fly which had been sleeping in a corner of my room aroused by the heat of the stove. It flew about in great circles, now around the bed, now in all four corners of the chamber, buzz-buzz-buzz. It was unendurable! At last I heard it creep into a bag of sugar which had been left on the window sill. I sprang up and closed the bag tight. The fly buzzed worse than ever, but I went back to bed and attempted to sleep again, feeling that I had conquered the enemy. I began to count. I counted slowly to one hundred, two hundred, finally up to one thousand, and then at last I experienced that pleasant weakness which is the forerunner of true sleep. I seemed to be in a beautiful garden, bright with many flowers and odorous with all the perfumes of spring. At my side walked a beautiful young girl. I seemed to know her well and yet it was not possible for me to remember her name or even to know how we came to be wandering there together. As we walked slowly through the paths she would stop to pick a flower or to admire a brilliant butterfly swaying in the air. Suddenly a cold wind blew through the garden. The young girl trembled and her cheeks grew pale. I am cold, she said to me. Do you not see? It is death who is approaching us. I would have answered, but in the same moment another stronger and still more icy gust roared through the garden. The leaves turned pale on the trees. The flower it spent their heads and the bees and butterflies fell lifeless to the earth. That is death, whispered my companion, trembling. A third icy gust blew the last leaves from the bushes. White crosses and gravestones appeared between the bare twigs and I was in the church hard again and heard the screaming of the rusty weather-vein. Beside me stood a heavy brass-bound coffin with a metal plate on the cover. I bent down to read the inscription. The cover rolled off suddenly and from out the coffin rose the form of the young girl who had been with me in the garden. I stretched out my arms to clasp her to my breast. Then, oh, horror! I saw the greenish gleaming empty eye sockets of the skull. I felt bony arms around me dragging me back into the coffin. I screamed aloud for help and woke up. My room seemed unusually light, but I remembered that it was a moonlight night and thought no more of it. I tried to explain the visions of my dream with various natural noises about me. The imprisoned fly buzzed as loudly as a whole swarm of bees. One half of my window had blown open and the cold night air rushed in gusts into my room. I sprang up to close the window and then I saw that the strong white light that filled my room did not come from the moon but seemed to shine out from the church opposite. I heard the chiming of the bells, soft at first as if in far distance, then stronger and stronger until mingled with the rolling notes of the organ, a mighty rush of sounds struck against my windows. I stared out into the street and could scarcely believe my eyes. The houses in the marketplace just beyond were all little one-story buildings with no windows and wooden eave troughs ending in carved dragon heads. Most of them had balconies of carved woodwork and high stone stoops with gleaming brass rails. But it was the church, most of all, that aroused my astonishment. Its position was completely changed. Its front turned toward our house where usually the site had stood. The church was brilliantly lighted and now I perceived that it was this light which filled my room. I stood speechless amid the chiming of the bells and the roaring of the organ, and I saw a long wedding procession moving slowly up the centre aisle of the church toward the altar. The light was so brilliant that I could distinguish each one of the figures. They were all in strange, old-time costumes, the ladies in briquettes and satins with strings of pearls in their powdered hair, the gentlemen in uniform with knee-bridges, swords and cocked hats held under their arms. But it was the bride who drew my attention most strongly. She was clothed in white satin and a faded, myrtle wreath was twisted through the powdered locks beneath her sweeping veil. The bridegroom at her side wore a red uniform and many decorations. Slowly they approached the altar, where an old man in black vestments and a heavy white wig was awaiting them. They stood before him, and I could see that he was reading the ritual from a gold-lettered book. One of the trains stepped forward and unbuckled the bridegroom's sword, that his right hand might be free to take that of the bride. She seemed about to raise her own hand to his when she suddenly sank fainting at his feet. The guests hurried toward the altar, the lights went out, the music stopped and the figures floated together like pale white mists. But outside in the square it was still brighter than before, and I suddenly saw the side-portal of the church burst open and the wedding procession move out across the marketplace. I turned as if to flee but could not move a muscle. Quiet as if turned to stone, I stood and watched the ghostly figures that came nearer and nearer. The clergyman led the train, then came the bridegroom and the bride, and as the latter raised her eyes to me, I saw that it was the young girl of the garden. Her eyes were so full of pain, so full of sad entreaty that I could scarce endure them. But how shall I explain the feeling that shot through me as I suddenly discovered that the right sleeve of her white-satted gown hung empty at her side? The train disappeared, and the tone of the church bells changed to a strange, dry creaking sound, and the gate below me complained as it turned on its rusty hinges. I faced toward my own door. I knew that it was shut and locked, but I knew that the ghostly procession were coming to call me to account, and I felt that no walls could keep them out. My door flew open. There was a rustling as of silk and gowns, but the figures seemed to float in in the changing forms of swaying white mists. Closer and closer they gathered round me, robbing me of breath, robbing me of the power to move. There was a silences of the grave, and then I saw before me the old priest with his gold-lettered book. He raised his hands and spoke with a soft, deep voice. The grave is sacred. Let no one dare to disturb the peace of the dead. The grave is sacred, and Echo rolled through the room as the swaying figures moved like reeds in the wind. What do you want? What do you demand? I gasped in the grip of a deathly fear. Give back to the grave that which belongs to it, said the deep voice again. Give back to the grave that which belongs to it, repeated the Echo as the swaying forms pressed closer to me. But it's impossible. I can't. I sold it, sold it at auction, I screamed in despair. It was buried and found in the earth and sold for five marks, eight shillings. A hideous scream came from the ghostly ranks. They threw themselves upon me as the white fog rolls in from the sea. They pressed upon me until I could no longer breathe. Beside myself, I threw open the window and attempted to spring out screaming aloud, Help! Help! Murder! They're murdering me! The sound of my own voice awoke me. I found myself in my nightclothes on the window sill, one leg already out of the window and both hands clutching at the centre-post. On the street below me stood the night watchman, staring up at me in astonishment, while faint white clouds of mist rolled out of my window like smoke. All around, outside, lay the November fog, grey and moist, and as the fresh air of the early dawn blew cool on my face, I felt my senses returning to me. I looked down at the night watchman, God bless him. He was a big, strong, comfortably fat fellow made of real flesh and blood and no ghost shape of the night. I looked at the round tower of the church, how massive and venerable it stood there, grey in the grey of the morning mists. I looked over at the marketplace, there was a light in the baker's shop and a farmer stood before it, tying his horse to a post. Back in my own room everything was in its usual place, even the little bag with the sugar lay there on the window sill and the imprisoned fly buzzed louder than ever. I knew that I was really awake and that the day was coming. I sprang back hastily from the window and was about to jump into bed when my foot touched something hard and sharp. I stooped to see what it was, felt about on the floor in the half-light and touched a long, dry, skeleton arm which held a tiny roll of paper in its bony fingers. I felt about again and found still another arm also holding a roll of paper. Then I began to think that my reason must be going. What I had seen thus far was only an unusually vivid dream, a vision of my heated imagination. But I knew that I was awake now and yet here lay two, no three, for there was still another arm, hard, undeniable material proofs that what I had thought was hallucination might have been reality. Trembling the thought that madness was threatening me, I tore open the first roll of paper. On it was written the name Soling. I caught at the second and opened it, there stood the word Nansen. I had just strength enough left to catch the third paper and open it. There was my own name, Simpson. Then I sank fainting to the floor. When I came to myself again, Mule's Day stood beside me with an empty water-bottle, the contents of which were dripping off my person and off the sofa upon which I was lying. Here, drink this, he said in a soothing tone. It will make you feel better. I looked about me wildly as I sipped at the glass of brandy which put new life into me once more. What has happened, I asked weakly. Oh, nothing of importance, answered Niels. You were just about to commit suicide by means of charcoal-gas. Those almighty bad ventilators on your old stove there. The wind must have blown them shut unless you were full enough to close them yourself before you went to bed. If you had not opened the window, you would have already been too far along the path to Paradise to be called back by a glass of brandy. Take another. How did you get up here, I asked, sitting upright on the sofa. Through the door in the usual simple manner, answered Mule's Day. I was on watch last night in the hospital, but Madison's punch is heavy and my watching was more like sleeping, so I thought it better to come away in the early morning. As I passed your barracks here, I saw you sitting in the window in your night-shirt and calling down to the night-watchman that someone was murdering you. I managed to wake up Janssen, down below you, and got into the house through his window. Do you usually sleep on the bare floor? But where did the arms come from, I asked, still half bewildered. Oh, the devil take those arms, cried Niels. Just see if you can stand up all right now. Oh, those arms there! Why, those are the arms I cut off your skeletons. Clever idea, wasn't it? You know how grumpy Soling gets if anything interferes with his tutoring. You see, I'd had the geese sent me, and I wanted you to all come with me to Madison's place. I knew you were going to read the osteology of the arm, so I went into Soling's room, opened it with his own keys, and took the arms from his skeleton. I did the same here while you were downstairs in the reading-room. Have you been stupid enough to take them down off their frames and take away their tickets? I had marked them so carefully that each man should get his own again. I dressed hastily, and went out with Niels into the fresh, cool morning air. A few minutes later we separated, and I turned toward the street where Soling lived. Without heeding the protest of his old landlady, I entered the room where he still slept to the sleep of the just. The arm, still wrapped in newspaper, lay on his desk. I took it up, put the mark piece in its place, and hastened with all speed to the churchyard. How different it looked in the early dawn. The fog had risen, and shining frost pearls hung in the bare twigs of the tall trees where the sparrows were already twittering their morning song. There was no one to be seen. The churchyard lay quiet and peaceful. I stepped over the heaps of bones to where the heavy, open coffin lay under a tree. Cautiously, I pushed the arm back into its interior and hammered the rusty nails into their places again, just as the first rays of the pale November sun touched a gleam of light from the metal plate on the cover. Then the weight was lifted from my soul. End of the Amputated Arms Recording by Roger Clifton, St. Albans, England There was a ceaseless rumble in the air as the heavy raindrops battered upon the laurel thickets and the matted moss and haggard rocks beneath. Four water-soaked men made their difficult ways through the drenched forest. The little man stopped and shook an angry finger at where night was stealthily following them. Curse to be fate, and her children, and her children's children, we are everlastingly lost, he cried. Their panting procession halted under some dripping, drooping hemlocks, and swore in wrathful astonishment. It will rain for forty days and forty nights, said the pudgy man moaningly, and I feel like a wet loaf of bread now. We shall never find our way out of this wilderness until I am made into a porridge. In desperation they started again to drag their listless bodies through the watery bushes. After a time the clouds withdrew from above them, and great winds came from concealment and went sweeping and swirling among the trees. Night also came very near and menaced the wanderers with darkness. The little man had determination in his legs. He scrambled among the thickets and made desperate attempts to find a path or a road. As he climbed a hillock he aspired a small clearing upon which sat desolation and a venerable house leapt over by wind-waved pines. Oh! he cried. Here's a house! His companion straggled painfully after him as he fought the thickets between him and the cabin. At their approach the wind frenziedly opposed them and skirted madly in the trees. The little man boldly confronted the weird glances from the crannies of the cabin and wrapped on the door. A score of timbers answered with groans and within something fell to the floor with a clang. Oh! said the little man. He stepped back a few paces. Somebody in a distant part started and walked across the floor toward the door with an ominous step. A slate-colored man appeared. He was dressed in a ragged shirt and trousers. The latter stuffed into his boots. Large tears were falling from his eyes. How do you do, my friend? said the little man affably. My old, jungle Jim Crocker, he's sick to death! replied the slate-colored man. Oh! said the little man. Is that so? The latter's clothing clung desperately to him and water sogged in his boots. He stood patiently on one foot for a time. Can you put us up here until tomorrow? He asked finally. Yes, said the slate-colored person. The party passed into a little unwashed room inhabited by a stove, a stairway, a few precarious chairs, and a misshapen table. I'll fry you some poke and make you some coffee, said the slate-colored man to his guests. Go ahead, old boy! cried the little man cheerfully from where he sat on the table, smoking his pipe and dangling his legs. My old, uncle Jim Crocker, he's sick to death! said the slate-colored man. Think he'll die? asked the pudgy man gently. No! No? He won't die. He's an old man, but he won't die yet. The black dog ain't been around yet. The black dog, said the little man feebly. He struggled with himself for a moment. What's the black dog? he asked at last. He's a spirit, said the slate-colored man in the voice of sombre Hugh. Oh, he is, well. He haunts these parties, he does, and when people are going to die, he comes and he sets and howls. Oh, said the little man. He looked out of the window and saw night making a million shadows. The little man moved his legs nervously. I don't believe in these things, said he, addressing the slate-colored man who was scuffling with a sigh of fork. What things? came incoherently from the combatant. Oh, these are phantoms and ghosts and whatnot? All right, I say. That's because you have merely a stomach and no soul, grunted the pungy man. Oh, old pudgeons, cried the little man. His back curved with passion. A tempest of wrath was in the pudgy man's eye. The final epithet used by the little man was a carefully studied insult, always brought forth by the crisis. They quarreled. All right, pudgeons, bring on your phantom, cried the little man in conclusion. His stout companion's wrath was too huge for words that the little man smiled triumphantly. He had staked his opponent's reputation. The visitors sat silent. The slate-colored man moved about in a small, personal atmosphere of gloom. Suddenly a strange cry came to their ears from somewhere. It was a low, trembling call which made the little man quake privately in his shoes. The slate-colored man bounded at the stairway and disappeared with a flash of legs through a hole in the ceiling. The party below heard two voices in conversation, one belonging to the slate-colored man and the other in the quavering tones of age. Directly the slate-colored man reappeared from above and said, The old man took bad for his supper. He hurried, prepared a mixture with hot water, salt and beef, beef-tea it might be called. He disappeared again, once more the party below heard vaguely talking over their heads. The voice of age arose to a shriek, Open the window, fool! Do you think I can live in the smell of your soap? Mutterings by the slate-colored man and the creaking of the window were heard. The slate-colored man stumbled down the stairs and said with intense gloom, The black dark will be along soon. The little man started and the pudgy man sneered at him. They ate a supper and then sat waiting. The pudgy man listened so palpably that the little man wished to kill him. The wood fire became excited and sputtered frantically. Without a thousand spirits of the wind had become entangled in the pine branches and were slowly pleading to be loosened. The slate-colored man tiptoed across the room and lit a tearant candle. The men sat waiting. The phantom dog lay cuddled to a round bundle, asleep down the roadway against the windward side of an old shanty. The specter's master had moved to Pike County, but the dog lingered as a friend might linger at the tomb of a friend. His fur was like a suit of old clothes. His jowls hung and flopped, exposing his teeth. Yellow famine was in his eyes. The wind rocked, shanty groaned and muttered, but the dog slept. Suddenly, however, he got up and shambled to the roadway. He cast a long glance from his hungry, despairing eyes in the direction of the venerable house. The breeze came full to his nostrils. He threw back his head and gave a long, low howl and started intently up the road. Maybe he smelled a dead man. The group around the fire in the venerable house were listening and waiting. The atmosphere of the room was tense. The slate-colored man's face was twitching and his drabbed hands were gripped together. The little man was continually looking behind his chair. Upon the countenance of the pudgy man appeared conceit for an approaching triumph over the little man, mingled with apprehension for his own safety. Five pipes glowed as rivals of a timid camel. Profound silence drooped heavily over them. Finally the slate-colored man spoke. My old uncle Jim Crocker, he's sick to death. The four men started and then shrank back in their chairs. Damn it! replied the little man vaguely. Again there was a long silence. Suddenly it was broken by a wild cry from the room above. It was a shriek that struck upon them with appalling swiftness, like a flash of lightning. The walls whirled and the floor rumbled. It brought the men together with a rush. They huddled in a heap and stared at the white terror in each other's faces. The slate-colored man grasped the candle and flared it above his head. Back a dog! he howled and plunged at the stairway. The maddened four men followed frantically, for it is better to be in the presence of the awful than only within hearing. Their ears still quivering with the shriek. They bounded through the hole in the ceiling and into the sick room, with quilts drawn closely to his shrunken breath for a shield, his bony hand gripping the cover. An old man lay with glazing eyes fixed on the open window. His throat gurgled and a froth appeared at his mouth. From the outer darkness came a strange, unnatural wail, burdened with weight of death, and each note filled with foreboding. It was the song of the spectral dog. God! screamed the little man. He ran to the open window. He could see nothing at first save the pine trees, engaged in a furious combat, tossing back and forth and struggling. The moon was peeping cautiously over the rims of some black clouds, but the chant of the phantom guided the little man's eyes, and he at length perceived a shadowy form on the ground under the window. He fell away gasping at the sight. The pudgy man crouched in a corner, chattering insanely. This late-coloured man, in his fear, crooked his legs and looked like a hideous Chinese idol. The man upon the bed was turned to stone, save the froth, which pulsated. In the final struggle terror will fight the inevitable. The little man roared maniacal curses and rushing again to the window began to throw various articles at the spectre. A mug, a plate, a knife, a fork, all crashed or clanged on the ground, but the song of the spectre continued. The bowl of beef tea followed. As it struck the ground the phantom ceased its cry. The men in the chamber sank limply against the walls, with the unhearthly wail still ringing in their ears, and the fear unfaded from their eyes. They waited again. The little man felt his nerves vibrate. Destruction was better than another weight. He grasped a candle and, going to the window, held it over his head and looked out. Oh! he said. His companions crawled to the window and peered out with him. He's eaten the beef tea, said the slate-coloured man faintly. The damn dog was hungry, said the pudgy man. There's your phantom, said the little man to the pudgy man. On the bed the old man lay dead. Without the spectre was wagging its tail. The end of the black dog. Everyone knows that Sir Dominic Holden, the famous Indian surgeon, made me his heir, and that his death changed me in an hour from a hard-working and impecunious medical man to a well-to-do landed proprietor. Many know also that there were at least five people between the inheritance and me, and that Sir Dominic's selection appeared to be altogether arbitrary and whimsical. I can assure them, however, that they're quite mistaken, and that although I only knew Sir Dominic in the closing years of his life, there were nonetheless very real reasons why he should show his goodwill towards me. As a matter of fact, though I say it myself, no man ever did more for another than I did for my Indian uncle. I cannot expect the story to be believed, but it is so singular that I should feel that it was a breach of duty if I did not put it upon record. So here it is, and your belief for incredulity is your own affair. Sir Dominic Holden, C. B. K. C. S. I, and I don't know what besides, was the most distinguished Indian surgeon of his day. In the army originally he afterwards settled down into civil practice in Bombay and visited as a consultant every part of India. His name is best remembered in connection with the Oriental Hospital which he founded and supported. The time came, however, when his iron constitution began to show signs of the long strain to which he'd subjected it, and his brother practitioner, not perhaps entirely disinterested upon the point, were unanimous in recommending him to return to England. He held on so long as he could, but at last he developed a nervous symptoms of a very pronounced character and so came back a broken man to his native county of Wiltshire. He bought a considerable estate with an ancient manor house upon the edge of Salisbury Plain, and devoted his old age to the study of comparative pathology, which had been his learned hobby all his life, and in which he was a foremost authority. We of the family were, as may be imagined, much excited by the news of the return of this rich and childless uncle to England. On his part, although by no means exuberant in his hospitality, he showed some sense of his duty to his relations, and each of us in turn had an invitation to visit him. From the accounts of my cousins it appeared to be a melancholy business, and it was with mixed feelings that I at last received my own summons My wife was so carefully excluded in the invitation that my first impulse was to refuse it, but the interests of the children had to be considered, and so, with her consent, I set out one October afternoon upon my visit to Wiltshire with little thought of what that visit was to entail. My uncle's estate was situated where the arable land of the plains begins to swell upwards into the rounded chalk hills which are characteristic of the county. As I drove from Dinton's station in the waning of that autumn day, I was impressed by the weird nature of the scenery. The few scattered cottages of the peasants were so dwarfed by the huge evidences of prehistoric life that the present appeared to be a dream and the past to be the obtrusive and masterful reality. The road wound through the valleys formed by a succession of grassy hills and the summit of each was cut and carved into the most elaborate fortifications, some circular and some square, but all on a scale which has defied the winds and the rains of many centuries. Some call them Roman and some British, but their true origin and the reasons for this particular tract of country being so interlaced with entrenchments have never been finally made clear. Here and there on the long smooth olive coloured slopes there rose small rounded barrows or tumuli. Beneath them lie the cremated ashes of the race which cuts so deeply into the hills, but their graves tell us nothing save that a jar of rhodenhurst represents the man who once laboured under the sun. It was through this weird country that I approached my uncle's residence of rhodenhurst, and the house was as I found in dew-keeping with its surroundings. Two broken and weather-stained pillars, each surmounted by a mutilated heraldic emblem, flanked the entrance to a neglected drive. A cold wind whistled through the elms which lined it, and the air was full of the drifting leaves. At the far end, under the gloomy arch of trees, a single yellow lamp burned steadily. In the dim half-light of the coming night I saw a long, low building stretching out two irregular wings, with deep eaves, a sloping gambrel-roof, and walls which were crisscrossed with timber-borks in the fashion of the Tudors. The cheery light of the fire flickered in the broad lattice window to the left of the low porch door, and this, as it proved, marked the study of my uncle, for it was slither than I was led by his butler in order to make my host's acquaintance. He was cowering over his fire, for the moist chill of an English autumn had set him shivering. His lamp was unlit, and I only saw the red glow of the embers beating upon a huge, craggy face with a red, Indian nose and cheek, and deep furrows and seams from eye to chin, the sinister mocks of hidden volcanic fires. He sprang up at my entrance with something of an old-world courtesy, and welcomed me warmly to Roddenhurst. At the same time I was conscious, as the lamp was carried in, that it was a very critical pair of light-blue eyes which looked out at me from under shaggy eyebrows, like scouts beneath the bush, and that this outlandish uncle of mine was carefully reading off my character with all the ease of a practised observer and an experienced man of the world. For my part I looked at him and looked again, for I had never seen a man whose appearance was more fitted to hold one's attention. His figure was the framework of a giant, but he had fallen away until his coat dangled straight down in a shocking fashion from a pair of broad and bony shoulders. All his limbs were huge and yet emaciated, and I could not take my gaze from his knobby wrists and long, gnarled hands. But his eyes, those peering light-blue eyes, they were the most arresting of any of his peculiarities. It was not their colour alone, nor was it the ambush of hair in which they lurked, but it was the expression which I read in them. For the appearance and bearing of the man were masterful, and one expected a certain corresponding arrogance in his eyes, but instead of that I read the look which tells of a spirit cowed and crushed, the furtive, expectant look of the dog whose master has taken the whip from the rack. I formed my own medical diagnosis at those critical and yet appealing eyes. I believed that he was stricken with some mortal ailment, that he knew himself to be exposed to sudden death, and that he lived in terror of it. Such was my judgment, a false one as the event showed, but I mention it, that it may help you to realise the look which I read in his eyes. My uncle's welcome was, as I have said, a courteous one, and in an hour or so I found myself seated between him and his wife at a comfortable dinner with curious pungent delicacies upon the table and a healthy quick-eyed oriental waiter behind his chair. The old couple had come round to that tragic imitation of the dawn of life when husband and wife, having lost or scattered all those who were their intimates, find themselves face to face and alone once more, their work done, and the end nearing fast. Those who have reached that stage in sweetness and love, who can into a gentle Indian summer have come as victors through the ordeal of life. Lady Holden was a small, alert woman with a kindly eye, and her expression as she glanced at him was a certificate of character to her husband, and yet, though I read a mutual love in their glances, I read also mutual horror and recognised in her face some reflection of that stealthy fear which I had detected in his. Their talk was sometimes merry and sometimes sad, but there was a forced note in their merriment and a naturalness in their sadness which told me that a heavy heart beat upon either side of me. We were sitting over our first glass of wine, and the servants had left the room when the conversation took a turn which produced a remarkable effect upon my host and hostess. I cannot recall what it was which started the topic of the supernatural, but it ended in my showing them that the abnormal and psychical experiences was a subject to which I had, like many neurologists, devoted a great deal of attention. I concluded by narrating my experiences when, as a member of the Psychical Research Society, I had formed one of a committee of three who spent the night in a haunted house. Our adventures were neither exciting nor convincing, but such as it was, the story appeared to interest my auditors with a remarkable degree. They listened with an eager silence and I caught a look of intelligence between them which I could not understand. Lady Holden immediately afterwards rose and left the room. Sir Dominic pushed the cigar box over to me, and we smoked for some little time in silence. That huge bony hand of his was twitching as he raised it with his charoute to his lips, and I felt that the man's nerves were vibrating like fiddle strings. My instincts told me that he was on the verge of some intimate confidence and I feared to speak lest I should interrupt it. At last he turned towards me with a spasmotic gesture like a man who throws his last scruple to the winds. From the little that I have seen of you it appears to me, Dr. Hardaker said he, that you are the very man I have wanted to meet. I am delighted to hear it, sir. Your head seems to be cool and steady. You will acquit me of any desire to flatter you, for the circumstances are too serious to permit of insincereities. You have some special knowledge upon these subjects, and you evidently view them from that philosophical standpoint which robs them of all vulgar terror. I presume that the sight of an apparition would not seriously discompose you. I think not, sir. Would even interest you, perhaps. Most intensely, as a psychical observer you would probably investigate his in as impersonal a fashion as an astronomer investigates a wandering comet. Precisely. He gave a heavy sigh. Believe me, Dr. Hardaker, there was a time when I could have spoken as you do now. My nerve was a byword in India. Even the mutiny never shook it for an instant, and yet you see what I am reduced to, the most timorous man, perhaps in all this county of Wiltshire. Do not speak too bravely upon this subject, or you may find yourself subjected to as long drawn a test as I am, a test which can only end in the madhouse or the grave. I waited patiently until he should see fit to go farther in his confidence. His preamble had, I need not say, filled me with interest and expectation. For some years Dr. Hardaker, he continued, my life and that of my wife have been made miserable by a cause which is so grotesque that it borders upon the ludicrous, and yet familiarity has never made it more easy to bear, on the contrary, as time passes my nerves become more worn and shattered by the constant attrition. If you have no physical fears, Dr. Hardaker, I should very much value your opinion upon this phenomenon as such. For what it's worth, my opinion, is entirely at your service. May I ask the nature of the phenomenon? I think that your experiences will have a higher evidential value if you're not told in advance what you may expect to encounter. You are yourself aware of the quibbles of unconscious celebration and subjective impressions with which a scientific skeptic may throw a doubt upon your statement. It would be as well to guard against what shall I do then? I will tell you. Would you mind following me this way? He led me out of the dining-room and down a long passage until we came to a terminal door. Inside there was a large, bare room fitted as a laboratory with numerous scientific instruments and bottles. A shelf ran along one side upon which there stood a long line of glass jars containing pathological and anatomical specimens. You see that I still dabble in some of my own studies," said Sir Dominic. These jars are the remains of what was once a most extant collection, but unfortunately I lost the greater part of them when my house was burned down in Bombay in 1992. It was a most unfortunate affair for me in more ways than one. I had examples of many rare conditions and my splenic collection was probably unique. These are the survivors. I glanced over them as they really were of a very great value and rarity from a pathological point of view. Bloated organs, gaping cysts, distorted bones, odious parasites, a singular exhibition of the products of India. There is, as you see, a small setee here," said my host. It was far from our intention to offer a guest so meagre an accommodation, but since affairs have taken this term it would be a great kindness upon your part if you would consent to spend the night in this apartment. I beg that you will not hesitate to let me know if the idea should be at all repugnant to you. On the contrary, I said, it is most acceptable. My own room is the second on the left so that if you should feel that you're in need of company a call would always bring me to your side. I trust that I shall not be compelled to disturb you. It's unlikely that I shall be asleep. I do not sleep much. Do not hesitate to summon me. Here with this agreement we joined Lady Holden in the drawing-room and talked of lighter things. It was no affectation upon my part to say that the prospect of my night's adventure was an agreeable one. I have no pretense to greater physical courage than my neighbours, but familiarity with the subject robs it of those vague and undefined terrors which are the most appalling to the imaginative mind. The human brain is capable of only one strong emotion at a time and if it be filled with curiosity or scientific enthusiasm there's no room for fear. It is true that I had my uncle's assurance that he had himself originally taking this point of view, but I reflected that the breakdown of his nervous system might be due to his forty years in India as much as to any psychical experiences which had befallen him. I at least was sound in nerve and brain, and it was with something of the pleasurable thrill of anticipation with which the sportsman takes his position beside the haunt of his game that I shut the laboratory door behind me and partially undressing lay down upon the rug-covered seti. It was not an ideal atmosphere for a bedroom. The air was heavy with many chemical odours that of methylated spirit predominating. Nor were the decorations of my chamber very sedative. The odious line of glass jars with their relics of disease and suffering stretched in front of my very eyes. There was no blind to the window, and a three-quarter moon streamed its white light into the room tracing a silver square with filigree lattices upon the opposite wall. When I had extinguished my candle this one bright patch in the midst of the general gloom had certainly an eerie and discomposing aspect. A rigid and absolute silence reigned through the old house so that the low swish of the branches in the garden came softly and smoothly to my ears. It may have been the hypnotic lullaby of this gentle susseurus, or it may have been the result of my tiring day, but after many dosings and many efforts to regain my clearness of perception I fell at last into a deep and dreamless sleep. I was awakened by some sound in the room, and I instantly raised myself upon my elbow on the couch. Some hours had passed and the square patch upon the wall had slid downwards and sideways until it lay obliquely at the end of my bed. The rest of the room was in deep shadow. At first I could see nothing. Presently as my eyes became accustomed to the faint light I was aware, with a thrill which all my scientific absorption could not entirely prevent, that something was moving slowly along the line of the wall. A gentle shuffling sound as soft slippers came to my ears and I dimly discerned a human figure walking stealthily from the direction of the door. As it emerged into the patch of moonlight I saw very clearly what it was and how it was employed. It was a man short and squat dressed in some sort of dark grey gown which hung straight from his shoulders to his feet. The moon shone upon the side of his face and I saw that it was chocolate brown in colour with a ball of black hair like a woman's at the back of his head. He walked slowly and his eyes were cast upwards towards the line of bottles which contained those gruesome remnants of humanity. He seemed to examine each jar with attention and then to pass on to the next. When he had come to the end of the line immediately opposite my bed he stopped, faced me, threw up his hands with a gesture of despair and vanished from my sight. I have said that he threw up his hands but I should have said his arms for as he assumed that attitude of despair I observed a singular peculiarity about his appearance. He had only one hand. As the sleeves drooped down from the upflung arms I saw the left plainly but the right ended in a knobby and unsightly stump. In every other way his appearance was so natural and I had both seen and heard him so clearly that I could easily have believed that he was an Indian servant of Sir Dominic's who had come into my room in search of something. It was only his sudden disappearance which suggested anything more sinister to me. As it was I sprang from my couch, lit a candle and examined the whole room carefully. There were no signs of my visitor and I was forced to conclude that there had really been something outside the normal laws of nature in his appearance. I lay awake for the remainder of the night but nothing else occurred to disturb me. I am an early riser but my uncle was an even earlier one for I found him pacing up and down the lawn at the side of the house. He ran towards me in his eagerness when he saw me come out from the door. Well, well, he cried, did you see him? An Indian with one hand precisely. Yes, I saw him and I told him all that occurred. When I had finished, he led the way into his study. We have a little time before breakfast, said he. It will suffice to give you an explanation of this extraordinary affair so far as I can explain that which is essentially inexplicable. In the first place, when I tell you that for four years I have never passed one single night either in Bombay, aboard ship, or here in England without my sleep being broken by this fellow, you will understand why it is that I am a wreck of my former self. His program is always the same. He appears by my bedside, shakes me roughly by the shoulder, passes from my room into the laboratory, walks slowly along the line of my bottles and then vanishes. For more than a thousand times he had gone through the same routine. What does he want? He wants his hand. His hand? Yes, it came about in this way. I was summoned to Peshawar for a consultation some ten years ago, and while there I was asked to look at the hand of a native who was passing through with an Afghan caravan. The fellow came from some mountain tribe living away at the back of beyond somewhere on the other side of Kaffiristan. He talked to Bastard Pashtou and it was all I could do to understand him. He was suffering from a soft sarcometer swelling of one of the metacarpal joints and I made him realize that it was only by losing his hand that he could hope to save his life. After much persuasion he consented to the operation and he asked me when it was over what fee I demanded. The poor fellow was almost a beggar so that the idea of a fee was absurd, but I answered in jest that my fee should be his hand and that I proposed to add it to my pathological collection. To my surprise there was no suggestion and he explained that according to his religion it was an all-important matter that the body should be reunited after death and so make a perfect dwelling for the spirit. The belief is, of course, an old one and the mummies of the Egyptians arose from an analogue superstition. I answered him that his hand was already off and asked him how he intended to preserve it. He replied that he would pickle it in salt and carry it about with him. I suggested that it might be safer in my keeping than his and that I had better means than salt for preserving it. On realising that I really intended to carefully keep it, his opposition vanished instantly. But remember, Sahib said he I shall want it back when I am dead. I laughed at the remark and so the matter ended. I returned to my practice and he, no doubt in the course of time was able to continue his journey to Afghanistan. Well, as I told you last night I had a bad fire in my house in Bombay. Half of it was burned down and among other things my pathological collection was largely destroyed. What you see are the poor remains of it. The hand of the hill-man went with the rest. But I gave the matter no particular thought at the time. That was six years ago. Four years ago, two years after the fire, I was awakened one night by a furious tugging at my sleeve. I sat up under the impression that my favourite mastiff was trying to rouse me. Instead of this I saw my Indian patient of long ago dressed in the long grey gown which was the badge of his people. He was holding up his stump and looking reproachfully at me. He then went over to my bottles which at that time I kept in my room and he examined them carefully after which he gave a gesture of anger and vanished. I realised that he had just died and that he had come to claim my promise that I should keep his limb in safety for him. Well, there you have it all, Dr. Hardaker. Every night at the same hour for four years this performance has been repeated. It is a simple thing in itself, but it has worn me out like water dropping on a stone. It has brought a vile insomnia with it, for I cannot sleep now for the expectation of his coming. It has poisoned my old age and that of my wife who has been the sharer in this great trouble. Ah, there is the breakfast-gong and she will be waiting impatiently to know how it fared with you last night. We are both much indebted to you for your gallantry, for it takes something from the weight of our misfortune when we share it even for a single night with a friend, and it reassures us to our sanity which were sometimes driven to question. This was the curious narrative which the Dominic confided to me, a story which to many would have appeared to be a grotesque impossibility, but which, after my experience of the night before and my previous knowledge of such things, I was prepared to accept as an absolute fact. I thought deeply over the matter and brought the whole range of my reading and experience to bear upon it. After breakfast I surprised my host and hostess by announcing that I was returning to London by the next train. My dear doctor, cried Sir Dominic in great distress, you make me feel that I have been guilty of a gross breach of hospitality in intruding this unfortunate matter upon you. I should have borne my own burden. It is indeed that matter which is taking me to London, I answered, but you are mistaken, I assure you, if you think that my experience of last night was an unpleasant one to me. On the contrary, I am about to ask your permission to return in the evening and spend one more night in your laboratory. I am very eager to see this visitor once again. My uncle was exceedingly anxious to know what I was about to do, and the fears of raising false hopes prevented me from telling him. I was back in my own consulting room a little after luncheon, and was confirming my memory of a passage in a recent book upon occultism, which had arrested my attention when I read it. In the case of earthbound spirits, said my authority, some one dominant idea obsessing them at the hour of death is sufficient to hold them in this material world. They are the amphibia of this life and of the next, capable of passing from one to the other as the turtle passes from land to water. The causes which may bind a soul so strongly to a life which its body has abandoned are any violent emotion. Avarice, revenge, anxiety, love and pity have all been known to have this effect. As a rule, it springs from some unfulfilled wish, and when the wish has been fulfilled the material bond relaxes. There are many cases upon record which show the singular persistence of these visitors, and also their disappearance when the wish has been fulfilled, or in some cases when a reasonable compromise has been effected. A reasonable compromise effected. Those were the words which I had brooded over all the morning, and which I now verified in the original. No actual attainment could be made here, but a reasonable compromise I made my way as fast as a train could take me to the Shadwell Siemens Hospital, where my old friend Jack Hewitt was house surgeon. Without explaining the situation I made him understand what it was that I wanted. A brown man's hand said he in amazement, what in the world do you want that for? Never mind, I'll tell you some day. I know that your wards are full of Indians. I should think so, but a hand? He thought a little, and then struck a bell. Travers, said he to a student-dresser, what became of the hands of the Laskar, which we took off yesterday, I mean the fellow from the East India dog who got caught in the steam-winch. There in the post-mortem room, sir. Just pack one of them in antiseptics and give it to Dr. Hardacre. And so I found myself back at Roddenhurst before dinner with this curious outcome of my day in town. I still said nothing to Sir Dominic, but I slept that night in the laboratory, and I placed the Laskar's hand in one of the glass jars at the end of my couch. So interested was I in the result of my experiment that sleep was out of the question. I sat with a shaded lamp beside me and waited patiently for my visitor. This time I saw him clearly from the first. He appeared beside the door, nebulous for an instant, and then hardening into as distinct an outline as any living man. The slippers beneath his grey gown were red and heelless, which accounted for the low shuffling sound which he made as he walked. As on the previous night he passed slowly along the line of bottles until he paused before that which contained the hand. He reached up to it, his whole figure quivering with expectation, took it down, examined it eagerly, and then, with a face which was convulsed with fury he hurled it down on the floor. There was a crash which resounded through the house and when I looked up the mutilated Indian had disappeared. A moment later my door flew open and Sir Dominic rushed in. You're not hurt, he cried. No, but deeply disappointed. He looked in astonishment at the splinters of glass and the brown hand lying upon the floor. Good God! he cried. What is this? I told him my idea in its wretched sequel. He listened intently but shook his head. It was well thought of, said he, but I fear that there's no such easy end to my sufferings. But one thing I now insist upon it is that you shall never again upon any pretext occupy this room. My fears that something might have happened to you when I heard that crash have been the most acute of all the agonies which I have undergone. I will not expose myself to a repetition of it. He allowed me, however, to spend the remainder of that night where I was and I lay there worrying over the problem and lamenting my own failure. With the first light of morning there was the Lasca's hand still lying upon the floor to remind me of my fiasco. I lay looking at it and as I lay suddenly an idea flew like a bullet through my head brought me quivering with excitement out of my coach. I raised the grim relic from where it had fallen. Yes, it was indeed so. The hand was the left hand of the Lasca. By the first train I was on my way to town and hurried at once to the Siemens Hospital. I remembered that both hands of the Lasca had been amputated but I was terrified lest the precious organ which I was in search of might have been already consumed in the crematory. My suspense was soon ended. It had still been preserved in the post-mortem room and so I returned to Roddenhurst in the evening with my mission accomplished and the material for a fresh experiment. But Sir Dominic Holden would not hear of my occupying the laboratory again. To all my entreaties he turned a deaf ear. It offended his sense of hospitality and he could no longer permit it. I left the hand therefore as I had done its fellow the night before and I occupied a comfortable bedroom in another portion of the house some distance from the scene of my adventures. But in spite of that my sleep was not destined to be uninterrupted. In the dead of night my host burst into my room a lamp in his hand. His huge gaunt figure was enveloped in a loose dressing-cown and his whole appearance might certainly have seemed more formidable to a weak-nerved man than that of the Indian of the night before. But it was not his entrance so much of a question which amazed me. He had turned suddenly younger by twenty years at the least. His eyes were shining, his features radiant and he waved one-handed triumph over his head. I sat up astounded, staring sleepily at this extraordinary visitor. But his words soon drove the sleep from my eyes. We have done it! We have succeeded! he shouted. My dear Hardacre, how can I ever in this world repair you? You don't mean to say that it's all right? Indeed I do. I was sure that you would not mind being awakened to hear such blessed news. Mind? I should think not indeed. But is it really certain? I have no doubt whatever upon the point. I owe you such a debt, my dear nephew, as I have never owed a man before and never expected to. What can I possibly do for you that is commensurate? Providence must have sent you to my rescue. You have saved both my reason and my life for another six months of this must have seen me either in a cell or a coffin. And my wife, it was wearing her out before my eyes. Never could I have believed that any human being could have lifted this burden off me. He seized my hand and rung it in his bony grip. It was only an experiment, a forlorn hope, but I am delighted for my heart that it succeeded. But how do you know that it's all right? Have you seen something? He seated himself at the foot of my bed. I have seen enough, said he. It satisfies me that I shall be troubled no more. What has passed is easily told. You know that at a certain hour this creature always comes to me. Tonight he arrived at the usual time and aroused me with even more violence than is his custom. I can only surmise that his disappointment had increased the bitterness of his anger against me. He looked angrily at me and then went on his usual round, but in a few minutes I saw him for the first time since his persecution began, returned to my chamber. He was smiling. I saw the gleam of his white teeth through the dim light. He stood facing me at the end of my bed and three times he made the low eastern salam, which is their solemn leave-taking. And the third time that he bowed he raised his arms over his head and I saw his two hands outstretched in the air. So he vanished, and as I believe, forever. So that is the curious experience which won me the affection and the gratitude of my celebrated uncle, the famous Indian surgeon. His anticipations were realised and never again was he disturbed by the visits of the restless hillmen in search of his lost hand. Sir Dominic and Lady Holden spent a very happy old age unclouded so far as I know by any trouble, and they finally died during the great influenza epidemic within a few weeks of each other. In his lifetime he always turned to me for advice in everything which concerned that English life for which he knew so little. I aided him also in the purchase and development of his estates. It was no great surprise to me, therefore, that I found myself eventually promoted over the heads of five exasperated cousins and changed in a single day from a hard-working country doctor into the head of an important Wilcher family. I, at least, have reason to bless the memory of the man with the brown hand and the day when I was fortunate enough to relieve Roddenhurst of his unwelcome presence. End of The Brown Hand by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Recording by Roger Clifton St. Albans, England THE DEAD VALLEY by Ralph Adams Cram This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Feaster THE DEAD VALLEY I have a friend, Olaf Ehrensfod, a sweet by birth, who yet by reason of strange and melancholy mischants of his early boyhood has thrown his lot with that of the new world. It is a curious story of a headstrong boy and a proud, relentless family. The details do not matter here, but they are sufficient to weave a web of romance around the tall, yellow-bearded man with the sad eyes and the voice that gives itself perfectly to plaintive little Swedish songs remembered out of childhood. In the winter evenings we play chess together. He and I, and after some close fierce battle, has been fought to a finish, my own defeat. We fill our pipes again, and Ehrensfod tells me stories of the far, half-remembered days in the fatherland, before he went to sea. Stories that grow very strange and incredible as the night deepens, and the fire falls together, but stories that, nevertheless, I fully believe. One of them made a strong impression on me, so I set it down here, only regretting that I cannot reproduce the curiously perfect English and the delicate accent which, to me, is the fascination of the tale, yet as best as I can remember it, here it is. I've never told you how Niles and I went over the hills to Halsburg, and how we found the Dead Valley, did I? Well, this is the way it happened. I must have been about twelve years old, and Niles Soborg, whose father's estate joined ours, was a few months younger. We were inseparable just at that time, and whatever we did, we did together. Once a week it was market day in Ingelholm, and Niles and I went always there to see the strange sights that the market gathered from all the surrounding country. One day we quite lost our hearts, for an old man from across the Elfburg had brought a little dog to sell that seemed to us the most beautiful dog in all the world. He was a round woolly puppy so funny that Niles and I sat down on the ground and laughed at him until he came and played with us in so jolly a way that we felt there was only one thing really desirable in life, the dog of the old man from across the hills. But alas, we had not half money enough for wherewithal to buy him, so we were forced to beg the old man not to sell him before the next market day, promising that we would bring the money for him then. He gave us his word, and we ran home very fast and implored our mothers to give us money for the little dog. We got the money, but could not wait for the next market day. Suppose the puppy should be sold. We implored that we might be allowed to go over the hills to Halsberg where the old man lived and get the little dog ourselves, and at last they told us we might go. By starting early in the morning we should reach Halsberg by three o'clock, and it was arranged that we should stay there that night with Niles' aunt and, leaving by noon the next day, be home again by sunset. Soon after sunrise we were on our way, after having received minute instructions and, finally, a repeated injunction that we should start for home at the same hour the next day, so that we might get safely back before nightfall. For us it was magnificent sport, and we started off with our rifles, full of the sense of our very great importance. Yet the journey was simple enough, along a good road across the big hills we knew so well, for Niles and I had shot over half the territory this side of the dividing ridge of the Elfburg. Back of Engelholm lay a long valley from which rose the low mountains, and we had to cross this, and then follow the road along the side of the hills for three or four miles, before a narrow path branched off to the left leading up through the pass. Nothing occurred of interest in the way over, and we reached Halsberg in due season, found to our inexpressible joy that the little dog was not sold, secured him, and so went to the house of Niles' aunt to spend the night. Why we did not leave early on the following day, I can't quite remember. We stopped at a shooting range just outside the town, where most attractive paste-bore pigs were sliding slowly through painted foliage, serving so as beautiful marks. The result was that we did not get fairly started for home until afternoon, and as we found ourselves at last pushing up the side of the mountain with the sun dangerously near the summits, I think we were a little scared at the prospect of the examination and possible punishment that awaited us when we got home at midnight. Therefore we hurried as fast as possible up the mountainside, while the blue dusk closed in about us and the light died in the purple sky. At first we had talked hilariously, and the little dog had leapt ahead of us with the utmost joy. Laterally, however, a curious oppression came on us, and we did not speak or even whistle while the dog fell behind following us with hesitation in every muscle. We had passed through the foothills and the low spurs of the mountains and were almost at the top of the main rage when life seemed to go out of everything, leaving the world dead so suddenly silent the forest became, so stagnant the air. Instinctively, we halted to listen. Perfect silence, the crushing silence of deep forests at night, and more, for always, even in the most impenetrable fastness of the wooded mountains is the multitudinous murmur of lives awakened by the darkness exaggerated and intensified by the stillness of the air and the great dark, but here and now the silence seemed unbroken, even by the turn of a leaf, the movement of a twig, the note of night bird or insect. I could hear the blood beat through my veins and the crushing of the grass under our feet as we advanced with hesitating steps sounded like the falling of trees and the air was stagnant dead the atmosphere seemed to lie upon the body like the weight of sea on a diver who has ventured too far into its awful depths. What we usually call silence seemed so only in relation to the din of ordinary experience this was silence in the absolute and it crushed the mind while it intensified the senses bringing down the awful weight of inexhaustible fear. I know that Niles and I stared towards each other in abject terror listening to our quick heavy breathing that sounding in our acute senses like the fitful rush of waters and the poor little dog we were leading justified our terror the black oppression seemed to crush him even as it did us he lay close to the ground moaning feebly and dragging himself painfully and slowly closer to Niles' feet. This exhibition of utter animal fear was the last touch and must inevitably have blasted our reason mine anyway but just then as we stood quaking on the bounds of madness came a sound so awful so ghastly so horrible it seemed to rouse us from the dead spell that was on us in the depths of the silence came a cry beginning as a low sorrowful moan rising to a tremulous shriek eliminating a yell that seemed to tear the night in thunder and rend the world as by cataclysm so fearful was it that I could not believe it had actual existence it passed previous experience the powers of belief and for a moment I thought at the result of my own animal terror a hallucination born of tottering reason a glance at Niles dispelled this thought in a flash in the pale light of the high stars he was the light of all possible human fear quaking with an egg you his jaw fallen his tongue out his eyes protruding like those of a hanged man without a word we fled the panic of fear giving a strength and together the little dog caught close to Niles arm we sped down the side of the cursed mountains anywhere goal was no account we had but one impulse to get away from that place so under the black trees and the far white stars that flashed through the still leaves overhead we leaped down the mountain side regardless of path or landmark straight through the tangled underbrush across mountain streams through fens and copes anywhere so only that our course was downward how long we ran thus I have no idea but by and by the forest fell behind and we found ourselves among the foothills and fell exhausted on the dry short grass panting like tired dogs it was lighter here in the open and presently we looked around to see where we were and how we were to strike out in order to find the path that would lead home we looked in vain for a familiar sign behind us rose the great wall of black forest on the flank of the mountain before us lay the undulating mounds of low foothills unbroken by trees or rocks and beyond only the fall of black sky bright with multitudinous stars that turned velvet depths to a luminous grey as I remember we did not speak to each other once the terror was too heavy on us for that but by and by we rose simultaneously and started out across the hills still the same silence the same dead motionless air the air that was at once sultry and chilling a heavy heat struck through with an icy chill that felt almost like the burning of frozen steel still carrying the helpless dog Niles pressed on through the hills and I followed close behind at last in front of us rose a slope of more touching the white stars we climbed it wearily reaching the top and found ourselves gazing down into a great smooth valley filled halfway to the brim with what? as far as the eye could see stretched a level plain of ashy white faintly phosphorescent a sea of velvet fog that lay like motionless water or rather like a floor of alabaster so dense did it appear so seemingly capable of sustaining weight if it were possible I think that sea of dead white mist struck even greater terror in my soul than the heavy silence or the deadly cry so ominous was it so utterly unreal so phantasmal so impossible as it lay there like a dead ocean under the steady stars yet through that mist we must go there seemed no other way home and shattered with abject fear mad with the one desire to get back we started down the slopes to where the sea of milky mist ceased sharp and distinct around the stems of the rough grass I put one foot into the ghostly fog a chill as of death struck through me stopping my heart and I threw myself backwards on the slope at that instant came again the shriek close close right in our ears in ourselves and far out across that damnable sea I saw the cold fog lift like a water spout and toss itself high in writhing convolutions towards the sky the stars began to grow dim as the thick vapors swept across them and in the growing dark I saw a great watery moon lift itself slowly above the palpitating sea vast and vague in the gathering mist that was enough we turned and fled along the margin of the white sea that throbs now with fitful motion below us rising rising slowly and steadily driving us higher and higher up the side of the foothills it was a race for life that we knew how we kept it up I cannot understand but we did and at last we saw the white sea fall behind us as we staggered up the end of the valley and then down into a region that we knew and so on to the old path the last thing I remember was hearing a strange voice that of Niles but horribly changed stammer, brokenly the dog is dead and then the whole world turned around twice slowly and restlessly and consciousness went out with a crash it was some three weeks later as I remember that I awoke in my own room and found my mother sitting beside the bed I could not think very well at first slowly grew strong again vague flashes of recollection began to come to me and little by little the whole sequence of events of that awful night the dead valley came back all that I could gain from what was told me was that three weeks before I had been found in my own bed raging sick and that my illness grew fast into brain fever I tried to speak of the dread things that had happened to me but I saw it once that no one looked on them save as the hauntings of a dying frenzy and so I closed my mouth and kept my own counsel I must see Niles however and so I asked for him my mother told me that he had been ill with a strange fever but that he was now quite well again presently they brought him in and when we were alone I began to speak to him of the night and the mountain I shall never forget the shock that struck me down on my pillow when the boy denied everything denied having gone with me I had seen the valley or feeling the deadly chill of a ghostly fog nothing would shake his determined ignorance and in spite of myself I was forced to admit that his denials came from no policy of concealment but from blank oblivion my weakened brain was in a turmoil was it all but the floating phantasm of delirium or had the horror of the real thing blotted Niles mind into blackness so far as the events of the night and the dead valley were concerned the latter explanation seemed the only one else how explain the sudden illness which in a night had struck us both down I said nothing more either to Niles or to my own people but waited with a growing determination that once well again I would find that valley if it really existed it was some weeks before I was really well enough to go but finally late in September I chose a bright warm still day the last smile of the dying summer and started early in the morning along the path that led to Halsberg I was sure I knew where the trail struck off to the right down which we had come from the valley of dead water for a great tree grew by the Halsberg path the point where with a sense of salvation we had found the road home presently I sought to the right a little distance ahead I think the bright sunlight and the clear air had worked as a tonic to me for by the time I came to the foot of the great pine I had quite lost faith in the verity of the vision that haunted me believing at last that it was indeed but the nightmare of madness nevertheless I turned sharply to the right at the base of the tree into a narrow path that led through a dense thicket as I did so I tripped over something a swarm of flies sung into the air around me and looking down I saw the matted fleece with the poor little bones thrusting through of the dog we had bought in Halsberg then my courage went out with a puff and I knew that it all was true and that now I was frightened the pride and the desire for adventure urged me on however and I pressed into the close thicket that barred my way the path was hardly visible merely the worn road of some small beasts for though it showed in the crisp grasp the bush grew thick and hardly penetrable the land rose slowly and rising grew clearer until at last I came out on a great slope of hill unbroken by trees or shrubs very like my memory of that rise of land we topped the border that we might find the dead valley and the icy fog I looked at the sun it was bright and clear and all around insects were humming in the autumn air and birds were darting to and fro surely there was no danger not until after nightfall at least so I began to whistle and with a rush mounted the last crest of brown hill there lay the dead valley a great oval basin almost as smooth and regular as though made by man on all sides the grass crept over the brink of the encircling hills dusty green on the crests then fading into ashy brown and so to a deadly white this last color forming a thin ring running in a long line around the slope and then nothing bare brown hard earth glittering with grains of alkali but otherwise dead and barren not a tuft of grass not a stick of brushwood not even a stone a vast expanse of beaten clay in the midst of the basin perhaps a mile and a half away the level expanse was broken by a great dead tree rising leafless and gaunt into the air without a moment's hesitation I started down into the valley and made for this goal every particle of fear seemed to have left me and even the valley itself did not look so very terrifying at all events I was driven by an overwhelming curiosity and there seemed to be but one thing of the world to do to get to that tree as I trudged along over the hard earth I noticed that the multitudinous voices of birds and insects had died away no bee or butterfly hovered through the air no insects leapt or crept over the dull earth the very air itself was stagnant as I drew near the skeleton tree I noted the glint of sunlight on a kind of white mound around its roots and I wondered curiously it was not until I had come close that I saw its nature all around the roots and barkless trunk was heaped a wilderness of little bones tiny skulls of rodents and of birds thousands of them rising about the dead tree and streaming off for several yards in all directions until the dreadful pile ended in isolated skulls and scattered skeletons here and there a larger bone appeared the thigh of a sheep the hooves of a horse and to one side grinning slowly a human skull I stood quite still staring with all my eyes when suddenly the dense silence was broken by a faint forlorn cry high over my head I looked up and saw a great falcon turning and sailing downward just over the tree in a moment more she fell motionless on the bleaching bones horror struck me and I rushed for home my brain whirling a strange numbness growing in me I ran steadily on and on at last I glanced up where was the rise of the hill I looked around wildly close before me was the dead tree with its pile of bones I had circled it round and round and the valley wall was still a mile and a half away I stood there dazed and frozen the sun was sinking red and dull towards the line of hills in the east the dark was growing fast was there still time time? it was not time that I wanted it was will my feet seemed clogged as in a nightmare I dragged them over the barren earth and then I felt the slow chill creeping through me I looked down out of the earth a thin mist was rising collecting in little pools that grew ever larger until they joined here and there their current swirling slowly like thin blue smoke the western hills halved the copper sun when it was dark I should hear the shriek again and then I should die I knew that and with every remaining atom of will I staggered the red west through the writhing mist that crept clamily along my ankles retarding my steps as I fought my way off from the tree the horror grew until at last I thought I was going to die the silence pursued me like dumb ghosts the still air held my breath the hellish fog caught at my feet like cold hands but I won though not a moment too soon as I crawled on my hands and knees up the brown slope I heard far away and high in the air the cry that already had almost bereft me of reason it was faint and vague but unmistakable in its horrible intensity I glanced behind the fog was dense and pallid heaving undulously up the brown slope the sky was gold under the setting sun but below was the ashy gray of death I stood for a moment at the brink of this sea of hell and then leapt down the slope the sunset opened before me the night closed behind the home weak and tired darkness shut down in the dead valley this is the end of the Dead Valley by Ralph Adams Cram