 Section 10 of Lovecraft's influences and favourites. 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 Maria Fatima da Silva. The Red Room by H. G. Wells. I can assure you, said I, that it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me. And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand. It is your own choosing, said the man with withered arm, and glanced at me as scans. Eight and twenty years, said I, I have lived and never a ghost have I seen as yet. The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. I, she broke in. And eight and twenty years, you have lived and never seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's many things to see, when one still but eight and twenty. She swayed her head slowly from side to side. And many things to see and sort of fall. I have suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors of their house by their droning insistence. I put down my empty glass on the table and looked about the room and caught a glimpse of myself, abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness in the queer old mirror at the end of the room. Well, I said, if I see anything tonight, I shall be so much the wiser, for I come to the business with an open mind. It's your own choosing, said the man with withered arm, once more. I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged, even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch. His eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an armchair on the opposite side of the table, sat down clumsily and began to cough. The man with withered arm gave this newcomer a short glance of positive dislike. The old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes fixed steadily on the fire. I said, it's your own choosing, said the man with withered arm, when the coughing had ceased for a while. It's my own choosing, I answered. The man with a shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his head back for a moment and sideways to see me. I caught a momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he began to cough and splitter again. Why don't you drink, said the man with withered arm, pushing the beard towards him. The man with a shade poured out, a glass full with a shaky hand, the splashed half as much again on the deal table. A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured and drank. I must confess, I had scarce expected these grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman insinality, something crouching and atavistic. The human qualities seem to drop from old people insensibly day by day. The three of them made me feel uncomfortable with their gaunt silences, their bent courage, their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another. If, said I, you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will make myself comfortable there. The old man with a cough jerked his head back so suddenly that it startled me and shot another glance of his red eyes at me from under the shade. But no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from one toward the other. If, I said a little louder, if you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me. There's a candle on the slab outside the door, said the man with a weird arm, looking at my feet as he addressed me. But if you go to the red room tonight, this night of all nights, said the old woman, you go alone. Well, I answered, and which way do I go? You go along the passage for a bit, said he, until you come to a door, and through that is a spiral staircase, and halfway up that is a landing and another door covered with bays. Go through that and down the long corridor to the end, and the red room is on your left, up the steps. Have I got that right, I said, and repeated his directions. He corrected me in one particular. And are you really going, said the man with a shade, looking at me again for the third time with that queer and natural tilting of the face. This night of all nights, said the old woman. It is what I came for, I said, and moved towards the door. As I did so, the old man with a shade rose and staggered round the table, so as to be closer to the others and to the fire. At the door, I turned and looked at them and saw they were all close together, dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent expression on their ancient faces. Good night, I said, setting the door open. It's your own choosing, said the man with withered arm. I left the door wide open until the candle was well light, and then I shut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing passage. I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whose charge hell-age ship had left the castle and the deep-toned old-fashioned furniture of the housekeeper's room in which they foregathered affected me in spite of my efforts to keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase. They seemed to belong to another age, an older age, an age when things spiritual were different from this of ours, less certain, an age when omens and witches were credible and ghosts beyond denying. Their very existence was spectral. The cut of their clothing fashions born in dead brains. The ornaments and conveniences of the room about them were ghostly. The thoughts of vanished men, which still haunted rather than participated in the world of today. But with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right about. The long, drafty, subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and the shadow came sweeping up after me. And one fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to the landing and stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling that I fancied I heard. Then, satisfied of the absolute silence, I pushed open the bay's covered door and stood in the corridor. The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight coming in by the great window on the grand staircase picked out everything in vivid black shadow or silvery illumination. Everything was in its place. The house might have been deserted on the yesterday instead of 18 months ago. There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the polished flooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight. I was about to advance and stopped abruptly. A bronze groove stood upon the landing, hidden from me by the corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvelous distinctness upon the white paneling and gave me the impression of someone crouching to wail at me. I stood rigid for half a minute, perhaps. Then, with my hand in the pocket that held my revolver, I advanced, only to discover a ganameed and eagle glistening in the moonlight. That incident for a time restored my nerve, and the porcelain Chinaman on the buell table, whose head rocked silently as I passed him, scarcely startled me. The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in the shadowy corner. I moved my candle from side to side in order to see clearly the nature of the recess in which I stood before opening the door. Here it was, thought I, that my predecessor was found and the memory of that story gave me a certain twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my shoulder at the ganameed in the moonlight and opened the door of the red room rather hastily with my face half turned to the pallid silence of the landing. I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found in the lock within and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the scene of my visual, the great red room of Lorraine Castle in which the young Duke had died. Or rather, in which he had begun his dying. For he had opened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the place and never, I thought, had a poplexi better served the ends of superstition. And there were other and older stories that clung to the room back to the half-credible beginning of it all. The tale of a timid wife and a tragic end that came to her husband's jest of frightening her and looking around that large somber room with its shadowy window base, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness that failed to pierce the opposite end of the room and left a notion of mystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once and dispel the fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained a hold upon me. After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, I began to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed and opening its curtains wide. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastening of the several windows before closing the shutters, lent forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney and tapped the dark oak paneling for any secret opening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconces bearing candles and on the mantle shelf too were more candles in china candlesticks. All these I lit one after the other. The fire was laid and unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper and I lit it to keep down any disposition to shiver and when it was burning well, I stood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. I had pulled up a chins covered armchair and the table to form a kind of barricade before me and on this lay my revolver ready to hand. My precise examination had done me good but I still found the remote darkness of the place and its perfect stillness too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular had that undefinable quality of a presence that odd suggestion of a lurking living thing that comes so easily in silence and solitude. At last to reassure myself, I walked with the candle into it and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor of the alcove and left it in that position. By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension although to my reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind however was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly that nothing supernatural could happen and to pass the time I began to string some rhymes together in Goldsby fashion of the original legend of the place. A few I spoke aloud but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason I also abandoned after a time a conversation with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old and distorted people downstairs and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The somber reds and blacks of the room troubled me. Even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in a draft and the fire flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage and with a slight effort walked out into the moonlight carrying a candle and leaving the door open and presently returned with as many as ten. These I put in various knickknacks of China with which the room was sparsely adorned. Late and placed where the shadows had lain deepest. Some on the floor, some in the window recesses until at last my seventeen candles were so arranged that not an inch of the room but had the direct light of at least one of them. It occurred to me that when the ghosts came I could warn him not to trip over them. The room was now quite brightly illuminated. There was something very cheery and reassuring in these little streaming flames and snuffing them gave me an occupation and afforded a helpful sense of the passage of time. Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the visual weighed heavily upon me. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out and the black shadows sprang back to its place there. I did not see the candle go out. I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there as one might start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. By Jove, said I aloud, that drafts a strong one and taking the matches from the table I walked across the room in a leisurely manner to relight the corner again. My first match would not strike and as I succeeded with a second something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my head involuntarily and saw that the two candles on the little table by the fireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet. Odd, I said, did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness? I walked back, relight one, and as I did so I saw the candle in the right sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out and almost immediately its companion followed it. There was no mistake about it. The flame vanished as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and a thumb leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking but black. While I stood gaping the candle at the foot of the bed went out and the shadows seemed to take another step towards me. This one do said I and first one and then another candle on the mantel shelf followed. What's up? I cried with a queer high note getting into my voice somehow. At that the candle on the wardrobe went out and the one I had relight in the alcove followed. Steady on I said these candles are wanted sticking with a half hysterical fustciousness and scratching away at a match the while for the mantel candlesticks. My hands trembled so much that twice I missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from darkness again two candles in the remote end of the window were eclipsed but with the same match I also relight the larger mirror candles and those on the floor near the doorway for the moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions but then in the volley there vanished four lights at once in different corners of the room and I struck another match in quivering haste and stood hesitating wither to take it. As I stood undecided an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the two candles on the table with a cry of terror I dashed at the alcove then into the corner and then into the window relighting three as two more vanished by the fireplace then perceiving a better way I dropped the matches on the iron bound deed box in the corner and caught up the bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches but for all that the steady process of extinction went on and the shadows I feared and fought against returned and crept in upon me first a step gained on this side of me and then on that it was like a ragged storm cloud sweeping out the stars now and then one returned for a minute and was lost again I was now almost frantic with the horror of the coming darkness and my self-possession deserted me I leaped panting and disheveled from candle to candle in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance I bruised myself on the thigh against the table I sent a chair headlong I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall my candle rolled away from me and I snatched another thigh rose abruptly this was blown out as I swung it off the table by the wind of my sudden movement and immediately the two remaining candles followed but there was light still in the room a red light that staved off the shadows from me the fire of course I could still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals and splashing red reflections upon the furniture made two steps towards the grate and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished the glow vanished the reflections rushed together and vanished and as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shitting of an eye wrapped about me in a stifling embrace sealed my vision and crushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain the candle fell from my hand I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me and lifting up my voice screamed with all my might once twice thrice then I think I must have staggered my feet I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor and with my head bowed and my arms over my face made a run for the door but I had forgotten the exact position of the door and struck myself heavily against the corner of the bed I staggered back turned and was either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture I have a vague memory of battering myself thus to and fro in the darkness of a cramped struggle and of my own wild crying as I darted to and fro of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead a horrible sensation of falling the last at an age of my last frantic effort to keep my footing and then I remember no more I opened my eyes in daylight my head was roughly bandaged and the man with the withered arm was watching my face I looked about me trying to remember what had happened and for a space I could not recollect I rolled my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman no longer obstructed pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue file into a glass Where am I? I asked I seem to remember you and yet I cannot remember who you are they told me then and I heard of the haunted red room as one who hears a tale we found you at dawn, said he and there was blood on your forehead and lips it was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience you believe now, said the old man that the room is haunted he spoke no longer as one who greets an intruder as one who greaves for a broken friend Yes, said I, the room is haunted and you have seen it and we, who have lived here all our lives have never set eyes upon it because we have never dared tell us, is it truly the old Earl who? No, said I, it is not I told you so, said the old lady with the glass in her hand it is his poor young Countess who was frightened it is not, I said there is neither ghost of Earl nor ghost of Countess in that room there is no ghost there at all but worse, far worse well, they said the worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man, said I and that is in all its nakedness fear that will not have light nor sound and will not bear with reason the deafens and darkens and overwhelms it followed me through the corridor it fought against me in the room I stopped abruptly there was an interval of silence my hand went up to my bandages then the man with the shade sighed and spoke that is it, said he I knew that was it a power of darkness to put such a curse upon a woman it lurks there always until it even in the daytime even of a bright summer's day in the hangings, in the curtains keeping behind you however you face about in the dusk it creeps along the corridor and follows you so that you dare not turn there is fear in that room of hers black fear and there will be so long as this house of sin endures end of the red room section 11 of Lovecraft's influences and favourites this is LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Mariette Fatma the Silver The Shadows on the Wall by Mary E. Wilkins Henry Hadwards with Edward in the study the night before Edward died said Caroline Glyn she was elderly, tall and harshly thin with a hard colourousness of face she spoke not with acrimony but with grave severity Rebecca Anne Glyn, younger stouter and rosy of face between her crinkling puffs of grey hair gasped by way of ascent she sat in a wide flounce of black silk and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham who had been Emma Glyn the one beauty of the family she was beautiful still with a large splendid full blown beauty she filled a great rocking chair with her superb bulk of femininity and swayed gently back and forth her black silk whispering and her black frills fluttering even the shock of death for her brother Edward lay dead in the house could not disturb her outward serenity of demeanour she was grieved over the loss of her brother he had been the youngest and she had been fond of him but never had Emma Brigham lost sight of her own importance amidst the waters of tribulation she was always awake to the consciousness of her own stability in the midst of vicissitudes and the splendour of her permanent bearing but even her expression of masterly placidity changed before her sister Caroline's announcement and the sister Rebecca Ann's gasp of terror and distress in response I think Henry might have controlled his temper when poor Edward was so near said she with an asperity which disturbed slightly the rosy art curves of her beautiful mouth of course he did not know murmured Rebecca Ann in a faint tone strangely out of keeping with her appearance one involuntarily looked again to be sure that such a feeble pipe came from that full swelling chest of course he did not know it said Caroline quickly she turned on her sister with a strange sharp look of suspicion how could he have known it said she then she shrank as if from the others possible answer of course you and I both know he could not said she conclusively but her pale face was paler than it had been before Rebecca gasped again the married sister Mrs. Emma Brigham was now sitting straight in her chair she had ceased rocking and was eyeing them both with a sudden accentuation of family likeness in her face given one common intensity of emotion and similar lines showed forth and the three sisters of one race were evident what do you mean said she impartially to them both then she too seemed to shrink before possible answer an evasive sort of laugh I guess you don't mean anything said she but her face was still the expression of shrinking horror nobody means anything said Caroline firmly she rose and crossed the room toward the door with grim decisiveness where are you going asked Mrs. Brigham I have something to see too replied Caroline and the others at once knew by her tone that she had a really sad duty to perform in the chamber of death oh said Mrs. Brigham after the door had closed behind Caroline she turned to Rebecca did Henry have many words with him she asked they were talking very loud replied the Rebecca evasively yet with an answering gleam of ready response to the other's curiosity in the quick lift of her soft blue eyes Mrs. Brigham looked at her she had not resumed rocking she still sat up straight with a slight knitting of intensity on her fair forehead between the pretty rippling curves of her urban hair did you hear anything she asked in a low voice with a glance toward the door I was just across the hall in the south parlor and that door was open and this door a jar replied Rebecca with a slight flush then you must have I couldn't help it everything most of it what was it the old story I suppose Henry was mad as he always was because Edward was living on here for nothing when he had wasted all the money father left him Rebecca nodded with a fearful glance at the door when Emma spoke again her voice was still more hushed I know how he felt said she he had always been so prudent himself and worked hard at his profession and there Edward had never done anything but spend and it must have looked to him as if Edward was living at his expense but he wasn't no he wasn't it was the way father left the property that all the children should have a home here and he left money enough to buy the food and all if we had all come home yes and Edward had a right here according to the terms of father's will and Henry ought to have remembered it yes he ought did he say hard things pretty hard from what I heard what I heard him tell Edward that he had no business here at all and he thought he had better go away what did Edward say that he would stay here as long as he lived enough with two if he was a mind to and he would like to see Henry get him out and then what then he laughed what did Henry say I didn't hear him say anything but but what I saw him when he came out of this room he looked mad you've seen him when he looked so Emma nodded the expression of horror on her face had deepened do you remember that time he killed the cat because she had scratched him yes don't then Caroline re-entered the room she went up to the stove in which a wood fire was burning it was a cold gloomy day of fall and she warmed her hands with her reddened from the recent washing in cold water Mrs Brigham looked at her and hesitated she glanced at the door which was still a jar as it did not easily shut being still swollen with the damp weather of the summer she rose and pushed it together with a sharp third which jarred the house Rebecca started painfully with a half exclamation Caroline looked at her disapprovingly it is time you controlled your nerves Rebecca said she I can't help it reply Rebecca with almost a wail I am nervous there's enough to make me so the Lord knows what you mean by that asked Caroline with her old air of sharp suspicion and something between challenge and dread of it's being met Rebecca shrank nothing says she then I wouldn't keep speaking in such a fashion Emma returning from the closed door said imperiously that it ought to be fixed it shut so hard it will shrink enough after we have had the fire few days replied Caroline if anything is done to it it will be too small there will be a crack at the sill I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself for talking as he did to Edward said Mrs Brigham abruptly but in an almost inaudible voice Hush said Caroline with a glass of actual fear at the closed door nobody came here with the door shut he must have heard it shut and well I can say what I want to before he comes down and I am not afraid of him I don't know who is afraid of him what reason he's there for anybody to be afraid of Henry demanded Caroline Mrs Brigham trembled before her sister's look like a gasped again there isn't any reason of course why should that be I wouldn't speak so then somebody might overhear you and think it was queer Miranda Joy is in the south parlor sewing you know I thought she went upstairs to stitch on the machine she did but she has come down again well she can't hear I say again I think Henry ought to be ashamed of himself I shouldn't think he'd ever get over it having words with poor Edward the very night before he died Edward was enough sight better disposition than Henry with all his faults I always thought a great deal of poor Edward myself Mrs Brigham passed a large fluff of hunkerchief across her eyes Rebecca sobbed outright Rebecca said Caroline admonishingly keeping her mouth stiff and swallowing determinately I never heard him speak a cross word unless he spoke cross to Henry that last night I don't know but he did from what Rebecca overheard said Emma not so much cross as sort of soft and sweet and aggravating sniffled Rebecca he never raised his voice said Caroline but he had his way he had a right to in this case yes he did he had as much of a right here as Henry sobbed Rebecca and now he's gone and he will never be in this home that poor father left him and the rest of us again what do you really think Aildo Edward asked Emma in hardly more than a whisper she did not look at her sister Caroline sat down in a nearby armchair and clutched the arms convulsively until her then knuckles whitened I told you says she Rebecca held her handkerchief over her mouth and looked at them above it with terrified streaming eyes I know you said that he had terrible pains in his stomach and had spasms but what do you think made him have them Henry called it gastric trouble you know Edward has always had dyspepsia Mrs Brigham hesitated a moment was there any talk of an examination says she then Caroline turned on her fiercely no says she in a terrible voice no the three sister souls seemed to meet on one common ground of terrified understanding through their eyes the old fashioned latch of the door was her to rattle and the push from without made the door shake ineffectually it's Henry Rebecca sighed rather than whispered Mrs Brigham settled herself after a noiseless rush across the floor into her rocking chair again and was swaying back and forth with her head comfortably leaning back when the door at last yielded and Henry Glyn entered he cast a covetly sharp comprehensive glance at Mrs Brigham with her elaborate calm at Rebecca quietly huddled in the corner of the sofa with her handkerchief to her face and only one small reddened ear as attentive as a dog's uncovered and revealing her alertness for his presence at Caroline sitting with a strained composure in her armchair by the stove she met his eyes quite firmly with a look of inscrutable fear and defiance of the fear and of him Henry Glyn looked more like this sister than the others both had the same hard delicacy of form and feature both were tall and almost emaciated both had a sparse growth of grey blonde hair far back from high intellectual foreheads both had an almost noble aquilinity of feature they confronted each other with the pitiless immovability of two statues in whose marble lineaments emotions were fixed for all eternity then Henry Glyn smiled and the smile transformed his face he looked suddenly years younger and the almost boyish recklessness and irresolution appeared in his face he flung himself into chair with a gesture which was bewildering from its incongruity with his general appearance he leaned his head back flung one leg over the other and looked laughingly at Mrs. Brigham I declare Emma you grow younger every year he said she flushed a little and her placid mouth widened at the corners she was susceptible to praise our thoughts today ought to belong to the one of us who will never grow older said Caroline in a hard voice Henry looked at her still smiling of course we none of us forget that said he in a deep gentle voice we have to speak to the living Caroline and I have not seen Emma for a long time and the living are as dear as the dead not to me said Caroline she rose and went abruptly out of the room again Rebecca also rose and hurried after her sobbing loudly Henry looked slowly after them Caroline is completely unstrong said he Mrs. Brigham rocked a confidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her out of that confidence she spoke quite easily and naturally his death was very sudden said she Henry's eyelids quivered slightly but his gaze was unswerving yes said he it was very sudden he was sick only a few hours what did you call it gastric you did not think of an examination there was no need I am perfectly certain as to the cause of his death certainly Mrs. Brigham felt a creep as of some live horror over her very soul her flesh prickled with cold before an inflection of his voice she rose tottering on weak knees where are you going asked Henry in a strange breathless voice Mrs. Brigham says something incoherent about some sowing which she had to do some black for the funeral and was out of the room she went up to the front chamber which she occupied Caroline was there she went close to her and took her hands and the two sisters looked at each other don't speak don't I won't have it said Caroline finally in an awful whisper I won't reply to Emma that afternoon the three sisters were in the study the large front room on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlor when the dusk deepened Mrs. Brigham was hamming some black material she sat close to the west window for the waning light at last she laid her work on her lap it's no use I cannot see to sew another stitch until we have a light said she Caroline who was writing some letters at the table she turned to Rebecca in her usual place on the sofa Rebecca you heard better get a lamp she said Rebecca started up even in the dusk her face showed her agitation it doesn't seem to me that we need a lamp quite yet she said in the piteous pleading voice like a child's yes we do return Mrs. Brigham we must have a light finish this tonight or I can't go to the funeral and I can't see to sew another stitch Caroline can see to write letters and she is further from the window than you are said Rebecca are you trying to save kerosene or are you lazy Rebecca Glyn cried Mrs. Brigham I can go and get the light myself but I have this work all in my lap Caroline's pen stopped scratching Rebecca we must have the light did you see had we better have it in here asked Rebecca weekly of course why not cried Caroline sternly I am sure I don't want to take my sewing into the other room when it is all cleaned up for tomorrow said Mrs. Brigham why I never heard such a to-do about lighting a lamp Rebecca rose and left the room presently she entered with a lamp in shade she set it on the table an old-fashioned car table which was placed against the opposite wall from the window that wall was clear of bookcases and books which were only on three sides of the room that opposite wall was taken up with three doors the one small space being occupied by the table above the table on the old-fashioned paper of a white satin gloss traversed by an determinate green scroll hung quite high a small guilt and black framed ivory miniature taken in her girlhood of the mother of the family when the lamp was set on the table beneath it the tiny pretty face painted on the ivory seemed to gleam out with a look of intelligence what have you put that lamp over there for? asked Mrs. Brigham with more of impatience than her voice usually revealed why didn't you set it in the hall and have done with it neither Caroline or I can see if it is on that table I thought perhaps you would move replied Rebecca Horsley if I do move we can't both sit at that table Caroline has her paper all spread around why don't you set the lamp on the study table in the middle of the room then we can both see Rebecca hesitated her face was very pale she looked with an appeal that was fairly agonizing at her sister Caroline why don't you put the lamp on this table as she says asked Caroline almost fiercely why do you act so Rebecca I should think you would ask her that said Mrs. Brigham she doesn't act like herself at all Rebecca took the lamp and set it on the table in the middle of the room without another word then she turned her back upon it quickly she seated herself on the sofa and placed her hand over her eyes as if to shade them and remained so does the light hurt your eyes and is that the reason why you didn't want the lamp asked Mrs. Brigham kindly I always like to sit in the dark replied Rebecca chokingly then she snatched her handkerchief hysterically from her pocket and began to weep Caroline continued to write suddenly Mrs. Brigham as she sewed glanced at the opposite wall the glance became a steady stare she looked intently her work suspended in her hands then she looked away again and took a few more stitches then she looked again and again turned to her task at last she laid her work in her lap and stared concentratedly she looked from the wall around the room taking note of the various objects she looked at the wall long and intently then she turned to her sisters what is that said she what asked Caroline harshly her pen scratched loudly across the paper Rebecca gave one of her convulsive gasps that strange shadow on the wall replied Mrs. Brigham Rebecca sat with her face hidden Caroline dipped her pen in the ink stand why don't you turn around a look asked Mrs. Brigham in a wandering and somewhat aggrieved way I am in a hurry to finish this letter if Mrs. Wilson Abbott is going to get word in time to come to the funeral replied Caroline shortly Mrs. Brigham rose her work slipping to the floor and she began walking around the room moving various articles of furniture with her eyes on the shadow streaked out look at this awful shadow what is it Caroline look Rebecca look what is it all Mrs. Brigham's triumphant placidity was gone her handsome face was livid with horror she stood stiffly pointing at the shadow look said she pointing her finger at it look what is it then Rebecca burst out in a wild wail after a shuddering glance at the wall oh Caroline there it is again there it is again Caroline glinn you look said Mrs. Brigham look what is that dreadful shadow Caroline rose turned and stood confronting the wall how should I know she said it has been there every night since he died cried Rebecca every night yes he died Thursday and this is Saturday that makes three nights said Caroline rigidly stood as if holding herself calm with a vice of concentrated will it it looks like like stammered Mrs. Brigham in a tone of intense horror I know what it looks like well enough said Caroline I've got ties in my head it looks like Edward burst out to Rebecca in a sort of frenzy of fear only yes it does centered Mrs. Brigham whose horror-stricken tone her sisters only oh it is awful what is it Caroline I ask you again how should I know reply Caroline I see it there like you how should I know any more than you it must be something in the room said Mrs. Brigham staring wildly around we moved everything in the room the first night it came said Rebecca it is not anything in the room Caroline turned upon her with a sort of fury of course it is something in the room said she how you act what you mean by talking so of course it is something in the room of course it is agreed Mrs. Brigham looking at Caroline suspiciously of course it must be it is only a coincidence it just happens so perhaps it is that fold of the window curtain that makes it it must be something in the room it is not anything in the room repeated Rebecca with obstinate horror the door opened suddenly and Henry Glyn entered he began to speak then his eyes followed the direction of the others he stood stock still staring at the shadow on the wall it was life-size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door half across the wall space on which the picture hung what is that he demanded in a strange voice it must be due to something in the room Mrs. Brigham said faintly it is not due to anything in the room said Rebecca again with the shrill insistency of terror how you act Rebecca Glyn said Caroline Henry Glyn stood and stared a moment longer his face showed a gamut of emotions horror conviction then furious incredulity suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room he moved the furniture with fierce jerks turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall not a line of it's terrible outlines wavered it must be something in the room he declared in a voice which seemed to snap like a lash his face changed the innermost secrecy of his nature seemed evident until one almost lost sight of his linearments Rebecca stood close to her sofa regarding him with woeful, fascinated eyes Mrs. Brigham clutched Caroline's hand they both stood in the corner out of his way for a few moments he raged about the room like a caged wild animal he moved every piece of furniture when the moving of a piece did not affect the shadow he flung it to the floor the sisters watching then suddenly he existed he laughed and began straightening the furniture which he had flung down what an absurdity he said easily such a to-do about a shadow that's so assented Mrs. Brigham in a scared voice which she tried to make natural as she spoke she lifted a chair near her I think you have broken the chair that Edward was so fond of said Caroline Tara and Roth were struggling for expression on her face her mouth was set her eyes shrinking Henry lifted the chair the shadow of a shadow of anxiety just as good as ever he said pleasantly he laughed again looking at his sisters did I scare you he said I should think you might be used to me by this time you know my way of wanting to leap to the bottom of a mystery and that shadow does look queer like and I thought if there was any way of accounting for it I would like to without any delay you don't seem to have succeeded remarked Caroline dryly with a slight glance at the wall. Henry's eyes followed hers, and he quivered perceptibly. Oh, there is no accounting for shadows, he said, and he laughed again. A man is a fool to try to account for shadows. Then the supper bell rang, and they all left the room. But Henry kept his back to the wall as did indeed the others. Mrs. Brigham pressed close to Caroline as she crossed the hall. He looked like a demon, she breathed in a year. Henry led the way with an alert motion like a boy. Rebecca brought up the rear. She could scarcely walk, her knees trembled so. I can't sit in that room again this evening, she whispered to Caroline after supper. Very well, we will sit in the south room, replied Caroline. I think we will sit in the south parlor, she said aloud. It isn't as damp as the study, and I have a cold. So they all sat in the south room with their sewing. Henry read the newspaper, his chair, drawn close to the lamp on the table. About nine o'clock, he rose abruptly and crossed the hall to the study. The three sisters looked at one another. Mrs. Brigham rose, folded her rustling skirts compactly around her, and began tiptoeing toward the door. What are you going to do? Inquired Rebecca agitatedly. I am going to see what he is about, replied Mrs. Brigham cautiously. She pointed as she spoke to the study door across the hall. It was a jar. Henry had striven to pull it together behind him, but it had somehow swollen beyond the limit with curious speed. It was still a jar and a streak of light showed from top to bottom. The whole lamp was not lit. You had better stay where you are, said Caroline with guarded sharpness. I am going to see you repeating Mrs. Brigham firmly. Then she folded her skirt so tightly that her bulk with its swelling curves was revealed in a black silk sheath, and she went with a slow total across the hall to the study door. She stood there, her eye at the crack. In the south room, Rebecca stopped sewing and sat watching with dilated eyes. Caroline sewed steadily. What Mrs. Brigham, standing at the crack in the study door, saw was this. Henry Glyn evidently reasoning that the source of the strange shadow must be between the table on which the lamp stood and the wall was making systematic passes and thrusts all over and through the intervening space with an old sword which had belonged to his father. Not an inch was left umpious. He seemed to have divided the space into mathematical sections. He brandished the sword with a sort of cold, fury and calculation. The blade gave out flashes of light. The shadow remained unmoved. Mrs. Brigham, watching felt herself cold with horror. Finally, Henry ceased and stood with the sword in hand and raised as if to strike, surveying the shadow on the wall, threateningly. Mrs. Brigham toddled back across the hall and shut the south room door behind her before she related what she had seen. He looked like a demon, she said again. Have you got any of that old wine in the house, Caroline? I don't feel as if I could stand much more. Indeed, she looked overcome. Her handsome, placid face was worn and strained and pale. Yes, there's plenty, said Caroline. You can have some when you go to bed. I think we had all better take some, said Mrs. Brigham. Oh my God, Caroline, what? Don't ask and don't speak, said Caroline. No, I am not going to reply, Mrs. Brigham, but Rebecca moaned aloud. What are you doing that for? asked Caroline harshly. Poor Edward returned, Rebecca. That is all you have to groan for, said Caroline. There is nothing else. I am going to bed, said Mrs. Brigham. I shan't be able to be at the funeral if I don't. Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the South Parlor was deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the light before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour when he came into the room, bringing the lamp which had stood in the study. He set it on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up and down. His face was terrible. His fair complexion showed vivid. His blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections. Then he took the lamp up and returned to the library. He set the lamp on the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately with none of his former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the other sisters who could not sleep heard him. The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until Henry carried the lamp in there after the others had retired for the night. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before the light. The next morning at breakfast Henry Glinn announced that he had to go to the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He very seldom left home and just now his practice had been neglected on the count of Edward's death. He was a physician. How can you leave your patients now? Asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly. I don't know how to, but there is no other way. He replied Henry easily. I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford. Consultation inquired Mrs. Brigham. I have business replied Henry. Dr. Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation. After he had gone Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that after all Henry had not said that he was going to consult with Dr. Mitford and she thought it very strange. Everything is very strange said Rebecca with a shudder. What do you mean inquired Caroline sharply? Nothing replied Rebecca. Nobody entered the library that day. Nor the next, nor the next. The third day Henry was expected home but he did not arrive and the last train from the city had come. I call it pretty queer work said Mrs. Brigham. The idea of a doctor leaving his patients for three days anyhow at such a time as this and I know he has some very sick ones, he says so and the idea of a consultation lasting three days there is no sense in it and now he has not come. I don't understand it for my part. I don't either said Rebecca. They were all in the South Parlor. There was no light in the study opposite and the door was ajar. Presently Mrs. Brigham rose. She could not have told why. Something seemed to impel her some will outside her own. She went out of the room again wrapping her rustling skirts around that she might pass noiselessly and began pushing out the swollen door of the study. She has not got any lamp said Rebecca in a shaking voice. Caroline who was writing letters rose again took a lamp there were two in the room and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen but she stood trembling not venturing to follow. The door bell rang but the others did not hear it. It was on the south door on the other side of the house from the study. Rebecca after hesitating until the bell rang the second time went to the door. She remembered that the servant was out. Caroline and her sister Emma entered the study. Caroline set the lamp on the table. They looked at the wall. Oh my God, gasped Mrs. Brigham. There are, there are two shadows. The sisters stood clutching each other staring at the awful things on the wall. Then Rebecca came in staggering with a telegram in her hand. Here is a telegram she gasped. Henry is dead. And of the shadows on the wall. Section 12 of Lovecraft's influences and favorites. 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 Robert Doolan. Board Game Basics.podbean.com. The Harbour Master by Robert W. Chambers. Chapter one. Because it all seems so improbable, so horribly impossible to me now, sitting here safe and sane in my own library, I hesitate to record an episode which already appears to me less horrible than grotesque. Yet, unless this story is written now, I know I shall never have the courage to tell the truth about the matter. Not from fear of ridicule, but because I myself shall soon cease to credit what I now know to be true. Yet, scarcely a month has elapsed since I heard the stealthy pairing of what I believe to be the shoaling undertow. And scarcely a month ago, with my own eyes, I saw that which, even now, I am beginning to believe never existed. As for the Harbour Master, and the blow I am now striking at the old order of things, but of that I shall not speak now or later. I shall try to tell the story simply and truthfully, and let my friends testify as to my property and the publishers of this book corroborate them. On the 29th of February, I resigned my position under the government and left Washington to accept an offer from Professor Farago, whose name he kindly permits me to use. And on the first day of April, I entered upon my new and congenial duties as General Superintendent of the Waterfowl Department connected with the Zoological Gardens, then in course of erection of Bronx Park, New York. For a week, I followed the routine, examining the new foundations, studying the architects' plans, following the surveyors through the Bronx Thickets, suggesting arrangements for watercourses and pools destined to be included in the enclosures for swans, geese, pelicans, herons, and such of the waders and swimmers as we might expect to acclimat in Bronx Park. It was at that time the policy of the trustees and officers of the Zoological Gardens neither to employ collectors nor to send out expeditions in search of specimens. The society decided to depend upon voluntary contributions, and I was always busy, part of the day, in dictating answers to correspondents who wrote offering their services as hunters of big game, collectors of all sorts of fauna, trappers, snareers, and also to those who offered specimens for sale, usually at exorbitant rates. To the proprietors of five-legged kittens, mangy lynxes, moth-eaten coyotes, and dancing bears, I returned courteous but uncompromising refusals, of course, first submitting all such letters together with my replies to Professor Farago. One day towards the end of May, however, just as I was leaving Bronx Park to return to town, Professor Lissade of the Reptilian Department called out to me that Professor Farago wanted to see me a moment. So I put my pipe into my pocket again and retraced my steps to the temporary wooden building occupied by Professor Farago, general superintendent of the Zoological Gardens. The professor, who was sitting at his desk before a pile of letters and replies submitted for approval by me, pushed his glasses down and looked over them at me with a whimsical smile that suggested amusement, impatience, annoyance, and perhaps a faint trace of apology. Now, here's a letter, he said, with a deliberate gesture towards a sheet of paper impaled on a file, a letter that I suppose you remember. He disengaged the sheet of paper and handed it to me. Oh, yes, I replied with a shrug. Of course, the man is mistaken, or, or what, demanded Professor Farago, tranquilly wiping his glasses, or a liar, I replied. After a silence, he leaned back in his chair and bade me read the letter to him again. And I did so with a contemptuous for tolerance for the writer, who must have been either a very innocent victim or a very stupid swindler. I said as much to Professor Farago, but to my surprise, he appeared to waver. I suppose, he said with his nearsighted, embarrassed smile, that 999 men in 1,000 would throw that letter aside and condemn the writer as a liar or a fool. In my opinion, said I, he's one or the other. He isn't, in mine, said the Professor placidly. What, I exclaimed, here is a man living all alone on a strip of rock and sand between the wilderness and the sea, who wants you to send somebody to take charge of a bird that doesn't exist. How do you know, asked Professor Farago, that the bird in question does not exist. It is generally accepted, I replied sarcastically, that the great orc has been extinct for years. Therefore, I may be pardoned for doubting that our correspondence possesses a pair of them alive. Oh, you young fellows, said the Professor, smiling wearily. You embark on a theory for destinations that don't exist. He leaned back in his chair, his amused eyes searching space for the imaginary that made him smile. Like swimming squirrels, you navigate with the help of heaven and a stiff breeze, but you never land where you hope to, do you? Rather red in the face, I said, don't you believe the great orc to be extinct? Audubon saw the great orc. Who has seen a single specimen since? Nobody, except our correspondent here, he laughed. I laughed too, considering the interview at an end, but the Professor went on coolly. Whatever it is that our correspondent has, and I am daring to believe that it is the great orc itself, I want you to secure it for the society. When my astonishment subsided, my first conscious sentiment was one of pity. Clearly Professor Farago was on the verge of dotage. Ah, what a loss to the world. I believe now that Professor Farago perfectly interpreted my thoughts, but he betrayed neither resentment nor impatience. I drew a chair up beside his desk. There was nothing to do but to obey, and this fool's errand was none of my conceiving. Together we made out a list of articles necessary for me and itemized the expenses I might incur, and I set a date for my return, allowing no margin for a successful termination to the expedition. Nevermind that, said the Professor, what I want you to do is get those birds here safely. Now, how many men will you take? None, I replied bluntly. It's a useless expense, unless there is something to bring back. If there is, I'll wire you, you may be sure. Very well, said Professor Farago, good humoredly. You shall have all the assistance you may require. Can you leave tonight? The old gentleman was certainly prompt. I nodded, half-sulkily aware of his amusement. So, I said, picking up my hat. I am to start north to find a place called Black Harbour, where there is a man named Halyard, who possesses, among other household utensils, two extinct great orcs. We were both laughing by this time. I asked him why on earth he credited the assertion of a male he had never before heard of. I suppose, he replied, with the same half-apologetic, half-humorous smile, it is instinct. I feel, somehow, that this man Halyard has got an oak, perhaps two. I can't get away from the idea that we are on the eve of acquiring the rarest of living creatures. It's odd for a scientist to talk as I do. Doubtless, you're shocked. Admit it, now. But I was not shocked, on the contrary. I was conscious that the same strange hope that Professor Farago cherished was beginning, in spite of me, to stir my pulses too. If he has, I began, then stopped. The Professor and I looked hard at each other in silence. Go on, he said, encouragingly. But I had nothing more to say. For the prospect of beholding with my own eyes a living specimen of the great orc produced a series of conflicting emotions within me which rendered speech profanely superfluous. As I took my leave, Professor Farago came to the door of the temporary wooden office and handed me the letter written by the man Halyard. I folded it and put it into my pocket as Halyard might require it for my own identification. How much does he want for the pair? I asked. $10,000. Don't you, Muir? If the birds are really, I know. I said hastily, not daring to hope too much. One thing more, said Professor Farago gravely. You know, in that last paragraph of his letter, Halyard speaks of something else in the way of the specimens an undiscovered species of amphibious biped. Just read that paragraph again, will you? I drew the letter from my pocket and read as he directed. When you have seen the two living specimens of the great orc and have satisfied yourself that I tell the truth, you may be wise enough to listen without prejudice to a statement I shall make concerning the existence of the strangest creature ever fashioned. I will merely say at this time that the creature referred to is an amphibious biped and inhabits the ocean near the coast. More I cannot say, for I personally have not seen the animal, but I have a witness who has and there are many who affirm that they have seen the creature. You will naturally say that my statement amounts to nothing, but when your representatives arrive, if he be free from prejudice, I expect his reports to you concerning this sea biped will confirm the solemn statements of a witness I know to be unimpeachable. Yours truly, Burton Halyard, Black Harbor. Well, I said after a moment's thought, here goes for the wild goose chase. Wild orc, you mean, said Professor Farago shaking hands with me. You will start tonight, won't you? Yes, but heaven knows how I'm ever going to land in this man's Halyard's door yard. Goodbye. About that sea biped, began Professor Farago shyly. Oh, don't, I said. I can swallow the orcs, feathers and claws, but if this fellow Halyard is hinting he's seen an amphibious creature resembling a man? Or a woman, said the Professor, cautiously. I retired disgusted, my faith shaken in the mental vigours of Professor Farago. Chapter two. The three days voyage by boat and rail was irksome. I bought my kit at St. Croix on the Central Pacific Railroad. And on June 1st, I began the last stage of my journey via the St. Icel Broad gauge, arriving in the wilderness by daylight. A tedious forced march by Blaise Trail, freshly spotted on the wrong side, of course, brought me to the northern terminus of the rusty narrow gauge lumber railway which runs from the heart of the hush pine wilderness to the sea. Already a long train of battered flat cars piled with sluice props and roughly hewn sleepers was moving slowly off into the brooding forest gloom when I came inside of the track. But I developed a gratifying and unexpected burst of speed, shouting all the while. The train stopped. I swung myself aboard the last car where a pleasant young fellow was sitting on the rear brake chewing spruce and reading a letter. Come aboard, sir, he said, looking up with a smile. I guess you're the man in a hurry. I'm looking for a man named Halliard, I said, dropping rifle and knapsack on the fresh cut fragrant pile of pine. Are you Halliard? No, I'm Francis Lee, bossing the mica pit of port of waves, he replied. But this letter is from Halliard, asking me to look out for a man in a hurry from Bronx Park, New York. I'm that man, said I, filling my pipe and offering him a share of the weed of peace. And we sat side by side smoking very amiably until a signal from the locomotive sent him forward and I was left alone. Lounging at ease, head pillowed on both arms, watching the blue sky flying through the branches overhead. Long before we came inside of the ocean, I smelled it. The fresh salt aroma stole into my senses, drowsy with the heated odor of pine and hemlock. And I sat up, peering ahead into the dusky sea of pines. Fresher and fresher came the wind from the sea in puffs, in mild, sweet breezes, in steady, freshening currents, blowing the feathery crowns of the pines. Setting the balsams, blue tufts rocking. Lee wandered back over the long line of flats, balancing himself nonchalantly as the cars swung around a sharp curve, where water dripped from a newly propped sluice that suddenly emerged from the depths of the forest to run parallel to the railroad track. Built in this spring, he said, surveyed his handiwork, which seemed to undulate as the cars swept past. It runs to the cove, or it ought to. He stopped abruptly with a thoughtful glance at me. So you're going over to Halleads. He continued as though answering a question asked by himself, I nodded. You've never been there, of course. No, I said, and I'm not likely to go again. I would have told him why I was going if I had not already begun to feel ashamed of my idiotic errand. I guess you're going to look at those birds of his continually placidly. I guess I am, I said, sulkingly, glancing as scants to see whether he was smiling. But he only asked me, quite seriously, whether a great orc was really a very rare bird. And I told him that the last one ever seen had been found dead off Labrador in January, 1870. Then I asked him whether these birds of Halleads were really great orcs. And he replied, somewhat indifferently, that he supposed they were. At least nobody had ever before seen such birds near port of waves. There's something else, he said, running a pine sliver through his pipe stem. Something that interests us all here more than orcs, big or little. I suppose I might as well speak of it as you are bound to hear about it sooner or later. He hesitated, and I could see that he was embarrassed, searching for the exact words to convey his meaning. If, said I, you have anything in this region more important to science than the great orc, I shall be very glad to know about it. Perhaps there was a faintest tinge of sarcasm in my voice, for he shot a sharp glance at me and then turned slightly. After a moment, however, he put his pipe into his pocket, laid hold of the break with both hands, faltered to his perchaloft, and glanced down at me. Did you ever hear of the harbormaster, he asked maliciously? Which harbormaster, I inquired. You'll know before long, he observed with a satisfied glance into perspective. This rather extraordinary observation puzzled me. I wait for him to resume, and as he did not, I asked him what he meant. If I knew, he said, I'd tell you, but come to think of it, I'd be a fool to go into details with such a scientific man. You'll hear about the harbormaster. Perhaps you'll see the harbormaster. In that event, I shall be glad to converse with you on the subject. I could not help laughing at his prim and precise manner, and after a moment, he also laughed, saying, it hurts a man's vanity to know he knows a thing that somebody else knows he doesn't know. I'm damned if I say another word about the harbormaster until you've been to Haliad's. A harbormaster, I persisted, is an official who super intends the moorings of the ships, isn't he? But he refused to be tempted into conversation, and we lounged silently on the lumber until a long, thin whistle from the locomotive, and a rush of stinging salt wind brought us to our feet. Through the trees, I could see the bluish black ocean, stretching out beyond black headlands to meet the clouds, a great wind was roaring among the trees as the train slowly came to a standstill on the edge of the primeval forest. Lee jumped to the ground and aided me with my rifle and pack, and then the train began to back away along a curved sidetrack, which, Lee said, led to the mica pit and the company stores. Now, what will you do? He asked pleasantly, I can give you a good dinner and a decent bed tonight if you like, and I'm sure Mrs. Lee would be very glad to have you stop with us as long as you choose. I thanked him, but said that I was anxious to reach Halyards before dark, and he very kindly led me along the cliffs and pointed out the path. This man, Halyard, he said, is an invalid. He lives at a cove called Black Harbor, and all his truck goes through to him over the company's road. We receive it here and send a pack mule through once a month. I've met him. He's a bad-tempered hypochondriac, a cynic at heart and a man whose word is never doubted. If he says he has a great orc, you may be satisfied he has. My heart was beating with excitement at the prospect. I looked out across the wooded headlands and tangled stretches of dune and hollow, trying to realise what it might mean to me to Professor Farago, to the world if I should lead back to New York a live orc. He's a crank, said Lee. Frankly, I don't like him. If you find it unpleasant there, come back to us. Does Halyard live alone? I asked. Yes, except for a professional trained nurse. Poor thing. A man? No, said Lee disgustedly. Presently, he gave me a peculiar glance, hesitated, and finally said, ask Halyard to tell you about his nurse and the harbormaster. Good boy. I'm due at the quarry. Come and stay with us whenever you care to. You will find our welcome at Port of Waves. We shook hands and parted on the cliff. He turned back into the forest along the railway. I started northward. Pax lung, rifle over my shoulder. Once I met a group of quarrymen, faces burned brick red, scarred hands swinging as they walked. And as I passed them with a nod, turning, I saw that they also had turned to look after me. And I called a word or two of their conversation, welled back to me on the sea wind. They were speaking of the harbormaster. Chapter three. Towards sunset, I came out on a sheer granite cliff where the seabirds were whirling and clamoring. And the great breakers dashed, rolling in double-thundered reverberations on the sun-died crimson sands below the rock. Across the half-moon of beached towered another cliff. And beside this, I saw a column of smoke rising in the still air. It certainly came from Haliod's chimney, although the opposite cliff prevented me from seeing the house itself. I rested a moment to refill my pipe, then resumed rifle and pack, and cautiously started to skirt the cliff. I had descended halfway towards the beach and was examining the cliff opposite when something on the very top of the rock arrested my attention, a man darkly outlined against the sky. The next moment, however, I knew it could not be a man, for the object suddenly glided over the face of the cliff and slid down the sheer smooth lace like a lizard. Before I could get a square look at it, the thing crawled into the surf, or at least it seemed to. But the whole episode occurred so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I was not sure I had seen anything at all. However, I was curious enough to climb the cliff on the land side and make my way towards the spot where I imagined I saw the man. Of course, there was nothing there, not a trace of a human being. I mean, something had been there, a sea otter possibly, for the remains of a freshly killed fish lay on the rock eaten to the backbone and tail. The next moment, below me, I saw the house, a freshly painted trim flimsy structure, modern and very much out of harmony with the splendid savagery surrounding it. It struck a nasty cheap note in the noble gray monotony of the headland of the sea. The descent was easy enough. I crossed the crescent beach, hard as pink marble, and found a little trodden path among the rocks that led to the front porch of the house. There were two people on the porch. I heard their voices before I saw them, and when I set my foot upon the wooden steps, I saw one of them, a woman rise from her chair and step hastily toward me. Come back, cried the other, a man with a smooth shaven, deeply lined face and a pair of angry blue eyes, and the woman snapped back quietly, acknowledging my lifted hat with a silent inclination. The man who was reclining in an invalid's rolling chair clapped both large, pale hands to the wheels and pushed himself out along the porch. He had shoals pinned about him and untidy drab-colored hat on his head, and when he looked down at me, he scowled. I know who you are, he said in his acid voice. You're one of the zoological men from the Bronx Park. You look like it anyway. It is easy to recognize you from your reputation, I replied, irritated at his discurtersy. Really, he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh. I'm obliged for your frankness. You're after my great orcs, are you not? Nothing else would have tempted me to this place, I replied sincerely. Thank heaven for that, he said. Sit down a moment, you've interrupted us. Then, turning to the young woman who wore the neat gown and tiny cap of a professional nurse, he bade her resume what she had been saying. She did so. With depreciating glance at me, she made the old man sneer again. It happened so suddenly, she said in her low voice, that I had no chance to get back. The boat was drifting in the cove. I sat in the stern, reading, both oars shipped and the tiller swinging. Then I heard a scratching under the boat, but I thought it might be seaweed. And next moment came these soft thumpings, like the sound of a big fish rubbing its nose against a float. Hallie had clutched the wheels of his chair and stared at the girl in grim displeasure. Didn't you know enough to be frightened, he demanded. No, not then, she said, coloring faintly, but when, after a few moments, I looked up and saw the harbour master running up and down the beach, I was horribly frightened. Really, said Hallie had sarcastically. It was about time. Then, turning to me, he rasped out and that young lady was obliged to row all the way to Port of Waves and call to Leaves Quarryman to take her boat in. Completely mystified, I looked from Hallie to the girl, not in that least comprehending what all this meant. That will do, said Hallie ungraciously, which curt phrase was apparently the usual dismal for the nurse. She rose and I rose, and she passed me with an inclination, stepping noiselessly into the house. I want beef tea, bold Hallie had after her, then he gave me an animal glance. I was a well bred man, he sneered. I'm a Harvard graduate too, but I live as I like and I do what I like and I say what I like. You certainly are not reticent, I said, disgusted. Why should I be, he rasped. I pay that young woman for my irritability. It's a bargain between us. In your desmostic affairs, I said, there is nothing that interests me. I came here to see those orcs. You probably believe them to be razor billied orcs, he said contemptuously, but they are not. They are great orcs. I suggested that he permit me to examine them and he replied indifferently that they were in a pen in his backyard and that I was free to step around the house when I cared to. I laid my rifle and pack on the veranda and hastened off with mixed emotions, among which hope no longer predominated. No man in his senses would keep two such precious prizes in a pen in his backyard, I argued, and I was perfectly prepared to find anything from a puffin to a penguin in that pen. I shall never forget, as long as I live, my stupid of amazement when I came to the wire-covered enclosure. Not only were there two great orcs in the pen, alive, breathing, squatting in bulky majesty on their seaweed bed, but one of them was gravely contemplating two newly hatched chicks, all bill and feet, which nestled sedately at the edge of a puddle of saltwater where some small fish were swimming. For a while, excitement blinded, nay, deafened me. I tried to realise that I was gazing upon the last individuals of an all but extinct race, the sole survivors of the gigantic orc, which, for 30 years, has been accounted as an extinct creature. I believe I did not move muscle nor limb until the sun had gone down and the crowding darkness blurred my straining eyes and blotted the great, silent, bright-eyed birds from sight. Even then, I could not tear myself away from the enclosure. I listened to the strange, drowsy note of the male bird, the fainter responses of the female, the thin plates of the chicks huddling under her breast. I heard their flipper-like, embryotic wings beating sleepily as the birds stretched and yawned their beaks and clack them, preparing for slumber. If you please, came a soft voice from the door, Mr. Halliard awaits your company to dinner. Chapter four. I dined well, or rather, I might have enjoyed my dinner if Mr. Halliard had been eliminated. And the feast consisted exclusively of a joint of beef, the pretty nurse and myself. She was exceedingly attractive, with a disturbing fashion of lowering her head and raising her dark eyes when spoken to. As for Halliard, he was unspeakable, bundled up in his snuffy shoals and making uncouth noises over his grill. But it is only just to say that his table was worth sitting down to and his wine was sound as a bell. Yeah, he snapped, I'm sick of this cursed soup and I'll trouble you to fill my glass. It is dangerous for you to touch, Claret, said the pretty nurse. I might as well die at dinner as anywhere, he observed. Certainly, said I, cheerfully passing the decanter, but he did not appear over-pleased with the attention. I can't smoke, either, he snarled, hitching the shoals around until he looked like Richard III. However, he was good enough to shove a box of cigars at me and I took one and stood up. As the pretty nurse slipped past and vanished into the little parlour beyond. We sat there for a while without speaking. He picked irritably at the breadcrumbs on the cloth, never glancing in my direction and I, tired from my long foot tour, lay back in my chair, silently appreciating one of the best cigars I had ever smoked. Well, he rasped out at length. What do you think of my orcs and my veracity? I told him that both were unimpeachable. Didn't they call me a swindler down there at your museum, he demanded. I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted that my chief Professor Farago had sent me against my will and that I was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halliard, was a benefactor of the human race. Bosh, he said. What good does a confounded wobbly banded toad bird do to the human race? But he was pleased, nevertheless, and presently he asked me. Not unnameably to punish his claret again. I'm done for, he said. Good things to eat and drink are no good to me. Someday I'll get mad enough to have a fit and then he paused to yawn. Then he continued, that little nurse of mine will drink up my claret and go back to civilization where people are polite. Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halliard was an old pig, what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for him as he regarded life. I'm going to leave her this house, he said, arranging his shawls. She doesn't know it. I'm going to leave her my money too. She doesn't know that. Good Lord, what kind of a woman can she be to stand my bad temper for a few dollars a month? I think, said I, that it's partly because she's poor, partly because she's sorry for you. He looked up with a ghastly smile. You think she really is sorry? Before I could answer, he went on, I'm no mortgaged sentimentalist and I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me. Do you hear? Oh, I'm not sorry for you, I said hastily and for the first time since I had seen him, he laughed heartedly without a sneer. We both seemed to feel better after that. I drank his wine and smoked his cigars and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in watching me. There's no fool like a young fool, he observed presently. As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention. After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked my age. 24, I replied. Sort of a tadpole, aren't you? he said. As I took no offense, he repeated the remark. Oh, come, I said. There's no use in trying to irritate me. I see through you, a row acts like a cocktail on you, but you'll have to stick to gruel in my company. I call that impudence, he rasped out wrathfully. I don't care what you call it, I replied, undisturbed. I'm not going to be worried by you anyway. I ended. It is my opinion that you could be very good company if you chose. The proposition appeared to take his breath away. At least he said nothing more and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump into a saucer. Now, said I, what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Hallean? Ten thousand dollars, he snapped with an even evil smile. You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered, I said quietly. You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain and I won't take a cent less either. Good Lord, haven't you any spirit left? He cried, half rising from his pile of shoals. His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into a laughing, laughter impossible to control and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly. Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too mad to speak and I strolled out into the parlour, still laughing. The pretty nurse was there, sowing under a hanging lamp. If I am not indiscreet, I began. Indiscretion is the better part of valor, she said, dropping her head but raising her eyes. So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated. Doubtless, said I, you are hemming a c-chief. Doubtless, I am not, she said. This is a nightcap for Mr. Hallean. A mental vision of Hallean in a nightcap, very mad, nearly set me laughing again. Like the king of Vettot, he wore his crown in bed, I said flippantly. The king of Vettot might have made that remark, she observed, re-threading her needle. It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's ears feel. To cool them, I strolled out to the porch and, after a while, the pretty nurse came out too and sat down in a chair not far away. She probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with. I have so little company, it is a great relief to see somebody from the world, she said. If you can be agreeable, I wish you would. The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I remained speechless until she said, do tell me what people are doing in New York. So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that straggled out from the pile of windows. She had a certain poetry of her own, using the usual methods with an individuality that was certainly fetching. For instance, when she lost her needle and another time, when we both, on hands and knees, hunted for her thimble. However, directions for these pastimes may be found in contemporary classics. I was as entertaining as I could be, perhaps not quite as entertaining as a young man usually thinks he is. However, we got on very well together until I asked her tenderly who the harbour master might be, whom they all discussed so mysteriously. I did not care to speak about it, she said, with the primeness of which I had not suspected her capable. Of course, I could scarcely pursue the subject after that, and indeed, I did not intend to. So I began to tell her how fancied I had seen a man on the cliff that afternoon and how the creature slid over the sheer rock like a snake. To my amazement, she asked me to kindly discontinue the account of my adventures in an icy tone, which left no room for protest. It was only a sea otter, I tried to explain, thinking perhaps she did not care for snake stories, but the explanation did not appear to interest her, and I was mortified to observe that my impression upon her was anything but unpleasant. She doesn't seem to like me and my stories, thought I, but she is too young, perhaps to appreciate them. So I forgave her, for she was even prettier than I had thought of her at first, and I took my leave, saying that Mr. Halliott would doubtless direct me to my room. Halliott was in his library, cleaning a revolver when I entered. Your room is next to mine, he said, pleasant dreams, and kindly refrain from snoring. May I adventure an absurd hope that you will do the same, I replied politely. That maddened him, so I hastily withdrew. I had been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed, blinking at Halliott, who, clad in a dressing gown and wearing a nightcap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while the other hand, he solemnly waved a candle over my head. I'm so cursed lonely, he said. Come, there's a good fellow, talk to me in your own original, impundant way. I objected strenuously, but he looked so worn and thin, so lonely and bad-tempered, so lovelessly and grotesque that I got out of bed and passed a sponge full of cold water over my head. Then I returned to bed and propped the pillows up for a backrest, ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some pleasure into his morbid existence. No, he said amiably. I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something. What, I asked suspiciously. I want to ask if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish. Gills, I repeated. Yes, gills. Did you? No, I replied angrily, and neither did you. No, I never did, he said in a curiously placid voice, but there's a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you needn't look that way. Nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I tell you there's a man, or a thing that looks like a man, as big as you are too, all slate-colored with nasty red grills like a fish. And I've a witness to prove what I say. Who, I ask sarcastically. The witness, my nurse. Oh, she saw a slate-colored man with gills? Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Micah Quarry Company of Porter Waves. So have a dozen men who worked in the quarry. Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody can tell you about the harbormaster. The harbormaster, I exclaimed. Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills that looks like a man, and by heaven is a man. That's the harbormaster. Ask any quarryman at Port of Waves what it is that comes parring out around their boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of every cat boat in the cove at night. Ask Francis Lee what it was he saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday. Ask anybody along the coast what sort of thing moves about the cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter. I saw it do that, I burst out. Oh, did you? Well, what was it? Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my lips. After a pause, Halliard said, you saw the harbormaster, that's what you saw. I looked at him without a word. Don't mistake me, he said, pettishly. I don't think that the harbormaster is a spirit or a sprite or a hobgoblin or any sort of damned rot. Neither do I believe it to be an optical illusion. What do you think it is? I asked. I think it is a man. I think it's a branch of the human race. That's what I think. Let me tell you something. The deepest spot in the Atlantic Ocean is a trifle over five miles deep. And I suppose you know that this place lies only about a quarter of a mile off this headland. The British exploring vessel, Gull, Captain Marat, discovered and sounded it. I believe, anyway, it's there. And it's my belief that the profound depths are inhabited by the remnants of the last race of amphibious human beings. This was childish. I did not bother to reply. Believe it or not, as you will, he said angrily. One thing I know, and that is this, the harbormaster has taken to hanging around my cove and he is attracted by my nurse. I won't have it. I'll blow his fishy gills out of its head if I ever get a shot at him. I don't care whether it's homicide or not. Anyway, it's a new kind of murder and it attracts me. I gazed at him incredulously, but he was working himself into a passion and I did not choose to say what I thought. Yes, this slate-colored thing that with gills goes purring and grinning and spitting about after my nurse. When she walks, when she roars, when she sits on the beach, Gad, it drives me nearly frantic. I won't tolerate, I tell you. No, said I, I wouldn't either. And I rolled over in bed convulsed with laughter. The next moment, I heard my door slam. I smothered my mirth and rose to close the window. For the land wind blew cold from the forest and a drizzle was sweeping the carpet as far as my bed. That luminous glare which sometimes lingers after the stars go out through a trembling, nebulous radiance of over sand and cove. I heard the seething currents under the breakers soften thunder louder than I ever heard it. Then, as I close my window, lingering for a last look at the crawling tide, I saw a man standing, ankle deep in the surf, all alone there in the night. But was it a man? For the figure suddenly began running over the beach on all fours like a beetle, waving its limbs like feelers. Before I could throw open the window again, it darted into the surf and when I leaned out into the chilling drizzle, I saw nothing save the flat ebb crawling on the coast. I heard nothing save the purring of bubbles on seething sands. Chapter five. It took me a week to perfect my arrangements for transporting the great orcs by water to Port of Waves, where a lumber schooner was to be sent from petite St. Isle, chartered by me for a voyage to New York. I had constructed a cage made of oseas in which my orcs was to squat until they arrived at Bronx Park. My telegrams to Professor Farago were brief. One merely said, victory. Another explained that I wanted no assistance and a third read, schooner chartered, arrive New York July 1st, send furniture van to Foot of Bluff Street. My week as a guest of Mr. Halley had proved interesting. I wrangled with that invalid to his heart's content. I worked all day on my osea cage. I hunted the thimble in the moonlight with the pretty nurse. We sometimes found it. As for the thing they called the harbormaster, I saw it a dozen times, but always either at night or so far away and so close to the sea that, of course, no trace of it remained when I reached the spot, rifle in hand. I had quite made up my mind that the so-called harbormaster was a demented, darky, wandered from. Heaven knows where, perhaps shipwrecked and gone mad from his sufferings. Still, it was far from pleasant to know that the creature was strongly attracted by the pretty nurse. She, however, persisted in regarding the harbormaster as a sea creature. She earnestly affirmed that it had gills, like a fish's gills, that it had a soft, fleshy hole for a mouth and its eyes were luminous and lidless and fixed. Besides, she said with a shudder, it's all slate colour, like a porpoise, and it looks as wet as a sheet of India rubber in a dissecting room. The day before I went to sail with my orcs in a cat boat bound for Port of Waves, Halley had trumbled up to me in his chair and announced his intention of going with me. Going where, I asked. To Port of Waves, and then to New York, he replied tranquilly. I was doubtful and my lack of cordiality hurt his feelings. Ah, of course. If you need the sea voyage, I began. I don't. I need you, he said savagely. I need the stimulus of our daily quarrel. I never disagreed so pleasantly with anybody in my life. It agrees with me. I am 100% better than I was last week. I was inclined to resent this, but something in the deep-lined face of the invalid softened me. Besides, I had taken a hardy liking to the old pig. I don't want any morecushed sentiment about it, he said, observing me closely. I won't permit anybody to feel sorry for me. Do you understand? I'll trouble you to use a different tone in addressing me, I replied hotly. I'll feel sorry for you if I choose to. And our usual quarrel proceeded to his deep satisfaction. By six o'clock the next evening, I had Halliard's luggage stowed away in the cat boat and the pretty nurse's effects quartered down with the newly hatched orc chicks in a hat box on top. She and I placed the ozio cage aboard, securing it firmly and then throwing tablecloths over the orc's heads. We led those simple and dignified birds down the path and across the plank at the little wooden pier. Together we locked up the house while Halliard stormed at us both and wheeled himself furiously up and down the beach below. At the last moment she forgot her thimble, but we found it. I forget where. Come on, shouted Halliard waving his shawls furiously. What the devil are you about up there? He received our explanation with a sniff and we trundled him aboard without further ceremony. Don't run me across the plank like a steamer trunk, he shouted as I shot him dexterously into the cockpit, but the wind was dying away and I had no time to dispute with him then. The sun was setting above the pine clad ridge as our sail flapped and partly filled and I cast off and began a long tack east by south to avoid the spouting rocks on our starboard bow. The seabirds rose in clouds as we swung across the shoal. The black surf ducks scattered out to sea. The gulls tossed their sun-tipped wings in the ocean, riding the rollers like bits of froth. Already we were sailing slowly out across that great hole in the ocean, five miles deep, the most profound sounding ever taken in the Atlantic. The presence of great heights or great depths, seen or unseen, always impresses the human mind, perhaps oppresses it. We were very silent. The sunlit stain on the cliff and beach deep into crimson then faded into somber purple bloom that lingered long after the rose tint died out in the zenith. Our progress was slow at times, although the sail filled with the rising land breeze, we scarcely seemed to move at all. Of course, said the pretty nurse, we couldn't be a ground in the deepest hole in the Atlantic. Scarcely, said Heliott sarcastically, unless we're grounded on a whale. What's that soft thumping, I asked? Have we run afoul of a barrel or a log? It was almost too dark to see, but I leaned over the rail and swept the water with my hand. Instantly something smooth glided under it, like the back of a great fish, and I jerked my hand back to the tiller. At the same moment, the whole surface of the water seemed to begin to pur, with a sound like the breaking of froth in a champagne glass. What's the matter with you? asked Heliott sharply. A fish came up under my hand, I said, a porpoise or something. With a low cry, the pretty nurse clasped my arm in both her hands. The dissin, she whispered, it's purring around the boat. What the devil's purring shouted, Heliott, I won't have anything purring around me. At that moment, to my amazement, I saw that the boat had stopped entirely, although the sail was full and the small pennant fluttered from the mast head. Something, too, was tugging at the rudder, twisting and jerking it until the tiller strained and creeped in my hand. All at once it snapped. The tiller swung useless and the boat whirled around, healing in the stiffening wind and drove shoreward. It was then that I, ducking to escape the boom, caught a glimpse of something ahead. Something that a sudden wave seemed to toss on deck and leave there, wet and flapping, a man with round, fixed, fishy eyes and soft, slaty skin. But the horror of the thing were the two gills that swelled and relaxed basmodically, emitting a rasping purring sound. Two gasping blood-red gills all fluted and scalloped and distended. Frozen with amazement and repugnance, I stared at the creature. I felt the hair stirring on the head and the icy sweat on my forehead. It's the harbour master, screamed Heliott. The harbour master had gathered himself into a wet lump, squatting motionless in the boughs under the mast. His lidless eyes were phosphorescent, like the eyes of living codfish. After a while I felt that either fright or disgust was going to strangle me where I sat. But it was only the arms of the pretty nurse clasped around me in a frenzy of terror. There was not a firearm aboard that we could get at. Halliott's ham crept backward where a still, shod boat-hook lay, and I made a clutch at it. The next moment I had it in my hand and staggered forward, but the boat was already tumbling shoreward among the breakers, and the next I knew the harbour master ran at me like a colossal rat, just as the boat rolled over and over through the surf, spilling freight and passenger among the seaweed covered rocks. When I came to myself I was thrashing about knee-deep in a rocky pool, blinded by the water and half-suffocated. While under my feet, like a stranded porpoise, the harbour master made the water boil in his efforts to upset me. But his limbs seemed soft and boneless. He had no nails, no teeth, and he bounced and thumped and flapped and splashed like a fish, while I reigned blows on him with the boat-hook that sounded like blows on a football. And all the while his gills were blowing out and frothing and purring, and his lidless eyes looked into mine until, nauseated and trembling, I dragged myself back to the beach, where already the pretty nurse alternatively rung her hands and her petticoats in ornamental despair. Beyond the cove, Halliard was bobbing up and down, a float in his invalids chair, trying to steer shoreward. He was the maddest man I ever saw. Have you killed that rubbery-headed thing yet? he roared. I can't kill it, I shouted breathlessly. I might as well try to kill a football. Can't you punch a hole in it? he bowled. If only I can get at him. His words were drowned in a thunderous splashing, a roar of great broad flippers beating the sea, and I saw the gigantic forms of my two great orcs followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of spray, driving headlong out into the ocean. Oh lord, I said, I can't stand that. And for the first time in my life, I fainted peacefully, and appropriately, at the feet of the pretty nurse. It is within the range of possibility that this story may be doubted. It doesn't matter. Nothing can add to the despair of a man who has lost two great orcs. As for Haliod, nothing affects him, except his involuntary sea bath, and that did him so much good that he writes me from the south that he's going on a walking tour through Switzerland, if I'll join him. I might have joined him if he had not married the pretty nurse. I wonder whether, but of course, this is no place for speculation. In regard to the harbormaster, you may believe it or not as you choose, but if you hear of any great orcs being found, kindly throw a tablecloth over their heads and notify the authorities at the new zoological gardens in Bronx Park, New York. The reward is $10,000. End of The Harbormaster by Robert W. Chambers Recording by Robert Doolan Board Game Basics.podbean.com