 Negatium Perambulance by E. F. Benson 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 Rafe Ball Negatium Perambulance by E. F. Benson The casual tourist in West Cornwall may just possibly have noticed, as he bowled along over the bare high plateau between Penzance and Land's End, a dilapidated signpost pointing down a steep lane and bearing on its battered finger the faded inscription, Polan, Two Miles. But probably very few have had the curiosity to traverse those two miles in order to see a place to which their guidebooks award so cursory a notice. It is described there in a couple of unattractive lines as a small fishing village with a church of no particular interest except for certain carved and painted wood panels originally belonging to an earlier edifice which form an altar rail. But the church at St Creed, tourist is reminded, has a similar decoration far superior in point of preservation and interest and thus even the ecclesiastically disposed are not lured to Polan. So meagre abate is scarce worth swallowing and a glance at the very steep lane which in dry weather presents a carpet of sharp pointed stones and after rain a muddy water course will almost certainly decide him not to expose his motor or his bicycle to risks like these in so sparsely populated a district. Hardly a house has met his eye since he left Penzance and the possible trundling of a punctured bicycle for half a dozen weary miles seems a high price to pay for the sight of a few painted panels. Polan, therefore, even in the high noon of the tourist season is little liable to invasion and for the rest of the year I do not suppose that a couple of folk a day traverse those two miles long ones at that of steep and stony gradient. I am not forgetting the postman in this exicuous estimate for the days of few when leaving his pony and cart at the top of the hill he goes as far as the village since but a few hundred yards down the lane there stands a large white box like a sea trunk by the side of the road with a slit for letters and a locked door. Should he have in his wallet a registered letter or be the bearer of a parcel too large for insertion in the square lips of the sea trunk he must needs chudge down the hill and deliver the troublesome missive leaving it in person on the owner and receiving some small reward of coin or refreshment for his kindness. But such occasions are rare and his general routine is to take out of the box such letters as may have been deposited there and insert in their place such letters as he has brought. These will be called for perhaps that day or perhaps the next by an emissary from the Polan post office. As for the fisherman of the place who in their export trade constitute the chief link of movement between Polan and the outside world they would not dream of taking their catch up the steep lane and so with six miles farther of travel to the market at Penzantz. The sea route is shorter and easier and they deliver their wares to the pier head. Thus though the sole industry of Polan is sea fishing you will get no fish there unless you have bespoken your requirements to one of the fisherman. Back come the trawlers as empty as a haunted house while their spoils are in the fish train that is speeding to London. Such isolation of a little community continued as it has been for centuries produces isolation in the individual as well and nowhere will you find greater independence of character than among the people of Polan. But they are linked together so it has always seen to me by some mysterious comprehension it is as if they had all been initiated into some ancient right inspired and framed by forces visible and invisible. The winter storms that batter the coast the vernal spell of the spring the hot still summers the season of rains and autumnal decay have made a spell which line by line has been communicated to them concerning the powers evil and good that rule the world and manifest themselves in ways benignant or terrible. I came to Polan first at the age of ten a small boy weak and sickly and threatened with pulmonary trouble. My father's business kept him in London while for me abundance of fresh air and a mild climate were considered essential conditions if I was to grow to manhood. His sister had married the vicar of Polan Richard Bolitho himself native to the place and so it came about that I spent three years as a paying guest with my relations. Richard Bolitho owned a fine house in the place which he inhabited in preference to the vicarage which he let to a young artist John Evans on whom the spell of Polan had fallen for from years beginning to years end he never left it. There was a solid roofed shelter open on one side to the air built for me in the garden and here I lived and slept passing scarcely one hour out of twenty four behind walls and windows. I was out on the bay with a fisherfolk or wandering along the gorse clad cliffs that climbed steeply to the right and left of the deep comb where the village lay or pottering about on the pier head or birds nesting in the bushes with the boys of the village except on Sunday and for the few daily hours of my lessons I might do what I pleased so long as I remained in the open air. About the lessons there was nothing formidable my uncle conducted me through flowering bypass among the thickets of arithmetic and made pleasant excursions into the elements of Latin grammar and above all he made me daily give him an account in clear and grammatical sentences of what had been occupying my mind or my movements. Should I select to tell him about a walk along the cliffs my speech must be orderly not vague slipshod notes of what I had observed in this way too he trained my observation for he would bid me tell him what flowers are in bloom and what birds hovered fishing over the sea or were building in the bushes. For that I owe him a perennial gratitude for to observe and to express my thoughts in the clear spoken word became my life's profession but far more formidable than my weekday tasks was the prescribed routine for Sunday. Some dark embers compounded of Calvinism and mysticism smoldered in my uncle's soul and made it a day of terror. His sermon in the morning scorched us with a foretaste of the eternal fires reserved for unrepentant sinners and he was hardly less terrifying at the children's service in the afternoon. Well do I remember his exposition of the doctrine of guardian angels. A child, he said, might think himself secure in such angelic care but let him beware of committing any of those numerous offenses which would cause his guardian to turn his face from him for as sure as there were angels to protect us there were also evil and awful presences which were ready to pounce and on them he dwelt with peculiar gusto. Well too do I remember in the morning sermon his commentary on the carved panels of the altar rails to which I have already alluded. There was the angel of the enunciation there and the angel of the resurrection but not less was there the witch of Endor and on the fourth panel a scene that concerned me most of all. This fourth panel he came down from his pulpit to trace its time-worn features represented the lich gate of the church yard at Polan itself and indeed the resemblance when thus pointed out was remarkable. In the entry stood the figure of a robed priest holding up a cross with which he faced a terrible creature like a gigantic slug that reared itself up in front of him. That, so ran my uncle's interpretation, was some evil agency such as he had spoken about to us children of almost infinite malignity and power which could alone be combated by firm faith and a pure heart. Below ran the legend Negotium perambulans in Tenebris from the 91st Psalm we should find it translated there the pestilence that walketh in darkness which but feebly rendered the Latin. It was more deadly to the soul than any pestilence that can only kill the body. It was the thing, the creature the business that trafficked in the outer darkness a minister of God's wrath on the unrighteous. I could see as he spoke the looks which the congregation exchanged with each other and knew that his words were evoking a surmise, a remembrance. Nods and whispers passed between them. They understood to what he eluded and with the inquisitiveness of boyhood I could not rest till I had wormed the story out of my friends among the Fisher boys next morning we sat basking and naked in the sun after our bath. One knew one bit of it, one another, but it pieced together into a truly alarming legend. In bold outline it was as follows a church far more ancient than that in which my uncle terrified us every Sunday had once stood not 300 yards away on the shelf of level ground below the quarry from which its stones were hewn. The owner of the land had pulled this down and directed for himself a house on the same site out of these materials keeping in a very ecstasy of wickedness the altar and on this he dined and played dice afterwards. But as he grew old some black melancholy seized him and he would have lights burning there all night for he had deadly fear of the darkness. On one winter evening there sprang up such a gail as was never known before which broke in the windows of the room where he had sucked and extinguished the lamps. Yells of terror brought in his servants who found him lying on the floor with the blood streaming from his throat. As they entered some huge black shadow seen to move away from him across the floor and up the wall and out of the broken window. There he lay a doyen said the last of my informants and him that had been a great birdy man was withered through a bag of skin for the critter had drained all the blood from him. His last breath was a scream and he hollowed out the same words as Passon read off the screen. Negotion Perambulance in Tenebrus I suggested eagerly thereabouts Latin anyhow and after that I asked nobody would go near the place and the old house rotted and fell in ruins till three years ago when along comes Mr. Duelist from Penzance and built the half of it up again but he don't care much about such critters nor about Latin either he takes his bottle of whiskey a day and gets drunk salored in the evening eh, I'm Gwinneau no more dinner whatever the authenticity of the legend I had certainly heard the truth about Mr. Duelist from Penzance who from that day became an object of keen curiosity on my part the more so because the quarry house adjoined my uncle's garden the thing that walked in the dark failed to stir my imagination and already I was so used to sleeping alone in my shelter that the night had no terrors for me but it would be intensely exciting to wake at some timeless hour and hear Mr. Duelist yelling and conjecture that the thing had got him but by degrees the whole story faded from my mind overscored by the more vivid interests of the day and for the last two years of my outdoor life in the vicarage garden I seldom thought about Mr. Duelist and the possible fate that might await him for his temerity in living in the place where that thing of darkness had done business occasionally I saw him over the garden fence a great yellow lump of a man with slow and staggering gait but never did I set eyes on him in his gait, either in the village street or down on the beach he interfered with none and no one interfered with him if he wanted to run the risk of being the prey of the legendary nocturnal monster or quietly drink himself to death it was his affair my uncle, so I gathered had made several attempts to see him when first he came to live at Polan but Mr. Duelist appeared to have no use but said he was not at home and never returned the call after three years of sun, wind and rain I had completely outgrown my early symptoms and had become a tough strapping youngster of 13 I was sent to Eaton and Cambridge and in due course ate my dinners and became a barrister in 20 years from that time I was earning a yearly income of five figures and had already laid by in sound securities a sum that brought me dividends which would for one of my simple tastes and frugal habits supply me with all the material comforts I needed on this side of the grave the great prizes of my profession were already within my reach but I had no ambition beckoning me on nor did I want a wife and children being, I must suppose a natural celibate in fact there was only one ambition which through these busy years had held the lure of blue and far-off hills to me and that was to get back to Poland and live once more isolated from the world with the sea and the gorse-clad hills for playfellows and the secrets that lurk there for exploration the spell of it had been woven about my heart and I can truly say that there had hardly passed a day in all those years in which the thought of it and the desire for it had been wholly absent from my mind though I had been in frequent communication with my uncle there during his lifetime and after his death with his widow who still lived there I had never been back to it since I embarked on my profession for I knew that if I went there it would be a wrench beyond my power to tear myself away again but I had made up my mind that when once I had provided my own independence I would go back there not to leave it again and yet I did leave it again and now nothing in the world would induce me to turn down the lane from the road that leads from Penzance to the land's end and see the sides of the comb rise steep above the surface of the village and hear the gulls chiding as they fish in the bay one of the things invisible of the dark powers leaped into light and I saw it with my eyes the house where I had spent those three years of boyhood had been left for life to my aunt and when I made known to her my intention of coming back to Polan she suggested that till I found a suitable house or found her I should come to live with her the house is too big for a lone old woman she wrote and I have often thought of quitting and taking a little cottage sufficient for me and my requirements but come and share it my dear and if you find me troublesome you or I can go you may want solitude most people in Polan do and will leave me or else I will leave you with the main reasons of my stopping here all these years was a feeling that I must not let the old house starve house is starve you know if they are not lived in they die a lingering death the spirit in them grows weaker and weaker and at last fades out of them isn't this nonsense to your London notions naturally I accepted with warmth this tentative arrangement and on an evening in June found myself at the head of the lane leading down to Polan and once more I descended into the steep valley between the hills time had stood still apparently for the comb the dilapidated signpost or its successor pointed a rickety finger down the lane and a few hundred yards farther on was the white box with the exchange of letters point after a membered point met my eye and what I saw was not shrunk as is often the case with the revisited scenes of childhood into a smaller scale there stood the post office and there the church and close beside it the vicarage and beyond the tall shrubberies which separated the house for which I was bound from the road and beyond that again the grey roofs of the quarry house damp and shining moist evening wind from the sea all was exactly as I remembered it and above all that sense of seclusion and isolation somewhere above the tree tops climbed the lane which joined the main road to Penzance but all that become immeasurably distant the years that had passed since last I turned in the well-known gate faded like a frosty breath and vanished in this warm soft air there were law courts somewhere in memory's dull book which if I care to turn the pages would tell me that I had made a name and a great income there but the dull book was closed now for I was back in Poland and the spell was woven around me again and if Poland was unchanged so too was Aunt Hester who met me at the door dainty and china white she had always been and the years had not aged but only refined her as we sat and talked after dinner she spoke of all that had happened in Poland in that score of years and yet somehow the changes of which she spoke seemed about to confirm the immutability of it all as the recollection of names came back to me I asked her about the quarry-house and Mr. Duelis and her face gloomed a little as with the shadow of a cloud on a spring day yes Mr. Duelis she said poor Mr. Duelis how well I remember him though it must be ten years and more since he died I never wrote you about it for it was all very dreadful my dear and I did not want to darken your memories of Poland your uncle always thought that something of the sort might happen if he went on in his wicked drunken ways and worse than that and though nobody knew exactly what took place it was the sort of thing which might have been anticipated but what more or less happened Aunt Hester I asked well of course I can't tell you everything for no one knew it but he was a very sinful man and the scandal about him at New Lynn was shocking and then he lived too in the quarry-house I wonder if by any chance you remember a sermon of your uncles when he got out of the pulpit and explained that panel at the altar rails the one I mean with the horrible creature rearing itself up outside the lich gate yes I remember perfectly said I it made an impression on you I suppose and so it did on all who heard him and that impression got stamped and branded on us all when the catastrophe occurred somehow Mr. Dolis got to hear about your uncle's sermon and in some drunk and fit he broke into the church and smashed the panel to atoms he seems to have thought that there was some magic in it and that if he destroyed that he would get rid of the terrible fate that was threatening him for I must tell you that before he committed that dreadful sacrilege he had been a haunted man he hated and feared darkness for he thought that the creature on the panel was on his track but that as long as he kept lights burning it could not touch him but the panel to his disordered mind was the root of his terror and so as I said he broke into the church and attempted you will see why I said attempted to destroy it it certainly was found in splinters next morning when your uncle went into church for matins and knowing Mr. Dolis's fear of the panel he went across to the quarry house afterwards and taxed him with its destruction the man never denied it he boasted of what he had done there he sat though it was early morning drinking his whiskey I've settled your thing for you he said and your sermon too a fig for such superstitions your uncle left him without answering his blasphemy meaning to go straight into penzance and give information to the police about this outrage to the church but on his way back from the quarry house he went into the church again in order to be able to give details about the damage and there in the screen was the panel untouched and uninjured and yet he had himself seen it smashed and Mr. Dolis had confessed that the destruction of it was his work but there it was and whether the power of God had mended it or some other power who knows this was Polon indeed and it was the spirit of Polon that made me accept all Aunt Hester was telling me as a tested fact it had happened like that she went on in her quiet voice your uncle recognised that some power beyond police was at work and he did not go to penzance or give information about the outrage for the evidence of it had vanished a sudden spate of skepticism swept over me there must have been some mistake I said it hadn't been broken and she smiled yes my dear but you have been in London so long she said let me anyhow tell you the rest of my story that night for some reason I could not sleep it was very hot and airless I dare say you will think that the sultry conditions accounted for my wakefulness once and again as I went to the window to see I could not admit more air I could see it from the quarry house and I noticed the first time that I left my bed that it was blazing with lights but the second time I saw that it was all in darkness and as I wondered at that I heard a terrible scream and the moment afterwards steps of someone coming at full speed down the road outside the gate he yelled as he ran light, light he called out give me light or it will catch me it was very terrible to hear that and I went to rouse my husband who was sleeping in the dressing room across the passage he wasted no time but by now the whole village was aroused by the screams and when he got down to the pier he found that all was over the tide was low and on the rocks at his foot was lying the body of Mr. Duelis he must have cut some artery when he fell on those sharp edges of stone for he had bled to death they thought and though he was a big burly man his corpse was but skin and bones yet there was no pool of blood around him such as you would have expected just skin and bones as if every drop of blood in his body had been sucked out of him she leaned forward you and I my dear know what happened she said or at least yes God has his instruments of vengeance on those who bring wickedness into places that have been holy dark and mysterious are his ways now what I should have thought of such a story if it had been told to me in London I can easily imagine there was such an obvious explanation the man in question had been a drunkard what wonder if the demons of delirium pursued him but here in Poland it was different and who is in the quarry house now I asked years ago the Fisher boys told me the story of the man who first built it and of his horrible end and now again it has happened surely no one has ventured to inhabit it once more I saw in her face even before I asked that question that somebody had done so yes it is lived in again said she for there is no end to the blindness I don't know if you remember him he was a tenant of the vicarage many years ago John Evans said I yes such a nice fellow he was too your uncle was pleased to get so good a tenant and now she rose Aunt Hester you shouldn't leave your sentences unfinished I said she shook her head my dear that sentence will finish itself she said but what a time of night I must go to bed and you too or they will think we have to keep lights burning here through the dark hours before getting into bed I drew my curtains wide and opened all the windows to the warm tide of the sea air that flowed softly in looking out into the garden I could see in the moonlight the roof of the shelter in which for three years I had lived gleaming with dew that as much as anything brought back the old days to which I had now returned and they seemed of one piece with the present as if no gap of more than twenty years sundered them the two flowed into one like globules of mercury uniting into a softly shining globe of mysterious lights and reflections then raising my eyes a little I saw against the black hillside the windows of the quarry house still alight morning as is so often the case there was no shattering of my illusion as I began to regain consciousness I fancied the tide was a boy again waking up in the shelter in the garden and though as I grew more widely awake I smiled at the impression that on which it was based I found to be indeed true it was sufficient now as then to be here to wander again on the cliffs the popping of the ripened seed pods on the gorse bushes to stray along the shore to the bathing-cove to float and drift and swim in the warm tide and bask on the sand and watch the gulls fishing to lounge on the pier head with the fisherfolk to see in their eyes and hear in their quiet speech the evidence of secret things not so much known to them as part of their very being there were powers and presences about me the white poplars that stood by the stream that babbled down the valley new of them and showed a glimpse of their knowledge sometimes like the gleam of their white underleaves the very cobbles that paved the street were soaked in it all that I wanted was to lie there and grow soaked in it too unconsciously as a boy I had done that but now the process must be conscious I must know what stir of forces fruitful and mysterious see along the hillside at noon and sparkle at night on the sea they could be known they could even be controlled by those who are masters of the spell but never could they be spoken of for they were dwellers in the innermost grafted into the eternal life of the world there were dark secrets as well as these clear kindly powers and to these no doubt belong the negotium perambulans in tenebrus which though of deadly malignity might be regarded not only as evil but as the avenger of sacrilegious and impious deeds all this was part of the spell of which the sea had long lain dormant in me but now they were sprouting and who knew what strange flower would unfold on their stems it was not long before I came across John Evans one morning as I lay on the beach there came shambling across the sand a man stout and middle aged with the face of Silenus he paused as he drew near and regarded me from narrow eyes why you're the little chap that used to live in the Parsons garden he said don't you recognize me I saw who it was when he spoke his voice I think instructed me and recognizing it I could see the features of the strong alert young man in this gross caricature yes I said you used to be very kind to me you used to draw pictures for me so I did and I'll draw you some more been bathing that's a risky performance you never know what lives in the sea nor what lives on the land for that matter not that I heed them I stick to work and whiskey God I've learned to paint since I saw you and drink too for that matter I live in the quarry-house you know and it's a powerful thirsty place come and have a look at my things if you're passing staying with your aunt are you I could do a wonderful portrait of her interesting face she knows a lot people who live at Poland get to know a lot though I don't take much stock in that sort of knowledge myself I do not know when I have been at once so repelled and interested behind the mere grossness of his face something which while it appalled yet fascinated me his thick, lisping speech had the same quality and his paintings what would they be like I was just going home I said I'll gladly come in if you'll allow me he took me through the untended and overgrown garden into the house which I had never yet entered a great grey cat was sunning itself in the window and an old woman was laying lunch in a corner of the cool hall into which the door opened it was built of stone and the carved mouldings let into the walls the fragments of gargoyles and sculptured images or testimony to the truth of its having been built out of the demolished church in one corner was an oblong and carved wooden table littered with a painter's apparatus and stacks of canvases leaned against the walls he jerked his thumb towards a head of an angel that was built into the mantelpiece and giggled quite a sanctified air he said so we tone it down for the purposes of ordinary life by a different sort of art have a drink no well turn over some of my pictures while I put myself to rights he was justified in his own estimate of his skill he could paint and apparently he could paint anything but never have I seen pictures so inexplicably hellish there were exquisite studies of trees and you knew that something lurked in the flickering shadows there was a drawing of his cat sunning itself in the window even as I had just now seen it and yet it was no cat but some beast of awful malignity there was a boy stretched naked on the sands not human but some evil thing which had come out of the sea above all there were pictures of his garden overgrown and jungle like and you knew that in the bushes were presences ready to spring out on you well do you like my style he said as he came up glass in hand the tumbler of spirits that he held had not been diluted I tried to paint the essence of what I see not the mere husk and skin of it but its nature comes from and what gave it birth there's much in common between a cat and a fuchsia bush if you look at them closely enough everything came out of the slime of the pit and it's all going back there I should like to do a picture of you some day I'd hold the mirror up to nature as that old lunatic said after this first meeting I saw him occasionally throughout the months of that wonderful summer often he kept to his house and his painting for days together and then perhaps some evening I would find him lounging on the pier always alone and every time we met thus the repulsion and interest grew for every time he seemed to have gone farther secret knowledge towards some evil shrine where complete initiation awaited him and then suddenly the end came I had met him thus one evening on the cliffs while the October sunset still burned in the sky but over it with amazing rapidity there spread from the west a great blackness of clouds such as I have never seen for denseness light was sucked from the sky the dusk fell in ever thicker layers he suddenly became conscious of this I must get back as quick as I can he said it will be dark in a few minutes and my servant is out the lamps will not be lit he stepped out with extraordinary briskness for one who shambled and could scarcely lift his feet and soon broke out into a stumbling run in the gathering darkness I could see that his face was moist with the dew of some unspoken terror you must come with me he panted for so we can get the lights burning the sooner I cannot do without light I had to exert myself to the full to keep up with him for terror winged him and even so I fell behind so that when I came to the garden gate he was already halfway up the path to the house I saw him enter, leaving the door wide and found him fumbling with matches but his hand so trembled that he could not transfer the light of the wick to the lamp but what's the hurry about I asked suddenly his eyes focused themselves on the open door behind me and he jumped from his seat beside which had once been the altar of God with a gasp and a scream no no he cried I turned and saw what he had seen the thing had entered and now was swiftly sliding across the floor towards him like some gigantic caterpillar a stale phosphorescent light came from it for though the dusk had grown to blackness outside I could see it quite distinctly in the awful light of its own presence from it too there came an odor of corruption and decay as from slime that has long lain below water it seemed to have no head but on the front of it was an orifice of puckered skin which open and shut the edges it was hairless and slug-like in shape and texture as it advanced its four-part reared itself from the ground like a snake about to strike and it fastened on him at that sight and with the yells of his agony in my ears the panic which had struck me relaxed into a hopeless courage and with palsy impotent hands I tried to lay hold of the thing but I could not though something material was there it was impossible to grasp it my hands sunk in it as in thick mud it was like wrestling with a nightmare I think that but a few seconds delapsed before all was over the screams of the wretched man sank to moans and mutterings as the thing fell on him he panted once or twice and was still for a moment longer there came gurglings and sucking noises and then it slid out even as it had entered I lit the lamp which he had fumbled with and there on the floor he lay no more than a rind of skin in loose folds over projecting bones end of Negotium Perambulans Recording by Rafe Bore I do not recall distinctly when it began but it was months ago the general tension was horrible to a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger a danger widespread and all embracing such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night I recall that the people went about worried faces and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard a sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places there was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons the autumn heat lingered fiercely and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces which were unknown and it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt who he was none could tell but he was of the old native blood and looked like a pharaoh the fellow he knelt when they saw him yet could not say why he said he had risen up out of the blackness of 27 centuries and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet into the lands of civilization came Nyarlathotep always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger he spoke much of the sciences of electricity and psychology and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep and shuttered and where Nyarlathotep went rest vanished for the small hours were rent with the screams of Nightmare never before had the screams of Nightmare been such a public problem now the wise men almost wished they could forbid sleep in the small hours that the shrieks of cities might less horribly disturb the pale pitting moon as it glimmered on green waters gliding under bridges and old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky I remember when Nyarlathotep came to my city the great, the old the terrible city of unnumbered crimes my friend had told me of him of the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations and I burned with eagerness to explore his uttermost mysteries my friend said they were horrible and impressive beyond my most fevered imaginings and what was thrown on a screen in the darkened room prophesied things none but Nyarlathotep dared prophesy and in the sputter of his sparks there was taken from men that which had never been taken before yet which showed only in the eyes and I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others saw not it was in the hot autumn that I went through the night with the restless crowds to see Nyarlathotep through the stifling night and up the endless stairs into the choking room and shadowed on a screen I saw hooded forms amidst ruins and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments and I saw the world battling against blackness against the waves of destruction from ultimate space swirling, churning and struggling around the dimming cooling sun then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads and when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled the trembling protest about imposter and static electricity Nyarlathotep drove us all out down the dizzy stairs into the damp hot deserted midnight streets I screamed aloud that I was not afraid that I never could be afraid and others screamed with me for solace we swore to one another that the city was exactly the same and still alive and when the electric lights began to fade we cursed the company over and over again and laughed at the queer faces we made I believe we felt something coming down from the greenish moon for when we began to depend on its light we drifted into curious and voluntary marching formations and seemed to know our destinations though we dared not think of them once we looked at the pavement and found the blocks loose and displaced by grass with scarce a line of rusted metal to show where the tramways had run and again we saw a tram car lone, windowless, dilapidated and almost on its side when we gazed around the horizon we could not find the third tower by the river and noticed that the silhouette of the second tower was ragged at the top then we split up into narrow columns each of which seemed drawn in a different direction one disappeared in a narrow alley to the left, leaving only the echo of a shocking moan another filed down a weed choked subway entrance howling with a laughter that was mad my own column was sucked toward the open country and presently I felt a chill which was not of the hot autumn for as we stalked out on the dark moor held around us the hellish moon glitter of evil snows trackless, inexplicable snows swept asunder in one direction only where lay a gulf all the blacker for its glittering walls the column seemed thin indeed as it plotted dreamily into the gulf I lingered behind for the black rift in the green lit and snow was frightful and I thought I had heard the reverberations of a disquieting wail as my companions vanished, but my power to linger was light. As if beckoned by those who had gone before, I half floated between the titanic snow drifts quivering and afraid into the sightless vortex of the unimaginable screamingly sentient dumbly delirious only the gods that were can tell a sickened, sensitive shadow writhed in hands that are not hands and world blindly passed ghastly midnight of rotting creation corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the world's vague ghosts of monstrous things have seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled maddening beating of drums and thin monotonous wine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time, the detestable sounding and piping were on to dance slowly, awkwardly and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous, ultimate gods the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. Pledged to the Dead by Seabury Quinn the autumn dust had stained the sky with shadows and orange oblongs traced the windows in my neighbor's homes as Jules de Grandin and I sat sipping Kaiser Marsh and coffee in the study after dinner. Mon Dieu! the little Frenchman sighed. I have the mal du paix, my friend. The little children run and play along the roadways of St. Cloud and on the Île de France the pastry cooks set up their booths, Corble. It takes the strength of character not to stop and buy those cakes of so much taste and fancy. The Napoleon, they are crisp and fragile as a coquet's promise. The eclaire is filled with cool, sweet cream. The cream puffs all aglow with cherries, just to see them is to love life better. They the shrilling of the doorbell startled me. The pressure on the button must have been that of one who leaned against it. Dr. Trowbridge, I must see him right away. A woman's voice demanded as Nora McGinnis, my household factotum, grudgingly responded to the hail. The doctor's office hours is over, ma'am. Nora answered fridgely. Half past nine to eleven in the morning and two or four in the afternoon is when he sees his patients. If it's an urgent case he have there's lots of good doctors in the neighborhood, but Dr. Trowbridge is he here? The visitor demanded sharply. He is, and he's after digesting his dinner, and an elegant dinner it was, though I do say so it shouldn't and he can't be disturbed. He'll see me all right, tell him it's nele Bentley and I've got to talk to him. The grandaul raised an eyebrow eloquently. The fish of the aquarium have better privacy than we, my friend, he murmured but broke off as the visitor came clacking down the hall on high French heels and rushed into the study a half dozen paces in advance of my thoroughly disapproving and more than semi-scandalized Nora. Dr. Trowbridge won't you help me? cried the girl as she fairly leaped across the study and flung her arms around my shoulders. I can't tell dad or mother they wouldn't understand so you're the only one, oh excuse me I thought you were alone. Her face went crimson as she saw the grandaul standing by the fire. It's all right my dear I soothed freeing myself from her almost hysterical clutch. This is Dr. de Grandaul with whom I've been associated many times. I'd be glad to have the benefit of his advice if you don't mind. She gave him her hand and he won smile as I performed the introduction but her eyes warmed quickly as he raised her fingers to his lips with a soft enchanté mademoiselle. Women animals and children took instinctively to joule de Grandaul Nella dropped her coat of silky shaven lamb and sat down on the sturdy couch. Her slim young figure molded in her knitted dress of coral rayon as revealingly as though she had been cased in plastic cellulose. She has long violet eyes and a long mouth, smooth dark hair parted in the middle a small straight nose and a small pointed chin. Every line of her is long but definitely feminine. Breast and hips and legs all delicately curved without a hint of angularity. I've come to see you about Ned. She volunteered as the Grandaul lit her cigarette and she sent a nervous smoke stream gushing from between red trembling lips. He's trying to run out on me. You mean Ned Minton? I asked wondering what a middle aged physician could prescribe for wandering Romeo's. I certainly do mean Ned Minton she replied I mean business too. The darn romantic fool. The Grandaul's slender brows arched upward till they nearly met under the beige blonde hair that slanted sleekly backwards from his forehead. Pardon me. He murmured. Do I understand correctly, mademoiselle? Your amorous how do you say him sweetheart has shown a disposition towards unfaithfulness yet you accuse him of romanticism. He's not unfaithful that's the worst of it. He's faithful as Tristan and the Chevalier Bayard lumped together. Sans pour et sans reproche you know says we can't get married cause just a moment dear I interrupted as I felt my indignation mounting. Do you mean the miserable young puppy cheated and now wants to welch her blue eyes widened then the little laughter wrinkles formed around them. You dear old mid Victorian she broke in no he ain't done wrong by Arnell and I'm not asking you to take your shotgun down and force him to make me an honest woman suppose we start at the beginning then we'll get things straight you assisted at both our debuts I've been told you've known Ned and me since we were a second old apiece haven't you I nodded no we've always been crazy about each other too in grammar school high school and college don't you yes I agreed we've been engaged ever since our freshman year at Beaver Ned just had his frat pin long enough to pin it on my shoulders trap at the first freshman dance everything was set up for us to stand up in the chancel and say I do this June then Ned's company sent him to New Orleans last December she paused drew deeply at her cigarette crushing its fire out in an ashtray and set a freshman glowing that started it while it was down there it seemed that he got playful mixed up with some glamorous Creole gal once more she lapsed into silence and I could see the heartbreak showing through the armor of her flippant manner you mean he fell in love I certainly do not if he had I'd have handed back his ring and said bless you me children even if I had to bite my heart into to do it but this is no case of new love crowding out the old Ned still loves me he just stopped loving me that's what makes it all seem crazy as a hashish eater's dream he was on the loose in New Orleans doing the town with a crowd of local boys and probably had too many Ramos vises then he barged into this Creole Dame's place and she broke off with a gallant effort at a smile I guess young fellows aren't so different nowadays than they were when you were growing up sir only today we don't believe in sprinkling perfume Ned cheated that's the bold truth of it he didn't stop loving me and he hasn't stopped now but I wasn't there and that other girl was and there was no conventions to be recognized now he's fairly melting with remorse says he's not worthy of me wants to break off our engagement while he spends a lifetime doing pennants for a moment's folly we're good heavens I expostulated if you're willing to forgive you're telling me she answered bitterly we've been over it a hundred times this isn't 1892 even nice girls know the facts of life today and while I'm no more anxious than the next one to put through a deal and shop worn goods I still love Ned and I don't intend to let a single indiscretion rob us of our happiness I the hard exterior veneer of modernism melted from her like an autumn ice glaze melting in the warm October sun and the tears course down her cheeks getting little valleys in her carefully applied makeup he's my man doctor she saw bitterly I loved him since we made mud pies together I'm hungry thirsty for him he's everything to me and if he follows out this full renunciation he seems said on it'll kill me the grand dog tweaked to wax mustache and thoughtfully you exemplify the practicality of woman mom was ill I applaud your sound hard common sense he told her this silly young romantic foolish one to me I will tell him but he won't come I interrupted I know these hard headed young asses when a lad is said on being stubborn will you go to work on him if I can get in here interjected Nella of a certitude mademoiselle you won't think me forwardly or unmaidently this is a medical consultation mademoiselle all right be in the office this time tomorrow night I'll have my wandering boyfriend here if I have to bring him in an ambulance her performance matched her promise almost too closely for our comfort we had just finished dinner next night when the frenzy shriek of torture breaks followed by a crash and the tinkling spatter of smashed glass sounded in the street before the house and in a moment feet dragged heavily across the porch we were at the door before the bell could buzz and in the disc of brightness sit down by the porch light saw Nella bent half double stumbling forward with a man's arm draped across her shoulders his feet scuffed blindly on the boards as though they had forgotten the trick of walking or as if all strength had left his knees his head hung forward lolling drunkenly a spate of blood ran down his face and smeared his collar good lord I gasped what get him in the surgery quick the girl commanded in a whisper I'm afraid I rather overdid it examination showed the cut across Ned's forehead was more bloody than extensive while the scalp wound which plowed backwards from his hairline needed but a few quick stitches Nella whispered to us as we worked I got him to go riding with me on my roundabout just as we got here I let out a scream and swung the wheel hard over to the right I was braced for it but Ned was unprepared and went right through the windshield when I ran the car into the curb lord I thought I'd killed him when I saw the blood you do think he'll come through all right don't you doctor no thanks to you if he does you little ninny I retorted angrily you might have cut his jugular with your confounded foolishness if shhh he's coming out of it she warned start talking to him like a Dutch uncle I'll be waiting in the study if you want me and with a tattoo of high heels she left us with our patient Nella is she alright? Ned cried as he half roused from the surgery table we had an accident but certainly Monsieur the grand don sooth you were driving past our house when a child ran before your car and my Moselle was forced to swerve aside to keep from hitting it you were cut about the face but she escaped all injury here he raised a glass of brandy to the patient's lips drink this ah so that is better Nespa for a moment he regarded Ned as a violent, then abruptly you are to stray Monsieur when we brought you in we were forced to give you a small whiff of ether while we patched your cuts and in your delirium you said the color which had come into Ned's cheeks as the fiery cognac warmed his veins drained out again leaving him as ghastly as a chorus did Nella hear me? he asked coarsely did I blab? compose yourself Monsieur the grand don bade she heard nothing but it would be well if we heard more I think I understand your difficulty I am a physician and a Frenchman and no prude this renunciation which you make is but the noble gesture you have been unfortunate and now you fear have courage no infection is so bad there is no remedy Ned's laugh was hard and brittle as the tinkle of a breaking glass I only wish it were the thing you think he interrupted I'd have you give me some treatment and see what happened but there isn't any treatment I can take for this I'm not delirious and I'm not crazy gentlemen I know just what I'm saying insane as it may sound I'm pledged to the dead and there isn't any way to bail me out hey what does it you say the grand don's small blue eyes were gleaming with the light of battle as he caught the occult implication in Ned's declaration pledged to the dead, comment cela and balanced on the table's edge it happened in New Orleans last winter he answered I'd finished up my business and was on the loose and thought I'd walk alone to the Vieux Calais the old French Quarter I'd had dinner at Antoine's and stopped around at the old absence house for a few drinks then strolled down to the French market for a cup of chicory coffee and some donuts finally I walked down Royal Street to look at Madame LeLore's exhibition, that's the famous haunted house you know, I wanted to see if I could find a ghost, good lord I wanted to the moon was full that night but the house was as still as old St. Dennis Cemetery so after peering through the iron grills that shut the courtyard from the street for half an hour or so I started back towards Canal Street I'd almost reached Beyondville Street when just as I passed one of those funny two-story iron-grilled balconies that old houses have I heard something drop on the sidewalk on my feet it was a Japonica, one of those rose-like flowers they grow in the courtyard gardens down there when I looked up a girl was laughing at me from the second story of the balcony Monsieur, s'il vous plaît she called stretching down a white arm for the bloom the moonlight hung about her like a veil of silver tissue and I could see her plainly as though it had been noon most New Orleans girls are dark she was fair her hair was very fine and silky and about the color of a frosted chestnut burr she wore it in a long bob with curls around her face and neck and I knew without being told that those ringlets weren't put in with a hot iron her face was pale, colorless and fine textured as a magnolia petal but her lips were brilliant crimson there was something reminiscent of those ladies you see in pictures in direct to our prints about her small regular features straight white high-waisted gown tied with a wide girdle underneath her bosom low round cut neck and tiny puffball sleeves that left her lovely arms uncovered to the shoulder she was like Rose Bohearnay or Madame de Fortinet except for her fair hair and her eyes her eyes were like in eastern slaves languishing and passionate even when she laughed laughing then with a throaty almost caressing laugh as I tossed the flower up to her and she leaned across the iron railing snatching at it futilely as it fell just short of reach say Saint-Prophie, she laughed at last your skill is too small or my arm is too short, monsieur bring it up to me you mean for me to come up there, I asked but certainly I have teeth but I will not bite you maybe I pushed it back groped my way along a narrow hall and climbed a flight of winding stairs she was waiting for me on the balcony lovelier close up if that were possible then when I'd seen her from the sidewalk her gown was china silk so sheer and clinging that the shadow of her charming figure showed against its rippling folds like a lovely silhouette the sash which bound it was a six foot length of rainbow ribbon with her shoulders and trailing infringed ends almost to her dress him at the back her feet were stockingless and shod with sandals fastened with cross-straps of purple gross grain laced about the ankles save for the small gold rings that scintillator in her ears she wore no ornaments of any kind monsieur she ordered heartily stretching out her hand then her eyes lighted with sudden laughter at me bending her head forward but no it fell into your hands it is that you must put it in its place she ordered pointing to a curl where she wished the flower set come monsieur I wait upon you on the setee by the wall a guitar lay she picked it up and ran her slim pale fingers twice across the strings sounding a soft melancholy chord when she began to sing her words were slurred and languorous but she was still understanding them for the song was ancient when B.M. Ville turned the first spadeful of earth that marked the ramparts of New Orleans O knights of gay Toulouse and sweet Pocair bring me my own true love and speak him fair her voice had the throaty velvety quality one hears in people of the southern countries and the words of the song seemed fairly to yarn with the sadness and passionate longing of the love bereft as she put by her instrument a curious smile which heightened the mystery of her face and her wide eyes seemed suddenly half questing half drowsy as she asked would you write off upon your grim pale horse and leave poor little Julie Dain famishing for love monsieur write off from you I answered gallantly how can you ask a verse from Burns came to me then fare thee well my Bonnie lass and fare thee well a while and I will come to thee again and it were a ten thousand mile there was something avid in the look she gave me something more than mere gratified vanity shown in her eyes as she turned her face up to me in the moonlight you mean it she demanded an equivering breathless voice of course I bantered how could you doubt it then swear it seal the oath with blood her eyes were almost closed her lips were lightly parted as she leaned towards me I could see the thin white line of tiny gleaming teeth beyond the lush red of her lips the tip of a pink tongue swept across her mouth leaving it warmer moisture redder than before in her throat a small pulse throb palpitatingly her lips were smooth and soft as the flower petals in her hair but as they crushed on mine they seemed to creep about them I could feel them gliding almost stealthily searching greedily it seemed until they covered my entire mouth then came a sudden searing burn of pain which passed as quickly as it flashed across my lips and she seemed inhaling deeply desperately as though to pump the last faint gasp of breath up from my lungs a humming sounded in my ears everything went dark around me as if I had been plunged in some abysmal flood and my lastitude was stealing over me when she pushed me from her so abruptly that I staggered back against the iron railing of the gallery I gassed and fought for breath like a wounded swimmer coming up from the water but the half recaptured breath seemed suddenly to catch itself unbidden in my throat and a tingling chill went rippling up my spine the girl had dropped down to her knees staring at the door which led into the house and as I looked I saw a shadow cast a little pool of moonlight which lay upon the sill three feet or so in length it was as thick as a man's wrist the faint light shining dully on its scaly armor and disclosing the fork lightening of its darting tongue it was a cottonmouth, a water moccasin deadly as a rattlesnake but more dangerous for it sounds no warning before striking and can strike when only half coiled how it came there on the second story gallery of a house so far from any swamp land I had no means of knowing but there it lay bent in the design of a double S its wedge shaped head swaying on up rear neck a scant six inches from the girl's soft bosom its forked tongue darting deathly menace half paralyzed with fear and loathing I stood there in a perfect ecstasy of horror not daring to move hand or foot lest I aggravate the reptile into striking but my terror changed a stark amazement as my senses slowly registered the scene the girl was talking to the snake and it listened as a person might have done nono grandante, hotela she whispered c'est là et c'est moi, il est doué the serpent seemed to pause and certainly grudgingly as though but half convinced then shook its head from side to side much as an aged person might when only half persuaded by a youngster's argument finally, silently as a shadow is slithered back again into the darkness of the house Julie bounded to her feet and put her hands upon my shoulders you must go my friend she whispered fiercely quickly as she comes again was not easy to convince her she is old and very doubting oh I am afraid, afraid she hit her face against my arm and I could feel the throbbing of her heart against me her hand stole upwards to my cheeks and pressed in between palms as cold as graveyard clay as she whispered look at me mumbo her eyes were closed her lips were parted slightly and beneath the arc of her long lashes I could see the glimmer of fast forming tears embrace c'est moi she commanded in a trembling breath kiss me and go quickly oh but oh mon cher do not forget poor little foolish Julie Dien who has put her trust in you come to me again tomorrow night I was reeling as from vertigo as I walked back to the Greenwald and the bartender looked at me suspiciously when I ordered a Sarazak they have a strict rule against serving drunken men at that hotel the liquor stung my lips like liquid flame and I put the cocktail down half finished when I set the fan to going and switched the light on in my room I looked into the mirror and saw two little beads of fresh bright blood upon my lips good lord I murmured stupidly as I brushed the blood away she bit me it all seemed so incredible that if I had not seen the blood upon my mouth I'd have thought I suffered from some lunatic hallucination or one too many frappes at the absinthe house Julie was as quaint and out of time as a direct to our print even in a city where time stands still as it does in old New Orleans her costume her half shy boldness her this was simply madness nothing less her conversation with that snake what was it she had said my French was none too good and in the circumstances it was hardly possible to pay attention to her words but if I'd understood her she declared he's mine he has dedicated himself to me and she addressed the crawling horror as grand talk great aunt feller you're as crazy as a cockroach I admonished my reflection in the mirror but I know what'll cure you you're taking the first train north tomorrow morning and if I ever catch you in the view of Calais again I'll a civilating hiss no louder than the noise made by steam escaping from a kettle spout sounded close beside my foot there on the rug coiled in readiness to strike was a three foot cotton mouth distantly from side to side wicked eyes shining in a bright light from the chandelier I saw the muscles in the creature's four part swell and in the sort of horror trance I watched its head dart forward but miraculously it stopped its stroke halfway and drew its head back turning to glance menacingly at me first from one eye then the other somehow it seemed to me the thing was playing with me threatening, intimidating letting me know it was master of the situation and could kill me at any time it wished but deliberately refraining from the death stroke with one leap I was in the middle of my bed and when a squad of bell boys came running in response to the frantic call for help I telephoned they found me crouched against the headboard almost wild with fear they turned the room completely inside out rolling back the rugs probing into chairs and sofa emptying the bureau drawers even taking down the towels from the bathroom rack but nowhere was there any sign of the water moccasin that it terrified me at the end of 15 minute search they accepted half a dollar each went grinning from the room I knew it would be useless to appeal for help again for I heard one whisper to another as they paused outside my door it ain't right to let them Yankees loose in narlands they don't know how to hold their liquor I didn't take a train next morning somehow I had an idea crazy as it seemed that my promise to myself and the sudden inexplicable appearance of the snake beside my foot were elated in some way just after luncheon I thought I'd put the theory to a test well I said aloud I guess I might as well start packing don't want to let the sun go down and find me here my theory was right I hadn't finished speaking when I heard the warning hiss and there poised ready for the stroke the snake was coiled before the door and it was no phantom either no figment of an overwrought imagination it lay upon a rug the hotel management had placed before the door to take the wear of constant passage from the carpet and I could see the pile of the rug crushed down beneath its weight it was flesh and scales and fangs and it coiled and threatened me in my 12th floor room in the bright sunlight of the afternoon little chills of terror chased each other up my back and I could feel the short hairs on my neck grow stiff and scratch against my collar but I kept myself in hand pretending to ignore the loathsome thing I flung myself on the bed oh well I said aloud there really isn't any need of hurrying I promised Julie that I'd come to her tonight and I mustn't disappoint her half a minute later I roused myself upon my elbow and glanced towards the door and my neck was gone here's a letter for you Mr. Minton said the desk clerk as I paused to leave my key the note was on grey paper edged with silver guilt and very highly scented the penmanship was tiny stilted and ill-formed as though the author were unused to writing but I could make it out adore meet me in St. Denis Cemetery at sunset a vu de coure pour le tournterre Julie took the note back in my pocket the more I thought about the whole affair the less I liked it the flirtation had begun harmlessly enough and Julie was as lovely and appealing as a figure in a fairy tale but there are unpleasant aspects to most fairy tales and this was no exception that scene last night when she had seemed to argue with a full-grown cottonmouth and the mysterious appearance of the snake whenever I spoke of breaking my promise to go back to her life like black magic in it now she addressed me as her adored and signed herself for eternity finally named her graveyard as our rendezvous things had become a little bit too thick I was standing at the corner of canal and barone streets and crowds of office workers and late shoppers elbowed past me I'll be damned if I'll meet her in a cemetery or anywhere else I muttered I've had enough of this nonsense a woman shrill scream echoed by a man's worst shot of terror interrupted me on the marble pavement of canal street with half a thousand people bustling by lay coiled a three foot water moccasin here was proof I'd seen it twice in my room at the hotel but I'd been alone each time some form of weird hypnosis might have made me think I saw it but the screaming woman and the shouting man these panic-stricken people in canal street couldn't all be victims of a spell which had been cast on me all right I'll go I almost shouted and instantly as though it had been but a puff of smoke the snake was gone the half fainting woman and a crowd of curious bystanders asking what was wrong left to prove I had not been the victim of some strange delusion old St. Denis Cemetery laid drowsing in the blue faint twilight it has no graves as we know them for when the city was laid out on the sea level embodies were stored away in crypts set row on row like lines of pigeonholes in walls as thick as those of medieval castles grass grown aisles run between the rows of vaults and the effect is a true city of the dead with narrow streets shut in by close set houses the rattle of a trolley car in rampart street came to me faintly as I walked between the rows of tombs from the river came the mellow whistle but both sounds were muted as though heard from a great distance the tomb-lined bastions of St. Denis hold the present out as firmly as they hold the memories of the past within down one aisle and up another I walked the close clip turf deadening my footfalls so I might have been a ghost come back to haunt the ancient burial ground but nowhere was there sign or trace of Julie I made the circuit of the labyrinth and finally paused before one of the more pretentious tombs looks as if she stood me up I murmured if she has I have a good excuse to but normal I have not disappointed you a soft voice whispered in my ear see I am here I think I must have jumped at sound for greeting before she clapped her hands delightedly before she put them on my shoulders and turned her face up for a kiss silly one she chided did you think your Julie unfaithful I put her hands away as gently as I could for her utter self-surrender was embarrassing where were you I asked striving to make neutral conversation I've been prowling around this graveyard for the last half hour and came through this aisle not a minute ago but I didn't see you ah but I saw you Shelley I have watched you as you made your solemn rounds like a watchman of the night but it was hard to wait down to greet you won't you she laughed again and her mirth was mellowly musical as the gurgle of cold water poured from a silver vase how could you have seen me I demanded where were you all this time but here of course she answered naively resting one hand against the gray stone slab that sealed the tomb I shook my head bewilderly the tomb like all the others in the deeply recessed wall was of rough cement encrusted with small seashells and its sides were straight and blank without a spear of ivy clinging to them a sparrow could not have found cover there yet Julie raised herself on tiptoe and stretched her arms out right and left while she looked at me through half closed smiling eyes just so you can go to the I am stiff with sleep she told me stifling a yawn but now that you are come will share I am waitful as the pussy cat that rouses at the scampering of the mouse come let us walk in this garden of mine she linked her arm through mine and started down the grassy grave lined path tiny shivers not of cold were flickering through my cheeks and down my neck beneath my ears I had to have an explanation the snake her declaration that she watched me as I serped the cemetery and from a tomb where a beetle could not have found a hiding place her announcement she was still stiff from sleeping now her reference to a half forgotten graveyard is her garden see here I want to know I started but she laid her hand across my lips do not ask to know too soon mon coeur she bade look at me am I not veritably elegant she stood back a step gathered up her skirts and swept me a deep curtsy there was no denying she was beautiful her tightly curly hair had been combed high and tied back with a fillet of bright violet tissue which bound her brows like a diadem and at the front of which an agreat plume was set in her ears were hung two beautifully matched cameos outlined in gold and seed pearls and almost as large as silver dollars a necklace of antique dull gold hung around her throat and its pendant was a duplicate of her ear cameos while a bracelet of matte gold set with a fourth matched anaglyph wrapped around her left arm just above the elbow her gown was sheer white muslin low cut at the front and back with little puff sleeves at the shoulders fitted tightly at the bodice and flaring sharply from a high set waist over it she wore a narrow scarf of violet silk hung behind her neck and dropping down on either side in front like a clergyman stole her sandals were guilt leather heelless as a ballet dancer's shoes and laced with violet ribbons her lovely pearl white hands were bear of rings but on the second toe of her right foot there showed a little cameo which matched the others which she wore I could feel my heart begin to pound and my breath come quicker as I looked at her but you look as if you're going to a masquerade I said a look of surprise showed in her eyes a masquerade she echoed but no it is my best my very finest that I wear for you tonight monodore do you not like it? do you not love me edward? no I answered shortly I do not we might as well understand each other julie I'm not in love with you and I never was it's been a pretty flirtation nothing more I'm going home tomorrow and but you will come again surely you will come again she pleaded you cannot mean it when you say you do not love me edward tell me that you spoke so but to tease me a warning hiss sounded in the grass beside my foot but I was too angry to be frightened go ahead set your devilish snake on me I taunted let it bite me I'd as soon be dead as the snake was quick but julie quicker in the split second required for the thing to drive at me she leaped across the grass grown aisle and pushed me back so violent was the show she gave me that I fell against a tomb struck my head against a small projecting stone and stumbled to my knees as I fought for footing on the slippery grass I saw the deadly wedge shaped head strike full against the girls bare ankle and hurt her gas with pain the snake recoiled and swung its head towards me but julie dropped down to her knees and spread her arms protecting me about me no no grantant she screamed not this one let me her voice broke on a little gas with a retching hiccup she sank limply to the grass I tried to rise but my foot slipped on the grass and I fell back heavily against the tomb crashing my brow against its shell set cement wall I saw julie lying in a little huddled heap of white against the blackness of the sword and shadowy but clearly visible an aged wrinkled negrous with turban head and cambrick apron bending over her nursing her head against her bosom knocking back and forth grotesquely while she crooned a wordless where did she come from I wondered idly where had the snake gone why did the moonlight seem to fade and flicker like a dying lamp once more I tried to rise but slipped back to the grass before the tomb as everything went black before me the lavender light of early morning was streaming over the tomb walls of the cemetery when I waked and saw clearly how I came there then just as the first rays of the sun shot through the thinning shadows I remembered julie the snake had bitten her when she flung herself before me she was gone the old negrous where did she come from was gone too and I was utterly alone in the old graveyard stiff from lying on the ground I got myself up awkwardly grasping at the flower shelf projecting from the tomb level with the slab that sealed the crypt I felt the breath catch in my throat the crypt, like all its fellows looked for all the world like an old oven led into a brick wall overlaid with peeling plaster the ceiling stone was probably once white but years had stained it to a dirty gray and time had all but rubbed its legend out still I could see the faint inscription carved in quaint old fashioned letters and disbelief gave waiter incredulity which was replaced by panic terror as I read ici repose malheureusement julie amelie maillie d'allon national de péril france né le 29 a.u. 1788 décidé à l'anneau le 2nd juillet 1807 julie, little julie who I'd held in my arms whose mouth had lain on mine in eager kisses was a corpse in her grave more than a century the silence lengthened Ned stared miserably before him his outward eyes unseeing but his mind's eye turned upon that scene in old St. Denis Cemetery the grand thong tugged and tugged again at the ends of his mustache till I thought he'd dragged the hairs out by the roots I could think of nothing which might ease the tension till of course the name cut on the tombstone was a piece of pure coincidence most likely the young woman deliberately assumed it to mislead you and the snake which threatened our young friend he was an assumption also one and first the grand doll interrupted no, but it could have been a trick Ned saw an aged negris in the cemetery and those old southern darkies have strange powers I dumb think that you hit the thumb upon the nail that time my friend the little Frenchman nodded though you do not realize how accurate your diagnosis is to Ned have you seen this snake again since coming north yes Ned replied I have I was too stunned to speak when I read the epitaph and I wandered back to the hotel in a sort of days and packed my bags in silence possibly that's why there was no further visitation there I don't know I do know nothing further happened though and when several months had passed with nothing but my memories to remind me of the incident I began to think I'd suffered from some sort of walking nightmare Nella and I went ahead with preparations for our wedding, but three weeks ago the postman brought me this he reached into an inner pocket and drew out an envelope it was a soft grey paper edged with silver guilt and the address was in tiny almost unreadable script Monsieur Edouard Menton 30 Rue Catole, 30 Harrisonville, New Jersey the Grand-Don commented as he inspected it it is addressed à la France and the letter one may read it of course Ned answered I'd like you to across the Grand-Don shoulder I made out the hastily scrolled missive Adore remember your promise and the kiss of blood that sealed it soon I shall call and you must come pour le temps et pour l'éternité Julie you recognize the writing it is oh yes, Ned answered bitterly I recognize it, it's the same the other note was written in and then the boy smiled bleakly I crushed the thing into a ball and threw it on the floor and stamped on it swore I'd die before I'd keep another rendezvous with her and he broke off and put trembling hands up to his face the so mysterious serpent came again one may assume but it's only a phantom snake I interjected at worst it's nothing more than a terrifying vision think so, Ned broke in do you remember Rowdy, my airdale terrier? I nodded he was in the room when I opened this letter and when the cotton mouth appeared beside me on the floor he made a dash for it whether it would have struck me I don't know but it struck at him as he leaped and caught him squarely in the throat he thrashed and fought and the thing held on with locked jaws I grabbed a fire shovel and made for it then before I could strike it vanished but it's venom didn't poor old Rowdy was dead before I could get him out of the house but I took his corpse to Dr. Kirchoff the veterinary and told him Rowdy died suddenly and I wanted him to make an autopsy he went back to his operating room and stayed there half an hour when he came back to the office he was wiping his glasses and wore the most astonished look on his face you say your dog died suddenly in the house he asked yes I told him just rolled over and died well bless my soul that's the most amazing thing I ever heard he answered I can't account for it that dog died from snake bite copperhead I'd say and the marks of the fangs showed plainly on his throat but I thought you said it was a water moccasin I objected the grandon laughed the thought unpleasantly did no one ever tell you that the copperhead and moccasin are of close kind my friend have you not heard some ophiologists maintain the moccasin is but a dark variety of copperhead he did not pause from my reply but turned again to Ned one understands your chivalry for yourself you have no fear since after all at times life can be bought too dearly but the death of your small dog has put a different aspect on the matter if this never to be sufficiently anathematized serpent which comes and goes like the boat a surprise the how do you call him jack in the box is enough a ghosting to appear at any time and place it wills but sufficiently physical to exude women which can kill a strong and healthy terrier you have the fear from mademoiselle nespa precisely you and you are well advised to have the caution my friend we face a serious condition what do you advise the frenchman teased his needlepoint moustache tip with a thoughtful thumb and forefinger for the present nothing he replied at length let me look this situation over let me view it from all angles whatever I might tell you now would probably be wrong suppose we meet again one week from now by that time I should have my data well in hand and in the meantime continue to be coy with mademoiselle nella perhaps it will be well if you recall important business which requires that you leave town until you hear from me again there is no need to put her life in peril at this time if it weren't for kerchoff's testimony I'd say Ned Mitton had gone raving crazy I declared as the door closed on our visitors the whole thing is wilder than an opium smoker's dream that meeting with a girl in New Orleans the snake that comes and disappears the assing nation in the cemetery it's all too preposterous but I know kerchoff he's as unimaginative as a side of soul leather and as efficient as he is unimaginative if he says Mitton's dog died of snake bite that's what it died of but the whole affair is so utterly fantastic agreed the grandon nodded but what is fantasy but the appearance of mental images as such severed from ordinary relations the ordinary relations of images are those to which we are accustomed which conform to our experience the wider that experience the more ordinary will we find extraordinary relations by example take yourself you sit in a dark auditorium and see a railway train come rushing at you now it is not at all an ordinary experience for a locomotive to come dashing in a theater filled with people it is quite otherwise but you keep your seat you do not flinch you are not frightened it is nothing but a motion picture which you understand but if you were a savage from Lugini you would rise and fly in panic from this steaming shrieking iron monster which bears down on you it is a matter of experience you see to you it is an everyday event to the savage you will be a new and terrifying thing well perhaps you are at the hospital you place a patient between you and the crooks tube of an x-ray you turn on the current you observe him through the fluoroscope the flash all melts away and his bones spring out in sharp relief three hundred years ago you would have howled like a stone dog at the site and prayed to be delivered for the witchcraft which produced it today you curse and swear like twenty drunken pirates if the laryngeologist is about 30 seconds late in setting up their apparatus these things are scientific you understand their underlying formulae therefore they seem natural but mention what you please you call the occult and you scoff that is but admitting that you are opposed to something which you do not understand the credible and believable is that to which we are accustomed the fantastic and incredible is what we cannot explain in terms of previous experience voila c'est très simple n'est-ce pas? you mean to say you understand all this? not at all by any means I am clever me but not that clever no my friend as you only I do not refuse to credit what our young friend tells us I believe the things he has related happened exactly as he has recounted them I do not understand but I believe accordingly I must probe I must sift I must examine this matter we see it now as a group of unrelated and irrelevant occurrences but somewhere lies the key which will enable us to make harmony from this discord to gather these stray tangled threads into an ordered pattern I go to seek that key where? to the Orleans of course tonight I pack my portmanteau tomorrow I entrain, just now he smothered a tremendous yawn now I do what every wise man does as often as he can I take a drink seven evenings later we gathered in my study the grand doll, Ned and I and from the little Frenchman's shining eyes I knew his quest had been productive of results my friends he told us solemnly I am a clever person and a lucky one as well the morning after my arrival at New Orleans I enjoyed three ramon fizzes then went to sit in city park by the old dueling oak and wished with all my heart that I had taken for and while I sat in self-reproachful thought sorrowing for the drink that I had missed behold one passed by who my recognized he was my old school fellow Paul Dubois now a priest in holy orders he passed to the cathedral of Saint Louis he took me to his quarters that good pious man and gave me lunch and it was Friday and a fast day so he fasted oh dear but we did fast on Creole gumbo and oysters a la Rockefeller and baked pompano and a little shrimp fried crisp olive oil and chicory salad and seven different kinds of cheese and wine when we were so filled with fasting we could not eat another morsel a priest a native of New Orleans whose stock of local lore was second only to his marvelous capacity for fine champagne poor blue how I admire that one and now attend me very carefully my friends what he disclosed to me makes many hidden mysteries all clear in New Orleans there lived a wealthy family named Diane they possessed much gold and land a thousand slaves or more and one fair daughter by the name of Julie when this country bought the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon and your army came to occupy the forts this young girl fell in love with the young officer a lieutenant Philip Marywell today army love in those days was no different than it is today it seems this gay young lieutenant he came he wooed he won he rode away and little Julie wept inside and finally died of heartbreak in her love sick illness she had for constant company a slave an old mulatress known to most as maman dragon but to Julie simply as grand-tante great aunt she had nursed our little Julie at the breast and all her life she fostered and attended her to her little white mumselle she was all gentleness and kindness but to others she was fierce and frightful because she was a conjon woman adept at oboeia the black magic of the Congo and among the blacks she ruled as queen by force of fear while the whites were want to treat her with respect and it was more than merely whispered retain her services on occasion she could sell protection to the dualist and he who bore her charm would surely conquer on the field of honor she brewed love drafts which turned the hearts and head to the most capricious coquettes or the most constant wives as occasion warranted by merely staring fixedly at someone she could cause him to take sick and die and here we commence to tread upon our own terrain she was said to have the power of changing to a snake at will very good you follow when poor young Julie died of heartbreak it was all maman dragon the little white ones grand-tante who watched beside her bed it is said she stood beside her mistress coffin and called a curse upon the fickle lover swore he would come back and die beside the body of the sweetheart he deserted she also made a prophecy Julie should have many loves but her body should not know corruption nor her spirit rest until she could find one to keep his promise and return to her with words of love upon his lips those who failed her should die horribly but he who kept his pledge would bring her rest and peace the augury she made while she stood behind her mistress's coffin just sealed it in the tomb in Old Saint Dennis Cemetery then she disappeared you mean she ran away I asked I mean she disappeared vanished evanesc evaporated she was never seen again not even by the people who stood next to her when she pronounced her prophecy but no buts my friend if you will be so caught years later when the British storm New Orleans Lieutenant Merrell was there with General Andrew Jackson he survived the battle like a man whose life is charmed though all around him comrades fell and three horses were shot under him then when the strife was done he went to the grand banquet tendered to the victors while Gayety was at its height he abruptly left the table next morning he was found upon the grass before the tomb of Julie Deanne he was dead he died from snake bite the years marched on and stories spread about the town stories of a strange and lovely Beldom Sons Merci a modern serse who lured young galants to their doom time and again some gay young blade of New Orleans would boast a conquest passing late at night through Royal Street he would have a flower drop to him as he walked underneath the balcony he would meet a lovely girl dressed in the early empire style and be surprised at the ease with which he pushed his suit then upon the trees in Charter Street appeared his funeral notices he was dead invariably he was dead of snake bite parble they got to be a saying that he who died mysteriously must have met the lady of the moonlight as he walked through Royal Street he paused and poured a thimbleful of brandy in his coffee you see he asked no I'm shot if I do I answered I can't see the connection between night and breaking dawn perhaps he asked sarcastically if two and two make four my friend and even you will not deny they do then these things I have told you give an explanation of our young friend's trouble this girl he met was most indubitably Julie poor little Julie Dayen on whose tombstone it is carved he see repose malheureusement here lies unhappily the so mysterious snake which menaces young monsieur minton is none other than the aged mamon dragon grandant as Julie called her but Ned's already failed to keep his trist I objected why didn't this snake woman sting him at the hotel or do you recall what Julie said when the snake first appeared he interrupted not this one grandant and again in the old cemetery when the serpent actually struck at him she threw herself before him and received the blow it could not permanently injure her to earthly injuries to debt or proof but the shock of it caused her to swoon it seems monsieur he bowed to Ned you are more fortunate to any of those others several times you have been close to death but each time you escape you have been given chance and chance again to keep your pledged word to the dead a thing no other faithless lover of little Julie ever had it seems monsieur this dead girl truly loves you how horrible I muttered you said it Dr. Trowbridge Ned seconded it looks as if I'm in a spot right and no the ground on contradicted escape is obvious my friend how in heaven's name keep your promised word go back to her good lord I can't do that go back to a corpse take her in my arms kiss her certainly more why not why why she's dead is she not beautiful she's lovely and alluring as a siren song I think she's the most visit thing I've ever seen but he rose and walked unsteadily across the room if it weren't for Nella he said slowly I might not find it hard to follow your advice Julie sweet and beautiful and artless and affectionate as a child kind too the way she stood between me and that awful snake thing but oh it's out of the question then we must expand the question to accommodate it my friend for the sake of the living for mama's sake and for their oppose of the dead you must keep the oath you swore to little Julie Diane you must go back to New Orleans and keep your rendezvous the dead of old Saint Dennis lay in dreamless sleep beneath the palely urgent rays of the fast waxing moon the oven like tombs were gay with hardly wilted flowers for two days before was all saints day and no grave in all New Orleans is so lowly no dead so long and turd that pious hands do not bear blossoms of remembrance to them on that feast of memories the grand don have been busily engaged all afternoon making mysterious trip to the old Negro quarter in company with a patriarchal scion of Indian and Negro ancestry who professed ability to guide him to the city's foremost practitioner voodoo returning to the hotel only to dash out again to consult his friend at the cathedral coming back to stare with thoughtful eyes upon the changing panorama of canal street while Ned nervous as a racehorse at the barrier cramped up and down the room lighting cigarette from cigarette and drinking absent frappes alternating with sharp bitter Sarazac cocktails until I wondered he did not fall in utter alcoholic collapse by evening I had that eerie feeling as the sane experience went along with mad folk I was ready to shriek at any unexpected noise or turn and run at sight of a strange shadow my friend the grand don ordered as we reached the grass paved corridor of tombs where Ned had told us the Diane vaults were I suggest that you drink this from an inner pocket he drew out a tiny flask of ruby glass and snapped its stopper loose a strong and slightly acrid scent came to me sweet and spicy faintly reminiscent of the odor of aromatic herbs one smells about a mummy's wrappings thanks I've had enough to drink already Ned said shortly you are informing me Monvia the little Frenchman answer with a smile it is for that that I brought this draft along it will help you draw yourself together you have need of all your faculties this time believe me Ned put the bottle to his lips the Frenchman answered confidently walk slowly towards the spot where you last saw Julie if you please we shall await you here an easy call if we are needed the isle of tombs was empty as Ned left us the turf had been fresh moaned for the day of visitation the Frenchman answered confidently walk slowly towards the spot where you last saw Julie we shall await you here an easy call if we are needed a fresh moaned for the day of visitation and was as smooth and short as a lawn tennis court a field mouse could not have run across the pathway without our seeing this much I noticed idly as Ned trudged away from us walking more like a man on his way to the gallows than one who went to keep a lover's rendezvous and suddenly he was not alone there was another with him a girl dressed in a clinging robe cut in the charming fashion of the first empire girdled high beneath the bosom with a sash of light blue ribbon a wreath of pale gardenias lay upon her bright fair hair her slender arms were pearl white in the moonlight as she stepped towards Ned I thought involuntarily of a line from Sir John Suckling her feet like little mice stole in and out Edouard chéri say vertiblement toi that was come willingly unasked petit amant I'm here, Ned answered steadily but only he paused into a sudden gasping breath as though a hand had been laid on his throat Shelly the girl asked in a trembling voice you are cold to me do you not love me then you are not here because your heart heard my heart calling oh heart of my heart's heart you but knew how I have longed and waited it has been trist monde, Edouard lying in my narrow bed alone while winter rains and summer suns beat down listening for your footfall I could have gone out at my pleasure whenever moonlight made the nights all bright with silver I could have sought for other lovers but I would not you held release for me within your hands and if I might not have it from you I would forfeit it forever do you not bring release for me, my Edouard say did it is so an odd look came into the boy's face he might have seen her for the first time and then dazzled by her beauty and the winsome sweetness of her voice Julie he whispered softly, poor patient faithful little Julie in a single stride he crossed the intervening turf and was on his knees before her kissing her hands, the hem of her gown her sandaled feet and broken words of love she put her hands upon his head as if in benediction then turned them holding them palm forward to his lips finally crooked her fingers underneath his chin and raised his face nay, love, sweet love art thou a worshipper and I a saint that thou should kneel to me she asked him tenderly see, my lips are famishing for thine and wilt thou waste thy kisses on my hand and feet and garment nay, cased my heart, we have but little time and I would know the kisses of redemption ere they clung together in the moonlight her white robe, license form and his somberly clad body seemed to melt and merge in one while her hands reached up to clasp his cheeks and draw his face down to her yearning scarlet mouth the grand doll was reciting something in a mumbling monotone his words were scarcely audible but I caught a phrase occasionally rest eternal grant to her, oh lord let light eternal shine upon her from the gates of hell her soul deliver curia liaison Julie, we heard Ned's despairing cry and, ha, it comes it has begun, it finishes the grand doll whispered gratingly the girl had sunk down to the grass as though she swooned one arm had fallen limply from Ned's shoulder but the other still was clasped around his neck as we raced towards him adieu mon amoureux adieu pour ce mot adieu pour l'autre adieu pour l'éternité we heard her sob when we reached him, Ned knelt empty arm before the tomb of Julie there was neither sign nor phrase so assist him if you will my friend the grand embay motioning me to take Ned's elbow follow quickly but first I have a task to do as I led Ned staggering like a drunken man toward the cemetery exit I heard the clang of metal striking metal at the tomb behind us what did you stop behind to do I asked as we prepared for bed at the hotel he flashed his quick infectious smile on me and tweaked his mustache ends for all the world like a self-satisfied tomcat fervishing his whiskers after finishing a bowl of cream there was an alteration to that epitaph I had to make you recall it read ici repose malheureusement here lies unhappily Julie Dayen that is no longer true I chiseled off the malheureusement thanks to Monsieur Edouard's courage and my cleverness the old one's prophecy was fulfilled tonight and poor small Julie has found rest at last tomorrow morning they celebrate the first of a series of masses I have arranged for her at the cathedral what was that drink you gave Ned just before he left us I asked curiously it smelled like the bon dia and the devil know not I he answered with a grin it was a voodoo love potion I found the realization that she had been dead a century and more so greatly troubled our young friend that he swore he could not be affectionate to our poor Julie so I went down to the negro quarter in the afternoon arranged to have a filter brewed oh yeah that aged black one who concocted it assured me that she could inspire love for the image of a crocodile in the heart of anyone who looked upon it after taking but a drop of her decoction and she charged me twenty dollars for it but I think I had my money's worth did it not work marvelously then Julie's really gone Ned's coming back released her from the spell not totally gone he corrected her little body now is but a small handful of dust her spirit is no longer earthbound and the familiar demon who in life was old mamal dragon has left the earth with her as well no longer will she metamorphize into a snake and kill the faithless ones who kiss her little mistress and then forswear their truth no my friend Julie is not gone entirely I think in the years to come when Ned and Nella have long been joined in wedded bliss there will be minutes when Julie's face and Julie's voice and the touch of Julie's little hands will haunt his memory there will always be one little corner of his heart which will never belong to Madame Nella Menton for it will be forever Julie's yes I think it is so slowly deliberately almost ritualistically he poured a glass of wine and raised it to you my little poor one he said softly as he looked across the sleeping city toward Old St. Denis Cemetery you quit earth with a kiss upon your lips may you sleep serene in paradise until another kiss shall awaken you end of Pledge to the Dead by Seabury Quinn recording by Alan Winteroud audio.boomcoach.com