 Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Polaris by H.P. Lovecraft. In the north window of my chamber glows the pole star with uncanny light. All through the long hella showers of blackness it shines there, and in the autumn of the year, the winds from the north curse and whine, and the red-leaved trees of the swamp mutter things to one another in the small hours of the morning under the horned waning moon. I sit by the casement and watch that star. Down from the heights reels the glittering Cassiopeia as the hours wear on, while Charles Wayne lumbers up from behind the vapor-soaked swamp trees that sway in the night wind. Just before dawn, our tourists winks readily from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Koma Baronese sees shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east, but still the pole star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane, watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls none save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep. Well, do I remember the night of the Great Aurora, when over the swamp played the shocking chorusations of the demon-light? After the beam came clouds, and then I slept, and it was under a horned waning moon that I saw the city for the first time. Still and somnolent did it lie, on a strange plateau in a hollow between strange peaks. Of ghastly marble were its walls and its towers, its columns, domes, and pavements. In the marble streets were marble pillars, the upper parts of which were driven into the images of grave, bearded men. The air was warm and stirred not, and overhead, scarce ten degrees from the zenith, glowed that watching pole star. Long did I gaze on the city, but the day came not, when the red aldebaran, which blinked low in the sky but never said, had crawled a quarter of the way around the horizon, I saw light and motion in the houses and the streets. Forms strangely robed, but at once noble and familiar, walked abroad, and under the horned waning moon men talked wisdom in a tongue which I understood, though it was unlike any language which I had ever known. And when the red aldebaran had crawled more than halfway around the horizon, there were again darkness and silence. When I awaked, I was not as I had been. Upon my memory was graven the vision of the city, and within my soul had arisen another and vaguer recollection of whose nature I was not then certain. Thereafter, on the cloudy nights when I could not sleep, I saw the city often, sometimes under the hot yellow rays of a sun which did not set, but which wheeled low in the horizon. And on the clear nights the pole star leered as never before. Gradually I came to wonder what might be my place in that city on the strange plateau betwixt strange peaks. At first content to view the scene as an all-observant, uncorporeal presence, I now desired to define my relation to it, and to speak my mind amongst the grave men who conversed each day in the public squares. I said to myself, This is no dream, for by what means can I prove the greater reality of that other life in the house of stone and brick, south of the sinister swamp in the cemetery on the low hillock where the pole star peeps into my window each night. One night, as I listened to the discourses in the large square containing many statues, I felt a change, and perceived that I had at last a bodily form. Nor was I a stranger in the streets of Oletho, which lies on the plateau of Sarkia, betwixt the peaks of Noton and Cataphonic. It was my friend Elos who spoke, and his speech was one that raised my soul, for it was the speech of a true man and patriot. That night had the news come of Dichose's fall, and of the advance of the Unutos, squat hellish yellow fiends who five years ago had appeared out of the unknown west to ravage the confines of our kingdom, and to besiege many of our towns. Having taken the fortified places at the foot of the mountains, their way now lay open to the plateau, unless every citizen could resist with the strength of ten men, for the squat horses were mighty in the arts of war, and knew not the scruples of honour which held back our tall grey-eyed men of Lamar from ruthless conquest. Elos, my friend, was commander of all the forces on the plateau, and in him lay the last hope of our country. On this occasion he spoke of the perils to be faced, and exhorted the men of Oletho, bravest of the Lamarians, to sustain the traditions of their country, who when forced to move southward from Zabna before the advance of the great ice-sheet, even as our descendants must some day flee from the land of Lamar, valiantly and victoriously swept aside the hairy, long-armed, cannibal Nufkes, who stood in their way. To me Elos denied the warrior's part, for I was feeble and given to strange faintings when subjected to stress and hardships. But my eyes were the keenest in the city, despite the long hours I gave each day to the study of the Nacotic manuscripts and the wisdom of the Zabnarian fathers. So my friend, desiring not to doom me to inaction, rewarded me with that duty which was second to none in importance, to the watchtower of Thapnon he sent me, there to serve as the eyes of our army. Should the Inotos attempt to gain the citadel by the narrow pass behind the peak Noton, and thereby surprise the garrison, I was to give the signal of fire which would warn the waiting soldiers and save the town from immediate disaster. Alone I mounted the tower, for every man of stout body was needed in the passes below. My brain was sore, dazed with excitement and fatigue, for I had not slept in many days, yet was my purpose firm, for I loved my native land of Lamar, and the marble city Olotho that lies betwixt the peaks Noton and Notafonak. But as I stood in the tower's topmost chamber, I beheld the horned waning moon, red and sinister, quivering through the vapours that hovered over the distant valley of Banif, and through an opening in the roof glittered the pale pole star, fluttering as if alive, and leering like a fiend and tempter. Me thought its spirit whispered evil council, soothing me to traitorous sonolence with a damnable rhythmical promise which it repeated over and over, slumber watcher till the spheres, six and twenty thousand years have revolved, and I return to the spot where now I burn. Other stars and on-shell rise to the axis of the skies, stars that soothe and stars that bless with a sweet forgetfulness, only when my round is o'er shall the past disturb thy door. Veinly did I struggle with my drowsiness, seeking to connect these strange words with some lore of the skies which I had learned from the Nacotic manuscripts. My head, heavy and reeling, drooped to my breast, and when next I looked up it was in a dream, with the pole star grinning at me through a window from over the horrible and swaying trees of a dream-swap. And I am still dreaming, in my shame and despair I sometimes scream frantically, begging the dream creatures around me to waken me ere the innertose steal up the past behind the peak-noton and take the citadel by surprise. But these creatures are demons, for they laugh at me and tell me I am not dreaming. They mock me whilst I sleep, and whilst the squat-yellow foe may be creeping silently upon us. I have failed in my duties and betrayed the marble city of Oletho. I have proven false to Aelos, my friend and commander. But still these shadows of my dreams deride me. They say there is no land of Lamar, save in my nocturnal imaginings. Than these realms where the pole star shines high and Red Aldebaran crawls low around the horizon, there has been not save ice and snow for thousands of years, and never a man save squat-yellow creatures blighted by the cold, called Eskimo. And as I writhe in my guilty agony, frantic to save the city whose peril every moment grows, and vainly striving to shake off this unnatural dream of a house of stone and brick south of a sinister swamp and a cemetery on the low hillock, the pole star, evil and monstrous, leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some message, yet recalls nothing safe that it once had a message to convey. End of Polaris The Room and the Tower 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 Dan Gurzinski. The Room and the Tower by E. F. Benson It is probable that everybody who is at all a constant dreamer has had at least one experience of an event or a sequence of circumstances which have come to his mind in sleep being subsequently realized in the material world. But in my opinion so far, from this being a strange thing, it would be far odder if this fulfillment did not occasionally happen, since our dreams are as a rule, concerned with people whom we know and places with which we are familiar. Such as might very naturally occur in the awakened, daily world. True, these dreams are often broken into by some absurd and fantastic incident which puts them out of court in regard to their subsequent fulfillment. But on the mere calculation of chances it does not appear in the least unlikely that a dream imagined by anyone who dreams constantly should occasionally come true. Not long ago, for instance, I experienced such a fulfillment of a dream which seems to me in no way remarkable and to have no kind of psychical significance. The manner of it was as follows. A certain friend of mine, living abroad, is amiable enough to write to me about once in a fortnight. Thus, one fourteen days or thereabouts have elapsed since I have last heard from him. My mind, probably, either consciously or subconsciously, is expectant of a letter from him. One night last week I dreamed that as I was going upstairs to dress for dinner, I heard, as I often heard, the sound of the postman's knock on my front door, and diverted my direction downstairs instead. There, among other correspondence, was a letter from him. Thereafter the phantastic entered, for unopening it, I found inside the ace of diamonds, and scribbled across it in his well-known handwriting. I am sending you this for safe custody, as you know it is running an unreasonable risk to keep aces in Italy. The next evening I was just preparing to go upstairs to dress when I heard the postman's knock and did precisely as I had done in my dream. There, among other letters, was one from my friend. Only it did not contain the ace of diamonds. Had it done so I should have attached more weight to the matter. Which, as it stands, seems to me a perfectly ordinary coincidence. No doubt I consciously or subconsciously expected a letter from him. And this suggested to me my dream. Similarly, the fact that my friend had not written to me for a fortnight suggested to him that he should do so. But occasionally it is not so easy to find such an explanation. And for the following story I can find no explanation at all. It came out of the dark and into the dark it is gone again. All of my life I have been a habitual dreamer. The nights are few, that is to say, when I do not find out a waking in the morning that some mental experience has been mine. And sometimes all night long apparently a series of the most dazzling adventures befall me. Almost without exception. These adventures are pleasant, though often merely trivial. It is an exception that I am going to speak. It was when I was about sixteen that a certain dream first came to me, and this is how it befell. It opened with my being set down at the door of a big red brick house, where I understood I was going to stay. The servant who opened the door told me the tea was being served in the garden and led me through a low dark paneled hall with a large open fireplace onto a cheerful green lawn set round with flower beds. There were grouped about the tea table a small party of people, but they were all strangers to me except one who was a school fellow called Jack Stone, clearly the son of the house, and he introduced me to his mother and father and a couple of sisters. I was, I remember, somewhat astonished to find myself here, for the boy in question was scarcely known to me, and I rather disliked what I knew of him. Moreover he had left school nearly a year before. The afternoon was very hot and an intolerable oppression reigned. On the far side of the lawn ran a red brick wall, with an iron gate in its center outside which stood a walnut tree. We sat in the shadow of the house opposite of row of long windows, inside which I could see a table with cloth laid, glimmering with glass and silver. This garden front of the house was very long, and at one end of it stood a tower of three stories, which looked to me much older than the rest of the building. Before long Mrs. Stone, who liked the rest of the party, had sat in absolute silence, said to me, Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower. Quite inexplicably my heart sank at her words. I felt as if I had known that I should have the room in the tower, and that it contained something dreadful and significant. Jack instantly got up, and I understood that I had to follow him. In silence we passed through the hall, and mounted a great oak staircase with many corners, and arrived at a small landing with two doors set in it. He pushed one of these open for me to enter, and without coming in himself closed it after me. Then I knew that my conjecture had been right. There was something awful in the room, and with the terror of the nightmare growing swiftly and enveloping me, I awoke in a spasm of terror. Now that dream or variations on it occurred to me intermittently for fifteen years. Most often it came in exactly this form, the arrival, the tea laid out on the lawn, the deadly silence succeeded by that one deadly sentence, the mounting with Jack Stone up to the room in the tower where horror dwelt, and it always came to a close in the nightmare of terror at that which was in the room, though I never saw what it was. At other times I experienced variations on the same theme. Occasionally, for instance, we would be sitting at dinner, in the dining room, into the windows of which I had looked on the first night when the dream of this house visited me. But wherever we were there was the same silence, the same sense of dreadful oppression and foreboding, and the silence I knew would always be broken by Mrs. Stone saying to me, Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower, upon which this was invariable. I had to follow him up the oak staircase with many corners and enter the place that I dreaded more and more each time that I visited it in sleep. Or again I would find myself playing cards still in silence in a drawing room lit with immense chandeliers that gave a blinding illumination. What the game was I have no idea. What I remember with a sense of miserable anticipation was that soon Mrs. Stone would get up and say to me, Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower. This drawing room where we played cards was next to the dining room, and as I have said, was always brilliantly illuminated, whereas the rest of the house was full of dusk and shadows. And yet how often in spite of those bouquets of lights have I not poured over the cards that were dealt me, scarcely able for some reason to see them. Their designs too were strange. There were no red suits, but all were black, and among them were certain cards which were black all over. I hated and dreaded those. As this dream continued to recur I got to know the greater part of the house. There was a smoking room beyond the drawing room at the end of a passage with a green bay's door. It was always very dark there, and as often as I went there I passed somebody whom I could not see in the doorway coming out. Curious developments too took place in the characters that peopled the dream as might happen to living persons. Mrs. Stone, for instance, who when I first saw her, had been black haired, became gray, and instead of rising briskly as she had done at first when she said, Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower. Got up very feebly as if the strength was leaving her limbs. Jack also grew up and became a rather ill-looking young man with a brown mustache, while one of the sisters ceased to appear and I understood she was married. Then it so happened that I was not visited by this dream for six months or more, and I began to hope. In such inexplicable dread did I hold it that it had passed away for good. But one night after this interval I again found myself being shown out onto the lawn for tea, and Mrs. Stone was not there, while the others were all dressed in black. That once I guessed the reason in my heart leapt at the thought that perhaps this time I should not have to sleep in the room in the tower. And though we usually all sat in silence, on this occasion the sense of relief made me talk and laugh as I had never yet done. But even then matters were not altogether comfortable. For no one else spoke, but they all looked secretly at each other, and soon the foolish stream of my talk ran dry, and gradually an apprehension worse than anything I had previously known gained on me as the light slowly faded. Suddenly a voice which I knew well broke the stillness. The voice of Mrs. Stone saying, Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room and the tower. It seemed to come from near the gate and the red brick wall that bounded the lawn. And looking up, I saw that the grass outside was so thick with gravestones. A curious grayish light shone from them, and I could read the lettering on the grave nearest me, and it was in evil memory of Julius Stone. And as usual Jack got up, and again I followed him through the hall and up the staircase with many corners. On this occasion it was darker than usual, and when I passed into the room in the tower I could only just see the furniture, the position of which was already familiar to me. Also there was a dreadful loader of decay in the room, and I woke screaming. The dream with such variations and developments as I have mentioned went on at intervals for fifteen years. Sometimes I would dream it two or three nights in succession. Once, as I have said, there was an intermission of six months, but taking a reasonable average I should say that I dreamed it quite as often as once in a month. It had, as is plain, something of nightmare about it, since it always ended in the same appalling terror which so far from getting less seemed to me to gather fresh fear every time that I experienced it. There was too a strange and dreadful consistency about it. The characters in it, as I have mentioned, got regularly older. Death and marriage visited this silent family, and I never in the dream, after Mrs. Stone had died, set eyes on her again. But it was always her voice that told me that the room in the tower was prepared for me, and whether we had tea out in the lawn, or the scene was laid in one of the rooms overlooking it, I could always see her gravestone standing just outside the Iron Gate. It was the same two with the married daughter. Usually she was not present, but once or twice she returned again, in company with a man whom I took to be her husband. He too, like the rest of them, was always silent. But owing to the constant repetition of the dream, I had ceased to attach, in my waking hours, any significance to it. I never met Jack Stone again during all those years, nor did I ever see a house that resembled this dark house of my dream. And then something happened. I had been in London in this year, up till the end of July, and during the first week in August went down to stay with a friend in a house he had taken for the summer months, in the Ashton Forest District of Sussex. I left London early, for John Clinton was to meet me at Forest Road Station, and we were going to spend the day golfing and go to his house in the evening. He had his motor with him, and we set off about five of the afternoon, after a thoroughly delightful day for the drive, the distance being some ten miles. As it was still so early we did not have tea at the clubhouse, but waited till we should get home. As we drove, the weather, which up till then had been, though hot, deliciously fresh, seemed to me to alter in quality, and become very stagnant and oppressive. And I felt that indefinable sense of ominous apprehension that I am accustomed to before thunder. John, however, did not share my views, attributing my loss of lightness to the fact that I had lost both my matches. Events proved, however, that I was right, though I did not think that the thunderstorm that broke that night was the sole cause of my depression. Our way lay through deep, high-banked lanes, and before we had gone very far I fell asleep, and was only awakened by the stopping of the motor. And with a sudden thrill, partly a fear, but chiefly of curiosity I found myself standing in the doorway of my house of dream. We went, I half wondering whether or not I was dreaming still, through a low oak panelled hall, and out onto the lawn where tea was laid in the shadow of the house. It was set in flower beds, a red brick wall with a gate in it, bounded one side and out beyond that was a space of rough grass with a walnut tree. The facade of the house was very long, and at one end stood a three-storeyed tower, markedly older than the rest. Here for the moment all resemblance to the repeated dreams ceased. There was no silent and somehow terrible family, but a large assembly of exceedingly cheerful persons, all of whom were known to me, and in spite of the horror with which the dream itself had always filled me, I felt nothing of it now that the scene of it was thus reproduced before me, but I felt intense curiosity as to what was going to happen. Tea pursued its cheerful course, and before long Mrs. Clinton got up, and at that moment I think I knew what she was going to say. She spoke to me, and what she said was, Jack will show you your room, I have given you the room and the tower. At that, for half a second, the horror of the dream took hold of me again. But it quickly passed, and again I felt nothing more than the most intense curiosity. It was not very long before it was amply satisfied. John turned to me, right up at the top of the house, he said, but I think you'll be comfortable. We're absolutely full up. Would you like to go and see it now? By Jove, I believe that you are right and that we are going to have a thunderstorm. How dark it has become! I get up and followed him. We pass through the hall and up the perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened the door and went in, and at that moment sheer unreasoning terror again possessed me. I did not know what I feared. I simply feared. Then, like a sudden recollection when one remembers a name which is long escaped the memory, I knew what I feared. I feared Mrs. Stone, whose grave with the sinister inscription, In Evil Memory, I had so often seen in my dream, just beyond the lawn which lay below my window. And then once more the fear passed so completely that I wondered what there was to fear. And I found myself sober and quiet and sane in the room in the tower, the name of which I had so often heard in my dream, and the scene of which was so familiar. I looked around it with a certain sense of proprietorship, and found that nothing had been changed from the dreaming nights in which I knew it so well, just to the left of the door was the bed, lengthwise along the wall with the head of it in the angle. In a line with it was the fireplace and a small bookcase. Opposite the door the outer wall was pierced by two lattice-pained windows between which stood the dressing table, while ranged along the fourth wall was the washing stand and a big cupboard. My luggage had already been unpacked, for the furniture of dressing and undressing lay orderly on the wash stand and toilet table, while my dinner clothes were spread out on the coverlet of the bed. And then with a sudden start of unexplained dismay I saw that there were two rather conspicuous objects which I had not seen before in my dreams. One, a life-sized oil painting of Mrs. Stone. The other, a black-and-white sketch of Jack Stone, representing him as he had appeared to me only a week before in the last of the series of these repeated dreams. A rather secret and evil-looking man of about thirty. His picture hung between the windows, looking straight across the room to the other portrait, which hung at the side of the bed. At that I looked next, and as I looked I felt once more the horror of nightmare seize me. It represented Mrs. Stone as I had seen her last in my dreams. Old and withered, white-haired, but in spite of the evident feebleness of body, a dreadful exuberance and vitality shown through the envelope of flesh, an exuberance wholly malign, a vitality that foamed and frothed with unimaginable evil. Evil beamed from the narrow-learing eyes. It laughed in the demon-like mouth. The whole face was instinct with some secret and appalling mirth. The hands clasped together on the knee seemed shaking with suppressed and nameless glee. Then I saw also that it was signed in the left-hand bottom corner, and wondering who the artist could be. I looked more closely and read the inscription, Julius Stone by Julius Stone. There came a tap at the door, and John Clinton entered. Got everything you want? He asked. Rather more than I want, said I, pointing to the picture. He laughed. Hard-featured old lady, he said. By yourself too, I remember. Anyhow, she can't have flattered herself much. But don't you see? said I. It's scarcely a human face at all. It's the face of some witch, of some devil. He looked at it more closely. Yes, it isn't very pleasant, he said. Scarcely a bedside man, right? Yes, I can imagine getting the nightmare if I went to sleep with that close by my bed. I'll have it taken down if you like. I really wish you would, I said. He rang the bell, and with the help of a servant we detached the picture and carried it out onto the landing, and put it with its face to the wall. By Joe of the old lady is a wait, said John, mopping his forehead. I wonder if she had something on her mind. The extraordinary weight of the picture had struck me too. I was about to reply when I caught sight of my own hand. There was blood on it, in considerable quantities, covering the whole palm. I've cut myself somehow, said I. John gave a little startled exclamation. Why, I have too, he said. Simultaneously the footman took out his handkerchief and wiped his hand with it. I saw that there was blood also on his handkerchief. John and I went back into the tower room and washed the blood off, but neither on his hand nor on mine was there the slightest trace of a scratch or cut. It seemed to me that, having ascertained this, we both, by a sort of tacit consent, did not allude to it again. Something in my case had dimly occurred to me that I did not wish to think about. It was but a conjecture, but I fancied that I knew the same thing had occurred to him. The heat and oppression of the air for the storm we had expected was still undischarged increased very much after dinner, and for some time most of the party, among whom were John Clinton and myself, sat outside on the path bounding the lawn, where we had had tea. The night was absolutely dark, and no twinkle of star or moon ray could penetrate the pall of cloud that overset the sky. By degrees our assembly thinned, the women went up to bed, men dispersed to the smoking or billiard room, and by eleven o'clock my host and I were the only two left. All the evening I thought that he had something on his mind, and as soon as we were alone he spoke. The man who helped us with the picture had blood on his hand too, did you notice, he said. I asked him just now if he had cut himself, and he said he supposed he had, but that he could find no mark of it. Now where did that blood come from? By dint of telling myself that I was not going to think about it, I had succeeded in not doing so, and I did not want, especially just at bed time, to be reminded of it. I don't know, said I, and I don't really care so long as the picture of Mrs. Stone is not by my bed. He got up. But it's odd, he said. Ha! Now you'll see another odd thing. A dog of his, and I wished Terrier by breed, had come out of the house as we talked. The door behind us into the hall was open, and a bright oblong of light shone across the lawn to the iron gate which led on to the rough grass outside where the walnut tree stood. I saw that the dog had all his hackles up, bristling with rage and fright. His lips were curled back from his teeth as if he was ready to spring at something, and he was growling to himself. He took not the slightest notice of his master or me, but stiffly and tensely walked across the grass to the iron gate. There he stood for a moment, looking through the bars and still growling. Then, of a sudden, his courage seemed to desert him. He gave one long howl and scuttled back to the house with a curious crouching sort of movement. He does that half a dozen times a day, said John. He sees something which he both hates and fears. I walked to the gate and looked over it. Something was moving on the grass outside, and soon a sound which I could not instantly identify came to my ears. Then I remembered what it was. It was the purring of a cat. I lit a match and saw the purr, a big blue Persian walking round and round in a little circle just outside the gate, stepping high and ecstatically, with tail carried aloft like a banner. Its eyes were bright and shining, and every now and then it put its head down and sniffed at the grass. I laughed. The end of that mystery, I am afraid, I said. Here's a large cat having, well, purgous night all alone. Yes, that's Darius, said John. He spends half the day in all night there, but that's not the end of the dog mystery. For Toby and here are the best of friends. But the beginning of the cat mystery, what's the cat doing there? And why is Darius pleased, while Toby is terror-stricken? At that moment I remembered the rather horrible detail of my dreams, when I saw through the gate just where the cat was now, the white tombstone with the sinister inscription. But before I could answer, the rain began, as suddenly and heavily as if a tap had been turned on, and simultaneously the big cat squeezed to the bars of the gate, and came leaping across the lawn to the house for shelter. Then it sat in the doorway, looking out eagerly into the dark. It spat and struck at John with its paw as he pushed it in, in order to close the door. Somehow, with the portrait of Julius Stone in the passage outside, the room and the tower had absolutely no alarm for me. And as I went to bed, feeling very sleepy and heavy, I had nothing more than interest for the curious incident about our bleeding hands and the conduct of the cat and dog. The last thing I looked at before I put out my light was the square empty space by my bed where the portrait had been. Here the paper was of its original full tint of dark red, over the rest of the walls it had faded. Then I blew out my candle and instantly fell asleep. My waking was equally instantaneous, and I sat bolt upright in bed under the impression that some bright light had been flashed in my face, though it was now absolutely pitch dark. I knew exactly where I was, in the room which I had dreaded in dreams. But no horror that I ever felt when asleep approached the fear that now invaded and brain. Immediately after a peel of thunder crackled just above the house. But the probability that it was only a flash of lightning which awoke me gave no reassurance to my galloping heart. Something I knew was in the room with me, and instinctively I put out my right hand, which was nearest the wall, to keep it away. And my hand touched the edge of a picture frame hanging close to me. I sprang out of bed, upsetting the small table that stood by it, and I heard my watch candle and matches clatter on to the floor. But for the moment there was no need of light, for a blinding flash leapt out of the clouds and showed me that by my bed again hung the picture of Mrs. Stone. And instantly the room went into blackness again. But in that flash I saw another thing also. Namely a figure that leaned over the end of my bed watching me. It was dressed in some close clinging white garment, spotted and stained with mold, and the face was that of the portrait. Overhead the thunder cracked and roared, and when it ceased and the deathly stillness succeeded, I heard the rustle of movement coming nearer me. And more horrible yet perceived an odor of corruption and decay. And then a hand was laid on the side of my neck, and close beside my ear I heard quick-taken, eager breathing. Yet I knew that this thing, though it could be perceived by touch, by smell, by eye, and by ear, was still not of this earth, but something that had passed out of the body and had power to make itself manifest. Then a voice already familiar to me spoke. I knew you would come to the room in the tower, it said. I have been long waiting for you. At last you have come. Tonight I shall feast, before long we will feast together. And the quick breathing came closer to me. I could feel it on my neck. At that the terror which I think had paralyzed me for the moment gave way to the wild instinct of self-preservation. I hit wildly with both arms, kicking out at the same moment, and heard a little animal squeal, and something soft dropped with a thud beside me. I took a couple of steps forward, nearly tripping up over whatever it was that lay there, and by the nearest good luck found the handle of the door. In another second I ran out on the landing and had banged the door behind me, almost at the same moment I heard a door open somewhere below. And John Clinton, candle and hand, came running upstairs. What is it? he said. I sleep just below you, and heard a noise as if. Good heavens, there's blood on your shoulder. I stood there, so he told me afterwards, swaying from side to side, white as a sheet. What the mark on my shoulder is if a hand covered with blood had been laid there. It's in there, I said, pointing. She, you know, the portrait is in there too, hanging up on the place we took it from. At that he laughed. My dear fellow, this is mere nightmare, he said. He pushed by me and opened the door. I, standing there, simply inert with terror, unable to stop him, unable to move. Phew, what an awful smell, he said. Then there was silence. He had passed out of my sight behind the open door. Next moment he came out again, as white as myself, and instantly shut it. Yes, the portrait's there, he said, and on the floor is a thing, a thing spotted with earth, like what they bury people in. Come away, quick. Come away. How I got downstairs I hardly know. An awful shuddering and nausea of the spirit rather than of the flesh had seized me. And more than once he had to place my feet upon the steps, while every now and then he cast glances of terror and apprehension up the stairs. But in time we came to his dressing room on the floor below, and there I told him what I have here described. The sequel can be made short. Indeed, some of my readers have perhaps already guessed what it was, if they remember that inexplicable affair of the churchyard at West Folly some eight years ago, where an attempt was made three times to bury the body of a certain woman who had committed suicide. On each occasion the coffin was found in the course of a few days, again protruding from the ground. After the third attempt, in order that the things should not be talked about, the body was buried elsewhere in unconsecrated ground. Where it was buried was just outside the iron gate of the garden belonging to the house where this woman had lived. She had committed suicide in a room at the top of the tower in that house. Her name was Julius Stone. Subsequently the body was again secretly dug up, and the coffin was found to be full of blood, and of The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson. A School Story by M. R. James. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A School Story by M. R. James. Two men in a smoking room were talking of their private school days. At our school, said E., we had a ghost footmark on the staircase. What was it like? Oh, very unconvincing. Just the shape of a shoe with a square toe, if I remember right. The staircase was a stone one. I never heard any story about the thing. That seems odd when you come to think of it. I didn't somebody invent one, I wonder. You never can tell with little boys. They have a mythology of their own. There's a subject for you, by the way. The folklore of private schools. Yes, the crop is rather scanty, though. I imagine if you were to investigate the cycle of ghost stories, for instance, which the boys at private schools tell each other, they would all turn out to be highly compressed versions of stories out of books. Nowadays, the strand and piercings and so on would be extensively drawn upon. No doubt, they weren't born or thought of in my time. Let's see. I wonder if I can remember the staple ones that I was told. First, there was the house with a room in which a series of people insisted on passing a night, and each of them in the morning was found kneeling in a corner and had just time to say, I've seen it, and died. Wasn't that the house in Berkeley Square? I daresay it was. Then there was the man who heard a noise in the passage at night, opened his door and saw someone crawling towards him on all fours with his eye hanging out on his cheek. There was, besides, let me think. Yes, the room where a man was found dead in bed with a horseshoe mark on his forehead, and the floor under the bed was covered with marks of horseshoes also. I don't know why. Also, there was the lady who, unlocking her bedroom door in a strange house, heard a thin voice among the bed-cut and say, now we're shut in for the night. None of those had any explanation or sequel. I wonder if they go on still, those stories. Oh, likely enough, with additions from the magazines, as I said. You never heard, did you, of a real ghost at a private school? I thought not. Nobody has ever that I came across. From the way in which you said that, I gather that you have. I really don't know, but this is what was in my mind. It happened at my private school thirty odd years ago, and I haven't any explanation of it. The school, I mean, was near London. It was established in a large and fairly old house, a great white building with very fine grounds about it. There were large cedars in the garden, as there are in so many of the older gardens in the Thames Valley, and ancient elms in the three or four fields which we used for our games. I think probably it was quite an attractive place, but boys seldom allow that their schools possess any tolerable features. I came to the school in a September. Soon after the year 1870, and among the boys who arrived on the same day, was one whom I took to. A Highland boy, whom I will call McLeod. I needn't spend time in describing him. The main thing is that I got to know him very well. He was not an exceptional boy in any way, not particularly good at books or games, but he suited me. The school was a large one. There must have been from 120 to 130 boys there as a rule, and so a considerable staff of masters was required, and there were rather frequent changes among them. One term. Perhaps it was my third or fourth. A new master made his appearance. His name was Samson. He was a tallish, stoutish, pale, black-bearded man. I think we liked him. He had travelled a good deal and had stories which amused us on our school walks so that there was some competition among us to get with an earshot of him. I remember too. Dear me, I've hardly thought of it since then, that he had a charm on his watch chain that attracted my attention one day, and he let me examine it. It was, I now suppose, a gold Byzantine coin. There was an effigy of some absurd emperor on one side. The other side had been worn practically smooth, and he had had cut on it, rather barbarously, his own initials, GWS, and a date, 24 July 1865. Yes, I can see it now. He told me he had picked it up in Constantinople. It was about the size of a florin, perhaps rather smaller. Well, the first odd thing that happened was this. Samson was doing Latin grammar with us. One of his favourite methods, perhaps it is rather a good one, was to make us construct sentences out of our own heads to illustrate the rules he was trying to make us learn. Of course that is a thing which gives a silly boy a chance of being imperdinent. There are lots of school stories in which that happens, or anyhow, there might be. But Samson was too good a disciplinarian for us to think of trying that on with him. Now, on this occasion, he was telling us how to express remembering in Latin, and he ordered us each to make a sentence bringing in the verb memini. I remember. Well, most of us made up some ordinary sentence such as I remember my father, or he remembers his book, or something equally uninteresting and I dare say a good mini put down memino libro medio, and so forth. But the boy I mentioned, McLeod, was evidently thinking of something more elaborate than that. The rest of us wanted to have our sentences passed and to get on to something else, so some kicked him under the desk, and I, who was next to him, poked him and whispered to him to look sharp, but he didn't seem to attend. I looked at his paper and saw he had put down nothing at all, so I jogged him again, harder than before, and upgraded him sharply for keeping us all waiting. That did have some effect. He started and seemed to wake up, and then very quickly he scribbled about a couple of lines on his paper, and showed it up with the rest. As it was the last, or nearly the last to come and had a good deal to say to the boys who had written Mimineskimo's patrimeo and the rest of it, it turned out that the clock struck twelve before he had got to McLeod, and McLeod had to wait afterwards to have his sentence corrected. There was nothing much going on outside when I got out, so I waited for him to come. He came very slowly when he did arrive, and I guess there had been some sort of trouble. Well, I said, what did you get? Oh, I don't know, said McLeod. Nothing much, but I think he was rather sick with me. Why did you show him up some rot? No fear, he said. It was all right as far as I could see. It was like this. Memento. That's right enough, or remember, and it takes a genitive. Memento putte intercuator taxos. What silly rot! I said, what made you shove that down? What does it mean? That's the funny part, said McLeod. I'm not quite sure what it does mean. All I know is it just came into my head and I caught it down. I know what I think it means, because just before I wrote it down I had a sort of picture of it in my head. I believe it means remember the well among the four. What are those dark sort of trees that have red berries on them? Mountain ashes, I suppose you mean. I never heard of them, said McLeod. No, I'll tell you. Use. Well, and what did Samson say? Why he was jolly odd about it. When he read it, he got up and went to the mantelpiece and stopped quite a long time without saying anything, with his back to me. And then he said without turning round and rather quiet what do you suppose that means? I told him what I thought and they couldn't remember the name of the silly tree. And then he wanted to know why I put it down and I had to say something or other. And after that he left off talking about it. And he asked me how long I'd been here and where my people lived and things like that. And then I came away but he wasn't looking a bit well. I don't remember any more that was said by either of us about this. Next day McLeod took to his bed with a chill or something of the kind and it was a week or more before he was in school again and as much as a month went by without anything happening that was noticeable. Whether or not Mr. Samson was really startled as McLeod had thought he didn't show it. I'm pretty sure of course now that there was something very curious in his past history and I'm not going to pretend that we boys were sharp enough to guess any such thing. There was one other incident of the same kind as the last which I told you. Several times since that day we had had to make up examples in school to illustrate different rules but there had never been any row except when we did them wrong. At last there came a day when we were going through those dismal things which people call conditional sentences and we were told to make a conditional sentence expressing a future consequence. Right or wrong and showed up our bits of paper and Samson began looking through them all at once he got up made some sort of noise in his throat and rushed out by a door that was just by his desk. We sat there for a minute or two and then I suppose it was incorrect but we went up, I and one or two others to look at the papers on his desk. Of course I thought someone must have put down some nonsense or other and Samson had gone off to report him. All the same I noticed that he hadn't taken any of the papers with him when he ran out. Well the top paper on the desk was written in red ink which no one used and it wasn't in anyone's hand who was in the class. They all looked at it McLeod and all and took their dying oaths that it wasn't theirs. Then I thought of counting the bits of paper and of this I made quite sudden that there were 17 bits of paper on the desk and 16 boys in the form. Well I bagged the extra paper and kept it and I believe I have it now and now you will want to know what was written on it. It was simple enough and harmless enough I should have said. Si tu non veneris ad me ego veniam a te which means I suppose if you don't come to me I'll come to you. Could you show me the paper? Interrupted the listener. Yes I could there's another odd thing about it that same afternoon I took it out of my locker I know for certain it was the same bit for I made a finger mark on it and no single trace of writing of any kind was there on it. I kept it as I said and since that time I have tried various experiments to see whether sympathetic ink had been used but absolutely without result. So much for that after about half an hour Samson looked in again very unwell and told us we might go. He came rather gingerly to his desk and gave just one look at the other most paper and I suppose he thought he must have been dreaming. Anyhow he asked no questions. That day was a half holiday and next day Samson was in school again much as usual. That night the third and last incident in my story happened. We, McLeod and I slept in a dormitory at right angles to the main building. There was a very bright full moon at an hour which I can't tell exactly but sometime between one and two I was woken up by somebody shaking me. It was McLeod and a nice state of mind he seemed to be in. Come he said come there's a burglar getting in through Samson's window. As soon as I could speak I said well why not call out and wake everybody up. No, no he said I'm not sure who it is don't make a row. Come and look. Naturally I came and looked and naturally there was no one there. I was cross enough and should have called McLeod plenty of names only I couldn't tell why. It seemed to me that there was something wrong something that made me very glad I wasn't alone to face it. We were still at the window looking out and as soon as I could I asked him what he had heard or seen. I didn't hear anything at all he said but about five minutes before I woke you I found myself looking out of this window here and there was a man sitting or kneeling on Samson's window sill and looking in and I thought he was beckoning what sort of man McLeod wriggled I don't know he said but I can tell you one thing he was beastly thin and he looked as if he was wet all over and he said looking round and whispering as if he hardly liked to hear himself I'm not at all sure that he was alive we went on talking in whispers some time longer and eventually crept back to bed no one else in the room woke us stirred the whole time I believe we did sleep a bit afterwards but we were very cheap next day and next day Mr. Samson was gone not to be found and I believe no trace of him has ever come to light since in thinking it over one of the artist things about it all has seemed to me to be the fact that neither McLeod nor I ever mentioned what we had seen to any third person whatever of course no questions were asked on the subject and if they had been I'm inclined to believe that we could not have made any answer we seemed unable to speak about it that is my story said the narrator the only approach to a ghost story connected with the school that I know but still I think an approach to such a thing the sequel to this may perhaps be reckoned highly conventional but a sequel there is and so it must be produced there had been more than one listener to the story and in the latter part of that same year or of the next one such listener was staying at a country house in Ireland one evening his host was turning over a drawer full of odds and ends in the smoking room suddenly he put his hand upon a little box no he said you know about old things tell me what that is my friend opened the little box and found in it a thin gold chain with an object attached to it he glanced at the object and then took off his spectacles to examine it more narrowly what's the history of this he asked hard enough was the answer you know the you-thicket and the shrubbery well a year or two back we were cleaning out the old well that used to be in the clearing here and what do you suppose we found is it possible that you found a body said the visitor with an odd feeling of nervousness we did that but what's more in every sense of the word we found too good heavens too was there anything to show how they got there was this thing found with them it was amongst the rags of the clothes that were on one of the bodies a bad business whatever the story of it may have been one body had the arms tight round the other it had been there 30 years or more long enough before we came to this place you may judge we filled the well up fast enough do you make anything of what's cut on that gold chain you have there I think I can said my friend holding it to the light but he read it without much difficulty it seems to be GWS 24 July 1865 end of school story by M.R. James the story of the siren by E.M. Forster this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the story of the siren by E.M. Forster few things have been more beautiful the book on the deus controversy as it fell downward through the waters of the Mediterranean it dived like a piece of black slate but opened soon disclosing leaves of pale green which quivered into blue now it had vanished now it was a piece of magical india rubber stretching out to infinity now it was a book again but bigger than the book of all knowledge it grew more fantastic as it reached the bottom where a puff of sand welcomed it and obscured it from view but it reappeared quite sane though a little tremulous lying decently open on its back while unseen fingers fidgeted among its leaves it is such a pity said my aunt that you will not finish your work in the hotel then you would be free to enjoy yourself and this would never have happened nothing of it but will change into something rich and strange warbled the chaplain while his sister said why it's gone into the water as for the boatmen one of them laughed while the other without a word of warning stood up and began to take his clothes off holy moses cried the colonel is the fellow mad yes thank him dear said my aunt that is to say tell him he is very kind but perhaps another time all the same I do want my book back I complained for my fellowship dissertation there won't be much left of it by another time I have an idea said some woman or other through her parasol let us leave this child of nature to die for the book while we go on to the other grotto we can land him either on this rock or on the legend side and he will be ready when we return the idea seemed good and I improved it by saying I would be left behind too to lighten the boat so the two of us were deposited outside the little grotto on a great sunlit rock that guarded the harmonies within let us call them blue though they suggest rather the spirit of what is clean cleanliness passed from the domestic to the sublime the cleanliness of all the sea gathered together and radiating light the blue grotto at Capri contains only more blue water not bluer water that color and that spirit is the heritage of every cave in the Mediterranean into which the sun can shine and the sea flow as soon as the boat left I realized how imprudent I had been to trust myself on a sloping rock with an unknown Sicilian with a jerk he became alive seizing my arm and saying go to the end of the grotto and I will show you something beautiful he made me jump off the rock onto the ledge over a dazzling crack of sea he drew me away from the light till I was standing on the tiny beach of sand which emerged like powdered turquoise at the further end there he left me with his clothes and returned swiftly to the summit of the entrance rock for a moment he stood naked in the brilliant sun looking down at the spot where the book laying then he crossed himself raised his hands above his head and dived if the book was wonderful in this past all description his effect was that of a silver statue alive beneath the sea through whom life throbbed in blue and green something infinitely happy infinitely wise but it was impossible that it should emerge from the depths sunburnt and dripping holding the notebook on the deus controversy between its teeth a gratuity is generally expected by those who bathe offered he was sure to want more and I was disinclined for an argument in a place so beautiful and also so solitary it was a relief that he should say in conversational tones in a place like this one might see the siren I was delighted with him for thus falling into the key of his surroundings we had been left together in a magic world apart from all common places that are called reality a world of blue this floor was the sea and whose wall and roof of rock trembled with the sea's reflections here only the fantastic would be tolerable and it was in that spirit that I echoed his words one might easily see the siren he watched me curiously while he dressed I was parting the sticky leaves of the notebook as I sat on the strip of sand ah! he said at last you may have read the little book which was printed last year who would have thought that our siren would have given Fortner's pleasure I read it afterwards its account is not a naturally incomplete in spite of there being a woodcut of the young person and the words of her song she comes out of this blue water doesn't she, I suggested and sits on the rock at the entrance combing her hair I wanted to draw him out of gravity and there was a suggestion of irony in his last remark that puzzled me have you ever seen her often and often I never but you have heard her sing he put on his coat and said impatiently how can she sing under the water who could she sometimes tries but nothing comes from her but great bubbles she should climb onto the rock then how can she he cried again quite angry the priests have blessed the air so she cannot breathe it and bless the rocks so that she cannot sit on them but the sea no man can bless because it is too big and always changing therefore she lives in the sea I was silent at this his face took a gentler expression he looked at me as though something was on his mind and going out to the entrance rock gazed at the external blue then returning into our twilight he said as a rule only good people see this iron I made no comment there was a pause and he continued that is a very strange thing and the priests do not know how to account for it for she of course is wicked not only those who fast and go to mass are in danger but even those who are merely good in daily life no one in the village had seen her for generations I am not surprised we all crossed ourselves before we entered the water but it is unnecessary Giuseppe we thought was safer than most we loved him and many of us he loved but that is a different thing to being good I asked who Giuseppe was that day I was 17 and my brother was 20 and a great deal stronger than I was and it was a year when the visitors who have brought such prosperity and so many alterations into the village first began to come one English lady in particular a very high berth came and had written a book about the place and it was through her that the improvement syndicate was formed which is about to connect the hotels with the station by means of a funicular railway don't tell me about that lady in here I observed the day we took her and her friends to see the grottos as we rode close under the cliffs I put out my hand as one does and caught a little crab and having pulled off its claws offered it as a curiosity the ladies groaned but the gentleman was pleased and held out money being inexperienced I refused it saying that his pleasure was sufficient to reward Giuseppe who was rowing behind was very angry with me and reached out with his hand and hit me on the side of the mouth so that the tooth cut my lip and I bled I tried to hit him back but he was always too quick for me and as I stretched round he kicked me under the armpit so that for a moment I could not even row there was a great noise among the ladies and I heard afterwards that they were planning to take me away from my brother and train me as a waiter that at all events never came to pass when we reached the grotto not here but the larger one the gentleman was very anxious that one of us should die for money and the ladies consented as they sometimes do Giuseppe who had discovered how much pleasure it gives foreigners to see us in the water refused to die for anything but silver and the gentleman threw in a two-liter piece just before my brother sprang off he caught sight of me holding my bruise crying for I could not help it he laughed and said this time at all events I shall not see the siren and went into the blue water without crossing himself but he saw her he broke off and accepted a cigarette I watched the golden entrance rock and the quivering walls and the magic water through which great bubbles constantly rose at last he dropped his hot ash into the ripples and burned his head away and said he came up without the coin we pulled him into the boat and he was so large that he seemed to fill it and so wet that we could not trace him I have never seen a man so wet I and the gentleman rode back and we covered Giuseppe with sacking and propped him up in the stern he was drowned then I murmured supposing that to be the point he was not angrily he saw the siren I told you I was silenced again we pulled him to bed though he was not ill the doctor came and took money and the priest came and took more and smothered him with incense and spattered him with holy water but it was no good he was too big like a piece of the sea he kissed the thumb bones of San Biazio and they never dried till evening what did he look like I ventured like anyone who has seen the siren if you have seen her often and often how is it you do not know unhappy unhappy unhappy because he knew everything every living thing made him unhappy because he knew it would die and all he cared to do was sleep I bent over my notebook he did no work he forgot to eat he forgot whether he had his clothes on all the work fell on me and my sister had to go out to service we tried to make him into a beggar but he was too robust to inspire pity and as for an idiot he had not the right look in his eyes he would stand in the street looking at people and the more he looked at them the more unhappy he became when a child was born he would cover his face with his hands if anyone was married he was terrible then and would frighten them as they came out of church who would have believed he would marry himself I caused that I was reading out of the paper how a girl at Ragusa had gone mad through bathing at the sea Giuseppe got up and in a week he and that girl came in together he never told me anything but it seems he went straight to her house broke into her room and carried her off she was the daughter of a rich mine owner so you may imagine our battle her father came down with a clever lawyer but they could do no more than I they argued and threatened but at last they had to go back and we lost nothing had to say no money we took Giuseppe and Maria to the church and had them married look at the wedding the priest made no jokes afterwards and coming out the children through stones I think I would have died to make her happy but as always one could do nothing were they unhappy together then they loved each other but love is not happiness we can all get love love is nothing love is everywhere since the death of Jesus Christ I had two people to work for now for she was like him in everything one never knew which of them was speaking I had to sell our own boat and work under the battled man you have today worst of all people began to hate us the children first everything begins with them and then the women and last of all the men for the cause of evident misfortune was you will not betray me I promised good faith and immediately he burst into the frantic blasphemy of one who has escaped from supervision cursing the priests the lying, filthy, cheating immoral priests who had ruined his life who had murdered his brother and the girl whom he dared not murder back because they held the key of heaven and could not ruin him in the next life too thus we are tricked was his cry and he stood up and kicked at the azure ripples with his feet till he had obscured them with a cloud of sand I too was moved the story of Giuseppe for all its absurdity and superstition came nearer to reality than anything I had known before I don't know why but it filled me with desire to help others the greatest of all our desires I suppose and the most fruitless the desire soon passed she was about to have a child that was the end of everything people said to me when will your charming nephew be born what a cheerful attract of child he will be with such a father and a mother I kept my face steady and replied I think he may be out of sadness it is one of our proverbs and my answer frightened them very much and they told the priests who were frightened too then the whisper started that the child would be antichrist you need not be afraid he was never born an old witch began to prophesy and no one stopped her Giuseppe and the girl she said had silent devils who could do little harm but the child would always be speaking and laughing and perverting and last of all he would go into the sea and fetch up the siren into the air and all the world would see her and hear her sing as soon as she sang the seventh vials would be opened and the pope would die and Mangebello flame and the veil of Santa Agata would be burnt then the boy and the siren would marry and together they would rule the world forever and ever the whole village was in Timote and the hotelkeepers became alarmed for the tourist season was just beginning they met together and decided that Giuseppe and the girl must be sent inland until the child was born and they subscribed the money the night before they were to start there was a full moon and wind from the east and all along the coast the sea shot up over the cliffs in silver clouds it is a wonderful sight she said she must see it once more do not go I said I saw the priest go by and someone with him and the hotelkeepers do not like you to be seen and if we displease them also we shall starve I want to go she replied the sea is stormy and I may never feel it again no he is right said Giuseppe do not go or let one of us go with you I want to go alone she said and she went alone I tied up their luggage in a piece of cloth and then I was so unhappy at thinking that I should lose them that I went and sat down by my brother and put my arm around his neck and he put his arm around me which he had not done for more than a year and we were remained thus I do not remember how long suddenly the door flew open and moonlight and wind came in together and the child's voice said laughing they have pushed her over the cliffs into the sea I stepped to the drawer where I keep my knives and the child ran away sit down again said Giuseppe Giuseppe of all people if she is dead why should others die too I guess who it is I cried and I will kill him I was almost out of the door but he tripped me up and kneeling upon me took hold of both my hands and sprained my wrists versed my right one then my left no one but Giuseppe would have thought of such a thing it hurt more than you would suppose and I fainted when I woke up he was gone and I have never seen him again but Giuseppe disgusted me I told you he was wicked he said no one would have expected him to see the siren how do you know he did see her then because he did not see her often and often but once why do you love him if he is wicked he laughed for the first time that was his only reply is that the end I asked feeling curiously ashamed I never killed her murderer for by the time my wrists were well he was in America and one cannot kill a priest as for Giuseppe he went all over the world too looking for someone else who has seen the siren either a man or better still a woman for then the child might still have been born at last he came to Liverpool is the district probable and there he began to cough and spat blood until he died I do not suppose there is anyone living now who has seen her there has still them been more than one in a generation and never in my life will there be both a man and a woman from whom that child can be born who will fetch up the siren from the sea and destroy silence and save the world save the world I cried did the prophecy end like that he leaned back against the rock breathing deeply through all the blue-green reflections I saw him color I heard him say silence and loneliness cannot last forever it may be a hundred or a thousand years but the sea lasts longer and she shall come out of it and sing I would have asked him more but at that moment the whole cave darkened and there rode through its narrow entrance the returning boat end of The Story of the Siren one summer night by Ambrose Beers this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org one summer night by Ambrose Beers the fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead he had always been a hard man to convince that he really was buried the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit his posture flat on his back with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation the strict confinement of his entire person the black darkness the silence made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil but dead? No he was only very, very ill he had with all the invalid's apathy and did not greatly concern himself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted to him no philosopher was he just a plain commonplace person gifted for the time being with a pathological indifference the organ that he feared consequences with was torbid so, with no particular apprehension for his immediate future he fell asleep and all was peace with Henry Armstrong but something was going on overhead it was a dark summer night shot through within frequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud lying low in the west and pretending a storm these brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing it was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery so the three men who were there digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong felt reasonably secure two of them were young students from a medical college a few miles away the third was a gigantic negro known as Jess for many years Jess had been employed about the cemetery as a man of all work and it was his favorite pleasantry that he knew every soul in the place from the nature of what he was now doing it was inferrable that the place was not so populous as its register may have shown it to be outside the wall at the part of the grounds farthest from the public road were a horse and a light wagon waiting the work of excavation was not difficult the earth with which the grave had been loosely filled a few hours before offered little resistance and was soon thrown out removal of the casket from its box was less easy but it was taken out for it was a perquisite of Jess who carefully unscrewed the cover and laid it aside exposing the body in black trousers and white shirt at that instant the air sprang to flame a cracking shock of thunder shook the stunned world and Henry Armstrong trinkly sat up with inarticulate cries the men fled in terror each in a different direction for nothing on earth could two of them have been persuaded to return but Jess was of another breed in the gray of the morning two students pallid and haggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure still beating tumultuously in their blood met at the medical college you saw it? cried one god yes what are we to do they went around to the rear of the building where they saw a horse attached to a light wagon hitched to a gate post near the door of the dissecting room mechanically they entered the room on a bench in the obscurity at the negro Jess he rose grinning all eyes and teeth I'm waiting for my pay he said stretched naked on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong the head defiled with blood in clay from a blow with a spade end of one summer night by Ambrose Beers The Summons by Henry Altimas 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 Colleen McMahon The Summons by Henry Altimas It was Elsa Lloyd's first experience with death as a nurse at St. Luke's she was the youngest graduate at the hospital slender and frail with blue eyes that betrayed the strain she had been under despite her brave effort to appear self-possessed the older nurses had been extremely helpful not at all resentful that she had been chosen for so important a case but she had pursued her duties to the very end courageously and competently without requiring any assistance it was nearly over now Scofield Carrington was dead his body would soon be removed to his home and she was studying the carefully kept chart of her patient preparatory to turning it over to the head nurse she was seated at a little table in the floor office the chart before her using this brief respite after the trying experience of the preceding night to collect herself when the bell rang softly and the indicator clicked over her head Elsa Lloyd did not look up as Carrington's private nurse she was expected to answer only his summons but presently she was aware that a floor nurse had entered an answer to the bell and pausing a moment before the indicator had come up close to her it's 42 calling said the nurse isn't that Carrington Elsa Lloyd came to her feet quickly her eyes lifting to the indicator a little tinge of color coming to her cheeks yes she said weekly her lips fell apart her hand caught the back of the chair from which she had just risen her eyes still fixed on the little plate showing the numerals 42 on the indicator her tired brain could not grapple with the strange situation Carrington had passed away in the early hours of the morning and only half an hour before she had left his room her duties over and now the bell she turned at last question in her eyes perhaps it's Dr. Stockbridge the nurse ventured he's in the operating room said Elsa quickly or someone else and seeing the weariness on the young girl's face you? thank you I'll go she hurried down the long silent corridor she paused at the door hesitated then knocked lightly there was no response her hand lowered to the knob she turned it and the door yielded there was no one in the room everything was exactly as she had left it half an hour before the drawn shades through which the morning sunlight filtered pale and warm the stillness of death in the corner of the huge room the bed with its rigid silent occupant Elsa's first impulse was to turn and escape but she checked herself waited her back to the door while the rapid beating of her heart subsided presently she moved toward the bed slowly her feet scarcely lifting from the floor nothing had been altered not a wrinkle in the sheet that covered the dead man's body had been changed she looked down into his face observed the strong features immobile in death the thick lips firmly locked the square chin thrust forward defiant, challenging even now Schofield Carrington had not wanted to die the great financier who had feared nothing had not feared death but he had not been ready to let go he had wanted to hold off the hand of death only a little while longer but it had come relentlessly and his features still showed the marks of the dead man's struggle the unhappiness of his last moments which had come without the fulfillment of his cherished hope Elsa's eyes lifted to the bell that hung from the back of the bed corded wire with a button at the end the pressure of which had summoned her so often in the past few weeks to the side of her patient had summoned her even now to his side some hand had touched it within the last few minutes whose she had endured a while baffled, immobile in the presence of the inexplicable circumstance it must be some mistake she said at last she spoke aloud to reassure herself and to reassure anyone who might hear her somehow she felt a vague presence in the room she dared not look about her and having spoken she turned and hurried out of the room the nurse was waiting for her at the office door she noted the pallor in Elsa's face the agitation which her strained features did not conceal the agitation which her strained features did not conceal Elsa took the hand she extended leaning heavily on it somewhat has been in gone she said in a soothing voice you're unstrong, you ought to she stopped abruptly their eyes met and they stood close neither daring to turn for the indicator had clicked again it was the elder nurse who first and when their eyes met again Elsa knew what she had seen it's 42 said the elder nurse in a hoarse voice Elsa's head lowered a shutter running down her frame and her companion led her to a chair into which the girl dropped heavily sometimes the indicator gets out of order muttered the elder nurse it may be that though I don't recall it ever happening before the wires may get crossed or something her voice trailed away she knew that her assurances were unconvincing to Elsa they were unconvincing to herself she realized that her usual presence of mind was not at her command disciplined in the shadow of suffering and death she was aware that for the first time in her experience she was confronted by the intrusion of an intangible element which eluded her understanding Carrington was dead there was no one in his room yet his bell was ringing we ought to report it she said at last someone ought to be in the room she paused as a young intern entered the office her face lighted up hopefully doctor she said coming toward him 42 is calling won't you that's Carrington's room isn't it as the intern yes well it's Miss Lloyd's case why doesn't she go she's just been there what? stammered the intern and that's the second time the bell has rung more from the crumpled attitude of Elsa Lloyd in her chair than from the words of the elder nurse the intern gathered the meaning of the strange situation his eyes were wide with amazement he looked to the indicator and then turned to the nurse his lips moved stirred mutely a moment does doctor Stockbridge know he asked at last no I'll tell him and he spun about on his heel and was gone the nurse moved toward the indicator mechanically her hands lifting slowly and pressing the knob that released the number the indicator was bare but scarcely had her arm lowered to her side than a bell tinkled it was 42 again Elsa Lloyd her elbows on the little desk her face buried in her hands did not look up she knew from the touch of her companion's hand on her shoulder what the bell meant the nurse slipped into a chair beside the younger woman for a long time she was silent then I can't understand it she muttered half to herself I've never had such an experience before I've seen so many deaths and death was always so final so completely the the end of course there's the soul the spirit it's called by so many names and I've heard so much nonsense about it I never believed a few of us do but every now and then something happens like this what can it mean? despite herself a tremor half of doubt half of all shook her she turned to Elsa what do you know about Carrington she asked you were with him for weeks can you think of anything that she did not complete her question her thought too unformed for words was there anything she resumed in a moment she died anything that might explain this Elsa sat up but her head was averted as she spoke I don't understand she said her voice low and frail but when I was in the room just now I felt I seemed to be aware of of what prompted the elder nurse something I don't know what as though someone were in the room besides herself and it the corpse Elsa nodded he didn't want to die the girl went on after a while there was something between him and his son you know how unhappy he was about him he loved him his only son and he didn't want to die feeling that young Carrington hadn't redeemed himself you know what a black sheep he's been once I came into the room just after his son had left the old man had been crying I think it was that that kept him alive long after we knew his case was hopeless he told me once he couldn't die until his son had made good that his spirit would never rest his spirit did he say that yes the elder nurse's eyes closed slowly and her hands met in her lap do you think began Elsa leaning forward I don't know muttered the elder woman her voice scarcely audible both women came to their feet as they heard hurried footsteps approaching the intern entered a coat flung over his arm he's coming he announced Dr. Stockbridge entered the office visibly annoyed and angry his long fingers busy with the laces of his operating apron which he was removing behind him came unhurried and calm Carrington's lifelong friend and the will Madison Dodd what's this silly nonsense I hear about bells the surgeon demanded slipping into the coat the intern held and advancing toward the women why didn't you notify me sooner and why aren't you in the room to find out what it means miss Lloyd she just came from the room Dr. Stockbridge explain the elder nurse defending the girl there was no one there this is too absurd exploded the surgeon I've never heard of such a thing miss Lloyd should be in that room she's had no sleep doctor and she's very tired then why don't you go I you're afraid how ridiculous well we'll have he turned but the intern was gone Dr. Stockbridge frowned his eyes went toward the indicator when did that bell rang he demanded about ten minutes ago and a bell rang and a faint click came from the indicator the number 42 which had not been lowered vibrated it's been ringing every ten minutes just like that said the elder nurse edging away from the instrument Dr. Stockbridge frowned then starting across the room he pressed the knob releasing the number he turned to the nurse I'm going into that room myself he said severely and we'll have this nonsense over with someone is ringing that bell and we'll know who it is if it rings while I'm there let me know he stepped toward the door I'll go with you doctor said Carrington's friend speaking for the first time the men walked down the corridor side by side the door of room 42 is closed Dr. Stockbridge pushed it open impatiently and allowed Dodd to enter first I hope you'll forgive this nonsense Mr. Dodd he said closing the door these women there but Dodd paying no heed to the doctor was advancing toward the bed his face grave he stopped within a foot of it looking down the still form beneath him his hands clasped behind his back Dr. Stockbridge looked about the room its hospital bearness made it manifested once that no one could be concealed in it it seemed to him absurd and undignified that he should be engaged in such a feudal and meaningless undertaking he paced up and down pausing every now and then to observe the immobile figure of Carrington's friend wondering what he could be thinking of the whole pointless episode he was a little disturbed that Dodd should take the thing so seriously treat the matter with silent respect once he paused beside him I'm a man of science Mr. Dodd he began to me there's no such thing there was a light tap on the door and he stopped he strode to the door and opened it the interns head showed it rang the young man said Dr. Stockbridge's lips parted in astonishment his hand on the door he paused undecided looking toward Dodd for some intimation the course to pursue but Dodd had not stirred and Stockbridge turned to the youth thank you he said and closed the door for a moment he was at a loss but when he tried to speak he was silenced by Dodd's beckoning hand he approached stopping at Dodd's side his eyes following the other man's finger I want you to tell me what you see in his face said Dodd seems so strange to Dr. Stockbridge that he glanced up quickly to see if Dodd were an earnest what could he see in a dead man's face but death however a glance was sufficient to assure him of his companions earnestness and he lowered his eyes a long moment of silent scrutiny and then the surgeon bent lower his eyes narrowing yes he muttered odd by his discovery I see what you mean it's amazing it wasn't that way when he died what do you see interrupted Dodd the mouth said Dr. Stockbridge the corners seemed to droop more and the eyelids looked more strained his whole face seems to have changed as though he were dissatisfied prompted Dodd as the surgeon hesitated yes as though he were restless and unhappy about something ah muttered Dodd I noticed that when I first came into the room and I've been held by it Dr. Stockbridge he added looking up for the first time my old friend is restless dissatisfied his spirit is not at peace and that is why the bell is ringing then you think I'm certain and I've been standing here wondering what he was distressed about what message he was trying to convey he is trying to say something to us doctor he's trying to direct our attention to something he wants done he will not rest doctor until it is done I must try to understand him I must find out what he wants have you any idea perhaps but I'm not sure he turned shall we go back to the office he asked when they re-entered the office they found a group of interns and nurses gathered in a corner of the room the report of the mysterious calls from room 42 had spread throughout the building and an odd silent circle of men and women in hospital uniform were watching the indicator for the call that was momentarily expected an intern came forward as Dodd and the surgeon entered it rang twice while you were out he said and young Carrington is here in the inner office he was told and when he heard the bell ring and how the number came up he fainted he's lying down in there Dr. Stockbridge followed by Dodd hurried to the inner office Elsa Lloyd was bending over a couch by Edward Carrington his back to the door the girl came forward as the men entered he's better now, she said Dr. Stockbridge approached the couch caught Carrington's wrist and touched two fingers to his pulse the youth did not stir his arm hanging limp in the surgeon's grasp Dr. Stockbridge looked up at last and nodded reassuringly to Dodd then he turned to the girl I'll look after him, he said we won't need you tired to the window and he stood there his eyes fixed on the horizon in deep thought the surgeon came up to him poor fellow he muttered I can understand how he'd feel about it Dodd did not reply once more the bell in the outer office rang the indicator clicked Dr. Stockbridge turned to observe the effect on the youth he lay there very still as though he had not heard but his eyes turned to the wall were wide open he seemed too stunned for any sensation as the moments fled by the surgeon grew more and more ill at ease under the strain of the silence and the unsolved mystery he wondered why they were waiting there inactive undecided and yet when he tried to think what they could do he was at a loss he could not wait there all day however obedient to a vague call an intangible summons from the dead if only he could persuade Dodd of the absurdity of the whole situation but how could he convince Dodd when he was himself so completely at sea he had never believed in these things had always waved aside any testimony concerning spirits as the invention of gullible minds yet here before him there was evidence that he could not thrust aside so easily he paced the room restlessly finally pausing beside Carrington's friend what can we do he asked I am thinking said Dodd quietly his eyes still on the horizon but persisted the surgeon do you still believe I am sure that the bell is a summons to someone if you do not understand its message it is because it is not for you perhaps it is not even for me for I do not seem to grasp the meaning of it but it is calling to someone here or it would not ring and that one will understand if he is here still pursued the surgeon encouraged even granting the existence of a spirit that exists after death is it conceivable that a spirit can assert itself in this way as a man of science it seems too fanciful to me what? replied Dodd can be more fanciful than science itself it is dumb before the mysteries which it pretends to understand can you as a scientist explain to me why when a bell is pressed in room 42 a bell should ring in this room electricity begun the surgeon and what is electricity even science does not pretend to know is it not inconceivable that it should be able to flow through a solid copper wire and yet it does man's soul, his spirit is more mysterious than electricity why can it not flow through the ether and create a disturbance in its environment released from the body which it inhabited why can it not hover nearby and make its will known to those it wishes to reach Schofield Carrington's body died but his spirit refusing to die unsatisfied is still alive, restless, insistent urging the fulfillment of its desire that it may be set at peace and it will not give up until it is satisfied there he added as the bell rang it is still calling it will continue until he for whom it is meant obeys the call but who is it for? asked the surgeon weakly Madison Dodd turned slowly but his eyes did not meet the surgeons he came out of the room and came to pause on the figure of young Carrington who had stirred for the first time and was now sitting up, his elbows on his knees his face buried in his hands the surgeon followed his companion's gaze it suddenly came to him that perhaps young Carrington who had not uttered a word understood for he could see that beneath the surface of his immobility there was a great struggle going on that a difficult resolve was forming he turned to Dodd expecting some revelation from him the man's face was a mask his fingers were twined in the court hanging from the window shade and his eyes were fixed on the youth the surgeon observed the youth once more slowly Edward Carrington's hands lowered from his face slowly he rose and turned his eyes were clear his features were firm and he came forward with decision in his whole bearing Mr. Dodd he said with a low level voice pausing before his father's friend that bell was for me Dr. Stockbridge's eyes grew wide with amazement at the simple of owl but Madison Dodd's expression did not change well he prompted calmly his fingers still toying with the window shade court I've been fighting it out with myself said young Carrington all morning ever since father he paused and his lips were unsteady he felt how unhappy he was over me my failure to live up to his name and he died feeling that he had failed to redeem me but all morning I felt his nearness and when I came in here and they told me when I heard the bell and saw the call from his room I knew the call was for me I understood what he wanted me to do I obey he came forward a step and his hand went to his breast pocket he came forth and held a long envelope this is it he said handing the envelope to Dodd it is father's will it leaves me without a penny as he said it would I deserved nothing better the shade flew up with a bang as Madison Dodd released the cord and extended his hand for the envelope heavily sealed and addressed to him slowly he put on his gold-rimmed pincenaz to his nose and then he thrust his finger under the flap of the envelope to tear it open but he paused and looked up as he heard a low murmur in the outer office Dr. Stockbridge looked up too nurses and interns were whispering excitedly to each other their eyes on the clock the surgeon followed their glance and then he understood the meaning of their agitation the minute hand was pointing to the half hour the bell should have rung as it had rung every ten minutes all morning with an unfailing precision it had not rung the hushed excitement of the uniformed men and women grew in intensity as a minute passed and still the bell was not heard two minutes passed three minutes Dr. Stockbridge turned to Madison Dodd Carrington's friend stood near the window a sheaf of legal papers evidently the will in one hand a typewritten sheet in the other he was reading this and he looked up as the surgeon came toward him he waved his arm in the direction of the outer office send them away doctor he said quietly Carrington summons has been answered one by one the nurses and interns filed out of the office in obedience to Dr. Stockbridge's gesture of dismissal when they were gone the surgeon returned to the side of Madison Dodd you'll understand when I read this said Dodd he adjusted his glasses and brought the typewritten sheet closer this is my last test for Ed he read if he gives this envelope to you as I instructed him then my original will stands as it is leaving all to him when I gave my boy this envelope I told him it contained a new will disowning him and leaving him without a penny if he is enough manhood to give this to you then I shall know that he has repented and that he is the courage to take his punishment manfully in that case he will prove himself a true Carrington and will deserve the fortune that comes to him this is exactly as we planned it old friend my prayer is that he will make good my spirit shall not rest until he does and I trust that my everlasting peace will not be disturbed by my boy's craven failure to deliver this message to you Scofield Carrington Madison Dodd looked up his fingers folding the sheet he had just read Scofield Carrington's spirit is at peace now he said in a solemn voice the men's hands met at the door it was a silent clasp Dr. Stockbridge's lips pursed and his eyes lowered Mr. Dodd he said this is the first experience of the kind I've ever had as a man of science my dear doctor broken his companion science is still in its infancy someday it may be able to explain many things that are still beyond understanding he nodded and turned on his heel there was a smile on his face but Dr. Stockbridge did not see this basement later man as the car shot downward emerging from the cage Dodd hurried down the dimly lighted corridor he paused before a door over which there was a neatly printed sign electrician a man in overalls rose as Dodd entered touching his cap did I get that shade signal right he asked with a smile perfectly said Dodd drawing a banknote from his wallet and crushing it into the man's hand and now you may rearrange those wires you did splendidly thank you the man touched his cap and Madison Dodd nodding passed out of the room end of The Summons by Henry Ultimas recording by Colleen McMahon