 AT THE GATE by Myla Joe Closser 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 Brock Price AT THE GATE by Myla Joe Closser A shaggy aridale scented his way along the high road. He had not been there before, but he was guided by the trail of his brother who had preceded him. He had gone unwillingly upon this journey, yet with the perfect training of dogs he had accepted it without complaint. The path had been lonely, and his heart would have failed him, traveling as he must without his people, had not these traces of countless dogs before him promised companionship of a sort at the end of the road. The landscape had appeared arid at first, for the translation from recent agony into freedom from pain had been so numbing in its swiftness that it was some time before he could fully appreciate the pleasant dog country through which he was passing. There were woods with leaves upon the ground through which to scurry, long grassy slopes for extended runs, and lakes into which he might plunge for sticks and bring them back to. But he did not complete his thought, for the boy was not with him. A little wave of homesickness possessed him. It made his mind easier to see far ahead a great gate as high as the heavens, wide enough for all. He understood that man only built such barriers, and by straining his eyes he fancied he could discern humans passing through to whatever lay beyond. He broke into a run that he might the more quickly gain this enclosure made beautiful by men and women, but his thoughts outran his pace, and he remembered that he had left the family behind. And again this lovely new compound became not perfect, since it would lack the family. The scent of the dogs grew very strong now, and coming nearer he discovered to his astonishment that of the myriads of those who had arrived ahead of him, thousands were still gathered on the outside of the portal. They sat in a wide circle, spreading out on each side of the entrance, big, little, curly, handsome, mongrel, thoroughbred dogs of every age, complexion, and personality. All were apparently waiting for something, someone, and at the pad of the aridale's feet on the hard road they arose and looked in his direction. At the entrance past as soon as they discovered the newcomer to be a dog puzzled him. In his former dwelling place a four-footed brother was greeted with enthusiasm when he was a friend, with suspicious diplomacy when a stranger, and with sharp reproof when an enemy, but never had he been utterly ignored. He remembered something that he had read many times on great buildings with lofty entrances. Dogs not admitted, the signs had said, and he feared this might be the reason for the waiting circle outside the gate. It might be that this noble portal stood as the dividing line between mere dogs and humans. But he had been a member of the family, romping with them in the living room, sitting at meals with them in the dining room, going upstairs at night with them, and the thought that he was to be kept out would be unendurable. He despised the passive dogs. They should be treating a barrier after the fashion of their old country, leaping against it, barking and scratching the nicely painted door. He bounded up the last little hill to set them an example, for he was still full of the rebellion of the world. But he found no door to leap against. He could see beyond the entrance dear masses of people, yet no dog crossed the threshold. They continued in their patient ring, their gaze upon the winding road. He now advanced cautiously to examine the gate. It occurred to him that it must be flytime in this region, and he did not wish to make himself ridiculous before all these strangers by trying to bolt through an invisible mesh like the one that had baffled him when he was a little chap. Yet there were no screens, and despair entered his soul. What bitter punishment these poor beasts must have suffered before they learned to stay on this side the arch that led to human beings. What had they done on earth to merit this? When bones troubled his conscience, runaway days, sleeping in the best chair until the key clicked in the lock, these were sins. At that moment an English bull terrier, white with liver-colored spots and a jaunty manner approached him, snuffling in a friendly way. No sooner had the bull terrier smelt his collar than he fell to expressing his joy at meeting him. The Arradales reserve was quite thawed by this welcome, though he did not know just what to make of it. I know you. I know you, exclaimed the bull terrier, adding in consequently. What's your name? Tammo Shanter. They call me. Tammy was the answer with a pardonable break in the voice. I know them, said the bull terrier. Nice folks. Best ever, said the Arradale, trying to be nonchalant and scratching a flea which was not there. I don't remember you. When did you know them? About fourteen tags ago, when they were first married. We keep track of time here by the license tags. I had four. This is my first and only one. You were before my time, I guess. He felt young and shy. Come for a walk and tell me all about them, was his new friend's invitation. Aren't we allowed in there? Asked Tam, looking toward the gate. Sure, you can go in whenever you want to. Some of us do it first, but we don't stay. Like it better outside? No, no, it isn't that. The wire all you fellas hanging around here, any old dog can see it's better beyond the arch. You see, we're waiting for our folks to come. The Arradale grasped it at once and nodded, understandingly. I felt that way when I came along the road. It wouldn't be what it's supposed to be without them. It wouldn't be the perfect place. Not to us, said the Bolterrier. Fine, I've stolen bones, but it must be that I have been forgiven if I'm to see them here again. It's the great good place, all right. But look here, he added, as a new thought struck him. Do they wait for us? The older inhabitant coughed in slight embarrassment. The humans couldn't do that very well. It wouldn't be the thing to have them hang around outside for just a dog. Not dignified. Quite right, agreed Tam. I'm glad they go straight to their mansions. I'd hate to have them missing me as I am missing them, he sighed. But then they wouldn't have to wait so long. Oh, well, they're getting on. Don't be discouraged, comforted the terrier. And in the meantime, it's like a big hotel in summer, watching the new arrivals. See, there is something doing now. All the dogs were aroused to excitement by a little figure making its way and certainly up the last slope. Half of them started to meet it, crowding about in a loving, eager pack. Look out, don't scare it, cautioned the older animals, while word was passed to those farthest from the gate. Quick, quick, a baby's come. Before they had entirely assembled, however, a gaunt yellow hound pushed through the crowd, gave one sniff at the small child, and with the yelp of joy crouched at its feet. The baby embraced the hound in recognition, and the tube moved toward the gate. Just outside the hound stopped to speak to an aristocratic St. Bernard who had been friendly. Sorry to leave you, old fellow, he said. But I'm going in to watch over the kid. You see, I'm all she has up here. The bull terrier looked at the aridale for appreciation. That's the way we do it, he said proudly. Yes, but the aridale put his head on one side in perplexity. Yes. But what? asked the guide. The dogs that don't have any people, the nobody's dogs. That's the best of all. Oh, everything is thought out here. Crouched down, you must be tired. And watch, said the bull terrier. Soon they spied another small form making the turn in the road. He wore a Boy Scout's uniform, but he was a little fearful for all that, so new was this adventure. The dogs rose again and snuffled. But the better groomed of the circle held back, and in their place a pack of odds and ends of the company ran down to meet him. The Boy Scout was reassured by their friendly attitude, and after petting them impartially, he chose an old fashioned black and tan, and the tube passed in. Tam looked, questioningly. They didn't know each other, he exclaimed. But they've always wanted to. That's one of the boys who used to beg for a dog, but his father wouldn't let him have one. So all our strays wait for just such little fellows to come along. Every boy gets a dog, and every dog gets a master. I expect the boy's father would like to know that now, commented the aridale. No doubt he thinks quite often. I wish I'd let him have a dog. The Bolterrier laughed. You're pretty near the earth, aren't you? Tam admitted it. I've a lot of sympathy with fathers and with boys, having them both in the family, and a mother as well. The Bolterrier leaped up in astonishment. You don't mean to say they keep a boy. Sure, greatest boy on earth. Ten this year. Well, well, this is news. I wish they'd kept a boy when I was there. The aridale looked at his new friend intently. See here, who are you, he demanded. But the other hurried on. I used to run away from them just to play with a boy. They'd punish me, and I always wanted to tell them it was their fault for not getting one. Who are you, anyway? Repeted Tam. Talking all this interest in me, too. Whose dog were you? You've already guessed. I see it in your quivering snout. I'm the old dog that had to leave them, about ten years ago. They're all dog, bully? Yes. I'm bully. They knosed each other with deeper affection, then strolled about the glades shoulder to shoulder, bully the more eagerly pressed for news. Tell me, how are they getting along? Very well indeed. They've paid for the house. I... I suppose you occupy the kennel? No. They said they couldn't stand it to see another dog in your old place, bully stopped to howl gently. That touches me. It's generous in you to tell them, to think they missed me. For little while they went on in silence, but as evening fell, and the light from the golden streets inside of the city gave the only glow to the scene, bully grew nervous and suggested that they go back. We can't see so well at night, and I like to be pretty close to the path, especially toward morning, Tam assented. And I will point them out. You might not know them just at first. Oh, we know them. Sometimes the babies have so grown up they're rather hazy in their recollection of how we look. They think we're bigger than we are. But you can't fool us dogs. It's understood, Tam cunningly arranged, that when he or she arrives you'll sort of make them feel at home while I wait for the boy. That's the plan, assented bully, kindly. And if by any chance the little fellow should come first, there's been a lot of them this summer. Of course, you'll introduce me. I shall be proud to do it. And so with muzzles sunk between their paws, and with their eyes straining down the pilgrims' road, they wait outside the gate. End of At the Gate by Myla Joe Closser. The Background by Saki 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 Leknarf. The Background by Saki That woman's art jargon tires me, said Clovis to his journalist friend. She's so fond of talking of certain pictures as growing on one as though they were a sort of fungus. That reminds me, said the journalist, of the story of Henri de Plis. Have I ever told it to you? Clovis shook his head. Henri de Plis was by birth a native of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. On mature reflection he became a commercial traveler. His business activities frequently took him beyond the limits of the Grand Duchy, and he was stopping in a small town of northern Italy when news reached him from home that a legacy from a distant and deceased relative had fallen to his share. It was not a large legacy, even by the modest standpoint of Henri de Plis, but it impelled him toward some seemingly harmless extravagances. In particular, it led him to patronize local art as represented by the tattoo needles of Signore Andres Pincini. Signore Pincini was perhaps the most brilliant master of tattoo craft that Italy had ever known. But his circumstances were decidedly impoverished, and for the sum of six hundred francs he gladly undertook to cover his client's back, from the collarbone down to the waistline, with a glowing representation of the fall of Icarus. The design, when fully developed, was a slight disappointment to Montseur de Plis, who had suspected Icarus of being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War, but he was more than satisfied with the execution of the work, which was acclaimed by all who had the privilege of seeing it as Pincini's masterpiece. It was his greatest effort, and his last. Without even waiting to be paid, the illustrious craftsman departed this life and was buried under an ornate tombstone whose winged cherubs would have afforded singularly little scope for the exercise of his favorite art. There remained, however, the widow Pincini, to whom the six hundred francs were due, and thereupon arose the great crisis in the life of Henri de Plis, traveler of commerce. The legacy, under the stress of numerous little calls on its substance, had dwindled to very insignificant proportions, and when a pressing wine-bill and sundry other current accounts had been paid, there remained little more than four hundred thirty francs to offer to the widow. The lady was properly indignant, not wholly, as she volubly explained, on account of the suggested writing off of one hundred seventy francs, but also at the attempt to depreciate the value of her late husband's acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's time, de Plis was obliged to reduce his offer to four hundred five francs, which circumstance fanned the widow's indignation into a fury. She canceled the sale of the work of art, and a few days later de Plis learned with a sense of consternation that she had presented it to the municipality of Bergamo, which had gratefully accepted it. He left the neighborhood as unobtrusively as possible, and was genuinely relieved when his business commands took him to Rome, where he hoped his identity and that of the famous picture might be lost sight of. But he bore on his back the burden of the dead man's genius. On presenting himself one day in the steaming corridor of a vapor bath, he was at once hustled back into his clothes by the proprietor, who was a North Italian, and who emphatically refused to allow the celebrated fall of Icarus to be publicly on view without the permission of the municipality of Bergamo. Public interest and official vigilance increased as the matter became more widely known, and de Plis was unable to take a simple dip in the sea or river on the hottest afternoon unless clothed up to the collarbone in a substantial bathing garment. Later on the authorities of Bergamo conceived the idea that saltwater might be injurious to the masterpiece, and a perpetual injunction was obtained which debarred the much harassed commercial traveler from sea bathing under any circumstances. Altogether he was fervently thankful when his firm of employers found him a new range of activities in the neighborhood of Bordeaux. His thankfulness however ceased abruptly at the Franco-Italian frontier. An imposing array of officials' force barred his departure and he was sternly reminded of the stringent law which forbids the exportation of Italian works of art. A diplomatic parlay ensued between the Luxembourgian and Italian governments, and at one time the European situation became overcast with the possibilities of trouble. But the Italian government stood firm. It declined to concern itself in the least with the fortunes or even the existence of Henri de Plis, commercial traveler, but was immovable in its decision that the fall of Icarus by the late Pincini, Andreas, had present the property of the municipality of Bergamo should not leave the country. The excitement died down in time, but the unfortunate de Plis, who was of a constitutionally retiring disposition, found himself a few months later, once more, the storm center of a furious controversy. A certain German art expert who had obtained from the municipality of Bergamo permission to inspect the famous masterpiece declared it to be a spurious Pincini, probably the work of some pupil whom he had employed in his declining years. The evidence of de Plis on the subject was obviously worthless, as he had been under the influence of the customary narcotics during the long process of pricking in the design. The editor of an Italian art journal refuted the contentions of the German expert and undertook to prove that his private life did not conform to any modern standard of decency. The whole of Italy and Germany were drawn into the dispute, and the rest of Europe was soon involved in the quarrel. There were stormy scenes in the Spanish parliament, and the University of Copenhagen bestowed a gold medal on the German expert, afterwards sending a commission to examine his proofs on the spot, while two Polish schoolboys in Paris committed suicide to show what they thought of the matter. Meanwhile, the unhappy human background fared no better than before, and it was not surprising that he drifted into the ranks of Italian anarchists. Four times at least, he was escorted to the frontier as a dangerous and undesirable foreigner, but he was always brought back as the fall of Icarus attributed to Pincini, Andreas, early 20th century. And then one day, at an anarchist congress at Genoa, a fellow worker in the heat of debate broke a file of corrosive liquid over his back. The red shirt that he was wearing mitigated the effects, but the Icarus was ruined beyond recognition. His assailant was severely reprimanded for assaulting a fellow anarchist and received seven years' imprisonment for defacing a national art treasure. As soon as he was able to leave the hospital, Henri de Ple was put across the frontier as an undesirable alien. In the quieter streets of Paris, especially in the neighborhood of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may sometimes meet a depressed, anxious-looking man who, if you pass him the time of day, will answer you with a slight Luxembourgian accent. He nurses the illusion that he is one of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and hopes that the French government may be persuaded to buy him. On all other subjects, I believe he is tolerably sane, and of the background. Recording by Lechnerf. Banshees by Mr. Elliot O'Donnell. 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 Sejura. Banshees by Mr. Elliot O'Donnell. Of all Irish ghosts, fairies, or bogels, the Banshees, sometimes called locally the Bohintha or Bankintha, is the best known to the general public. Indeed, cross-channel visitors would class her with pigs, potatoes, and other flora and fauna of Ireland, and would expect her to make manifest her presence to them as being one of the sites of the country. She is a spirit with a lengthy pedigree, how lengthy no man can say as its roots go back into the dim, mysterious past. The most famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to the kingly house of O'Brien Abehill, who haunted the Rock of Kraglia above Killallow, near the old palace of Kinkora. In 8010-14 was fought the Battle of Klontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never come away alive, for the previous night Abehill had appeared to him to tell him of his impending fate. The Banshees' method of foretelling death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at the present day. Now, she wails and rings her hands as a general rule, but in the old Irish tale she is to be found washing human heads and limbs or bloodstained clothes till the water is all dyed with human blood. This would take place before a battle. So it would seem that in the course of centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat. Very different descriptions are given of her personal appearance. Sometimes she is young and beautiful, sometimes old, and of a fearsome appearance. One writer describes her as a tall, thin woman with uncovered head and long hair that floated around her shoulders, a tired in something which seemed either a loose white cloak or a sheet thrown hastily around her, uttering piercing cries. Another person, a coachman, saw her one evening sitting on a style in the yard. She seemed to be a very small woman with blue eyes, long light hair, and wearing a red cloak. Other descriptions will be found in this chapter. By the way, it does not seem to be true that the Banshees exclusively follows families of Irish descent, for the last incident had reference to the death of a member of a company Galway family, English by name and origin. One of the oldest and best known Banshees stories is that related to the memoirs of Lady Fonshaugh. Footnote. Scott's Lady of the Lake notes to Canto III, edition of 1811. And footnote. In 1642 her husband, Sir Richard, and she chanced to visit a friend, the head of an Irish sect, who resided in his ancient baronial castle surrounded with a moat. At midnight she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and looking out of bed beheld in the moonlight a female face and part of the form hovering at the window. The distance from the ground as well as the circumstance of the moat excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, was loose, and disheveled. The dress, which Lady Fonshaugh's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fonshaugh's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host which she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the superstition. A near relation of my family, said he, expired last night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event from you lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family or castle, the female spectre whom you have seen is always visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonor done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the moat. In strictness, this woman could hardly be termed a banshee. The motive for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch Drummer of Kortaki, where the spirit of the murdered man haunts the family out of revenge and appears before a death. Mr. T.J. Westrup, M.A., has furnished the following story. My maternal grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother, one of the Miss Ross Lewins who witnessed the occurrence. Their father, Mr. Harrison Ross Lewin, was away in Dublin on law business and in his absence the young people went off to spend the evening with a friend who lived some miles away. The night was fine and lightsome as they were returning, save at one point where the road ran between trees or high hedges not far to the west of the Old Church of Kilchrist. The latter, like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building with long side walls and high gables, and at that time it and its graveyard were unenclosed and lay in the open fields. As the party passed down the long dark lane they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and clapping of bands as the country people were accustomed to do when lamenting the dead. The Ross Lewins hurried on and came inside of the church on the side wall of which a little gray-haired old woman clad in a dark cloak was running to and fro chanting and wailing and throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened but the young men ran forward and surrounded the ruin and two of them went into the church the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They searched every nook and found no one nor did anyone pass out. All were now well scared and got home as fast as possible. On reaching their home their mother opened the door and at once told them that she was in terror about their father for as she sat looking out the window in the moonlight a huge raven with fiery eyes lit on the sill and tapped three times on the glass. They told her their story which only added to their anxiety and as they stood talking taps came to the nearest window and they saw the bird again. A few days later news reached them that Mr. Ross Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This occurred about 1776. Mr. Westrop also writes that the sister of a former Roman Catholic Bishop told his sisters that when she was a little girl she went out one evening with some other children for a walk. Going down the road they passed the gate of the principal domain near the town. There was a rock or large stone beside the road on which they saw something. Going nearer they perceived it to be a little dark old woman who began crying and clapping her hands. Some of them attempted to speak to her but got frightened and all finally ran home as quickly as they could. Next day the news came that the gentleman near whose gate the banshee had cried was dead and it was found on inquiry that he had died at the very hour at which the children had seen the specter. A lady who was a relation of one of the compilers and a member of a company cork family of English descent sends the two following experiences of a banshee in her family. My mother when a young girl was standing looking out of the window in their house at Black Rock near cork. She suddenly saw a white figure standing on a bridge which was easily visible from the house. The figure waved her arms towards the house and my mother heard the bitter wailing of the banshee. It lasted some seconds and then the figure disappeared. Next morning my grandfather was walking as usual into the city of cork. He accidentally fell, hit his head against the curb stone and never recovered consciousness. In March 1900 my mother was very ill and one evening the nurse and I were with her arranging her bed. We suddenly heard the most extraordinary wailing which seemed to come in waves around and under her bed. We naturally looked everywhere to try and find the cause but in vain. The nurse and I looked at one another but made no remark as my mother did not seem to hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting with my father. She heard it and thought some terrible thing had happened to her little boy who was in bed upstairs. She rushed up and found him sleeping quietly. My father did not hear it. In the house next door they heard it and ran downstairs thinking something had happened to the servant. But the latter at once said to them, did you hear the banshee? Mrs. P. must be dying. A few years ago, that is, before 1894, a curious incident occurred in a public school in connection with the belief in the banshee. One of the boys happening to become ill was at once placed in a room by himself where he used to sit all day. On one occasion, as he was being visited by the doctor, he suddenly started up from his seat and affirmed that he heard somebody crying. The doctor, of course, who could hear or see nothing, came to the conclusion that the illness had slightly affected his brain. However, the boy who appeared quite sensible still persisted that he heard someone crying and furthermore said, it is the banshee as I've heard it before. The following morning the headmaster received a telegram saying that the boy's brother had been accidentally shot dead. Footnote. A. G. Bradley notes on some Irish superstitions, page nine, and footnote that the banshee is not confined within the geographical limits of Ireland but that she can follow the fortunes of a family abroad and therefore tell their death is clearly shown by the following story. A party of visitors were gathered together on the deck of a private yacht on one of the Italian lakes, and during a lull in the conversation, one of them, a colonel, said to the owner, Count, who's that queer-looking woman you have on board? The Count replied that there was nobody except the ladies present and the stewardess, but the speaker protested that he was correct and suddenly with a scream of horror he placed his hands before his eyes and exclaimed, Oh my God, what a face! For some time he was overcome with terror and at length reluctantly looked up and cried, Thank heavens it's gone. What was it? asked the Count. Nothing human, replied the colonel, nothing belonging to this world. It was a woman of no earthly type with a queer-shaped gleaming face, a mass of red hair, and eyes that would have been beautiful but for their expression, which was hellish. She had on a green hood after the fashion of an Irish peasant. An American lady present suggested that the description tallied with that of the banshee upon which the Count said, I am an O'Neill, at least I am descended from one. My family name is, as you know, Nilsini, which little more than a century ago was O'Neill. My great grandfather served in the Irish Brigade and on its dissolution at the time of the French Revolution had the good fortune to escape the general massacre of officers. An in company with an O'Brien and a Maguire fled across the frontier and settled in Italy. On his death his son, who had been born in Italy and was far more Italian than Irish, changed his name to Nilsini by which name the family has been known ever since. But for all that we are Irish, the banshee was yours then ejaculated the colonel. What exactly does it mean? It means, the Count replied solemnly, the death of someone very nearly associated with me. Pray heaven it is not my wife or daughter. On that score however his anxiety was speedily removed for within two hours he was seized with a violent attack of Angina pectoris and died before mourning. Footnote. A cult review for September 1913 and footnote. Mr. Elliot O'Donnell to whose article on banshees we are indebted for the above adds, the banshee never manifests itself to the person whose death it is prognosticating. Other people may see or hear it but the faded one never so that when every one present is aware of it but one the fate of that one may be regarded as pretty well certain. End of Banshees recording by Cejura. Between the lights by E. F. Benson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rafe Ball. Between the lights by E. F. Benson. The day had been one unceasing fall of snow from sunrise until the gradual withdrawal of the vague white light outside indicated that the sun had set again. But as usual at this hospitable and delightful house of Everard Chandler where I often spent Christmas and was spending it now, there had been no lack of entertainment and the hours had passed with a rapidity that had surprised us. A short billiard tournament had filled up the time between breakfast and lunch with badminton and the morning papers for those who were temporarily not engaged. While afterwards the interval till tea-time had been occupied by the majority of the party in a huge game of hide-and-seek all over the house, barring the billiard room, which was sanctuary for any who desired peace. But few had done that. The enchantment of Christmas, I must suppose, had, like some spell, made children of us again, and it was with palsied terror and trembling misgivings that we had tiptoed up and down the dim passages, from any corner of which some wild screaming form might dart out on us. Then, wearied with exercise and emotion, we had assembled again for tea in the hall, a room of shadows and panels on which the light from the wide open fireplace, where they burned a divine mixture of peat and logs, flickered and grew bright again on the walls. Then, as was proper, ghost stories, for the narration of which the electric light was put out, so that the listeners might conjecture anything they pleased to be lurking in the corners, succeeded, and we vied with each other in blood, bones, skeletons, armour, and shrieks. I had just given my contribution, and was reflecting with some complacency that probably the worst was now known, when Everard, who had not yet administered to the horror of his guests, spoke. He was sitting opposite me in the full blaze of the fire, looking, after the illness he had gone through during the autumn, still rather pale and delicate. All the same, he had been among the boldest and best in the exploration of dark places that afternoon, and the look on his face now rather startled me. No. I don't mind that sort of thing, he said. The paraphernalia of ghosts has become somehow rather hackneyed, and when I hear of screams and skeletons, I feel I am on familiar ground, and can at least hide my head under the bedclothes. Ah! But the bedclothes were twitched away by my skeleton, said I, in self-defense. I know. But I don't even mind that. Why? There are seven, eight skeletons in this room now, covered with blood and skin and other horrors. No. The nightmares of one's childhood were the really frightening things, because they were vague. There was the true atmosphere of horror about them, because one didn't know what one feared. Now, if one could recapture that, Mrs. Chandler got quickly out of her seat. Oh, Evarad, she said. Surely you don't wish to recapture it again. I should have thought once was enough. This was enchanting. A chorus of invitation asked him to proceed. The real true ghost story firsthand, which was what seemed to be indicated, was too precious a thing to lose. Evarad laughed. No, dear. I don't want to recapture it again at all, he said to his wife. Then to us, but really that—well, the nightmare perhaps, to which I was referring, is of the vaguest and most unsatisfactory kind. It has no apparatus about it at all. You will probably all say that it was nothing and wonder why I was frightened. But I was. It frightened me out of my wits. And I only just saw something, without being able to swear what it was, and heard something, which might have been a falling stone. Anyhow, tell us about the falling stone, said I. There was a stir of movement about the circle round the fire, and the movement was not of purely physical order. It was as if—this is only what I personally felt—it was as if the childish gaiety of the hours we had passed that day was suddenly withdrawn. We had gested on certain subjects. We had played hide-and-seek with all the power of earnestness that was in us. But now, so it seemed to me, there was going to be real hide-and-seek. Real terrors were going to lurk in dark corners, or if not real terrors, terrors so convincing as to assume the garb of reality were going to pounce on us. And Mrs. Chandler's exclamation as she sat down again, oh Everard, won't it excite you, tended in any case to excite us. The room still remained in dubious darkness, except for the sudden lights disclosed on the walls by the leaping flames on the hearth, and there was wide field for conjecture as to what might lurk in the dim corners. Everard, moreover, who had been sitting in bright light before, was banished by the extinction of some flaming log into the shadows. A voice alone spoke to us as he sat back in his low chair, a voice rather slow but very distinct. Last year, he said, on the 24th of December, we were down here as usual, Amy and I, for Christmas. Several of you who are here now were here then, three or four of you at least. I was one of these, but like the others kept silence, for the identification, so it seemed to me, was not asked for, and he went on again without a pause. Those of you who were here then, he said, and are here now, will remember how very warm it was this day last year. You will remember too that we played croquet that day on the lawn. It was perhaps a little cold for croquet, and we played it rather in order to be able to say with sound evidence to back the statement that we had done so. Then he turned and addressed the whole little circle. We played ties of half-games, he said, just as we have played billiards today, and it was certainly as warm on the lawn then as it was in the billiard room this morning directly after breakfast, while today I should not wonder if there was three feet of snow outside. More probably. Listen. A sudden draft fluted in the chimney, and the fire flared up as the current of air caught it. The wind also drove the snow against the windows, and as he said, listen, we heard a soft scurry of the falling flakes against the panes, like the soft tread of many little people who stepped lightly, but with the presence of multitudes who were flocking to some rendezvous. Hundreds of little feet seemed to be gathering outside, only the glass kept them out. And of the eight skeletons present, four or five, anyhow, turned and looked at the windows. These were small pained with leaden bars. On the leaden bars little heaps of snow had accumulated, but there was nothing else to be seen. Yes, last Christmas Eve was a very warm and sunny, went on Everard. We had no frost that autumn, and a tremorarius dailier was still in flower. I've always thought that it must have been mad. He paused a moment, and I wonder if I were not mad too, he added. No one interrupted him. There was something arresting, I must suppose, in what he was saying. It chimed in anyhow with the hide-and-seek, with the suggestions of the lonely snow. Mrs. Chandler had sat down again, but I heard her stir in her chair. But never was there a gay party so reduced as we had been in the last five minutes. Instead of laughing at ourselves for playing silly games, we were all taking a serious game, seriously. Anyhow, I was sitting out, he said to me, while you and my wife played your half-game of croquet. Then it struck me that it was not so warm as I had supposed, because quite suddenly I shivered, and shivering I looked up. But I did not see you and her playing croquet at all. I saw something which had no relation to you and her. At least, I hope not. Now the angler lands his fish, the stalker kills his stag, and the speaker holds his audience. And as the fish is gaffed, and as the stag is shot, so were we held. There was no getting away till he had finished with us. You all know the croquet lawn, he said, and how it is bounded all round by a flower border with a brick wall behind it, through which, you will remember, there is only one gate. Well, I looked up and saw that the lawn, I could for one moment see it was still a lawn, was shrinking, and the walls closing in upon it. As they closed in too, they grew higher and simultaneously the light began to fade and be sucked from the sky, till it grew quite dark overhead, and only a glimmer of light came in through the gate. There was, as I told you, a dailier in flower that day, and as this dreadful darkness and bewilderment came over me, I remember that my eyes sorted in a kind of despair, holding on, as it were, to any familiar object. But it was no longer a dailier, and for the red of its petals I saw only the red of some feeble firelight, and at that moment the hallucination was complete. I was no longer sitting on the lawn watching croquet, but I was in a low-roofed room, something like a cattle shed, but round. Close above my head, though I was sitting down, ran rafters from wall to wall. It was nearly dark, but a little light came in from the door opposite to me, which seemed to lead into a passage that communicated with the exterior of the place. Little, however, of the wholesome air came into this dreadful den. The atmosphere was oppressive and foul beyond all telling. It was as if for years it had been the place of some human menagerie, and for those years had been uncleaned and unsweetened by the winds of heaven. Yet that oppressiveness was nothing to the awful horror of the place from the view of the spirit. Some dreadful atmosphere of crime, and abomination dwelt heavy in it. Its denizens, whoever they were, were scarce human, so it seemed to me, and though men and women were akin more to the beasts of the field. And in addition there was present to me some sense of the weight of years. I had been taken and thrust down into some epoch of dim antiquity. He paused the moment, and the fire on the hearth leaked up for a second, and then died down again. But in that gleam I saw that all faces were turned to Everard, and that all wore some look of dreadful expectancy. Certainly I felt it myself, and waited in a sort of shrinking horror for what was coming. As I told you, he continued, where there had been that unseasonable dailier, there now burned a dim firelight, and my eyes were drawn there. Shapes were gathered round it. What they were I could not at first see. Then perhaps my eyes got more accustomed to the dusk, or the fire burned better, for I perceived that they were of human form, but very small, for when one rose with a horrible chattering to his feet, his head was still some inches off the low roof. He was dressed in a sort of shirt that came to his knees, but his arms were bare and covered with hair. Then the gesticulation and chattering increased, and I knew that they were talking about me, for they kept pointing in my direction. At that my horror suddenly deepened, for I became aware that I was powerless and could not move hand or foot. A helpless nightmare impotence had possession of me. I could not lift a finger or turn my head, and in the paralysis of that fear I tried to scream. But not a sound could I utter. All this, I suppose, took place with the instantaneousness of a dream. Foot once, and without transition, the whole thing had vanished, and I was back on the lawn again, while the stroke for which my wife was aiming was still unplayed. But my face was dripping with perspiration, and I was trembling all over. Now you may all say that I had fallen asleep and had a sudden nightmare. That may be so, but I was conscious of no sense of sleepiness before, and I was conscious of none afterwards. It was as if someone had held a book before me, whisked the pages open for a second, and closed to them again. Somebody, I don't know who, got up from his chair with a sudden movement that made me start, and turned on the electric light. I do not mind confessing that I was rather glad of this. Everard laughed. Really, I feel like Hamlet in the play scene. He said, and as if there was a guilty uncle present, shall I go on? I don't think anyone replied, and he went on. Well, let us say for the moment that it was not a dream exactly, but a hallucination. Whichever it was, in any case, it haunted me. For months, I think, it was never quite out of my mind, but lingered somewhere in the dusk of consciousness, sometimes sleeping quietly, so to speak, but sometimes stirring in its sleep. It was no good my telling myself that I was disquieting myself in vain, for it was as if something had actually entered into my very soul, as if some seed of horror had been planted there. And as the weeks went on, the seed began to sprout, so that I could no longer even tell myself that the vision had been a moment's disordermate only. I can't say that it actually affected my health. I did not as far as I know sleep or eat insufficiently, but morning after morning I used to wake, not gradually and through pleasant dozing into full consciousness, but with absolute suddenness, and find myself plunged into an abyss of despair. Often, too, eating or drinking, I used to pause and wonder if it was worthwhile. Eventually I told two people about my trouble, hoping that perhaps the mere communication would help matters, hoping also, but very distantly, that though I could not believe at present that digestion or the obscurities of the nervous system were at fault, a doctor by some simple dose might convince me of it. In other words, I told my wife, who laughed at me, and my doctor, who laughed also, and assured me that my health was quite unnecessarily robust. At the same time, he suggested that change of air and scene does wonders for the delusions that exist merely in the imagination. He also told me, in answer to a direct question, that he would stake his reputation on the certainty that I was not going mad. Well, we went up to London as usual for the season, and though nothing whatever occurred to remind me in any way of that single moment on Christmas Eve, the reminding was seen to all right, the moment itself took care of that. For instead of fading, as is the way of sleeping or waking dreams, it grew every day more vivid, and ate, so to speak, like some corrosive acid into my mind, etching itself there. And to London succeeded Scotland. I took last year, for the first time, a small forest up in Sutherland, called Glen Callan, very remote and wild, but affording excellent stalking. It was not far from the sea, and the gillies used always to warn me to carry a compass on the hill, because sea mists were liable to come up with frightful rapidity, and there was always a danger of being caught by one, and of having perhaps to wait hours till it cleared again. This at first I always used to do, but as everyone knows, any precaution that one takes which continues to be unjustified gets gradually relaxed, and at the end of a few weeks, since the weather had been uniformly clear, it was natural that, as often as not, my compass remained at home. One day the stalk took me on to a part of my ground that I had seldom been on before, a very high table land on the limit of my forest, which went down very steeply on one side to a lock that lay below it, and on the other by gentler gradations to the river that came from the lock, six miles below which stood the lodge. The wind had necessitated our climbing up, or so my stalker had insisted, not by the easier way, but up the crags from the lock. I had argued the point with him, for it seemed to me that it was impossible that the deer could get our scent if we went by the more natural path, but he still held to his opinion, and therefore, since after all this was part of his job, I yielded. A dreadful climb we had of it, over big boulders with deep holes in between, masked by clumps of heather, so that a wary eye and a prodding stick were necessary for each step, if one wished to avoid broken bones. Adders also literally swarmed in the heather. We must have seen a dozen at least on our way up, and adders are a beast for which I have no manner of use. But a couple of hours saw us to the top, only to find that the stalker had been utterly at fault, and that the deer must quite infallibly have got wind of us, if they had remained in the place where we last saw them. That, when we could spy the ground again, we saw had happened. In any case, they had gone. The man insisted the wind had changed, a palpably stupid excuse, and I wondered at that moment what other reason he had, for reason I felt sure there must be, for not wishing to take what would clearly now have been a better route. But this piece of bad management did not spoil our luck, for within an hour we spied more, dear, and about two o'clock I got a shot killing a heavy stag. Then, sitting on the heather, I ate lunch and enjoyed a well-earned bask and smoke in the sun. The pony, meantime, had been saddled with the stag, and was plodding homewards. The morning had been extraordinarily warm, with a little wind blowing off the sea, which lay a few miles off, sparkling beneath a blue haze, and all morning, in spite of our abominable climb, I had had an extreme sense of peace. So much so that several times I had probed my mind, so to speak, to find if the horror still lingered there. But I could scarcely get any response from it. Never since Christmas had I been so free of fear, and it was with a great sense of repose, both physical and spiritual, that I lay looking up into the blue sky, watching my smoke-worlds curl slowly away into nothingness. But I was not allowed to take my ease long, for sandy came and begged that I would move. The weather had changed, he said. The wind had shifted again, and he wanted me to be off this high ground and onto the path again as soon as possible, because it looked to him as if a sea mist would presently come up. And Yon's a bad place to get down in the mist, he added, nodding towards the crags we had come up. I looked at the man in amazement, for to our right lay a gentle slope down onto the river, and there was now no possible reason for again tackling those hideous rocks up which we had climbed this morning. More than ever I was sure he had some secret reason for not wishing to go the obvious way. But about one thing he was certainly right. The mist was coming up from the sea, and I felt in my pocket for the compass and found I had forgotten to bring it. Then there followed a curious scene which lost us time that we could really ill afford to waste. I, insisting on going down by the way that common sense directed, he imploring me to take his word for it that the crags were the better way. Eventually I marched off to the easter descent and told him not to argue any more but follow. What annoyed me about him was that he would only give the most senseless reasons for preferring the crags. There were mossy places, he said, on the way I wished to go. A thing patently false, since the summer had been one spell of unbroken weather, or it was longer, also obviously untrue, or that there were so many vipers about. But seeing that none of these arguments produced any effect, at last he desisted and came after me in silence. We were not yet half down when the mist was upon us, shooting up from the valley like the broken water of a wave, and in three minutes we were enveloped in a cloud of fog so thick that we could barely see a dozen yards in front of us. It was therefore another course for self-congratulation that we were not now, as we should otherwise have been, precariously clambering on the face of those crags up which we had come with such difficulty in the morning, and as I rather prided myself on my powers of generalship in the matter of direction, I continued leading, feeling sure that before long we should strike the track by the river. More than all, the absolute freedom from fear elated me. Since Christmas I had not known the instinctive joy of that. I felt like a schoolboy home for the holidays, but the mist grew thicker and thicker, and whether it was that real rain clouds had formed above it, or that it was of an extraordinary density itself, I got wetter in the next hour than I have ever been before or since. The wet seemed to penetrate the skin and chill the very bones, and still there was no sign of the track for which I was making. Behind me, muttering to himself, followed the stalker, but his arguments and protestations were dumb, and it seemed as if he kept close to me, as if afraid. Now, there are many unpleasant companions in this world. I would not, for instance, care to be on the hill with a drunkard or a maniac, but worse than either, I think, is a frightened man, because his trouble is infectious, and insensibly I began to be afraid of being frightened too. From that, it is but a short step to fear. Other perplexities too beset us. At one time we seemed to be walking on flat ground, at another I felt sure we were climbing again, whereas all the time we ought to have been descending, unless we had missed the way very badly indeed. Also, for the month was October, it was beginning to get dark, and it was with a sense of relief that I remembered the full moon would rise soon after sunset. But it had grown very much colder, and soon, instead of rain, we found we were walking through a steady fall of snow. Things were pretty bad, but then for the moment they seemed to mend, for, far away to the left, I suddenly heard the brawling of the river. It should, it is true, have been straight in front of me, and we were perhaps a mile out of our way. But this was better than the blind wandering of the last hour, and turning to the left I walked towards it. But before I had gone a hundred yards I heard a sudden choked cry behind me, and just saw Sandy's form flying, as if in terror of pursuit, into the mists. I called to him, but got no reply, and heard only the spurned stones of his running. What had frightened him? I had no idea, but certainly with his disappearance the infection of his fear disappeared also, and I went on, I may almost say, with gaiety. On the moment however I saw a sudden well-defined blackness in front of me, and before I knew what I was doing I was half stumbling, half walking up a very steep grass slope. During the last few minutes the wind had got up, and the driving snow was peculiarly uncomfortable, but there had been a certain consolation in thinking that the wind would soon disperse these mists, and I had nothing more than a moonlight walk home. But as I paused on this slope I became aware of two things. One that the blackness in front of me was very close, the other that whatever it was it sheltered me from the snow. So I climbed on a dozen yards into its friendly shelter, for it seemed to me to be friendly. A wall some twelve feet high crowned a slope, and exactly where I struck it there was a hole in it, or door rather, through which a little light appeared. Wondering at this I pushed on, bending down, for the passage was very low, and in a dozen yards came out on the other side. Just as I did this the sky suddenly grew lighter, the wind I suppose having dispersed the mists, and the moon, though not yet visible through the flying skirts of cloud, made sufficient illumination. I was in a circular enclosure, and above me there projected from the walls some four feet from the ground broken stones which must have been intended to support a floor. Then simultaneously two things occurred. The whole of my nine months terror came back to me, for I saw that the vision in the garden was fulfilled, and at the same moment I saw stealing towards me a little figure as of a man, but only about three foot six in height. That my eyes told me, my ears told me that he stumbled on a stone, my nostrils told me that the air I breathed was of an overpowering foulness, and my soul told me that it was sick unto death. I think I tried to scream, but could not. I know I tried to move, and could not. And it crept closer. Then I supposed the terror which held me spellbound so spurred me that I must move. For next moment I heard a cry break from my lips and was stumbling through the passage. I made one leap of it down the grass slope, and ran as I hoped never to have to run again. What direction I took I did not pause to consider, so long as I put distance between me and that place. Luck, however, favoured me, and before long I struck the track by the river, and an hour afterwards reached the lodge. Next day I developed a chill, and as you know, pneumonia laid me on my back for six weeks. Well, that is my story, and there are many explanations. You may say that I fell asleep on the lawn, and was reminded of that by finding myself under discouraging circumstances in an old picked castle, where a sheep or a goat that, like myself, had taken shelter from the storm was moving about. Yes, there are hundreds of ways in which you may explain it, but the coincidence was an odd one, and those who believe in second sight might find an instance of their hobby in it. And that is all, I asked. Yes, it was nearly too much for me. I think the dressing-bell has sounded. End of Between the Lights. Recording by Rafe Ball. The Case of Vincent Perwitt by Barry Payne 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 Louise J. Bell. The Case of Vincent Perwitt by Barry Payne The death of Vincent Perwitt, J.P. of Ellardon House, Ellardon, in the county of Buckingham, would, in the ordinary way, have received no more attention than the death of any other simple country gentleman. The circumstances of his death, however, though now long since forgotten, were sensational and attracted some notice at the time. It was one of those cases which is easily forgotten within a year, except just in the locality where it occurred. The most sensational circumstances of the case never came before the public at all. I give them here simply and plainly. The psychical people may make what they like of them. Perwitt himself was a very ordinary country gentleman, a good fellow but in no way brilliant. He was devoted to his wife, who was some fifteen years younger than himself and remarkably beautiful. She was quite a good woman but she had her faults. She was fond of admiration and she was an abominable flirt. She misled men very cleverly and was then sincerely angry with them for having been misled. Her husband never troubled his head about these flirtations, being assured quite rightly that she was a good woman. He was not jealous. She, on the other hand, was possessed of a jealousy amounting almost to insanity. This might have caused trouble if he had ever provided her with the slightest basis on which her jealousy could work but he never did. With the exception of his wife women bored him. I believe she did once or twice try to make a scene for some preposterous reason which was no reason at all but nothing serious came of it and there was never a real quarrel between them. On the death of his wife, after a prolonged illness, Perwitt wrote and asked me to come down to Ellardon for the funeral and to remain at least a few days with him. He would be quite alone and I was his oldest friend. I hate attending funerals but I was his oldest friend and I was moreover a distant relation of his wife. I had no choice and I went down. There were many visitors in the house for the funeral which took place in the village churchyard but they left immediately afterwards. The air of heavy gloom which had hung over the house seemed to lift a little. The servants, servants are always very emotional, continued to break down at intervals, noticeably Perwitt's man Williams, but Perwitt himself was self-possessed. He spoke of his wife with great affection and regret but still he could speak of her and not unsteadily. At dinner he also spoke of one or two other subjects of politics and of his duties as a magistrate and of course he made the requisite fuss about his gratitude to me for coming down to Ellardon at that time. After dinner we sat in the library, a room well and expensively furnished but without the least attempt at taste. There were a few oil paintings on the walls, a presentation portrait of himself, and a landscape or two, all more or less bad as far as I remember. He had eaten next to nothing at dinner but he had drunk a good deal. The wine however did not seem to have the least effect upon him. I had got the conversation definitely off the subject of his wife when I made a blunder. I noticed an Erickson's extension standing on his writing table. I said, I didn't know that telephones had penetrated into the villages yet? Yes, he said. I believe they are common enough now. I had that one fitted up during my wife's illness to communicate with her bedroom on the floor above us on the other side of the house. At that moment the bell of the telephone rang sharply. We both looked at each other. I said with the stupid affectation of calmness one always puts on when one is a little bit frightened, probably a servant in that room wishes to speak to you. He got up, walked over to the machine, and swung the green cord towards me. The end of it was loose. I had it disconnected this morning, he said. Also the door of that room is locked and no one can possibly be in it. He had turned the color of gray blotting paper. So probably had I. The bell rang again, a prolonged rattling ring. Are you going to answer it? I said. I am not. He answered firmly. Then I said I shall answer it myself. It is some stupid trick, a joke, not in the best of taste, for which you will probably have to sack one or other of your domestics. My servants, he answered, would not have done that. Besides, don't you see it is impossible? The instrument is disconnected. The bell rang all the same. I shall try it. I picked up the receiver. Are you there? I called. The voice which answered me was unmistakably the rather high staccato voice of Mrs. Perwitt. I want you, it said, to tell my husband that he will be with me tomorrow. I still listened. Nothing more was said. I repeated, are you there? And still there was no answer. I turned to Perwitt. There is no one there, I said. Possibly there is thunder in the air affecting the bell in some mysterious way. There must be some simple explanation, and I'll find it all out tomorrow. He went to bed early that night. All the following day I was with him. We rode together, and I expected an accident every minute, but none happened. All the evening I expected him to turn suddenly faint and ill, but that also did not happen. When at about ten o'clock he excused himself and said good night, I felt distinctly relieved. He went up to his room and rang for Williams. The rest is, of course, well known. The servant's reason had broken down, possibly the immediate cause being the death of Mrs. Perwitt. On entering his master's room, without the least hesitation, he raised a loaded revolver which he carried in his hand and shot Perwitt through the heart. I believe the case is mentioned in some of the textbooks on homicidal mania. End of The Case of Vincent Perwitt by Barry Payne. Recording by Louise J. Bell. Sebastopol, California. The Cats of Ulther 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. The Cats of Ulther by H.P. Lovecraft. It is said that in Ulther, which lies beyond the river sky, no man may kill a cat, and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Egyptis, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in morrow and of fear. He is the kin of the jungle's lords, and heir to the secrets of Horry and Sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language. But he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten. In Ulther, before the Burgesses forbade the killing of cats, there dwelt an old Cotter and his wife, who delighted to trap and slay the cats of their neighbors. Why they did this I know not, save that many hate the voice of the cat in the night, and take it ill that cats should run stealthily about yards and gardens at twilight. But whatever the reason, this old man and woman took pleasure in trapping and slaying every cat which came near to their hovel. And from some of the sounds heard after dark, many villagers fancied that the manner of slaying was exceedingly peculiar. But the villagers did not discuss such things with the old man and his wife, because of the habitual expression on the withered faces of the two, and because their cottage was so small and so darkly hidden under spreading oaks at the back of a neglected yard. In truth, much as the owners of cats hated these odd folk, they feared them even more. And instead of berating them as brutal assassins, merely took care that no cherished pet or mouser should straight toward the remote hovel under the dark trees. When through some unavoidable oversight a cat was missed, and sounds heard after dark, the loser would lament impotently, or console himself by thanking fate that it was not one of his children who had vanished. For the people of Ulther were simple, and knew not once it is all cats first came. One day a caravan of strange wanderers from the south entered the narrow cobbled streets of Ulther. Dark wanderers they were, and unlike the other roving folk who passed through the village twice every year, in the marketplace they told the fortunes for silver and bought gay beads from the merchants. What was the land of these wanderers none could tell, but it was seen that they were given to strange prayers, and that they had painted on the sides of their wagons strange figures with human bodies and the heads of cats, hawks, rams, and lions. And the leader of the caravan wore a headdress with two horns, and a curious disc betwixt the horns. There was in this singular caravan a little boy with no father or mother, but only a tiny black kitten to cherish. The plague had not been kind to him, yet had left him this small furry thing to mitigate his sorrow. And when one is very young one can find great relief in the lively antics of a black kitten. So the boy, whom the dark people called Manet, smiled more often than he wept as he sat playing with his graceful kitten on the steps of an oddly painted wagon. On the third morning of the wanderers stay in Ulther. Manet could not find his kitten, and as he sobbed aloud in the marketplace, certain villagers told him of the old man and his wife, and of sounds heard in the night. And when he heard these things his sobbing gave place to meditation and finally to prayer. He stretched out his arms toward the sun and prayed in a tongue no villager could understand, though indeed the villagers did not try very hard to understand, since their attention was mostly taken up by the sky and the odd shapes the clouds were assuming. It was very peculiar, but as the little boy uttered his petition there seemed to form overhead the shadowy nebulous figures of exotic things of hybrid creatures crowned with horn flanked discs. Nature is full of such illusions to impress the imaginative. That night the wanderers left Ulther and were never seen again, and the householders were troubled when they noticed that in all the village there was not a cat to be found. From each hearth the familiar cat had vanished. Cats large and small, black, gray, striped, yellow, and white. Old Cranon, the burgo master, swore that the dark folk had taken the cats away in revenge for the killing of Manet's kitten and cursed the caravan and the little boy. But Nith, the lean notary, declared that the old cauter and his wife were more likely persons to suspect, for their hatred of cats was notorious and increasingly bold. Still, no one durst complained to the sinister couple, even when little Atal, the innkeeper's son, vowed that he had seen all the cats of Ulther in that accursed yard under the trees, pacing very slowly and solemnly in a circle around the cottage, too abreast, as if in performance of someone heard of right of beasts, the villagers did not know how much to believe from so small a boy. And though they feared that the evil pair had charmed the cats to their death, they preferred not to chide the old cauter till they met him outside his dark and repellent yard. So Ulther went to sleep in vain anger, and when the people awakened at dawn, behold, every cat was back at his accustomed hearth. Large and small, black, gray, striped, yellow and white, none was missing. Very sleek and fat did the cats appear, and sonorous with purring content. The citizens talked with one another of the affair, and marveled not a little. Old Cranon again insisted that it was the dark folk who had taken them, since cats did not return alive from the cottage of the ancient man and his wife, but all agreed on one thing, that the refusal of all the cats to eat their portions of meat or drink their saucers of milk was exceedingly curious, and for two whole days the sleek, lazy cats of Ulther would touch no food, but only doze by the fire or in the sun. It was fully a week before the villagers noticed that no lights were appearing at dusk in the windows of the cottage under the trees. Then the lean nith remarked that no one had seen the old man or his wife since the night the cats were away. In another week the burgomaster decided to overcome his fears and call at the strangely silent dwelling as a matter of duty, though in so doing he was careful to take with him shang the blacksmith and thul the cutter of stone as witnesses, and when they had broken down the frail door they found only this, two cleanly picked human skeletons on the earthen floor and a number of singular beetles crawling in the shadowy corners. There was subsequently much talk among the burgesses of Ulther. Zath, the coroner, disputed at length with nith, the lean notary, and Cranon and Shang and Thul were overwhelmed with questions. Even little Atal, the unkeeper's son, was closely questioned and given a sweet need as reward. They talked of the old Cotter and his wife, of the caravan of dark wanderers, of small Manay and his black kitten, of the prayer of Manay and of the sky during that prayer, of the doings of the cats on the night the caravan left, and of what was later found in the cottage under the dark trees in the repellent yard. And in the end the burgesses passed that remarkable law which is told of by traders in Hathig and discussed by travelers in Nier, namely that in Ulther no man may kill a cat, and of the cats of Ulther.