 The Apparition by Guy de Moupasson. 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 Neslihan Stamboli. The Apparition by Guy de Moupasson. The subject of sequestration of the person came up in speaking of a recent lawsuit, and each of us had a story to tell. A true story, he said, we have been spending the evening together at an old family mansion in the rue de Grenel just a party of intimate friends. The old marquis de la Tour Samuel, who was 82, rose, and leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, said in a somewhat shaky voice. I also know of something strange, so strange that it has haunted me all my life. It has now 56 years since the incident occurred, and yet not a month passes that I do not see it again in a dream so great is the impression of fear it has left on my mind. For ten minutes I experienced such horrible fright that ever since then a sort of constant terror has remained with me. Southern noises startle me violently, and objects imperfectly distinguished at night inspire me with a mad desire to flee from them. In short, I'm afraid of the dark. But I would not have acknowledged that before I reached my present age. Now I can say anything. I have never receded before real danger, ladies. It is therefore permissible at 82 years of age not to be brave in presence of imaginary danger. That affair so completely upset me caused me such deep and mysterious and terrible distress that I never spoke of it to anyone. I will now tell it to you exactly as it happened without any attempt at explanation. In July 1827 I was stationed at Huin. One day as I was walking along the quay I met a man whom I thought I recognized without being able to recall exactly who he was. Instinctively I made a movement to stop. The stranger perceived it and at once extended his hand. He was a friend to whom I had been deeply attached as a youth. For five years I had not seen him. He seemed to have aged half a century. His hair was quite white and he walked bent over as though completely exhausted. He apparently understood my surprise and he told me of the misfortune which had shattered his life. Having fallen madly in love with a young girl he had married her but after a year of more than earthly happiness she died suddenly of an affection of the heart. He left his country home on the very day of her burial and came to his townhouse in Huin where he lived alone and unhappy so sad and wretched that he thought constantly of suicide. Since I've found you again in this manner I will ask you to render me an important service. It is to go and get me out of the desk in my bedroom some papers of which I have urgent need. I cannot send a servant or a business clerk as discretion and absolute silence are necessary. As for myself nothing on earth would induce me to re-enter that house. I will give you the key of the room which I myself locked on leaving and the key of my desk also a few words for my gardener telling him to open the chateau for you but come and breakfast with me tomorrow and we will arrange all that. I promised to do him the slight favour he asked it was for that matter only a ride which I could make in an hour on horseback his property being but a few miles distant from Huin. At ten o'clock the following day I breakfasted, tethered with my friend but he scarcely spoke. He begged me to pardon him the thought of the visit I was about to make to that room the scene of his dead happiness overcame him he said he indeed seemed singularly agitated and preoccupied as though undergoing some mysterious mental struggle at length he explained to me exactly what I had to do it was very simple I must take two packages of letters and a roll of papers from the first right hand drawer of the desk of which I have a key he added I need not beg you to refrain from glancing at them I was wounded at that remark and told him so somewhat sharply he stammered forgive me I suffer so and tears came to his eyes at about one o'clock I took leave of him to accomplish my mission the weather was glorious and I trotted across the fields listening to the song of the larks and the rhythmical clang of my sword against my boot then I entered the forest and walked my horse branches of trees caressed my face as I passed and now and then I caught a leaf with my teeth and chewed it from sheer gladness of heart at being alive and vigorous on such a radiant day as I approached the chateau I took from my pocket the letter I had for the gardener and was astonished at finding it sealed I was so irritated that I was about to turn back without having fulfilled my promise but reflected that I shall thereby display undue susceptibility my friend in his troubled condition might easily have fastened the envelope without noticing that he did so the manor looked as if it had been abandoned for twenty years the open gate was falling from its hinges the walks were overgrown with grass and the flowerbeds were no longer distinguishable the noise I made by kicking at a shutter brought out an old man from his side door he seemed stunned with astonishment at seeing me on receiving my letter he read it, re-read it turned it over and over looked me up and down put the paper in his pocket and finally said well, what is it you wish? I replied shortly you ought to know since you've just read your master's orders I wish to enter the chateau he seemed overcome then you're going in into her room I began to lose patience damn it! are you presuming to question me? he stammered in confusion no sir, but it's not been opened since the death if you will be kind enough to wait five minutes I will go and see if I interrupted him angrily see here, what do you mean by your tricks? you know very well you cannot enter the room since here is the key he no longer objected then sir, I will show you the way show me the staircase and leave me I'll find my way without you but sir, indeed this time I lost patience and pushing him aside went into the house I first went through the kitchen then two rooms occupied by this man and his wife I then crossed a large hall mounted a staircase and recognized a door described by my friend I easily opened it and entered the apartment it was so dark that at first I could distinguish nothing I stopped short disagreeably affected by that disagreeable musty odor of closed unoccupied rooms as my eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness I saw plainly enough a large and disordered bedroom the bed without sheets but still retaining its mattresses and pillows on one of which was a deep impression as though an elbow or a head had recently rested there the chairs all seemed out of place I noticed that a door, doubtless that of a closet had remained half open I first went to the window which I opened to let in the light but the fastenings of the shutters had grown so rusty that I could not move them I even tried to break them with my sword but without success as I was growing irritated over my useless efforts and could now see fairly well in the semi-darkness I gave up the hope of getting more light and went over to the writing desk I seated myself in an armchair and letting down the lid of the desk I opened the drawer designated it was full to the top I needed but three packages which I knew how to recognize and began searching for them I was straining my eyes in the effort to read the superscriptions when I seemed to hear or rather feel something rustle back of me I paid no attention believing that a draft from the window was moving some drapery but in a minute or so another movement almost imperceptible sent a strangely disagreeable little shiver over my skin it was so stupid to be affected even slightly that self-respect prevented my turning around I had just found the second package I needed and was about to lay my hand on the third when a long and painful sigh uttered just at my shoulder made me bound like a madman from my seat and lend several feet off as I jumped I had turned round my hand on the hilt of my sword surely if I had not felt it at my side I should have taken to my heels like a coward a tall woman dressed in white stood gazing at me from the back of the chair where I had been sitting an instant before such a shudder ran through all my limbs that I nearly fell backward no one who has not experienced it can understand that frightful unreasoning terror the mind becomes vague the heart ceases to beat the entire body grows as limp as a sponge I do not believe in ghosts nevertheless I collapsed from a hideous dread of the dead and I suffered oh I suffered in a few moments more than in all the rest of my life from the irresistible terror of the supernatural if she had not spoken I should have died perhaps but she spoke she spoke in a sweet sad voice that set my nerves vibrating I dare not say that I became master of myself and recovered my reason no I was terrified and scarcely knew what I was doing but asserted innate pride a remnant of soldierly instinct made me almost in spite of myself maintain a bold front she said oh sir you can render me a great service I wanted to reply but it was impossible for me to pronounce a word only a vague sound came from my throat she continued will you you can save me cure me I suffer frightfully I suffer oh how I suffer and she slowly seated herself in my armchair still looking at me will you she said I nodded in ascent my voice still being paralysed then she held out to me a tortoise shall comb and mermaid comb my hair oh comb my hair that will cure me it must be combed look at my head how I suffer and my hair pulls so her hair unbound very long and very black it seemed to me hung over the back of the armchair and touched the floor why did I promise why did I take that comb with a shudder and why did I hold in my hands her long black hair that gave my skin a frightful cold sensation as though I were handling snakes I cannot tell that sensation has remained in my fingers and I still tremble in recalling it I combed her hair I handled I know not how those icy locks I twisted knotted and unknotted and braided them she sighed bowed her head seemed happy suddenly she said thank you snatched the comb from my hands and fled by the door that I had noticed a jar left alone I experienced for several seconds the horrible agitation of one who awakens from a nightmare at length I regained my senses I ran to the window and with a mighty effort burst open the shutters letting a flood of light into the room immediately I sprang to the door by which that being had departed I found it closed and immovable then the mad desire to flee overcame me like a panic the panic which soldiers know in battle I seized the three packets of letters on the open desk ran from the room dashed down the stairs four steps at a time found myself outside I know not how and perceiving my horse a few steps off leaped into the saddle and galloped away I stopped only when I reached one and delighted at my lodgings throwing the reins to my orderly I fled to my room and shut myself in to reflect for an hour I anxiously asked myself if I were not the victim of a hallucination undoubtedly I had had one of those incomprehensible nervous attacks those exaltations of mind that give rise to visions and are the stronghold of the supernatural and I was about to believe I had seen a vision had a hallucination when, as I approached the window my eyes fell by chance upon my breast my military cape was covered with long black hairs one by one with trembling fingers I plucked them off and threw them away I then called my orderly I was too disturbed too upset to go and see my friend that day and I also wished to reflect more fully upon what I ought to tell him I sent him his letters for which he gave the soldier a receipt he asked after me most particularly and on being told I was ill had had a sunstroke appeared exceedingly anxious next morning I went to him determined to tell him the truth he had gone out the evening before and had not yet returned I called again during the day my friend was still absent after waiting a week longer without news of him I notified the authorities and the judicial search was instituted not the slightest trace of his whereabouts or manner of disappearance was discovered in my nude inspection of the abandoned chateau revealed nothing of a suspicious character there was no indication that a woman had been concealed there after fruitless researches all further efforts were abandoned and for 56 years I've heard nothing I know no more than before and of the apparition recording by Neslihan Stamboli by Edgar Allen Poe narrated by Tony Scheinman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe for the most wild yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen I neither expect nor solicit belief mad would I be to expect it in a case where my very senses reject their evidence yet mad am I not and very surely do I not dream but tomorrow I die and today I would unburden my soul my immediate purpose is to place before the world plainly, succinctly and without comment a series of mere household events in their consequences these events have terrified have tortured have destroyed me yet I will not attempt to expound them to me they have presented little but horror to many they will seem less terrible than Barocs hereafter perhaps some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common place some intellect more calm, more logical and far less excitable than my own which will perceive in the circumstances I detail with awe nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects from my infancy I was noted for the facility and humanity of my disposition my tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions I was especially fond of animals and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets with these I spent most of my time and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them this peculiarity of character grew with my growth and in my manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure to those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable there's something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasions to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man I married early and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own observing my poshiality for domestic pets she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind we had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits a small monkey and a cat this latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal entirely black and sagacious to an astonishing degree in speaking of his intelligence my wife who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition made frequent allusions to the ancient popular notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise not that she was ever serious upon this point and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than it happens just now to be remembered Pluto, this was the cat's name was my favourite pet and playmate I alone fed him and he attended me wherever I went about the house it was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets our friendship lasted in this manner for several years during which my general temperament and character through the instrumentality of the fiend intemperance had I blushed to confess it experienced a radical alteration for the worse I grew daily more moody, more irritable more regardless of the feelings of others I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife at length I even offered her personal violence my pets of course were made to feel the change in my disposition I not only neglected but he'll use them for Pluto however I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey or even the dog when by accident or through affection they came in my way but my disease grew upon me for what disease is like alcohol and at length even Pluto who was now becoming old and consequently somewhat peevish even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper one night returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts about town I fancied that the cat avoided my presence I seized him when in his fright at my violence he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth the fury of a demon instantly possessed me I knew myself no longer my original soul seemed at once to take flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence gin nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame I took from my waistcoat pocket a pen knife opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket I blush, I burn, I shudder while I pen the damnable atrocity when reason returned with the morning when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch I experienced a sentiment half of horror half of remorse for the crime of which I had been guilty but it was at best a feeble and equivocal feeling and the soul remained untouched I again plunged into excess and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed in the meantime the cat slowly recovered the socket of the lost I presented it is true a frightful appearance but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain he went about the house as usual but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror I had so much of my old heart left as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me but this feeling soon gave way to irritation and then came as after my final and irrevocable overthrow the spirit of perverseness of this spirit philosophy takes no account yet I am not more sure that my soul lives than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart one of the indivisible primary faculties or sentiments which give direction to the character of man who has not a hundred times found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not have we not a perpetual inclination in the teeth of our best judgment to violate that which is law merely because we understand it to be such this spirit of perverseness I say came to my final overthrow it was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself to offer violence to its own nature to do wrong for the wrong's sake only that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute one morning in cool blood I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes and with the bitterest remorse at my heart hung it because I knew that it had loved me and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if such a thing were possible even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the most merciful and most terrible God on the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire the curtains of my bed were in flames the whole house was blazing it was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant and myself made our escape from the conflagration the destruction was complete my entire worldly wealth was swallowed up and I resigned myself thence forward to despair I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect between the disaster and the atrocity but I am detailing a chain of facts and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect on the day succeeding the fire I visited the ruins of the walls with one exception had fallen in this exception was found in a compartment wall not very thick which stood about the middle of the house and against which had rested the head of my bed the plastering had here in great measure resisted the action of the fire a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread about this wall a dense crowd were collected and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it very minute and eager attention the words strange, singular and other similar expressions excited my curiosity I approached and saw as if graven in bass relief upon the white surface the figure of a gigantic cat the impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous there was a rope about the animals neck when I first beheld this apparition for I could scarcely regarded as less my wonder and my terror were extreme but at length reflection came to my aid the cat I remembered had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house upon the alarm of fire this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown through an open window into my chamber this had probably been done with a view of arousing me from sleep the falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly spread plaster the lime of which, with the flames and the ammonia from the carcass had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it although I thus readily accounted to my reason if not altogether to my conscience for the startling fact just detailed it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy for months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat and during this period they came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed but was not remorse I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal and to look about me among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented for another pet of the same species and of somewhat similar apparance with which to supply its place one night as I sat half stupefied in a den of more than infamy my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin or of rum which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object there upon I approached it and touched it with my hand it was a black cat a very large one fully as large as Pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body but this cat had a large although indefinite splotch of white covering nearly the whole region of the breast upon my touching him he immediately rose purred loudly rubbed against my hand and appeared delighted with my notice this then was the very creature of which I was in search I had once offered to purchase it of the landlord but this person made no claim to it knew nothing of it had never seen it before I continued my caresses and when I prepared to go home the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me I permitted it to do so occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded when it reached the house it domesticated itself at once and became immediately a great favourite with my wife for my own part I soon found a dislike to it arising within me this was just the reverse of what I had anticipated but I know not how or why it was its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed by slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred I avoided the creature a certain sense of shame and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty preventing me from physically abusing it I did not for some weeks strike or otherwise violently ill use it but gradually very gradually I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing and to flee silently from its odious presence as from the breath of a pestilence what added no doubt to my hatred of the beast and the discovery on the morning after I brought it home that like Pluto it also had been deprived of one of its eyes this circumstance however only endeared it to my wife who as I have already said possessed in a high degree that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures with my aversion to this cat however its partiality for myself seemed to increase it followed my footstep with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend whenever I sat it would crouch beneath my chair or spring upon my knees covering me with its lonesome caresses if I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down or fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress clamber in this manner to my breast at such times although I longed to destroy it with a blow I was yet withheld from so doing partly by a memory of my former crime but chiefly let me confess it at once by absolute dread of the beast this dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it I am almost ashamed to own yes even in this felon cell I am almost ashamed to own that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive my wife had called my attention more than once to the character of the mark of white hair of which I have spoken and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed the reader will remember that this mark although large had been originally very indefinite but by slow degrees degrees nearly imperceptible and which for a long time my reasons struggled to reject as fanciful it had at length assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline it was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name and for this above all I loathed and dreaded and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared it was now I say the image of a hideous of a ghastly thing of the gallows oh mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime of agony and of death and now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere humanity and a brute beast whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed a brute beast to work out for me for me a man fashioned in the image of the high god so much of insufferable woe alas, neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more during the former the creature left me no moment alone and in a latter I started hourly from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face and its vast weight an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off incumbent eternally upon my heart beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed evil thoughts became my soul intimates the darkest and most evil of thoughts the moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind well from the sudden frequent and ungovernable outburst of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself my uncomplaining wife alas was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers one day she accompanied me upon some household errand into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit followed me down the steep stairs and nearly throwing me headlong exasperated me to madness uplifting an axe and forgetting in my wrath the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand I aimed to blow at the animal which of course would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished but this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain she fell dead upon the spot without a groan this hideous murder accomplished I set myself forthwith and with entire deliberation to the task of concealing the body I knew that I could not remove it from the house either by day or by night without the risk of being observed by the neighbours many projects entered into my mind at one period I thought of cutting the corpse into my nude fragments and destroying them by fire at another I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar again I deliberated about casting it in the well of the yard about packing it in a box as if merchandise with the usual arrangements and so getting a porter to take it from the house finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these I determined to wall it up in the cellar as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims for a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted its walls were loosely constructed and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening moreover in one of the walls was a projection caused by a false chimney or fireplace that had been filled up and made to resemble the red of the cellar made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point insert the corpse and wall the whole up as before so that no eye could detect anything suspicious and in this calculation I was not deceived by means of a crowbar I easily dislodged the bricks and having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall I propped it in that position while with little trouble I relayed the whole structure as it originally stood having procured mortar, sand, and hair with every possible precaution I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork when I had finished I felt satisfied that all was right the wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed the rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care I looked around triumphantly and said to myself here at least then my labor has not been in vain my next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness for I had at length firmly resolved to put it to death had I been able to meet with it at the moment there could have been no doubt of its fate but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger and forbear to present itself in my present mood it is impossible to describe or to imagine the deep the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom it did not make its appearance during the night and thus for one night at least since its introduction into the house I soundly and tranquilly slept I slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul the second and the third day passed and still my tormentor came not once again I breathed as a free man the monster in terror had fled the premises forever I should behold it no more my happiness was supreme the guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little some few inquiries had been made but these had been readily answered even a search had been instituted but of course nothing was to be discovered I looked upon my future felicity as secured upon the fourth day of the assassination a party of the police came very unexpectedly into the house and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises secure however in the inscrutability of my place of concealment I felt no embarrassment whatever the officers bade me accompany them in their search they left no nook or corner unexplored at length for the third or fourth time they descended into the cellar I quivered not in a muscle my heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence I walked the cellar from end to end I folded my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and fro the police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart the glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained I burned to say if but one word by way of triumph and render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness gentlemen I said at last as the party ascended the steps I delight to have allayed your suspicions I wish you all health and a little more courtesy by the by gentlemen this this is a very well constructed house in the rabid desire to say something easily I scarcely knew what I uttered at all I may say an excellently well constructed house these walls are you going gentlemen these walls are solidly put together and here through the mere frenzy of bravado I wrapped heavily with a cane which I held in my hand upon that very portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom but may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the orange fiend no sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence then I was answered by a voice from within the tomb by a cry at first muffled and broken like the sobbing of a child and then quickly swelling into one long and continuous scream utterly anomalous and inhuman a howling shriek half of horror and half of triumph this might have arisen only out of hell conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation of my own thoughts it is folly to speak swooning I staggered to the opposite wall for one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless through extremity of terror and of awe in the next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall it fell bodily the corpse already greatly decayed and clotted with gore stood erect before the eyes of the spectators upon its head with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman I had walled the monster up within the tomb end of The Black Cat Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft recording by Salim Jameil New York City 2019 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain since by tonight I shall be no more penniless and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life indurable I can bear the torture no longer and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate when you have read these hastily squalled pages you may guess though never fully realize why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death it was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific that the packet of which I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea raider the great war was then at its very beginning and the ocean forces of the Han had not completely sunk to their later degradation so that our vessel was made legitimate prize most we of her crew were treated with all the fairness and consideration due us as naval prisoners so liberal indeed was the discipline of our captors that five days after we were taken I managed to escape alone in a small boat with water and provisions for a good length of time when I finally found myself adrift and free I had that little idea of my surroundings never a competent navigator I could only guess vaguely by the sun and stars that I was somewhat south of the equator of the longitude I knew nothing and no island or coastline was in sight the weather kept fair and from counter days I drifted aimlessly beneath the scorching sun waiting either for some passing ship or to be cast on the shores of some habitable land but neither ship nor land appeared and I began to despair in my solitude upon the heaving vastness of unbroken blue the change happened whilst I slept its details I shall never know for my slumber though troubled and dream infested was continuous when at last I waked it was to discover myself half sucked into us slimy expansive hellish blackmire which extended about me and monotonous undulation as far as I could see and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away I might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at so prodigious and unexpected transformation of scenery I was in reality more horrified than astonished for there was in the air and in the rotting soil sinister quality which chilled me to the very core the region was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish and of other less describable things which I saw protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plane perhaps I should not hope to convey in mere words the unutterable hideousness that can dwell in absolute silence and barren immensity there was nothing within hearing and nothing in sight save a vast reach of black slime yet the very completeness of the stillness and homogeneity of the landscape oppressed me with a nauseating fear the sun was blazing down from a sky which seemed to me almost black in its cloudless cruelty as though reflecting the inky marsh beneath my feet as I crawled into the stranded boat I realised that only one theory could explain my position through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval a portion of the ocean floor must have been thrown to the surface exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years had lain hidden underneath unfathomable watery depths so great was the extent of the new land which had risen beneath me that I could not detect the faintest noise of the surging ocean I could not strain my ears as I might nor were there any seafowl to prey upon the dead things for several hours I sat thinking or brooding in the boat which lay upon its side and afforded a slight shade as the sun moved across the heavens as the day progressed the ground lost some of its stickiness and seemed likely to dry sufficiently for travelling purposes in a short time that night I slept but little and the next day I made for myself a pack containing food and water preparatory to an overland journey in search of the vanished sea and possible rescue on the third morning I found the soil dry enough to walk upon with ease the odour of the fish was maddening but I was too much concerned with graver things to mine so slight and evil and set out boldly for an unknown goal all day I forged steadily westward guided by a far away humic which rose higher than any other elevation in the rolling desert that night I encamped and on the following day still travelled toward the humic though that object seemed scarcely nearer than when I first aspired it by the fourth evening I attained the base of the mound which turned out to be much higher than it had appeared from a distance an intervening valley setting it out sharper relief than from the general surface too weary to ascend I slept in the shadows of the hill I know not why my dreams were so wild that night but air the waning and fantastically givers moon had risen far above the eastern plain I was awake in a cold perspiration determined to sleep no more such visions I had experienced were too much for me to endure again and in the glow of the moon I saw how unwise I had been to travel by day without the glare of the potching sun my journey would have cost me less energy indeed I now felt quite able to perform the ascent which had deterred me at sunset picking up my pack I started for the crest of the eminence I have said that the unbroken monotony of the rolling plain was a source of vague horror to me but I think my horror was greater when I gained the summit of the mound and looked down to the other side into an immeasurable pit or canyon whose black recesses the moon had not yet soared high enough to illuminate I felt myself on the edge of the world peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night through my terror ran curious reminiscences of paradise lost and of Satan's hideous climb through the unfashioned realms of darkness as the moon climbed higher in the sky I began to see that the slopes of the valley were not quite so perpendicular as I had imagined ledges and outcroppings of rock afforded fairly easy footholds for a descent whilst after a drop of a few hundred feet the declivity became very gradual urged on by an impulse which I cannot definitely analyze I scrambled with difficulty down the rocks and stood on the gentle slope beneath gazing into the stygian depths where no light had yet penetrated once my attention was captured by a vast and singular object on the opposite slope which rose steeply about a hundred yards ahead of me an object that gleamed whitely in the newly bestowed rays of the ascending moon that it was merely a gigantic piece of stone I soon assured myself but I was conscious of a distinct impression that its contour and positions were not altogether the work of nature the closer scrutiny filled me with sensations I cannot express for despite its enormous magnitude and its position in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world was young I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures dazed and frightened yet not without a certain thrill of the scientists or archeologists' delight I examined my surroundings more closely the moon, now near the zenith, shone weirdly and vividly above the towering steeps that hemmed in the chasm and revealed the fact that a far-flung body of water flowed at the bottom winding out of sight in both directions and almost lapping my feet as I stood on the slope across the chasm the wavelets watched the base of the Cyclopean monolith on whose surface I could now trace both inscriptions and crude sculptures the writing was in a system of hieroglyphics unknown to me and unlike anything I had ever seen in books consisting for the most part of conventionalized aquatic symbols such as fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, mollusks, whales, and the like several characters obviously represented marine things which are unknown to the modern world but whose decomposing forms I had observed on the ocean risen plane it was the pictorial carving however that did most to hold me spellbound plainly visible across the intervening water on account of their enormous size were an array of bass release whose subjects would have excited the envy of Dore I think that these things were supposed to depict men at least a certain sort of men though the creatures were shown to sporting like fishes in waters of some marine grotto or paying homage to some monolithic shrine which appeared to be under the waves as well of their faces and forms I dare not speak in detail for the mere remembrance makes me grow faint just beyond the imagination of the Poe or Bulwa they were damningly human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet shockingly wide and flabby lips glassy bulging eyes and other features less pleasant to recall curiously enough they seem to have been chiseled badly out of proportion with their scenic background one of the creatures was shown in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself I remarked, as I say, their grotesqueness and strange size but in a moment decided that they were merely the imaginary gods of some primitive fishing or seafaring tribe some tribe whose last descendant had perished eras before the first ancestor of the piled down on Neanderthal man was born all struck at this unexpected glimpse into a past beyond the conception of the most daring anthropologist I stood musing while the moon cast queer reflections on the silent channel before me then suddenly I saw it with only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface the things slid into view above the dark waters vast, polyphemous-like and loathsome it dotted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith about which it flung the gigantic scaly arms the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds I think I went mad then of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff and of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat I remember little I believe I sang a great deal and laughed hardly when I was unable to sing I have indistinct recollections of a great storm some time after I reached the boat at any rate I know that I heard peels of thunder and other tones which nature utters only in her wildest moods when I came out of the shadows I was in a San Francisco hospital brought fiver by the captain of an American ship which had picked up my boat in mid-ocean in my delirium I had said much but found that my words had been given scant attention of any land upheaval in the Pacific my rescuers knew nothing nor did I deem it necessary to insist upon a thing which I knew they could not believe once I sought out a celebrated ethnologist and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon the fishguard but soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional I did not press my inquiries it is at night especially when the moon is gibbous and waning that I see the thing I tried morphine but the drug is given only transient surcease and has drawn me into its clutches as a hopeless slave so now I am to end it all having written a full account for the information or the contemptuous amusement of my fellow men often I ask myself if it could not at all have been a pure phantasm a mere freak of fever as I lay sun-stricken and raving in the open boat after my escape from the German man of war this I ask myself but does there come before me a hideously vivid vision in reply I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed worshipping their ancient stone idols and covering their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny war-exhausted mankind of a day when the land shall sink and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium the end is near I hear a noise at the window as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it it shall not find me God, that hand, the window, the window! End of Dagon Recorded by Salim Jameel, New York City, 2019 And The Dead Spake 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 And The Dead Spake by E. F. Benson There is not in all London a quieter spot, or one apparently more withdrawn from the heat and bustle of life than Newsom Terrace. It is a cul-de-sac. For at the upper end, the roadway between its two lines of square, compact little residences, is brought to an end by a hybrid wall While at the lower end, the only access to it is through Newsom Square, that small, discreet oblong of Georgian houses, a relic of the time when Kensington was a suburban village, sundered from the metropolis by a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. Both square and terrace are most inconveniently situated for those whose ideal environment includes a rank of taxi cabs immediately opposite the door, a spate of buses roaring down the street, and a procession of underground trains accessible by a station a few yards away, shaking and rattling the cutlery and silver on their dining tables. In consequence, Newsom Terrace had come, two years ago, to be inhabited by leisurely and retired folk, or by those who wished to pursue their work in quiet and tranquility. Children, with hoops and scooters, are phenomena rarely encountered in the terrace, and dogs are equally uncommon. In front of each of the couple of dozen houses of which the terrace is composed lies a little square of railinged garden, in which you may often see the middle-aged or elderly mistress of the residence horticulturally employed. By five o'clock of a winter's evening, the pavements will generally be empty of all passengers except the policeman, who, with felted step, at intervals throughout the night, peers with his bull's eye into these small front gardens, and never finds anything more suspicious there than an early crocus or an aconite. For by the time it is dark the inhabitants of the terrace have got themselves home, where behind drawn curtains and bolted shutters they will pass a domestic and uninterrupted evening. No funeral, up to the time I speak of, had I ever seen leave the terrace. No marriage-party had strewed its pavements with confetti, and perambulators were unknown. It and its inhabitants seemed to be quietly mellowing like bottles of sound wine. No doubt there was stored within them the sunshine and summer of youth long past, and now, dozing in a cool place, they waited for the turn of the key and the cellar door and the entry of one who would draw them forth and see what they were worth. Yet, after the time of which I shall now speak, I have never passed down its pavement and am wondering whether each house so seemingly tranquil is not, like some dynamo, softly and smoothly bringing into being vast and terrible forces, such as those I once saw at work in the last house at the upper end of the terrace, the quietest, you would have said, of all the row. Had you observed it with continuous scrutiny for all the length of a summer day it is quite possible that you might have only seen issue from it in the morning an elderly woman whom you would have rightly conjectured to be the housekeeper with her basket for marketing on her arm who returned an hour later. Except for her, the entire day might often pass without there being either ingress or egress from the door. Occasionally a middle-aged man, lean and wiry, came swiftly down the pavement but his exit was by no means a daily occurrence and indeed when he did emerge he broke the almost universal usage of the terrace for his appearances took place, when such they were, between nine and ten in the evening. At that hour sometimes he would come round to my house in Euston Square to see if I was at home and incline for a talk a little later on. For the sake of air and exercise he would then have an hour's tramp through the lit and noisy streets and return about ten, still pale and unflushed for one of those talks which rude have an absorbing fascination for me. More rarely through the telephone I propose that I should drop in on him. This I did not often do since I found that if he did not come out himself it implied that he was busy with some investigation and though he made me welcome I could easily see that he burned for my departure so that he might get busy with his batteries and pieces of tissue hot on the track of discoveries that never yet had presented themselves to the mind of man as coming within the horizon of possibility. My last sentence may have led the reader to guess that I am indeed speaking of none other than that recluse and mysterious physicist Sir James Horton with whose death a hundred half-hewn avenues into the dark forest from which life comes must wait completion till another pioneer as bold as he takes up the axe which hitherto none but himself has been able to wield. Probably there was never a man to whom humanity owed more and of whom humanity knew less. He seemed utterly independent of the race to whom though indeed with no service of love he devoted himself. For years he lived aloof and apart in his house at the end of the terrace. Men and women were to him like fossils to the geologist things to be tapped and hammered and dissected and studied with a view not only to the reconstruction of past ages but to construction in the future. It is known, for instance, that he made an artificial being formed of the tissue still living of animals lately killed with the brain of an ape and the heart of a bullock and a sheep's thyroid and so forth. Of that I can give no first-hand account. Horton, it is true, told me something about it and in his will directed that certain memoranda on the subject should, on his death, be sent to me. But on the bulky envelope there is the direction not to be opened till January 1925. He spoke with some reserve and, so I think, with slight horror at the strange things which had happened on the completion of this creature. It evidently made him uncomfortable to talk about it and for that reason I fancy he put what was then a rather remote date to the day when his record should reach my eye. Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years before the war, he had scarcely entered, for the sake of companionship, any house other than his own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from school days which he had never suffered to drop entirely but I doubt if in those years he spoke except on matters of business to half a dozen other people. He had already retired from surgical practice in which his skill was unapproached and most completely now did he avoid the slightest intercourse with his colleagues whom he regarded as ignorant pedants without courage or the rudiments of knowledge. Now and then he would write an epoch-making little monograph which he flung to them like a bone to a starving dog but for the most part utterly absorbed in his own investigations he left them to grope along unaided. He frankly told me that he enjoyed talking to me about such subjects since I was utterly unacquainted with them. It clarified his mind to be obliged to put his theories and guesses and confirmations with such simplicity that anyone could understand them. I well remember his coming in to see me on the evening of the 4th of August 1914. So the war has broken out, he said, and the streets are impassable with excited crowds. Odd, isn't it? Just as if each of us already was not a far more murderous battlefield than any which can be conceived between warring nations. How's that? said I. Let me try to put it plainly though it isn't that I want to talk about. Your blood is one eternal battlefield. It is full of armies eternally marching and counter- marching. As long as the armies friendly to you are in a superior position you remain in good health. If a detachment of microbes that, if suffered to establish themselves would give you a cold in the head and trench themselves in your mucous membrane the commander-in-chief sends a regiment down and drives them out. He doesn't give his orders from your brain, mind you. Those aren't his headquarters. For your brain knows nothing about the landing of the enemy till they have made good of their position and given you a cold. He paused a moment. There isn't one headquarters inside you, he said. There are many. For instance, I killed a frog this morning. At least most people would say I killed it. But had I killed it though its head lay in one place and its severed body in another? Not a bit. I had only killed a piece of it. For I opened the body afterwards and took out the heart which I put in a sterilised chamber of suitable temperature so that it wouldn't get cold or be infected by any microbe. That was about twelve o'clock today and when I came out just now the heart was beating still. It was alive, in fact. That's full of suggestions, you know. Come and see it. The terrace had been stirred into volcanic activity by news of the war. The vendor of some late edition had penetrated into its quietude and there were half a dozen parlamades fluttering about like black-and-white moths. But once inside Horton's door isolation as of an arctic night seemed to close round me. He had forgotten his latch-key but his housekeeper, then newly come to him who became so regular and familiar a figure in the terrace must have hurt his step for before he rang the bell she had opened the door and stood with his forgotten latch-key in her hand. Thanks, Mrs. Gabriel, said he and without a sound the door shut behind us. Both her name and face, as reproduced in some illustrated daily paper seemed familiar, rather terribly familiar but before I had time to grope for the association Horton supplied it. Tried for the murder of her husband six months ago, he said. Odd case. The point is that she is the one perfect housekeeper. I once had four servants and everything was all mucky as we used to say at school. Now I live in amazing comfort and propriety with one. She does everything. She is cook, valet, housemaid, butler and won't have anyone to help her. No doubt she killed her husband but she planned it so well that she could not be convicted. She told me quite frankly who she was when I engaged her. Of course, I remember the whole trial vividly now. Her husband, a morose, quawalsome fellow, tipsy as often as sober, had, according to the defence, cut his own throat while shaving. According to the prosecution, she had done that for him. There was the usual discrepancy of evidence as to whether the wound could have been self-inflicted and the prosecution tried to prove that the face had been lathered after his throat had been cut. So singular an exhibition of forethought and a nerve had hurt rather than helped their case and after prolonged deliberation on the part of the jury she had been acquitted. Yet not less singular was haught in selection of a probable murderess, however efficient, as housekeeper. He anticipated this reflection. Apart from the wonderful comfort of having a perfectly appointed and absolutely silent house, he said, I regard Mrs. Gabriel as a sort of insurance against my being murdered. If you had been tried for your life you would take very special care not to find yourself in suspicious proximity to a murdered body again. No more deaths in your house if you could help it. Come through to my laboratory and look at my little instance of life after death. Certainly it was amazing to see that little piece of tissue still pulsating with what must be called life. It contracted and expanded faintly indeed, but perceptibly, though for nine hours now it had been severed from the rest of the organisation. All by itself it went on living and if the heart could go on living with nothing you would say, to feed and stimulate its energy. There must also, so reasoned Horton, all the other vital organs of the body, other independent focuses of life. Of course, severed organ like that, he said, will run down quicker than if it had the cooperation of the others and presently I shall apply a gentle electric stimulus to it. If I can keep that glass bowl under which it beats at the temperature of a frog's body in sterilised air I don't see why it should not go on living. Food, of course there's the question of feeding it. Do you see what that opens up in the way of surgery? Imagine a shop with glass cases containing healthy organs taken from the dead. Say a man dies of pneumonia. He should, as soon as ever the breath is out of his body be dissected and though they would, of course, destroy his lungs as they will be full of pneumococci. His liver and digestive organs are probably healthy. Take them out. Keep them in a sterilised atmosphere with the temperature at 98.4 and sell the liver, let us say to another poor devil who has cancer there. Fit him with a healthy new liver, eh? And insert the brain of someone who has died of heart disease into the skull of a congenital idiot, I asked. Yes, perhaps. But the brain's tirelessly complicated in its connections and the joining up of the nerves, you know. The surgery will have to learn a lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has got such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing seem to belong to it. Though, as you have seen, the heart can get on quite well without it. But there are other functions of the brain I want to study first. I've been trying some experiments already. He made some little readjustment to the flame of the spirit lamp which kept at the right temperature the water that surrounded the sterilised receptacle in which the frog's heart was beating. Start with the more simple and mechanical uses of the brain, he said. Primarily it is a sort of record office, a diary. Say that I wrap your knuckles with that ruler. What happens? The nerves there send a message to the brain, of course, saying, how can I put it most simply? Saying, somebody is hurting me. The eye sends another, saying I perceive a ruler hitting my knuckles. And the ear sends another, saying, I hear the wrap of it. But leaving all that alone what else happens? Why? The brain records it. It makes a note of your knuckles having been hit. He had been moving about the room as he spoke taking off his coat and waistcoat and putting on in their place a thin black dressing gown. And by now he was seated in his favourite attitude cross-legged upon the hearth rug looking like some magician or perhaps the affrit of which a magician of black arts has caused to appear. He was thinking intently now passing through his fingers his string of amber beads and talking more to himself than to me. And how does it make that note? He went on. Why? In the manner in which phonograph records are made. There are millions of minute dots impressions, pop-mocks on your brain which certainly record what you remember what you have enjoyed or disliked or done or said. The surface of the brain anyhow is large enough to furnish writing paper for the record of all these things of all your memories. The impression of an experience has not been acute. The dot is not sharply impressed and the record fades. In other words, you come to forget it. But if it has been vividly impressed, the record is never obliterated. Mrs. Gable, for instance, won't lose the impression of how she lathered her husband's face after she had cut his throat. That's to say, if she did it. Now, do you see what she's driving at? Of course you do. There is stored within a man's head the complete record of all the memorable things he has done and said. There are all his thoughts there and all his speeches and, most well marked of all, his habitual thoughts and the things he has often said. For habit there is reason to believe wears a sort of rut in the brain as it gropes and steals around the brain is continually stumbling into it. There's your record, your gramophone plate already. What we want and what I'm trying to arrive at is a needle which, as it traces its minute way over these dots will come across words or sentences which the dead have uttered and will reproduce them. My word, what judgment books! What a resurrection! Here, in this withdrawn situation no remotest echo of the excitement which was seething through the streets penetrated through the open window there came in only the tide of the midnight silence. But from somewhere closer at hand, through the wall surely of the laboratory there came a low, somewhat persistent murmur Perhaps our needle unhappily not yet invented as it passed over the record of speech in the brain might induce even facial expression. He said, enjoyment or horror might even pass over dead features. There might be gestures and movements even as the words were reproduced in our gramophone of the dead. Some people, when they want to think intensely, walk about. Some, there's an instance of it audible now, talk to themselves aloud. He held up his finger for silence. Yes, that's Mrs. Gabriel. He said, she talks to herself by the hour together. She's always done that, she tells me. I shouldn't wonder if she has plenty to talk about. It was that night when, first of all, the notion of intense activity going on below the placid house in front of the terrace occurred to me. None looked more quiet than this. And yet there was seething here a volcanic activity and intensity of living, both in the man who sat cross-legged on the floor and behind that voice just audible through the partition wall. But I thought of that no more for Horton began speaking of the brain gramophone again. Were it possible to trace those infinitesimal dots in the brain by some needle exquisitely fine, it might follow that by the aid of some contrivance has translated the pockmarks on a gramophone record into sound, some audible rendering of speech might be recovered from the brain of a dead man. It was necessary, so he pointed out to me, that this strange gramophone record should be new. It must be that of one lately dead for corruption and decay would soon obliterate these infinitesimal markings. He was not of opinion that unspoken thought could be thus recovered. The utmost he hoped for from his pioneering work was to be able to recapture actual speech, especially when such speech had habitually dwelt on one subject and thus had worn a rut on that part of the brain known as the speech centre. Let me get, for instance, he said, the brain of a railway porter, newly dead, who has been accustomed for years to call out the name of a station, and I do not despair of hearing his voice through my gramophone trumpet. Or again, given that Mrs. Gabriel in all her interminable conversations with herself, talks about one subject, I might, in similar circumstances, recapture what she has been constantly saying. Of course, my instrument must be of a power and delicacy still unknown, one of which the needle can trace the minutest irregularities of surface, and of which the trumpet must be of immense magnifying power, able to translate the smallest whisper into a shout. But just as a microscope will show you the details of an object invisible to the eye, so there are instruments which act in the same way on sound. Here, for instance, is one of remarkable magnifying power. Try it if you like. He took me over to a table on which was standing an electric battery connected with a round steel globe, out of the side of which sprang a gramophone trumpet of curious construction. He adjusted the battery and directed me to click my fingers quite gently opposite an aperture in the globe, and the noise, ordinarily scarcely audible, resounded in a room like a thunder clap. Something of that sort might permit us to hear the record on a brain, he said. After this night, my visits to Horton became far more common than they had hitherto been. Having once admitted me into the region of his strange explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. Partly, as he had said, it clarified his own thought to put it into simple language. Partly, as he subsequently admitted, he was beginning to penetrate into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so utterly untrodden that even he, the most aloof and independent of mankind, wanted some human presence near him. Despite his utter indifference to the issues of the war, for in his regard issues far more crucial demanded his energies, he offered himself a surgeon to a London hospital for medications on the brain, and his services naturally were welcomed, for none brought knowledge or skill like his to such work. Occupied all day, he performed miracles of healing with bold and dexterous incisions which none but he would have dared to attempt. He would operate, often successfully, for lesions that seemed certainly fatal, and all the time he was learning. He refused to accept any salary. He only asked in cases where he had removed pieces of brain matter to take these away in order by further examination and dissection to add to the knowledge and manipulative skill which he devoted to the wounded. He wrapped these morsels in sterilised lint and took them back to the terrace in a box, electrically heated to maintain the normal temperature of a man's blood. His fragment might then, so he reasoned, keep some sort of independent life of its own, even as the severed heart of a frog had continued to beat for hours without connection with the rest of the body. Then, for half the night, he would continue to work on these sundered pieces of tissue scarcely dead, which his operations during the day had given him. Simultaneously, he was busy over the needle that must be of such infinite delicacy. One evening, fatigued with a long day's work, I had just heard with a certain tremor of uneasy anticipation the whistles of warning which heralded an air raid when my telephone bell rang. My servants, according to custom, had already betaken themselves to the cellar, and I went to see what the summons was determined in any case not to go out into the streets. I recognised Horton's voice. I want you at once," he said. But the warning whistles have gone, said I, and I don't like the hours of shrapnel. Oh, never mind that," said he. You must come. I'm so excited that I distrust the evidence of my own ears. I want a witness. Just come." He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the click of his receiver going back into its place. Clearly he assumed that I was coming, and that, I suppose, had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told myself that I would not go, but within a couple of minutes, his certainty that I was coming, coupled with the prospect of being interested in something else than air raids, made me fidget in my chair, and eventually go to the street door and look out. The moon was brilliantly bright, the square quite empty, and far away the coffings of very distant guns. Next moment, almost against my will, I was running down the deserted Newson Terrace. My ring at his bell was answered by Horton before Mrs. Gabriel had come to the door, and he positively dragged me in. I shan't tell you a word of what I am doing," he said. I want you to tell me what you hear. Come into the laboratory. The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, as directed in a chair close to the gramophone trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I heard the familiar mutter of Gabriel's voice. Horton, already busy with his battery, sprang to his feet. That won't do! He said, I want absolute silence. He went out of the room, and I heard him calling to her. Whilst he was gone, I observed more closely what was on the table. Battery, ground steel globe, and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of a needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the battery and the which I had seen the frog's heart beat. In it now, there lay a fragment of grey matter. Horton came back in a minute or two and stood in the middle of the room listening. That's better, he said. Now, I want you to listen at the mouth of the trumpet. I'll answer any questions afterwards. With my ear turned to the trumpet I could see nothing of what he was doing, and I listened till the silence became a rustling in my ears. Then suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored by a whisper which undoubtedly came from the aperture on which my oral attention was fixed. It was no more than the faintest murmur, and though no worse were audible, it had the timber of a human voice. Well, do you hear anything? Asked Horton. Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible. Describe it, said he. Somebody whispering. I'll try a fresh place, said he. The silence descended again. The matter of the distant guns was still mute, and some slight creaking from my shirt front as I breathed alone broke it. And then the whispering from the gramophone trumpet began again, this time much louder than it had been before. It was as if the speaker, still whispering, had advanced a dozen yards, but still blurred and indistinct. More unmistakable, too, was it, that the whisper was that of a human voice, and every now and then, whether fancifully or not, I thought I caught a word or two. For a moment it was silent all together, and then with a sudden inkling of what I was listening to I heard something begin to sing. The words were still inaudible. There was melody, and the tune was tipperary. From that convolvulous shaped trumpet there came two bars of it. And what do you hear now? cried Horton with a crack of exultation in his voice. Singing, singing. That's the tune they all sang. Fine music, that from a dead man. Encore, you say? Yes, wait a second, and he'll sing it again for you. Confounded, I can't get on to the place. Ah, I've got it, just an again. Surely that was the strangest manner of song ever yet heard on the earth. This melody from the Brain of the Dead. Horror and fascination strove within me, and I suppose the first for the moment prevailed, for with a shutter it jumped up. Stop it! I said, it's terrible! His face, thin and eager, gleamed in the strong ray of the lamp which he had placed close to him. His hand was on the metal rod from which depended the spiral spring and the needle, which just rested on that fragment of grey stuff which I had seen in the glass vessel. Yes, I'm going to stop it now. Or the germs will be getting at my gramophone record. Or the record will get cold. See, I spray it with carbolic vapour. I put it back into its nice warm bed. It will sing to us again. But terrible? What do you mean by terrible? Indeed, when he asked that, I scarcely knew myself what I meant. I had been witness to a new marvel of science, as wonderful perhaps as any that had ever astounded the soldier, and my nerves, these childish whimperers, had cried out at the darkness and the profundity. But the horror diminished, the fascination increased as he quite shortly told me the history of this phenomenon. He had attended that day and operated upon a young soldier in whose brain was embedded a piece of shrapnel. The boy was in extremis, but Horton had hoped for the possibility of saving him. To the shrapnel was the only chance, and this involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known as the speech centre, and taking from it what was embedded there. But the hope was not realised, and two hours later the boy died. It was to this fragment of brain that, when Horton returned home, he had applied the needle of his gramophone, and had obtained the faint whisperings which had caused him to ring me up so that he might have a witness of this wonder. Witness I had been, not these whisperings alone, but the fragment of singing. And this is but the first step on the new road, said he. Who knows where it may lead, or to what new temple of knowledge it may not be the avenue? Well, it is late. I shall do no more tonight. What about the raid, by the way? To my amazement I saw that the time was verging on midnight. Two hours had lapsed since he let me in at his door. They had passed like a couple of minutes. Next morning some neighbour spoke of the prolonged firing that had gone on, of which I had been wholly unconscious. Week after week, Horton worked on this new road of research perfecting the sensitiveness and subtlety of the needle, and by vastly increasing the power of his batteries, enlarging the magnifying power of his trumpet. Many and many an evening during the next year did I listen to voices that were dumb in death, and the sounds which had been blurred and unintelligible mutterings in the earlier experiments developed as the delicacy of his mechanical devices increased into coherence and clear articulation. It was no longer necessary to impose silence on Mrs. Gabriel when the gramophone was at work, for now the voice we listened to had risen to the pitch of ordinary human utterance. While as for the faithfulness and individuality of these records, striking testimony was given more than once by some living friend of the dead who, without knowing what he was about to hear, recognised the tones of the speaker. More than once also, Mrs. Gabriel bringing in siphons and whisky provided us with three glasses, for she had heard, so she told us, three different voices in talk. But for the present no fresh phenomenon occurred. Horton was but perfecting the mechanism of his previous discovery, and, rather grudging the time, was scribbling at a monograph which presently he would toss to his colleagues concerning the results he had already obtained. And then, even while Horton was on the threshold of the wonders which he had already foreseen and spoken of as theoretically possible, there came an evening of marvel and of swift catastrophe. I had dined with him that day. Mrs. Gabriel definitely serving the meal that she had so dainty prepared, and towards the end, as she was clearing the table for our dessert, she stumbled, I suppose, on a loose edge of carpet, quickly recovering herself. But instantly Horton checked some half-finished sentence and turned to her. You're all right, Mrs. Gabriel, he asked quickly. Yes, sir. Thank you, she said, and went on with her serving. As I was saying, began Horton again, but his attention clearly wondered, and without concluding his narrative he relapsed into silence till Mrs. Gabriel had given us our coffee and left the room. I'm sadly afraid my domestic felicity may be disturbed. He said Mrs. Gabriel had an epileptic fit yesterday and she confessed when she recovered that she had been subject to them when a child, and since then had occasionally experienced them. Dangerous then, I asked in themselves, not in the least, said he. If she was sitting in her chair, or lying in bed when one occurred, there would be nothing to trouble about. But if one occurred while she was cooking my dinner, or beginning to come downstairs, she might fall into the fire or tumble down the whole flight. We'll hope no such deplorable calamity will happen. Now, if you've finished your coffee, let us go into the laboratory. Not that I've got anything very interesting in the way of records, but I've introduced a second battery with a very strong induction coiled into my apparatus. I find that if I link it up with my record, given that the record is a fresh one, it stimulates certain nerve centres. It's odd, isn't it, that the same forces which so encourage the dead to live would certainly encourage the living to die, if a man received the full current. One has to be careful in handling it. Yes, and what then, you ask. The night was very hot, and he threw the windows wide before he settled himself cross-legged on the floor. I'll answer your question for you, he said, though I believe we've talked of it before. Supposing I had not a fragment of brain tissue only, but a whole head, let us say, or best of all, a complete corpse, I think I could expect to produce more than mere speech through the gramophone. The dead lips themselves perhaps might utter, God, what's that? From close outside, at the bottom of the stairs leading from the dining room which we had just quitted to the laboratory where we now sat, there came a crash of glass, followed by the fall, as of something heavy which bumped from step to step and was finally flung on the threshold against the door with the sound as of knuckles wrapping at it and demanding admittance. Horton sprang up and threw the door open and there lay half inside the room and half on the landing outside the body of Mrs. Gabriel. Round her were splinters of broken bottles and glasses and from a cut in her forehead as she lay ghastly with face upturned the blood trickled into her thick grey hair. Horton was on his knees beside her, dabbing his handchief on her forehead. Ah, that's not serious, he said. There's neither vein nor artery cut. I'll just bind that up first. He tore his handchief into strips which he tied together and made a dexterous bandage covering the lower part of her forehead but leaving her eyes unobscured. They stared with a fixed meaningless steadiness and he scrutinised them closely. But there's worse yet, he said. There's been some severe blow on the head. Help me carry her into the laboratory. Get round to her feet and lift underneath the knees when I am ready. There! Now, put your arm right under her and carry her. Her head swung limply back as he lifted her shoulders and he propped it up against his knee where it mutely nodded and bowed and his leg moved as if in silent assent to what we were doing and the mouth at the extremity of which they had gathered a little lather lolled open. He still supported her shoulders as I fetched a cushion on which to place her head and presently she was lying close to the low table on which stood the gramophone of the dead. Then with light deft fingers he passed his hands over her skull as he came to the spot just above and behind her right ear. Twice and again his fingers groped and lightly pressed while with shut eyes and concentrated attention he interpreted what his trained touch revealed. Her skull is broken to fragments just here. He said in the middle there is a piece completely severed from the rest and the edges of the cracked pieces must be pressing on her brain. Her right arm was lying palm upwards on the floor and with one hand he felt her wrist with fingertips not a sign of a pulse. He said she's dead in the ordinary sense of the word but life persists in an extraordinary manner you may remember she can't be wholly dead no one is wholly dead in a moment unless every organ is blown to bits but she soon will be dead if we don't relieve the pressure on the brain that's the first thing to be done while I'm busy at that shut the window will you and make up the fire in this sort of case the vital heat whatever that is leaves the body very quickly make the room as hot as you can fetch an oil stove and turn on the electric radiator and stoke up a roaring fire the hotter the room is the more slowly will the heat of life leave her already he had opened his cabinet of surgical instruments and taken out of it two drawers full of bright steel which he laid on the floor beside her I heard the grating chink of scissors severing her long grey hair and as I busied myself with laying and lighting the fire in the hearth and kindling the oil stove which I found by Horton's directions in the pantry I saw that his lancet was busy with exposed skin he had placed some vaporising spray heated by a spirit lamp close to her head and as he worked its fizzing nozzle filled the air with some clean and aromatic odor now and then he threw out an order bring me that electric lamp on the long cord he said I haven't got enough light don't look at what I'm doing if you're squeamish for if it makes you feel faint I shan't be able to attend to you I suppose that violent interest in what he was doing overcame any qualm that I might have had for I looked quite unflinching over his shoulder as I moved the lamp about till it was in such a place that it threw its beam directly into a dark hole at the edge of which depended a flap of skin into this he put his forceps and as he withdrew them they grasped a piece of bloodstained bone that was better he said and the runes warming up well but there's no sign of pulse-shed go on stoking will you tell the thermometer on the wall there register a hundred degrees when next on my journey from the coal cellar I looked two more pieces of bone lay beside the one I had seen extracted and presently referring to the thermometer I saw that between the oil stove and the roaring fire electric radiator I had raised the room to the temperature he wanted soon peering fixedly at the seat of his operation he felt for her pulse again not a sign of returning vitality he said I've done all I can there's nothing more possible that can be devised to restore her as he spoke the zeal of the unrivaled surgeon relaxed and with a sigh and a shrug he rose to his feet and mocked his face then suddenly the fire and eagerness blazed there again the gramophone he said the speech centre is close to where I've been working and it is quite uninjured good heavens what a wonderful opportunity she served me well living and she shall serve me dead and I can stimulate the motor nerve centre too with the second battery we may see a new wonder tonight some qualm of horror shook me no don't I said it's terrible she's just dead I shall go if you do but I've got exactly all the conditions I have long been wanting said he and I simply can't spare you you must be witness I must have a witness why man there's not a surgeon or physiologist in the kingdom who would not give an eye or an ear to be in your place now she's dead I pledge you on my honour that and it's grand to be dead if you can help the living once again in a far fiercer struggle horror and the intensest curiosity strove together in me be quick then said I that's right exclaimed horton help me to lift her on to the table by the gramophone the cushion too I can get at the place more easily with her head a little raised he turned on the battery and with the movable light close beside him brilliantly illuminating what he sought he inserted the needle of the gramophone into the jagged aperture in her skull for a few minutes as he groped and explored there there was silence and then quite suddenly Mrs. Gabriel's voice clear and unmistakable and of the normal loudness of human speech issued from the trumpet yes I always said I'd be even with him came the articulated syllables he used to knock me about he did when he came home drunk and often I was black and blue with bruises but I'll give him a redness for the black and blue the record grew blurred instead of articulate words there came from it a gobbling noise by degrees that cleared and we were listening to some dreadful suppressed sort of laughter hideous to hear on and on it went I've got into some sort of rut said horton she must have laughed a lot to herself for a long time we got nothing more except the repetition of the words we had already heard and the sound of that suppressed laughter then horton drew towards him the second battery I'll try a stimulation of the motor nerve centers he said watch her face he propped the gramophone needle in position and inserted into the fractured skull the two poles of the second battery moving them about there very carefully as I watched her face I saw with a freezing horror that her lips were beginning to move her mouth's moving I cried she can't be dead he peered into her face nonsense he said that's only the stimulus from the current she's been dead half an hour ah what's coming now the lips lengthened into a smile the lower jaw dropped her mouth came the laughter we had heard just now through the gramophone and then the dead mouth spoke with a mumble of unintelligible words a bubbling torrent of incoherent syllables I'll turn the full current on he said the head jerked and raised itself the lips struggled for utterance and suddenly she spoke swiftly and distinctly just when he got his razor out she said I came up behind him and put my hand over his face and bent his neck back over his chair with all my strength and I picked up his razor and with one slit that was the way to pay him out and I didn't lose my head but I lauded his chin well and put the razor in his hand and left him there and went downstairs picked his dinner for him and then an hour afterwards as he didn't come down up I went to see what kept him it was a nasty cut on his neck that kept him Horton suddenly withdrew the two poles of the battery from her head and even in the middle of her word the mouth seized working and lay rigid and open by God he said there's a tale for dead lips to tell yet exactly what happened then I never knew it appeared to me that as he still leaned over the table with the two poles of the battery in his hand his foot slipped and he fell forward across it there came a sharp crack and a flash of blue dazzling light and there he lay face downwards with arms that just stirred with his fall the two poles that must momentarily have come into contact with his hand were jerked away again and I lifted him and laid him on the floor but his lips as well as those of the dead woman had spoken for the last time end of and the dead spake recording by Wraith Ball