 THE BOARDED WINDOW by Ambrose Beers. In 1830, only a few miles away from what is now the great city of Cincinnati, lay an immense and almost unbroken forest. The whole region was sparsely settled by people of the frontier, restless souls, who no sooner had hewn fairly habitable homes out of the wilderness and attained to that degree of prosperity which today we should call indigents. Then impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature, they abandoned all and pushed farther westward to encounter new perils and privations in the effort to regain the meager comforts which they had voluntarily renounced. Many of them had already forsaken that region for the remote settlements, but among those remaining was one who had been of those first arriving. He lived alone in a house of logs, surrounded on all sides by the great forest of whose gloom and silence he seemed apart, for no one had ever known him to smile nor speak a needless word. His simple wants were supplied by the sailor-barter of skins of wild animals in the river-town, for not a thing that he grow upon the land, which if needful he might have claimed by right of undisturbed possession. There were evidences of improvement. A few acres of ground immediately about the house had once been cleared of its trees, the decayed stumps of which were half-concealed by the new growth that had been suffered to repair the ravage wrought by the axe. Apparently the man-zeal for agriculture had burned with a failing flame, expiring in penitential ashes. The little log house with its chimney of sticks, its roof of warping clapboards situated with traversing poles, and its chinking of clay, had a single door and directly opposite a window. The latter, however, was boarded up. Nobody could remember a time when it was not. And none knew why it was so closed, certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air. For on those rare occasions when a hunter had passed that lonely spot, the recluse had commonly been seen sunning himself on his doorstep if heaven had provided sunshine for his need. I fancy there are few persons living today who ever knew the secret of that window. But I am one, as you shall see. The man's name was said to be Merlock. He was apparently seventy years old, actually about fifty. Something besides years had had a hand in his aging. His hair and long full beard were white, his gray, lustrous eyes sunken. His face singularly seemed with wrinkles, which appeared to belong to two intersecting systems. In figure he was tall in spare with a stoop of the shoulders, a burden bearer. I never saw him, these particulars I learned from my grandfather, from whom also I got the man's story when I was a lad. He had known him when living nearby in that early day. One day Merlock was found in his cabin, dead. It was not a time and place for coroners and newspapers, and I suppose it was a greed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told and should remember. I know only that it was with what was probably a sense of the fitness of things the body was buried near the cabin, alongside the grave of his wife, who had preceded him by so many years that local tradition had retained hardly a hint of her existence. That closes the final chapter of this true story, accepting indeed the circumstance that many years afterward, in company with an equally intrepid spirit, I penetrated to the place and ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy there about knew haunted the spot. But there is an earlier chapter, that supplied by my grandfather. When Merlock built his cabin and began laying sturdily about with his axe to hew out a farm, the rifle, meanwhile, his means of support, he was young, strong, and full of hope, and that eastern country which he came he had married, as was the fashion, a young woman and always worthy of his honest devotion, who shared the dangers and privations of his lot with a willing spirit and light heart. There is no known record of her name. Of her charms of mind and person, tradition is silent and the doubter is at liberty to entertain his doubt, but God forbid that I should share it. Of their affection and happiness, there is abundant assurance in every added day of the man's widowed life. For what but the magnetism of a blessed memory could have chained that venturesome spirit to a lot like that? One day Merlock returned from gunning in a distant part of the forest, to find his wife prostrate with fever and delirious. There was no physician within miles, no neighbor, nor was she in a condition to be left to summon help, so he set about the task of nursing her back to health. But at the end of the third day she fell into unconsciousness and so passed away, apparently with never a gleam of returning reason. From what we know of a nature like his, we may venture to sketch in some of the details of the outline picture drawn by my grandfather. When convinced that she was dead, Merlock had sense enough to remember that the dead must be prepared for burial. In performance of this sacred duty he blundered now and again, did certain things incorrectly and others which he did correctly were done over and over. His occasional failures to accomplish some simple and ordinary act filled him with astonishment like that of a drunken man who wonders at the suspension of familiar natural laws. He was surprised, too, that he did not weep, surprised and a little ashamed. Surely it is unkind not to weep for the dead. Tomorrow, he said aloud, I shall have to make the coffin and dig the grave, and then I shall miss her when she is no longer in sight. But now she is dead, of course. But it is all right. It must be all right somehow. Things cannot be so bad as they seem. He stood over the body in the fading light, adjusting the hair and putting the finishing touches to the simple toilet, doing all mechanically with soulless care. And still, through his consciousness, ran an under-sense of conviction that all was right, that he should have her again as before and everything explained. He had had no experience in grief. His capacity had not been enlarged by use. His heart could not contain it all, nor his imagination rightly conceive it. He did not know he was so hard-struck. That knowledge would come later and never go. Grief is an artist of powers as various as the instruments upon which he plays his dirges for the dead, evoking from some the sharpest shrillest notes, from others the low grave cords that throb recurrent like the slow beating of a distant drum. Some nature as it startles, some it stupefies. And one it comes like the stroke of an arrow stinging all the sensibilities to a keener life. To another is the blow of a bludgeon, which in crushing benums. We may conceive Murloc to have been that way affected, for and here we are upon shoreer ground than that of conjecture. No sooner had he finished his pious work than sinking into a chair by the side of the table upon which the body lay and noting how white the profile showed in the deepening gloom. He laid his arms upon the table's edge and dropped his face into them, tearless yet and unutterably weary. At that moment came in through the open window a long wailing sound like the cry of a lost child in the far deeps of the darkening wood, but the man did not move. Again and nearer than before sounded that unearthly cry upon his failing sense. Perhaps it was a wild beast. Perhaps it was a dream, for Murloc was asleep. Some hours later, as it afterward appeared, this unfaithful watcher awoke, and lifting his head from his arms, intently listened. He knew not why. There in the black darkness, by the side of the dead, recalling all without a shock, he strained his eyes to see he knew not what. His senses were all alert, his breath was suspended, his blood had stilled its tides as if to assist the silence. Who what had waked him? And where was it? Suddenly the table shook beneath his arms, and at the same moment he heard, or fancied that he heard, a light, soft step, another, sounds of bare feet upon the floor. He was terrified beyond the power to cry out or move, perforce he waited, waited there in the darkness, through seeming centuries of such dread as one may know yet live to tell. He tried vainly to speak the dead woman's name, vainly to stretch forth his hand across the table to learn if she were there. His throat was powerless, his arms and hands were like lead. Then occurred something most frightful. Some heavy body seemed hurled against the table with an impetus that pushed it against his breast so sharply as nearly to overthrow him, and at the same instant he heard and felt the fall of something upon the floor, with so violent a thump that the whole house was shaken by the impact, a scuffling ensued and a confusion of sounds impossible to describe, Murlock had risen to his feet, fear had by excess forfitted control of his faculties, he flung his hands upon the table, nothing was there. There is a point at which terror may turn to madness, and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive, but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall with a little groping seize to his loaded rifle and without aim discharged it by the flash which lit up the room with a vivid illumination. He saw an enormous panther dragging the dead woman toward the window, its teeth fixed in her throat. Then there were darkness blacker than before in silence, and when he returned to consciousness the sun was high and the wood vocal with songs of birds. The body lay near the window where the beast had left it when frightened away by the flash and report of the rifle. The clothing was deranged, the long hair and disorder the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lacerated, had issued a pool of blood not yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken. The hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear. The end of the boarded window. Recording by Joseph Langley, Alexandria, Virginia, October 2008. A thousand injuries of Fortonato I had borne as I best could. But when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged. This was a point definitively saddled. But the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the Avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. It must be understood that neither my word nor deed had I given Fortonato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my want, to smile in his face. And he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his emulation. He had a weak point, this Fortonato, although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part, their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity to practice imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires in painting and gemmary. Fortonato, like his countrymen, was a quack. But in the matter of old wines, he was sincere. In this respect, I did not differ from him materially. I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could. It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting potty striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand. I said to him, my dear Fortonato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today. But I have received a pipe of what passes for a Montiado, and I have my doubts. How, city, a Montiado, a pipe, impossible, and in the middle of the carnival, I have my doubts, I replied. And I was silly enough to pay the full Montiado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found. And I was fearful of losing a bargain. A Montiado? I have my doubts. A Montiado, and I must satisfy them. A Montiado? As you are engaged, I am on my way to look crazy. If anyone has a critical turn at E.C., he will tell me, look crazy cannot tell a Montiado from Sherry. And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own. Come, let us go. Wither to your vaults. My friend, no. I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Look crazy. I have no engagement. Come. My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe call with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nighter. Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing, a Montiado. You have been imposed upon. That is for look crazy. He cannot distinguish Sherry from a Montiado. Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm, and put on a mask of black silk and drawn a rocolaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo. There were no attendants at home. They had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to ensure their immediate disappearance one and all as soon as my back was turned. I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down along in a winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors. The gate of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode. The pipe, he said, it is farther on, said I. But observe the white web-work which gleams from these cabin walls. He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the room of intoxication. Nighter? he asked at length. Nighter, I replied. How long have you had that cough? My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes. It is nothing, he said at last. Come, I said with decision, we will go back. Your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved. You are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me, it is no matter. We will go back. You will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is no crazy. Enough, he said. The cough, and mere nothing. It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough. True, true, I replied. And indeed I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily. But you should use all proper caution. The drafter this may dock will defend us from the daps. Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle, which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon them old. Drink, I said, presenting in the wine. He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me with familiarity, while his bells jingled. I drink, he said, to the buried that repose around us. And I, to your long life. He again took my arm, and we proceeded. His vaults, he said, are extensive. The montresors, I replied, were of a great and numerous family. I forget your arms. The huge human foot door. In a field azure, the foot crushes a serpent rampant, whose fangs are embedded in a heel. And the motto? Nemo me impune la cesite. Footnote translation? No one provokes me with impunity. End of footnote. Good, he said. The wine sparkled in his eyes, and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with a medoc. We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and punches intermingling into the innermost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again. And this time I made bold to seize Fortonotto by an arm above the elbow. The nighter, I said, see it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back care it is too late. Your cough, it is nothing, he said. Let us go on. First, another draft of the medoc. I broke and reached him a flag on the grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed, and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand. I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement. He grew a desk one. You do not comprehend, he said. Not I, I replied. Then you are not of the brotherhood. How? You are not of the masons. Yes, yes, I said, yes, yes. You, impossible, a mason. A mason, I replied. A sign, he said. A sign! It is this, I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my rocolaire a trowel. You jest, he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. But let us proceed to the amondiado. Be it so, I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the amondiado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeau rather to glow than flame. At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another, last spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down and lay promiscuously upon the earth, throwing at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones we perceived a still interior crypt or recess in depth about four feet in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no special use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs and was backed by one of the circumscribing walls of solid granite. It was in vain the fortinato uplifting his dull torch endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble knight did not enable us to see. Proceed, I said. Herein is the amontillaro. As for Lucrezzi, he is an ignoramus, interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward while I followed immediately at his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche and finding his progress arrested by the rock stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more, and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples distant from each other about two feet horizontally, from one of these depended a short chain from the other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist, withdrawing the key, I stepped back from the recess. Pass your hand, I said, over the wall. You cannot help feeling the lighter. Indeed it is very damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No! Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power. The amontillaro! ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment. I applied the amontillaro. As I said these words, I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials, and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche. I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry, what I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had been a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low, moaning cry from the depths of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth. And then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hark into it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused and holding the flambeau over the mason work through a few feeble rays upon the figure within. A succession of loud and shrill screams bursting suddenly from the throat of the chain to form seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated. I trembled, and, sheeting my rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess. But the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I re-approached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed. I aided. I surpassed them in volume and strength. I did this, and the clamour grew still. It was now midnight that my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh. There remained but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight. I placed it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said, A very good joke indeed. An excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the Palazzo over our wine. The Amontiato, I said. Yes, the Amontiato. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the Palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone. Yes, I said. Let us be gone. For the love of God, Montresar! Yes, I said. For the love of God. But to these words I harkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud, Fortunato! No answer. I called again, Fortunato! No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth and returned only jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick. It was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position. I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-abrupted the old rampart of the bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. Inpache re-coyescat. End of The Cask of a Monteiro by Edgar Allan Poe. Recorded by Jake Andrews, Dore County, Wisconsin, October 2008. Casting the Runes by M. R. James. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Kat Matfield. Casting the Runes by M. R. James. April 15, 1900 and Blank. Dear sir, I am requested by the Council of the Blank Association to return to you the draft of a paper on The Truth of Alchemy, which you have been good enough to offer to read at our forthcoming meeting, and to inform you that the Council do not see their way to including it in the programme. I am, yours faithfully, Blank, Secretary. April 18. Dear sir, I am sorry to say that my engagements do not permit of my affording you an interview on the subject of your proposed paper, nor do our laws allow if you are discussing the matter with a committee of our Council, as you suggest. Please allow me to assure you that the fullest consideration was given to the draft, which you submitted, and that it was not declined without having been referred to the judgement of a most competent authority. No personal question, it can hardly be necessary for me to add, can have had the slightest influence on the decision of the Council. Believe me, it's super. April 20. The Secretary of the Blank Association begs respectfully to inform Mr Carswell that it is impossible for him to communicate the name of any person or persons to whom the draft of Mr Carswell's paper may have been submitted, and further desires to intimate that he cannot undertake to reply to any further letters on this subject. And who is Mr Carswell? inquired the Secretary's wife. She had called at his office and, perhaps unwarrantably, had picked up the last of these three letters, which the typist had just brought in. Why, my dear, just at present Mr Carswell is a very angry man, but I don't know much about him otherwise, except that he is a person of wealth, his address is Loughard Abbey Warwickshire, and he's an alchemist, apparently, and wants to tell us all about it, and that's about all, except that I don't want to meet him for the next week or two. Now, if you're ready to leave this place, I am. What have you been doing to make him angry? asked Mrs Secretary. The usual thing, my dear, the usual thing. He sent in a draft of a paper he wanted to read at the next meeting, and we referred it to Edward Dunning, almost the only man in England who knows about these things, and he said it was perfectly hopeless, so he declined it. So Carswell has been pelting me with letters ever since. The last thing he wanted was the name of the man we referred his nonsense to. You saw my answer to that. But don't you say anything about it for goodness' sake? I should think not indeed. Did I ever do such a thing? I do hope, though, that he won't get to know that it was poor Mr Dunning. Poor Mr Dunning? I don't know why you call him that. He's a very happy man, is Dunning, lots of hobbies and a comfortable home, and all his time to himself. I only meant I should be sorry for him if this man got hold of his name, and came and bothered him. Oh! ah! yes! I daresay he would be poor, Mr Dunning, then. The secretary and his wife were lunching out, and the friends to whose house they were bound were Warwickshire people. So Mrs Secretary had already settled it in her own mind that she would question them judiciously about Mr Carswell. But she was saved the trouble of leading up to the subject, for the hostess said to the host, before many minutes had passed, I saw the abbot of Lothard this morning. The host whistled, Did you? What in the world brings him up to town? Goodness knows! He was coming out of the British Museum gate as I drove past. It was not unnatural that Mrs Secretary should inquire whether this was a real abbot who was being spoken of. Oh! no, my dear! only a neighbour of ours in the country who bought Loughard Abbey a few years ago. His real name is Carswell. Is he a friend of yours? asked Mr Secretary with a private wink to his wife. The question let Lough's a torrent of declination. There was really nothing to be said for Mr Carswell. Nobody knew what he did with himself. His servants were a horrible set of people. He had invented a new religion for himself, and practised no one could tell what appalling rites. He was very easily offended, and never forgave anybody. He had a dreadful face. So the lady insisted, her husband somewhat demuring. He never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous. Do the poor man justice, dear, the husband interrupted. You forgot the treat he gave the schoolchildren. Forget it, indeed! But I'm glad you mentioned it, because it gives an idea of the man. Now, Florence, listen to this. The first winter he was at Loughard, this delightful neighbour of ours, wrote to the clergyman of his parish, he's not ours, but we know him very well, and offered to show the schoolchildren some magic lantern slides. He said he had some new kinds, which he thought would interest them. Well, the clergyman was rather surprised, because Mr. Carswell had shown himself inclined to be unpleasant to the children, complaining of their trespassing or something of the sort. But, of course, he accepted, and the evening was fixed, and our friend went himself to see that everything went right. He said he had never been so thankful for anything, as that his own children were all prevented from being there. They were at a children's party at our house, as a matter of fact, because this Mr. Carswell had evidently set out with the intention of frightening those poor village children out of their wits, and I do believe, if he had been allowed to go on, he would actually have done so. He began with some comparatively mild things. Red Riding Hood was one, and even then, Mr. Farrah said, the wolf was so dreadful that several of the smaller children had to be taken out, and he said Mr. Carswell began the story by producing a noise like a wolf howling in the distance, which was the most gruesome thing he had ever heard. All the slides he showed, Mr. Farrah said, were most clever. They were absolutely realistic, and where he had got them or how he worked them, he could not imagine. Well, the show went on, and the stories kept on becoming a little more terrifying each time, and the children were mesmerised into complete silence. At last he produced a series which represented a little boy passing through his own park, Loughard, I mean, in the evening. Every child in the room could recognise the place from the pictures, and this poor boy was followed, and at last pursued and overtaken, and either torn in pieces or somehow made away with a horrible, hopping creature in white, which you first saw dodging about among the trees, and gradually it appeared more and more plainly. Mr. Farrah said it gave him one of the worst nightmares he ever remembered, and what it must have meant to the children doesn't bear thinking of. Of course, this was too much, and he spoke very sharply indeed to Mr. Carswell, and said it couldn't go on. All he said was, oh, you think it's time to bring our little show to an end and send them home to their beds? Very well. And then, if you please, he switched on another slide which showed a great mass of snakes, centipedes and disgusting creatures with wings, and somehow or other made it seem as if they were climbing out of the picture and getting in amongst the audience, and this was accompanied by a sort of dry, rustling noise which sent the children nearly mad, and of course they stampeded. A good many of them were rather hurt in getting out of the room, and I don't suppose one of them closed an eye that night. There was the most dreadful trouble in the village afterwards. Of course, the mothers threw a good part of the blame on poor Mr. Farrah, and if they could have got past the gates, I believe the fathers would have broken every window in the abbey. Well, now, that's Mr. Carswell. That's the abbot of Loughard, my dear, and you can imagine how we covet his society. Yes, I think he has all the possibilities of a distinguished criminal, as Carswell said the host. I should be sorry for anybody who got into his bad books. Is he the man? Or am I mixing him up with someone else? asked the secretary, who for some minutes had been wearing the frown of the man who was trying to recollect something. Is he the man who brought out a history of witchcraft some time back? Ten years on war. That's the man. Do you remember the reviews of it? Certainly I do, and what equally to the point, I knew the author of the most incisive of the lot. So did you. You must remember John Harrington. He was at John's in our time. Oh, very well indeed, though I don't think I saw or heard of him between the time I went down and the day I read the account of the inquest on him. Inquest? said one of the ladies. What happened to him? Why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. But the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there? It was a mysterious business, I must say. Here was this man, not an athletic fellow, was he, and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticed, walking home along a country road late in the evening, no tramps about, well known and liked in the place, and he suddenly begins to run, like mad, loses his hat and stick, and finally shins up a tree, quite a difficult tree, growing in the hedgerow. A dead branch gives away, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he's found next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. It was pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs and beasts escaped out of menageries, but there was nothing to be made of that. That was in eighty-nine, and I believe his brother Henry, whom I remember as well at Cambridge, but you probably don't, has been trying to get on the track of an explanation ever since. He, of course, insists there was malice in it, but I don't know. It's difficult to see how it could have come in. After a time the talk reverted to the history of witchcraft. Did you ever look into it? asked the host. Yes, I did, said the secretary. I went so far as to read it. Was it as bad as it was made out to be? Oh, in point of style and form, quite hopeless. It deserved all the pulverising it got. But, besides that, it was an evil book. The man believed every word of what he was saying, and I'm very much mistaken if he hadn't tried the greater part of his receipts. Well, I only remember Harrington's review of it, and I must say, if I'd been the author, it would have quenched my literary ambitions for good. I should never have held up my head again. It hasn't had that effect in the present case. But come, it's half past three. I must be off. On the way home, the secretary's wife said, I do hope that horrible man won't find out that Mr. Dunning had anything to do with the rejection of his paper. I don't think there's much chance of that, said the secretary. Dunning won't mention it himself, for these matters are confidential, and none of us will, for the same reason. Carswell won't know his name, for Dunning hasn't published anything on the subject yet. The only danger is, Carswell might find out if he was to ask the British museum people who was in the habit of consulting our chemical manuscripts. I can't very well tell them not to mention Dunning, can I? He would set them talking at once. Let's hope it won't occur to him. However, Mr. Carswell was an astute man. This much is in the way of prologue. On an evening rather later in the same week, Mr. Edward Dunning was returning from the British museum, where he had been engaged in research, to the comfortable house in a suburb where he lived alone, tended by two excellent women who had been long with him. There is nothing to be added by the way of description of him to what we have heard already. Let us follow him as he takes his sober course homewards. A train took him to within a mile or two of his house, and an electric tram a stage farther. The line ended at a point some 300 yards from his front door. He had had enough of reading when he got into the car, and indeed the light was not such as to allow him to do more than study the advertisements on the panes of glass that faced him as he sat. As was not unnatural, advertisements in this particular line of cars were objects of his frequent contemplation, and with the possible exception of the brilliant and convincing dialogue between Mr. Lamplow and an eminent K.C. on the subject of pyrritic saline, none of them afforded much scope to his imagination. I am wrong, but there was one at the corner of the car farthest from him which did not seem familiar. It was in blue letters on a yellow ground, and all that he could read of it was a name— John Harrington—and something like a date. It could be of no interest to him to know more, but for all that, as the car emptied, he was just curious enough to move along the seat until he could read it well. He felt, to a slight extent, repaid to his trouble. The advertisement was not of the usual type. It ran thus—in memory of John Harrington FSA of the Laurels, Ashbrook, died September 18th, 1889. Three months were allowed. The car stopped. Mr. Dunning, still contemplating the blue letters on the yellow ground, had to be stimulated to rise by a word from the conductor. I beg your pardon, he said. I was looking at that advertisement. It's a very odd one, isn't it? The conductor read it slowly. Well, my word, he said. I never see that one before. Well, that is a cure, ain't it? Someone been up to their jokes here, I should think. He got out a duster, and applied it, not without saliva, to the pain, and then to the outside. No, he said returning. There ain't no transfer. Seems to me as if it were regular in the glass. What I mean in the substance, as you may say. Don't you think so, sir? Mr. Dunning examined it, and rubbed it with his glove, and agreed. Who looks after these advertisements, and gives leave for them to be put up? I wish you would inquire. I will just take a note of the words. At this moment there came a call from the driver. Look alive, George! Time's up. All right, all right, there's something else what's up at this end. You come and look at this there glass. What's gone on with the glass? said the driver approaching. Well, it knows Arrington. What's it all about? I was just asking he was responsible for putting up the advertisements in your cars, and saying it would be as well to make some inquiry about this one. Well, sir, that's all done at the company's office, that work is. It's our Mr. Tim's, I believe, looks into that. When we put up to-night, I'll leave word, and perhaps I'll be able to tell you tomorrow if you happen to be coming this way. This was all that passed that evening. Mr. Dunning did just go to the trouble of looking up Ashbrook, and found that it was in Warwickshire. Next day he went to town again. The car, it was the same car, was too full in the morning to allow him his getting a word with the conductor. He could only be sure that the curious advertisement had been made away with. The close of day brought a further element of mystery into the transaction. He had missed the tram, or else preferred walking home. But at a rather late hour, while he was at work in his study, one of the maids came to say that the maids were very anxious to speak to him. This was a reminder of the advertisement, which he had, he says, nearly forgotten. He had the men in. They were the conductor and driver of the car, and when the matter of refreshment had been attended to, asked what Mr. Tim's had to say about the advertisement. Well, sir, that's what we took the liberty to step round about, said the conductor. Mr. Tim's, you give William here the rough side of his tongue about that. According to him, there weren't no advertisement sent in, nor ordered, nor paid for, nor put up, nor nothing, let alone not being there, and we were playing the fool taking up his time. Well, I says, if that's the case, all I ask of you, Mr. Tim's, I says, is to take and look at it for yourself, I says. Of course, if it ain't there, I says, you may take and call me what you like. Right, he says, I will, and we went straight off. Now, I'll leave it to you, sir, if that add, as we term them, with Arrington on it, weren't as plain I think, blue letters on yellow glass, and as I says at the time, and you borne me out, regular in the glass, because if you remember, you recollected me swabbing it with me duster. To be sure I do, quite clearly. Well, you may say well, I don't think. Mr. Tim's, you get in that car with a light. No, he tell William to hold the light outside. Now, he says, where's your precious add what we've heard so much about? Here it is, I says, Mr. Tim's, and I laid my hand on it. The conductor paused. Well, said Mr. Dunning, it was gone, I suppose, broken. Broke? Not it! There weren't, if you believe me, no more trace of them letters, blue letters they was, on that piece of glass than, well, it's no good me talking, I never see such a thing. I leave it to William here if, but there, as I says, what's the benefit in me going on about it? And what did Mr. Tim's say? Why, he did what I give him leave to, called us pretty much anything he liked, and I don't know as I blame him so much, neither. But what we thought, William and me did, was as we seen you take down a bit of a note about that, well, that lettering. I certainly did, and I have it now. Did you wish me to speak to Mr. Tim's myself, and show it to him? Was that what you came in about? There, didn't I say as much, said William, deal with a gent if you can get on the track of one, that's my word. Now perhaps, George, you'll allow as I ain't took you very far wrong tonight. Very well, William, very well, no need for you to go on as if you'd had to frogs-march me here. I come quiet, didn't I? All the same for that. We hadn't ought to take up your time this way, sir, but if it so happened you could find time to step round to the company's office in the morning and tell Mr. Tim's what you've seen for yourself. We should lay under a very high obligation to you for the trouble. You see, it ain't being called, well, one thing and another, as we mind, but if they got into our head at the office, as we seen things as weren't there, why, one thing leads to another, and where we should be a twelve-month sense, well, you can understand what I mean. Amid further elucidations of the proposition, George, conducted by William, left the room. The incredulity of Mr. Tim's, who had a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Dunning, was greatly modified on the following day by what the latter could tell and show him, and any bad mark that might have been attached to the names of William and George was not suffered to remain on the company's books. But explanation? There was none. Mr. Dunning's interest in the matter was kept alive by an incident of the following afternoon. He was walking from his club to the train, and he noticed some way ahead a man with a handful of leaflets, such as are distributed to passers-by by agents of enterprising firms. This agent had not chosen a very crowded street for his operations. In fact, Mr. Dunning did not see him get rid of a single leaflet before he himself reached the spot. One was thrust into his hand as he passed. The hand that gave it touched his, and he experienced a sort of little shock, as it did. It seemed unnaturally rough and hot. He looked in passing at the giver, but the impression he got was so unclear that, however much he tried to reckon it up subsequently, nothing would come. He was walking quickly, and as he went on, glanced at the paper. It was a blue one. The name of Harrington in large capitals caught his eye. He stopped, startled, and felt for his glasses. The next instant the leaflet was twitched out of his hand by a man who hurried past and was irrecoverably gone. He ran back a few paces. But where was the passer-by? And where the distributor? It was in a somewhat pensive frame of mind that Mr. Dunning passed on the following day into the select manuscript room of the British Museum and filled up tickets for Harley 3586 and some other volumes. After a few minutes they were brought to him, and he was settling the one he wanted first upon the desk, when he thought he heard his own name whispered behind him. He turned round hastily, and in doing so brushed his little portfolio of loose papers onto the floor. He saw no one he recognised except one of the staff in charge of the room, who nodded to him, and he proceeded to pick up his papers. He thought he had them all, and was turning to begin work when a stout gentleman at the table behind him, who was just rising to leave and had collected his own belongings, touched him on the shoulder, saying, May I give you this? I think it should be yours. and handed him a missing choir. It is mine, thank you," said Mr. Dunning. In another moment the man had left the room. Upon finishing his work for the afternoon, Mr. Dunning had some conversation with the assistant in charge and took occasion to ask who the stout gentleman was. Oh! he's a man named Carswell, said the assistant. He was asking me a week ago who were the great authorities on alchemy, and of course I told him you were the only one in the country. I'll see if I can't catch him. He'd like to meet you, I'm sure. Of a heaven's sake, don't dream of it, said Mr. Dunning. I'm particularly anxious to avoid him. Oh! very well, said the assistant. He doesn't come here often. I dare say you won't meet him. More than once on the way home that day, Mr. Dunning confessed to himself that he did not look forward with his usual cheerfulness to a solitary evening. It seemed to him that something ill-defined and impalpable had stepped in between him and his fellow men. Had taken him in charge, as it were. He wanted to sit close up to his neighbours in the train and in the tram, but as luck would have it both train and car were markedly empty. The conductor George was thoughtful and appeared to be absorbed in calculations as to the number of passengers. On arriving at his house he found Dr. Watson, his medical man, on his doorstep. I've had to upset your household arrangements, I'm sorry to say, Dunning, both your servants ordered combat. In fact, I've had to send them to the nursing home. Good heavens! What's the matter? It's something like Potomac poisoning, I should think. You've not suffered yourself, I can see, or you wouldn't be walking about. I think they'll pull through all right. Dear, dear, have you any idea what brought it on? Well, they tell me they bought some shellfish from a hawker at their dinnertime. It's odd. I've made inquiries, but I can't find that any hawker has been to other houses in the street. I couldn't send word to you. They won't be back for a bit yet. Come and dine with me tonight, anyhow, and we can make arrangements for going on. Eight o'clock. Don't be too anxious. The solitary evening was thus obviated, at the expense of some distress and inconvenience at his troop. Mr. Dunning spent the time pleasantly enough with the doctor, a rather recent settler, and returned to his lonely home at about eleven thirty. The night he passed is not one on which he looks back with any satisfaction. He was in bed, and the light was out. He was wondering if the charwoman would come early enough to get him hot water next morning, when he heard the unmistakable sound of his study door opening. No step followed it on the passage floor, but the sound must mean mischief, for he knew that he had shut the door that evening after putting his papers away in his desk. It was rather shame than courage that induced him to slip out into the passage and lean over the banister in his nightgown, listening. No light was visible, no further sound came, only a gust of warm, or even hot air played for an instant round his shins. He went back and decided to lock himself into his room. There was more unpleasantness, however. Either an economical suburban company had decided that their light would not be required in the small hours and had stopped working, or else something was wrong with the meter. The effect was, in any case, that the electric light was off. The obvious course was to find a match, and also to consult his watch. He might as well know how many hours of discomfort awaited him. So he put his hand into the well-known nook under the pillow. Only it did not get so far. What he touched was, according to his account, a mouth with teeth and hair about it, and he declares not the mouth of a human being. I do not think it is any use to guess what he said or did, but he was in a spare room with the door locked in his ear to it before he was clearly conscious again. And there he spent the rest of a most miserable night, looking every moment for some fumbling at the door. But nothing came. The venturing back into his own room in the morning was attended with many listening and quiverings. The door stood open, fortunately, and the blinds were up. The servants had been out of the house before the hour of drawing them down. There was, to be short, no trace of an inhabitant. The watch, too, was in its usual place. Nothing was disturbed. Only the wardrobe door had swung open, in accordance with its confirmed habit. A ring at the back door now announced the charwoman, who had been ordered the night before, and nerved Mr. Dunning, after letting her in, to continue his search in other parts of the house. It was equally fruitless. The day thus began went on dismally enough. He dared not go to the museum. In spite of what the assistant had said, Carswell might turn up there, and Dunning felt he could not cope with a probably hostile stranger. His own house was odious. Dunning had waited, sponging on the doctor. He spent some little time in a call at the nursing home, where he was slightly cheered by a good report of his housekeeper and maid. Towards lunchtime he betook himself to his club, again experiencing a gleam of satisfaction at seeing the secretary of the association. At luncheon Dunning told his friend the more material of his woes, but could not bring himself to speak to those that weighed most heavily on his spirits. My poor dear man, said the secretary, what an upset! Look here, we're alone at home, absolutely, you must put up with us. Yes, no excuse, send your things in this afternoon." Dunning was unable to stand out. He was, in truth, becoming acutely anxious as the hours went on, as to what that night might have waiting for him. He was almost happy as he hurried home to pack up. His friends, when they had time to take stock of him, were rather shocked at his lawn appearance, and did their best to put him up to the mark. Not altogether without success, but when the two men were smoking alone later, Dunning became dull again. Suddenly he said, Gaten, I believe that alchemist man knows it was I who got his paper rejected. Gaten whistled. What makes you think that? he said. Dunning told of his conversation with the museum assistant, and Gaten could only agree that the guests seemed likely to be correct. Not that I care much, Dunning went on, only it might be a nuisance if we were to meet. He's a bad tempered party, I imagine. Conversation dropped again. Gaten became more and more strongly impressed with the desolateness that came over Dunning's face and bearing, and finally, though with a considerable effort, he asked him point blank whether something serious was not bothering him. Dunning gave an exclamation of relief. I was perishing to get it off my mind, he said. Do you know anything about a man named John Harrington? Gaten was thoroughly startled, and at the moment could only ask why. Then the complete story of Dunning's experiences came out, what had happened in the tram-car, in his own house, and in the street, the troubling of spirit that had crept over him, and still held him, and he ended with the question he had begun with. Gaten was at a loss how to answer him. To tell the story of Harrington's end would perhaps be right, only Dunning was in a nervous state, the story was a grim one, and he could not help asking himself whether there were not a connecting link between these two cases in the person of Carswell. He was a difficult concession for a scientific man, but it could be eased by the phrase hypnotic suggestion. In the end he decided that his answer to night should be guarded, he would talk the situation over with his wife. So he said that he had known Harrington at Cambridge, and believed he had died suddenly in 1889, adding a few details about the man and his published work. He did talk over the matter with Mrs. Gaten, and as he had anticipated she leapt at once to the conclusion which had been hovering before him. It was she who reminded him of the surviving brother, Henry Harrington, and she also who suggested that he might be got hold of by means of their hosts of the day before. He might be a hopeless crank, objected Gaten, that could be ascertained from the Bennets who knew him, Mrs. Gaten retorted, and she undertook to see the Bennets the very next day. It is not necessary to tell in further detail the steps by which Henry Harrington and Dunning were brought together. The next scene that does require to be narrated is a conversation that took place between the two. Dunning had told Harrington of the strange ways in which the dead man's name had been brought before him, and had said something besides of his own subsequent experiences. Then he had asked if Harrington was disposed, in return, to recall any of the circumstances connected with his brother's death. Harrington's surprise of what he heard can be imagined, but his reply was readily given. John, he said, was in a very odd state undeniably from time to time, during some weeks before, though not immediately before, the catastrophe. There were several things. The principal notion he had was that he thought he was being followed. No doubt he was an impressionable man, but he never had had such fancies as this before. I cannot get it out of my mind that there was ill-will at work, and what you tell me about yourself reminds me very much of my brother. Can you think of any possible connecting link? There is just one that has been taking shape vaguely in my mind. I've been told that your brother reviewed a book very severely, not long before he died, and just lately I have happened to cross the path of the man who wrote that book in a way that he would resent. Don't tell me the man was called Carswell. Why not? That is exactly his name. Henry Harrington lent back. That is final to my mind. Now I must explain further. From something he said, I feel sure that my brother John was beginning to believe, very much against his will, that Carswell was at the bottom of his trouble. I want to tell you what seems to me to have a bearing on the situation. My brother was a great musician, and used to run up to concerts in town. He came back three months before he died from one of these, and gave me his programme to look at—an analytical programme. He always kept them. I nearly missed this one, he said. I suppose I must have dropped it. Anyhow, I was looking for it under my seat and in my pockets and so on, and my neighbour offered me his, said, might he give it to me? He had no further use for it. And he went away just afterwards. I don't know who he was—a stout, clean-shaven man. I should have been sorry to miss it. Of course I could have bought another, but this cost me nothing. At another time he told me that he had been very uncomfortable both on the way to his hotel and during the night. I piece things together now and thinking it over. Then, not very long after, he was going over these programmes, putting them in order to have them bound up, and in this particular one, which, by the way, I had hardly glanced at, he found quite near the beginning a strip of paper with some old writing on it written in red and black, most carefully done. He looked to me more like runic letters than anything else. Why, he said, this must belong to my fat neighbour. It looks as if it might be worth returning to him. It may be a copy of something. Evidently someone has taken trouble over it. How can I find his address? We talked it over for a little and agreed that it wasn't worth advertising about, and that my brother had better look out for the man at the next concert to which he was going very soon. The paper was lying on the book, and we were both by the fire. It was a cold, windy summer evening. I suppose the door blew open, though I didn't notice it. At any rate a gust, a warm gust it was, came quite suddenly between us, took the paper and blew it straight into the fire. It was light, thin paper, and flared and went up the chimney in a single ash. Well, I said, you can't give it back now." He said nothing for a minute. Then rather crossly, no, I can't, but why you should keep on saying so, I don't know. I remarked that I didn't say it more than once. Not more than four times you mean, was all he said. I remember all that very clearly without any good reason. And now, to come to the point, I don't know if you looked at that book of Carswells which my unfortunate brother reviewed. It's not likely that you should, but I did, both before his death and after it. The first time we made game of it together, it was written in no style at all, split infinitives and every sort of thing that makes an Oxford gorge rise. Then there was nothing that the man didn't swallow, mixing up classical myths and stories out of the golden legend with reports of savage customs of today. All very proper, no doubt, if you know how to use them. But he didn't. He looked at the golden legend and the golden bow exactly on a par, and to believe both, a pitiable exhibition in short. Well, after the misfortune, I looked over the book again. It was no better than before, but the impression which it left this time on my mind was different. I suspected, as I told you, that Carswell had borne ill will to my brother, even that he was in some way responsible for what had happened. And now his book seemed to be a very sinister performance indeed. One chapter in particular struck me, in which he spoke of casting the runes on people, either for the purpose of gaining their affection or of getting them out of the way. Perhaps more especially the latter. He spoke of all this in a way that really seemed to me to imply actual knowledge. I've got no time to go into details, but the upshot is that I am pretty sure from information received that the civil man at the concert was Carswell. I suspect—I more than suspect—that the paper was of importance, and I do believe that if my brother had been able to give it back, he might have been alive now. Therefore, it occurs to me to ask you whether you have anything to put beside what I have told you. By way of answer, Dunning had the episode in the manuscript room at the British Museum to relate. Then he did actually hand you some papers. Have you examined them? No, because we must, if you'll allow it, look at them at once, and very carefully. They went to the still empty house. Empty for the two servants were not yet able to return to work. Dunning's portfolio of papers was gathering dust on the writing table. In it were the choirs of small-sized scribbling paper which he used for his transcripts, and from one of these, as he took it up, they slipped and fluttered out into the room with uncanny quickness, a strip of thin, light paper. The window was open, but Harrington slammed it too, just in time to intercept the paper which he caught. I thought so, he said. It might be the identical thing that was given to my brother. You'll have to look out, Dunning. This may mean something quite serious for you. A long consultation took place. The paper was narrowly examined. As Harrington had said, the characters on it were more like runes than anything else, but not decipherable by either man, and both hesitated to copy them, for fear as they confessed, and for petuating whatever evil purpose they might conceal. So it has remained impossible, if I may anticipate a little, to ascertain what was conveyed in this curious message or commission. Both Dunning and Harrington are firmly convinced that it had the effect of bringing its possessors into very undesirable company. That it must be returned to the source whence it came, they were agreed, and further, that the only safe and certain way was that of personal service, and here contrivance would be necessary, for Dunning was known by sight to Carswell. He must, for one thing, alter his appearance by shaving his beard. But then might not the blow fall first? Harrington thought they could time it. He knew the date of the concert at which the black spot had been put on his brother. It was June 18th. The death had followed on September 18th. Dunning reminded him that three months had been mentioned on the inscription on the car window. Perhaps, he added with a cheerless laugh, mine may be a bill at three months, too. I believe I can fix it by my diary. Yes, April 23rd was the day at the museum. That brings us to July 23rd. Now, you know, it becomes extremely important to me to know anything you will tell me about the progress of your brother's trouble, if it is possible for you to speak of it. Of course. Well, the sense of being watched whenever he was alone was the most distressing thing to him. After a while I took to sleeping in his room, and he was the better for that. Still, he talked a great deal in his sleep. What about? Is it wise to dwell on that, at least before things are straightened out? I think not, but I can tell you this. Two things came for him by post during those weeks, both with a London postmark, and addressed in a commercial hand. One was a woodcut of Bewick's, roughly torn out of the page, one which shows a moonlit road, and a man walking along it, followed by an awful demon creature. Under it were written the lines out of the ancient mariner, which I suppose the cut illustrates, about one who, having once looked round, walks on, and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread. The other was a calendar, such as tradesmen often don't send. My brother paid no attention to this, but I looked at it after his death, and found that everything after September 18th had been torn out. You may be surprised at his having gone out alone the evening he was killed, but the fact is, during the last ten days or so of his life, he had been quite free from the sense of being followed or watched. The end of the consultation was this. Harrington, who knew a neighbour of Carswell's, thought he saw a way of keeping a watch on his movements. It would be Dunning's part to be in readiness to try to cross Carswell's path at any moment, to keep the paper safe, and in a place of ready access. They parted. The next weeks were, no doubt, a severe strain upon Dunning's nerves. The intangible barrier which had seemed to rise about him on the day when he received the paper, gradually developed into a brooding blackness that cut him off from the means of escape to which one might have thought he might resort. No one was at hand who was likely to suggest them to him, and he seemed robbed of all initiative. He waited with inexpressible anxiety as May, June and early July passed on for a mandate from Harrington, but all this time Carswell remained immovable at Loughard. At last, in less than a week before the date he had come to look upon as the end of his earthly activities, came a telegram. Leaves Victoria by boat train Thursday night. Do not miss. I come to you tonight." Harrington. He arrived accordingly, and they concocted plans. The train left Victoria at nine, and its last stop before Dover was Croydon West. Harrington would mark down Carswell at Victoria, and look out for Dunning at Croydon, calling to him if need were by a name agreed upon. Dunning, disguised as far may be, was to have no label or initials on any hand luggage, and must, at all costs, have the paper with him. Dunning's suspense, as he waited on the Croydon platform, I need not attempt to describe. His sense of danger during the last days had only been sharpened by the fact that the cloud about him had perceptibly been lighter. But relief was an ominous symptom, and if Carswell eluded him now, hope was gone. And there were so many chances of that. The rumour of the journey might be itself a device. The twenty minutes in which he paced the platform and persecuted every porter with inquiries as to the boat train were as bitter as any he had spent. Still, the train came, and Harrington was at the window. It was important, of course, that there should be no recognition, so Dunning got in at the farther end of the corridor carriage, and only gradually made his way to the compartment where Harrington and Carswell were. He was pleased, on the whole, to see that the train was far from full. Carswell was on the alert, but gave no sign of recognition. Dunning took the seat, not immediately facing him, and attempted vainly at first, then with increasing command of his faculties, to reckon the possibilities of making the desired transfer. Opposite to Carswell, and next to Dunning, was a heap of Carswell's coats on the seat. It would be of no use to slip the paper into these. He would not be safe, or would not feel so, unless in some way it could be proffered by him, and accepted by the other. There was a handbag open, and with papers in it. Could he manage to conceal this, so that perhaps Carswell might leave the carriage without it, and then find and give it to him? This was the plan that suggested itself. If he could only have counselled with Harrington—but that could not be—the minutes went on. More than once Carswell rose and went out into the corridor. The second time, Dunning was on the point of attempting to make the bag fall off the seat, but he caught Harrington's eye, and read in it a warning. Carswell, from the corridor, was watching, probably to see if the two men recognised each other. He returned, but was evidently restless, and when he rose the third time, hope dawned for something did slip off his seat, and fall with hardly a sound to the floor. Carswell went out once more, and passed out of range of the corridor window. Dunning picked up what had fallen, and saw that the key was in his hands, in the form of one of Cook's ticket cases, with tickets in it. These cases have a pocket in the cover, and within very few seconds the paper of which we have heard was in the pocket of this one. To make the operation more secure, Harrington stood in the doorway of the compartment, and fiddled with the blind. It was done, and done at the right time, for the train was now slowing down towards Dover. In a moment more, Carswell re-entered the compartment. As he did so, Dunning, managing he knew not how to suppress the tremble in his voice, handed him the ticket case, saying, May I give you this, sir? I believe it is yours. After a brief glance at the ticket inside, Carswell uttered the hoped-for response, Yes, it is, much obliged to you, sir, and he placed it in his breast pocket. Even in the few moments that remained, moments of tense anxiety, for they knew not to what a premature finding of the paper might lead, both men noticed that the carriage seemed to darken about them, and to grow warmer, that Carswell was fidgety and oppressed, that he drew the heap of loose coats near to him, and cast it back as if it repelled him, and that he then sat upright and glanced anxiously at both. They, with sickening anxiety, busied themselves in collecting their belongings, but they both thought that Carswell was on the point of speaking when the train stopped at Dover Town. It was natural that in the short space between town and pier, they should both go into the corridor. At the pier they got out, but so empty was the train that they were forced to linger on the platform until Carswell should have passed ahead of them with his porter, on his way to the boat, and only then was it safe for them to exchange a pressure of the hand, and a word of concentrated congratulation. The effect upon Dunning was to make him almost faint. Harrington made him lean up against the wall, while he himself went forward a few yards within sight of the gangway to the boat, at which Carswell had now arrived. The man at the head of it examined his ticket, and, laden with coats, he passed down into the boat. Suddenly the official called after him. You, sir, beg pardon, did the other gentleman show his ticket? What the devil do you mean by the other gentleman?" Carswell's snarling voice called back from the deck. The man bent over and looked at him. Devil? I don't know, I'm sure, Harrington heard him say to himself, and then allowed, My mistake, sir, must have been your rugs. Ask your pardon. And then, to a subordinate near him, had you got a dog with him, or what? Funny thing, I could have swore he wasn't alone. Well, whatever it is, they'll have to see to it aboard. She's off now. Another week, and we'll be getting the holiday customers. In five minutes more there was nothing but the lessening lights of the boat, the long line of the Dover lamps, the night breeze, and the moon. Long and long the two sat in their room at the Lord Warden. In spite of the removal of their greatest anxiety, they were oppressed with a doubt, not of the lightest. Had they been justified in sending a man to his death, as they believed they had, ought they not to warn him at least? No, said Harrington. If he is the murderer, I think him. We have done no more than is just. Still, if you think it better—but how and where can you warn him? He was booked to Abbeville only, said Dunning. I saw that. If I wired to the hotels there in Joann's guide, examine your ticket case. Dunning, I should feel happier. This is the twenty-first. He will have a day. But I am afraid he has gone into the dark. So telegrams were left at the hotel office. It is not clear whether these reached their destination, or whether, if they did, they were understood. All that is known is that, on the afternoon of the twenty-third, an English traveller, examining the front of St. Wolfram's Church at Abbeville, then under extensive repair, was struck on the head and instantly killed by a stone falling from the scaffold erected round the north-west tower, there being, as was clearly proved, no workman on the scaffold at that moment, and the traveller's papers identified him as Mr. Carswell. Only one detail shall be added. At Carswell's sale, a set of bewick, sold with all faults, was acquired by Harrington. The page with the woodcut of the traveller and the demon was, as he expected, mutilated. Also, after a judicious interval, Harrington repeated to Dunning something of what he had heard his brother say in his sleep. But it was not long before Dunning stopped him. End of Casting the Runes, recorded by Catmoutfield on the twenty-third of December, 2008. A Cold Greeting by Ambrose Bierce This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Stephen Karafit. A Cold Greeting by Ambrose Bierce. This is a story told to me by the late Benson Foley of San Francisco. In the summer of 1881, I met a man named James H. Conway, a resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visiting San Francisco for his health, deluded man, and brought me a note of introduction from Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Barting as a captain in the Federal Army during the Civil War. At its close, he had settled in Franklin and in time became, I had reason to think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Barting had always seemed to me an honorable and truthful man, and the warm friendship which he expressed in his note for Mr. Conway was to me sufficient evidence that the latter was in every way worthy of my confidence and esteem. At dinner one day, Conway told me that it had been solemnly agreed between him and Barting that the one who died first should, if possible, communicate with the other from beyond the grave in some unmistakable way. Just how they had left, wisely it seemed to me, to be decided by the deceased according to the opportunities that his altered circumstances might present. A few weeks after the conversation in which Mr. Conway spoke of this agreement, I met him one day, walking slowly down Montgomery Street, apparently from his abstract air in deep thought. He greeted me coldly with merely a movement of the head and passed on, leaving me standing on the sidewalk with half-preferred hand, surprised and naturally somewhat perquade. The next day I met him again in the office of the Palace Hotel and seeing him about to repeat the disagreeable performance of the day before intercepted him in the doorway with a friendly salutation and bluntly requested an explanation of his altered manner. He hesitated a moment and then looking at me frankly in the eyes said, I do not think, Mr. Foley, that I have any longer a claim to your friendship, since Mr. Barting appears to have withdrawn his own from me for what reason I protest I do not know. If he has not already informed you, he probably will do so. But, I replied, I have not heard from Mr. Barting. Not heard from him, he replied, with a parent's surprise, while he is here. I met him yesterday ten minutes before meeting you. I gave you exactly the same greeting that he gave me. I met him again not a quarter of an hour ago, and his minor was precisely the same. He merely bowed and passed on. I shall not soon forget your civility to me. Good morning, or as it may please you, farewell. All this seemed to me singularly considerate and delicate behavior on the part of Mr. Conway. As dramatic situations and literary effects are foreign to my purpose, I will explain at once that Mr. Barting was dead. He had died in Nashville four days before this conversation. Calling on Mr. Conway, I appraised him of our friend's death, showing him the letters announcing it. He was visibly affected in a way that forbade me to entertain a doubt of his sincerity. It seems incredible, he said, after a period of reflection. I suppose I must have mistaken another man for Barting, and that man's cold greeting was merely a stranger's civil acknowledgement of my own. I remember indeed that he lacked Barting's mustache. Doubtless it was another man, I assented, and the subject was never afterward mentioned between us. But I had in my pocket a photograph of Barting, which had been enclosed in the letter from his widow. It had been taken a week before his death, and was without a mustache. End of A Cold Greeting by Ambrose Bierce The Dead Mother by Unknown 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 Jerry Dixon The Dead Mother by Unknown In a certain village there lived a husband and wife, lived happily, lovingly, peaceably. All their neighbors envied them. The sight of them gave pleasure to honest folks. Well, the mistress bore a son, but directly after it was born she died. The poor Mujik moaned and wept. Above all, he was in despair about the babe. How was he to nourish it now? How to bring it up without its mother? He did what was best and hired an old woman to look after it. Only here was a wonder. All day long the babe would take no food and did nothing but cry. There was no soothing in anyhow. But during a great part of the night one could fancy it wasn't there at all, so silently and peacefully did it sleep. What's the meaning of this, thinks the old woman. Suppose I keep awake tonight. Maybe I shall find out. Well, just at midnight she heard someone quietly open the door and go up to the cradle. The babe became still, just as if it was being suckled. The next night the same thing took place, and the third night too. She told the Mujik about it. He called his kinsfolk together and held counsel with them. They determined on this, to keep awake on a certain night and to spy out who it was that came to suckle the babe. So it even tied they all lay down on the floor and beside them they set a lighted taper hidden in an earthen pot. At midnight the cottage door opened. Someone stepped up to the cradle. The babe became still. At that moment one of the kinsfolk suddenly brought out the light. They looked and saw the dead mother in the very same clothes in which she had been buried on her knees beside the cradle over which she'd been as she suckled the babe at her dead breast. The moment the light shone in the cottage she stood up gazed sadly on her little one and then went out of the room without a sound, not saying a word to anyone. All those who saw her stood for a time terror struck and then they found the babe was dead. End of The Dead Mother Recorded by Jerry Dixon, Zephyr Hills, Florida. Her husband was dying and she was alone with him. Nothing could exceed the desolation of her surroundings. She and the man who was going from her were in the third floor back of a New York boarding house. It was summer and the other boarders were in the country. All the servants except the cook had been dismissed and she went not working, slept profoundly on the fifth floor. The landlady also was out of town on a brief holiday. The window was open to admit the thick, unsteering air. No sound rose from the row of long, narrow yards nor from the tall deep houses annexed. The latter deadened the rattle of the streets. At intervals the distant elevated lumbered protestingly along its grunts and screams muffled by the hot, suspended ocean. She sat there, plunged in the profoundest grief that can come to the human soul. For in all other agony hope flickers, however, for lonely. She gazed duly at the unconscious, breathing form of the man who had been friend and companion and lover. During five years of youth, too vigorous and hopeful to be warped by uneven fortune. It was wasted by disease. The face was shrunken, the night-garment hung loosely about a body which had never been disfigured by flesh, but had been muscular with exercise and full-blooded with health. She was glad that the body was changed, glad that its beauty, too, had gone some other way than into the coffin. She had loved his hands as apart from himself, loved their strong warm magnetism. They lay limp and yellow on the quilt. She knew that they were already cold and that moisture was gathering on them. For a moment something convulsed within her. They had gone, too. She repeated the words twice and after them, forever. And the while, the sweetness of their pressure came back to her. She leaned suddenly over him. He was in there still, somewhere. Where? If he had not ceased to breathe, the ego, the soul, the personality was still in the sodden clay which had been shaped to give its speech. Why? Why could it not manifest itself to her? Was it still conscious in there, unable to project itself through the disintegrating matter which was the only medium its creator had vouchsafed it? Did it struggle there, seeing her agony sharing it, longing for the complete disintegration which had put an end to its torment? She called his name. Then shook him slightly, mad, to tear the body apart and find her mate. Yet even in that tortured moment, realizing that violence would hasten his going, the dying man took no notice of her and she opened his gown and put her cheek to his heart, calling him again. There had never been more perfect union. How could the bond still be so strong that he were not at the other end of it? He was there, her other part, until dead he must be living. There was no intermediate state. Why should he be as entombed and unresponding as if the screws were in the lid? But the faintly beating heart did not quicken beneath her lips. She extended her arms suddenly, describing eccentric lines above about him rapidly opening and closing her hands as if to clutch some escaping object then sprang to her feet and went to the window. She feared insanity. She had asked to be left alone with her dying husband and she did not wish to lose her reason and shriek a crowd of people about her. The green plots in the yards were not apparent, she noticed. Something heavy like a pole rested upon them. Then she understood that the day was over and that night was coming. She returned swiftly to the bedside wondering if she had remained away hours or seconds and if he were dead. His face was still discernible and death had not relaxed it. She laid her own against it, then withdrew it with shuddering flesh, her teeth smiting each other as if an icy wind had passed. She let herself fall back in the chair, clasping her hands against her heart, watching with expanding eyes the white sculptured face which in the gathering dark was becoming less defined of outline. Did she light the gas it would draw mosquitoes and she could not shut from him the little air he must be mechanically grateful for and she did not want to see the opening eye, the falling jaw. Her vision became so fixed that at length she saw nothing and closed her eyes and waited for the moisture to rise and relieve the strain. When she opened them his face had disappeared. The humid waves above the house stops put out even the light of the stars and the night was calm. Fearfully she approached her ear to his lips. He still breathed. She made a motion to kiss him then threw herself back in a quiver of agony. They were not the lips he had known and she would have nothing less. His breathing was so faint that in her half reclining position she could not hear it, could not be aware at the moment of his death. She extended her arms resolutely and laid her hand on his heart. Not only must she feel his going, but so strong had been the comradeship between them. It was a matter of loving honour to stand by him to the last. She sat there in the hot heavy night pressing her hand hard against the ebbing heart of the unseen and awaited death. Suddenly an odd fancy possessed her. Where was death? Why was he tarrying? Who was detaining him? What quarter would he come? He was taking his leisure drawing near with footsteps as measured as those of men keeping time to a funeral march. By a wayward deflection she thought of the slow music that was always turned on in the theatre when the heroine was about to appear or something eventful to happen. She had always thought that sort of thing ridiculous and inartistic. So had he. She drew her brows together angrily wondering at a levity and pressed her relaxed palm against the heart it kept guard over. For a moment the sweat stood on her face and then the pent-up breath burst forth from her lungs. He still lived. Once more the fancy wanton above the stunned heart. Death. Where was he? What a curious experience to be sitting alone in a big house she knew the cook had stolen out waiting for death to come and snatch her husband from her. No. He would not snatch. He would steal upon his prey as noiselessly as the approach of sin to innocence an invisible unfair sneaking enemy with whom no man's strength could grapple. If he would only come like a man and take his chances like a man women had been known to reach the hearts of giants with the daggers point but he would creep upon her. She gave an exclamation of horror something was creeping of the window sill her limbs pulsed but she struggled to her feet and looked back her eyes dragged about against her own volition two small green stars glared menacingly at her just above the sill then the cat possessing them leaped downwards and the stars disappeared she realized that she was horribly frightened he said possible she thought am I afraid of death and of death that has not yet come I've always been rather a brave woman he used to call me heroic but then with him it was impossible to fear anything and I begged them to leave me alone with him as the last of earthly boons oh shame but she was still quaking as she resumed her seat and laid her hand again on his heart she wished that she had asked Mary to sit outside the door there was no bell in the room to call would be worse than desecrating the house of God and she would not leave him for one moment to return and find him dead gone alone her knees smote each other it was idle to deny it she was in a state of unreasoning terror her eyes rolled apprehensively about she wondered if she should see it when it came wondered how far off it was now not very far the heart was barely pulsing she had heard of the power of the corpse to drive brave mentor frenzy and had wondered having no morbid horror of the dead but this to wait and wait and wait perhaps for hours past the midnight on to the small hours while that awful determined leisurely something stole nearer and nearer she bent to him who had been her protector with a spasm of anger where was the indomitable spirit that had held her all these years with such strong and loving clasp how could he leave her how could he desert her her head fell back and moved restlessly against the cushion moaning with the agony of loss she recalled him as he had been then fear once more took possession of her and she sat erect rigid breathless awaiting the approach of death suddenly far down in the house on the first floor a strain hearing took note of a sound a wary muffled sound as if someone were creeping up the stair fearful of being heard slowly it seemed to count a hundred between the laying down of each foot she gave a hysterical gasp where was the slow music her face her body were wet as if a wave of death sweat had broken over them there was a stiff feeling at the roots of her hair she wondered if it were really standing erect but she could not raise her hands to ascertain possibly it was only the colouring matter freezing and bleaching her muscles were flabby her nerves twitched helplessly she knew that it was death who was coming to her through the silent deserted house knew that it was the sensitive ear of her intelligence that heard him not the dull coarse grained ear of the body he toiled up the stairs painfully as if he were old and tired with much work but how could he afford to loiter with all the work he had to do every minute every second he must be in demand to hook his cold hard finger about a soul struggling to escape from its putrefying tenement but probably he had his emissaries his minions for only those worthy of the honour did he come in person he reached the first landing and crept like a cat down the hall to the next stair then crawled slowly up as before light as the footfalls were they were squarely planted unfaltering slow they never halted mechanically she pressed her jerking hand closer against the heart its beats were almost done they would finish she calculated just as those footfalls paused beside the bed she was no longer a human being she was an intelligence and an ear not a sound came from without even the elevated appeared to be temporarily off duty but inside the big quiet house that footfall was waxing louder louder until iron feet crashed on iron stairs and echo thundered she had counted the steps one two three irritated beyond endurance of the long deliberate pauses between as they climbed and clanged with slow precision she continued to count audibly with equal precision noting their hollow reverberation how many steps at the stair she wish knew no need the colossal trampling announced the lessening distance increasing volume of sound not to be misunderstood it turned the curve it reached the landing it advanced slowly down the hall it paused before her door the knuckles of iron shook the frail panels her nervous tongue gave no invitation the knocking became more imperious the very walls vibrated the handle turned swiftly and firmly with a wild instinctive movement she flung herself into the arms of her husband when Mary opened the door and entered the room she found a dead woman lying across a dead man end of death and the woman I have a rendezvous with death by Alan Seeger read for livervox.org by Landon Huntsman I have a rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade when spring comes back with rustling shade and apple blossoms fill the air I have a rendezvous with death when spring brings back blue days and fair it may be he shall take my hand and lead me into his dark land and close my eyes and quench my breath it may be I shall pass him still I have a rendezvous with death on some scarred slope of battered hill when spring comes round again this year and the first metal flowers appear God knows for better to be deep pillowed in silk and scented down where love throbs out in blissful sleep pulse night to pulse and breath to breath where hushed awakenings are dear but I have a rendezvous with death at midnight in some flaming town when spring trips north again this year and I to my pledge for them true I shall not fail that rendezvous end of poem this recording is in the public domain An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose G. Beers 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 G. C. Founier An Inhabitant of Carcosa by Ambrose G. Beers For there be diverse sorts of death somewhere in the body remaineth and in some it vanishes quite away with the spirit This commonly occureth only in solitude such as God's will and none seeing the end we say the man is lost or gone on a long journey which indeed he hath but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many as abundant testimony showeth In one kind of death the spirit also dyeth and this it hath been known to do while yet the body was in vigour for many years Sometimes as is veritably attested it dyeth with the body but after a season is raised up again in that place where the body did decay pondering these words of holly whom God rest and questioning their full meaning as one who having an intimation yet doubts if there be not something behind other than that which he hath discerned I noted not whither I hath strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my face revived in me a sense of my surroundings I observed with astonishment that everything seemed unfamiliar On every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of plain covered with a tall overgrowth of sear grass which rustled and whistled in the autumn wind with heaven knows what mysterious and disquieting suggestion Petruded at long intervals above it stood strangely shaped and sombre coloured rocks which seemed to have an understanding with one another and to exchange looks of uncomfortable significance as if they had reared their heads to watch the issue of some foreseen event A few blasted trees here and there appeared as leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent expectation The day I thought must be far advanced though the sun was invisible and although sensible that the air was raw and chill my consciousness of that fact was rather mental than physical I had no feeling of discomfort over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low lead-coloured clouds hung like a visible curse In all this there were a menace and a portent a hint of evil an intimation of doom bird, beast or insect there was none The wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead trees and the grey grass bent to whisper its dread secret to the earth but no other sound nor motion broke the awful repose of that dismal place I observed in the herbage a number of weather-worn stones evidently shaped with tools They were broken, covered with moss and half sunken in the earth Some lay prostrate, some leaned at various angles None was vertical They were obviously headstones of graves though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions The years had leveled all Scattered here and there more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion So old seemed these relics these vestiges of vanity and memorials of affection and piety so battered and worn and stained so neglected, deserted, forgotten the place that I could not help thinking myself the discoverer of the burial-ground of a prehistoric race of men whose very name was long extinct Filled with these reflections I was for some time heedless of the sequence of my own experiences but soon I thought How came I hither? A moment's reflection seemed to make this all clear and explain at the same time though in a disquieting way the singular character with which my fancy had invested all that I saw or heard I was ill I remembered now that I had been prostrated by a sudden fever and that my family had told me that in my periods of delirium I had constantly cried out for liberty and air and had been held in bed to prevent my escape out of doors now I had eluded the vigilance of my attendance and had wandered hither to... to where? I could not conjecture Clearly I was at a considerable distance from the city where I dwelt the ancient and famous city of Carcosa no signs of human life were anywhere visible or audible no rising smoke no watchdog spark no lowing cattle no shouts of children at play nothing but that dismal burial place with its air of mystery and dread due to my own disordered brain Was I not becoming again delirious there beyond human aid? Was it not indeed all an illusion of my madness? I called aloud the names of my wives and sons without my hands in search of theirs even as I walked among the crumbling stones and in the withered grass a noise behind me caused me to turn about a wild animal, a lynx, was approaching the thought came to me if I break down here in the desert if the fever return and I fail this beast will be at my throat I sprang toward it shouting it trotted tranquilly within a hand's breath of me it disappeared behind a rock a moment later a man's head appeared to rise out of the ground a short distance away he was ascending the farther slope of a low hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguished from the general level his whole figure soon came into view against the background of grey cloud he was half naked, half clad in skins his hair was unkempt his beard long and ragged in one hand he carried a bow and arrow in the other a blazing torch with a long trail of black smoke he walked slowly and with caution as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed by the tall grass this strange apparition surprised but did not alarm and taking course to intercept him I met him almost face to face accosting him with the familiar salutation God keep you he gave no heed nor did he arrest his pace good stranger I continued I am ill and lost direct me I beseech you to Carcosa the man broke into a barbarous chant in an unknown tongue passing on and away an owl on the branch of a decayed tree hooted dismally the man was answered by another in the distance looking upward I saw through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades in all this there was the hint of night the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl yet I saw I saw even the stars in absence of darkness I saw but was apparently not seen nor heard under what awful spell did I exist I seated myself at the root of a great tree seriously to consider what it were best to do that I was mad I could no longer doubt yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction a fever I had no trace I had with all a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me a feeling of mental and physical exultation my senses seemed all alert I could feel the air as a ponderous substance I could hear the silence a great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held enclosed in its grasp a slab of stone a part of which protruded into a recess formed by another root the stone was thus partly protected from the weather though greatly decomposed its edges were worn round its corners eaten away its surface deeply furrowed and scaled glittering particles of mica were visible in the earth about it vestiges of its decomposition this stone had apparently marked the grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago the tree's exacting roots had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner a sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and twigs from the uppermost face of the stone I saw the low relief letters of an inscription and bent to read it God in heaven my name in full the date of my birth the date of my death a level shaft of light illuminated the whole side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in terror the sun was rising in the rosy east I stood between the tree and his broad red disc no shadow darkened the trunk a chorus of howling wolves saluted the dawn I saw them sitting on their haunches singly and in groups on the summits of irregular mounds and tumuli filling a half of my desert prospect and extending to the horizon and then I knew that these were ruins of the ancient and famous city of Karkosa end of an inhabitant of Karkosa