The Lock and Key Library................................................................................................................................1

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by none of the conventional ghostly

surroundings, did I first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas piece. I saw

it in the daylight, with the sun upon it. There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or

unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More than that: I had come to it direct from a

railway station: it was not more than a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood outside the house,

looking back upon the way I had come, I could see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment

in the valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I doubt if anything can be that,

except to utterly commonplace peopleand there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say that

I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop by the way, to look at the house. My

health required a temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and who had

happened to drive past the house, had written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the train at

midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern

Lights in the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the usual

discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at all;upon which question, in the first imbecility

of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by battle with the man who sat

opposite me. That opposite man had had, through the nightas that opposite man always hasseveral legs

too many, and all of them too long. In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be expected

of him), he had had a pencil and a pocketbook, and had been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had

appeared to me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have

resigned myself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was in the civilengineering way of

life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head whenever he listened. He was a goggleeyed gentleman of

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I had outwatched the paling light of the

fires of the iron country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the stars and

"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in me?" For, really, he appeared to be taking

The goggleeyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if the back of the carriage were a hundred

"I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman; "pray let me listenO."

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication with the guard, is a serious position. The

thought came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a Rapper: one of a sect for

(some of) whom I have the highest respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him the question,

"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I am too much in advance of common

humanity to trouble myself at all about it. I have passed the nightas indeed I pass the whole of my time

"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman, turning several leaves of his notebook,

I could only repeat my rather snappish "O!" and ask if I might be favored with the last communication.

"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last entry with great solemnity, "'is worth two in the

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had delivered this special revelation in the course

of the night. "My friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway carriage. How do you do?

There are seventeen thousand four hundred and seventynine spirits here, but you cannot see them.

Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like travelling." Galileo likewise had

dropped in, with this scientific intelligence. "I am glad to see you, amico. Come sta? Water will freeze when

it is cold enough. Addio!" In the course of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop

Butler had insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which offence against orthography and good manners

he had been dismissed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the

authorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentlemen,

respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had

described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learning to paint on velvet,

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favored me with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my

confessing that the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent Order of the vast

Universe, made me impatient of them. In a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get

out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and vapors for the free air of Heaven.

By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away among such leaves as had already fallen from the

golden, brown, and russet trees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and thought of the

steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they are sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse

seemed to me as poor a piece of journeywork as ever this world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden: a pretty even square of some two acres. It was a

house of about the time of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as bad taste, as could

possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of the whole quartet of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had,

within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say cheaply, because the work had been

done in a surface manner, and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colors were fresh.

A lopsided board drooped over the garden wall, announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms,

well furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees, and, in particular, there were six tall

poplars before the front windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which had been

It was easy to see that it was an avoided housea house that was shunned by the village, to which my eye

was guided by a church spire some half a mile offa house that nobody would take. And the natural

No period within the fourandtwenty hours of day and night is so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the

summertime, I often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before breakfast, and I am

always on those occasions deeply impressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is

something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep in the knowledge that those who are

dearest to us and to whom we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state,

anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all tendingthe stopped life, the broken threads of

yesterday, the deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occupation, all are images of

Death. The tranquillity of the hour is the tranquillity of Death. The color and the chill have the same

association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take upon them when they first emerge from

the shadows of the night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, has its

counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look.

Moreover, I once saw the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, and nothing ever came

of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. His

head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see

him there, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As he did not move, I spoke to

him more than once. As he did not move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, as I

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly statable, I find the early morning to be my most

ghostly time. Any house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning; and a haunted house

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the

little inn, sanding his doorstep. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the house.

"Well!" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the appearance of desperation"I wouldn't

"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to ring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang,

with nobody to bang 'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why, then," said the landlord,

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former appearance of desperation, called down his

The call produced a highshouldered young fellow, with a round red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very

broad humorous mouth, a turnedup nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with motherofpearl

buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to be in a fair wayif it were not prunedof covering his

"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if anything's seen at the Poplars."

"Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go anigh the place. No!" observed the young man, with considerable

"Well!" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he scratched his head with the other, "they say, in

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except that a young man, as hearty and likely a

young man as ever I see, had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the hooded woman. Also,

that a personage, dimly described as "a hold chap, a sort of oneeyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,

unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not? and even if so, mind your own

business,'" had encountered the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not materially

assisted by these witnesses: inasmuch as the first was in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries, between which and this state of

existence is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and

although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them; I can no more reconcile the mere

banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and suchlike insignificances, with the majestic beauty

and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little

while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow traveller to the chariot of the rising sun.

Moreover, I had lived in two haunted housesboth abroad. In one of these, an old Italian palace, which bore

the reputation of being very badly haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that

account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly: notwithstanding that the house had a score of

mysterious bedrooms, which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I sat reading, times

out of number at all hours, and next to which I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently

hinted these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular house having a bad name, I reasoned

with him, Why, how many things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names, and

did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper in the village that any weirdlooking old drunken

tinker of the neighborhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time to be suspected of that

commercial venture! All this wise talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and

To cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted house, and was already half resolved to take

it. So, after breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brotherinlaw (a whip and harness maker, who keeps the

Post Office, and is under submission to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. The slowly changing shadows waved on it from

the heavy trees, were doleful in the last degree; the house was illplaced, illbuilt, illplanned, and illfitted.

It was damp, it was not free from dry rot, there was a flavor of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim of that

indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's hands whenever it's not turned to man's account.

The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracts

of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well

with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the backstairs, under the

double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, MASTER B.

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and

rang it himself. It was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. The other bells were

inscribed according to the names of the rooms to which their wires were conducted: as "Picture Room,"

"Double Room," "Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell to its source I found that young

gentleman to have had but indifferent thirdclass accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cockloft,

with a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm

himself at, and a corner chimneypiece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb. The

papering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and

almost blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made a point of

pulling the paper down. Neither the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of himself.

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I made no other discoveries. It was

moderately well furnished, but sparely. Some of the furnituresay, a thirdwas as old as the house; the rest

was of various periods within the last halfcentury. I was referred to a cornchandler in the marketplace of

the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I took it for six months.

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden sister (I venture to call her

eightandthirty, she is so very handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us, a deaf stableman, my

bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the

attendant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female Orphans, that she was a fatal

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and

the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect)

burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her

sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from

the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had

never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden

We went, before dark, through all the naturalas opposed to supernaturalmiseries incidental to our state.

Dispiriting reports ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and descended from the upper

rooms. There was no rollingpin, there was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know

what it is), there was nothing in the house; what there was, was broken, the last people must have lived like

pigs, what could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and

exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to ourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that

I had not left Ikey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any one of them, for one

minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from

her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar applied to her as would pickle a handsome

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under these untoward circumstances, at about

halfpast ten o'clock Master B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled until the

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the mental frame in which I lived for some

weeks, respecting the memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats, or wind, or

what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion,

I don't know; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until I conceived the happy idea of

twisting Master B.'s neckin other words, breaking his bell short offand silencing that young gentleman,

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers of catalepsy, that she had become a

shining example of that very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed with

unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to

them that I had painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s bell away and balked

the ringing, and if they could suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no

better behavior than would most unquestionably have brought him and the sharpest particles of a

birchbroom into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a

mere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting and limiting

the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, or of any spirits?I say I would become emphatic and

cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the

Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial petrifaction.

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she

was of an usually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman

became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.

Combined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those specimens, so that they didn't

fall, but hung upon her face and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her head, her

silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation

for a purse of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a garment, by neatly

winding up the session with the protest that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under

the sky. Hooded woman? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of hooded women.

Noises? With that contagion downstairs, I myself have sat in the dismal parlor, listening, until I have heard so

many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out to

make discoveries. Try this in bed, in the dead of the night: try this at your own comfortable fireside, in the

life of the night. You can fill any house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. The

women (their noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smellingsalts) were always primed and loaded for

a swoon, and ready to go off with hairtriggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions that

were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established the reputation of such adventures by coming

back cataleptic. If Cook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should presently hear a bump on

the ceiling; and this took place so constantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about the

house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met

It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, for the moment in one's own person, by a real

owl, and then to show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord on the piano, that

Turk always howled at particular notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells,

and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire

up chimneys, let torches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and recesses. We changed

servants, and it was no better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was no better. At last, our

comfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my

sister: "Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we must give this up."

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, John, don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John.

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of this house, and that for no reason whatever, that

is apparent to you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into our own hands."

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the possibility of going on without those faithful

obstructions. The notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful.

"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and we know they are frightened and do

(The deaf stableman. I kept him in my service, and still keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to

nobody, and hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever given, or taken?

This was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over

the coachhouse, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of water. That the pail of water would

have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announcement in Bottles's way

after that minute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever

taken the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his

supper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another potato in his

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And considering, John, that the house is too large, and

perhaps too lonely, to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast about among our

friends for a certain selected number of the most reliable and willingform a Society here for three

monthswait upon ourselves and one anotherlive cheerfully and sociallyand see what happens."

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot, and went into her plan with the greatest

We were then in the third week of November; but, we took our measures so vigorously, and were so well

seconded by the friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the month unexpired, when our

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring

to me as not improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he wanted to get out of it, I

stationed him in his kennel outside, but unchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came

in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were

a judge of a gun? On his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her," I begged the favor of his

"SHE'S a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a doublebarrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few

"Ikey!" said I, shaking hands with him warmly, I may say affectionately; "if there is any truth in these

ghoststories, the greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I promise you, by Heaven and

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.

I imparted my secret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at the bell; because I

had, on another occasion, noticed something very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it

had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that we were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the

evening to comfort the servants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, and believed in its

being haunted; and yet he would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd

Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and

wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my

eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I

content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known to every intelligent man who has had fair medical,

legal, or other watchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a state of mind as any with

which observers are acquainted; and that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be

suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any question of this kind.

To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.

That done, and every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined by the whole

body, we allotted the various household duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a

hunting party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the floating rumors concerning the hooded lady, the

owl, and Master B.: with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation, relative to

some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table;

and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch. Some of these ideas I really believe

our people below had communicated to one another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words.

We then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceivewhich

we considered pretty much the same thingand that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we would be

strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding was established, that

any one who heard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door;

lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that then

present hour of our coming together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the good of all; and

that we would hold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break

Firstto get my sister and myself out of the waythere were we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew

her own room, and I drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, so called after the great

astronomer: than whom I suppose a better man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a

charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous spring. I thought it (under the circumstances)

rather imprudent to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but

I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left

her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable

young fellow of eightandtwenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine,

usually, and designated by that name from having a dressingroom within it, with two large and cumbersome

windows, which no wedges I was ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no

wind. Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be "fast" (another word for loose, as I understand the term),

but who is much too good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before

now, if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year, on the strength

of which his only occupation in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may

break, or that he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per cent.; for, I am convinced that

if he could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a most

intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius for poetry, combined

with real business earnestness, and "goes in"to use an expression of Alfred'sfor Woman's mission,

Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that is woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be,

or is and ought not to be. "Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you!" I whispered to her on the

first night of my taking leave of her at the PictureRoom door, "but don't overdo it. And in respect of the

great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach of Woman than our

civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight

in your way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes

spend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers; and the play is,

really, not ALL Wolf and Red RidingHood, but has other parts in it." However, I digress.

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We had but three other chambers: the Corner

Room, the Cupboard Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, "slung his hammock," as

he called it, in the Corner Room. I have always regarded Jack as the finestlooking sailor that ever sailed. He

is gray now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century ago nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery,

wellbuilt figure of a broadshouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow.

I remember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever

his Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the Mediterranean and on

the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have

cried, "You know Jack Governor? Then you know a prince of men!" That he is! And so unmistakably a naval

officer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimaux snowhut in seal's skin, you would be

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it fell out that he married another lady and took

her to South America, where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought down with him to our

haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is

mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece in his portmanteau. He had also

volunteered to bring with him one "Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman. Mr.

Beaver, with a thickset wooden face and figure, and apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an

intelligent man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge. At times, there

was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the lingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted

many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor: who

came down, in an amateur capacity, "to go through with it," as he said, and who plays whist better than the

whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning to the red cover at the end.

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a

man of wonderful resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever ate, including

unapproachable curries. My sister was pastry cook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn

and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook "pressed" Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of outdoor

sport and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no illhumor or misunderstanding among

us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most

wonderful ship's lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me that he

"was going aloft to the main truck," to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I remonstrated;

but Jack called my attention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be "hailing

a ghost" presently, if it wasn't done. So, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the wind,

we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up

to the top of a cupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, coolly

knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I

thought they would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, and had a chimneycowl off.

Another night, they cut a sobbing and gulping waterpipe away. Another night, they found out something

else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective

bedroom windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" something mysterious in the garden.

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed anything. All we knew was, if any one's

The foregoing story is particularly interesting as illustrating the leaning of Dickens's mind toward the

spiritualistic and mystical fancies current in his time, and the counterbalance of his common sense and fun.

"He probably never made up his own mind," Mr. Andrew Lang declares in a discussion of this Haunted

House story. Mr. Lang says he once took part in a similar quest, and "can recognize the accuracy of most of

Dickens's remarks. Indeed, even to persons not on the level of the Odd Girl in education, the temptation to

produce 'phenomena' for fun is all but overwhelming. That people communicate hallucinations to each other

'in some diseased way without words,' is a modern theory perhaps first formulated here by Dickens."

"The Signal Man's Story," which follows, is likewise, Mr. Lang believes, "probably based on some real story

of the kind, some anecdote of premonitions. There are scores in the records of the Society for Psychical

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand,

furled round its short pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not

have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the

steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something

remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life what. But I know it was

remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the

deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my figure high above

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him without pressing him too soon with a

repetition of my idle question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing

into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had a force to draw

me down. When such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming

away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown while the train

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned

with his rolledup flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down

to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was made through a clammy stone, that became

oozier and wetter as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to recall a

singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between

the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear.

He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. His

attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw

that he was a dark, sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary and

dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a drippingwet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a

strip of sky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter

perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a black

tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight

ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it,

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not even then removing his eyes from

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my attention when I looked down from up

yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a

man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a

newlyawakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the

terms I used; for, besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a

spirit, not a man. I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put

"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there, you may swear."

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with readiness, and in wellchosen words. Had

he much to do there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and

watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual workmanual laborhe had next to none. To

change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under

that head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only

say that the routine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught

himself a language down here,if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its

pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little

algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him when on duty

always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those

high stone walls? Why, that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some conditions there would be

less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of the day and night. In

bright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all times

liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official book in which he had to make certain

entries, a telegraphic instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken. On

my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without

offence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such wise

would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in workhouses, in the

police force, even in that last desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any

great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it, sitting in that hut,he scarcely could), a

student of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone

down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, and he lay upon

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his grave dark regards divided between me and

the fire. He threw in the word, "Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth,as

though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several times

interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the

door, and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication to the driver. In the

discharge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a

In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but

for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen color, turned his face

towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the

unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those

occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man."

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them, however, and I took them up quickly.

"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten tomorrow night, sir."

He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show my white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low

voice, "till you have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are at the top,

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no more than, "Very well."

"And when you come down tomorrow night, don't call out! Let me ask you a parting question. What made

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I saw you below."

He wished me goodnight, and held up his light. I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very

disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks

were striking eleven. He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I have not called out," I

said, when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Goodnight, then, and here's

my hand." "Goodnight, sir, and here's mine." With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone

but a little above a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some

"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and the right arm is waved,violently

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and

"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I

started up, looked from that door, and saw this Someone else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving

as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And

then attain, 'Halloa! Below there! Look out!' I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the

figure, calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel.

I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and

"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held my lamp above my head, and saw the

figures of the measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the

arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I

looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it,

and I came down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been given. Is anything

Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I showed him how that this figure must be a

deception of his sense of sight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that minister

to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious

of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to an imaginary

cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a while, and he ought to know something of

the wind and the wires, he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he would

"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on this Line happened, and within ten hours

the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had stood."

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this

was a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that

remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken into account in dealing with such a

subject. Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection

to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was

just a year ago. Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one

morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre

"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the face. Like this."

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving a ghastly nod each time:

"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like

a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He shut

off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and,

as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of

the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us."

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at which he pointed to himself.

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up

He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled. The spectre came back a week ago.

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that former gesticulation of, "For God's sake,

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for many minutes together, in an agonised

manner, 'Below there! Look out! Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell"

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here, and you went to the door?"

"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to

the bell, and if I am a living man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except when it

was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station communicating with you."

He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre's ring

with the man's. The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have

not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it."

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but arose. I opened the door, and stood on the

step, while he stood in the doorway. There was the Dangerlight. There was the dismal mouth of the tunnel.

There were the high, wet stone walls of the cutting. There were the stars above them.

"Do you see it?" I asked him, taking particular note of his face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not

very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was thinking how best to improve this advantage, if

it might be called one, when he took up the conversation in such a matterofcourse way, so assuming that

there could be no serious question of fact between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that what troubles me so dreadfully is the question,

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them

on me. "What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on the Line.

Some dreadful calamity will happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has gone before. But

"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the

palms of his hands. "I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think I was mad. This is the way

it would work,Message: 'Danger! Take care!' Answer: 'What Danger? Where?' Message: 'Don't know. But,

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond

"When it first stood under the Dangerlight," he went on, putting his dark hair back from his head, and

drawing his hands outward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress, "why not tell

me where that accident was to happen,if it must happen? Why not tell me how it could be averted,if it

could have been averted? When on its second coming it hid its face, why not tell me, instead, 'She is going to

die. Let them keep her at home'? If it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its warnings were

true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now? And I, Lord help me! A mere poor

signalman on this solitary station! Why not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to act?"

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to

do for the time was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of reality or unreality between

us, I represented to him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his

comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding Appearances. In this

effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his conviction. He became calm; the

occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention: and I

left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light,

and that I should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to conceal. Nor did I like

the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either.

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I to act, having become the recipient of

this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact; but how long might

he remain so, in his state of mind? Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and

would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating what he had

told me to his superiors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing a middle course

to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the

wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take his opinion. A change in his time of

duty would come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after sunrise, and

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I

traversed the fieldpath near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to

myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signalman's box.

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically looked down, from the point from which I

had first seen him. I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the mouth of the tunnel, I

saw the appearance of a man, with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a moment I saw that this appearance of a

man was a man indeed, and that there was a little group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom

he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Dangerlight was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a

little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong,with a flashing selfreproachful fear that fatal

mischief had come of my leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering

his own head, and raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed."

"Oh, how did this happen, how did this happen?" I asked, turning from one to another as the hut closed in

"He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear

of the outer rail. It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his hand. As the engine

came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and was

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former place at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, "I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a

perspectiveglass. There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful. As he didn't seem to

take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as loud as I

"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious circumstances more than on any other, I

may, in closing it, point out the coincidence that the warning of the EngineDriver included, not only the

words which the unfortunate Signalman had repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I

myselfnot hehad attached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had imitated.

A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and

earnest, "Fancy! since we last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago my wife and I were in search of a

furnished apartment. Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments,

Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house, liked the rooms, engaged them by the week,and

left them the third day. No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don't wonder

"Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer,nor, on the other hand, could I ask

you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own

senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose

that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as

it was an indefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished

room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my

life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be,and allowed, after the third night, that it was

impossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who

kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out

our week. She said dryly, 'I know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever stayed a

second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you.'

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them. I remember them many years ago,

when I lived in this house, not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't

care,I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.' The woman

spoke with so dreary a calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her

further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off so cheaply."

"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight toward the house thus indicated.

It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut

up,no bill at the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beerboy, collecting

pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, "Do you want any one at that house, sir?"

"Let!why, the woman who kept it is dead,has been dead these three weeks, and no one can be found to

stay there, though Mr. J offered ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, one pound a week

"The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in her bed, with her eyes wide open.

I gave the potboy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and proceeded to Mr. J , in G

Street, which was close by the street that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J at

I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house was considered to be haunted,

that I had a strong desire to examine a house with so equivocal a reputation; that I should be greatly obliged if

he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing to pay for that privilege whatever he

might be inclined to ask. "Sir," said Mr. J, with great courtesy, "the house is at your service, for as short

or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the question,the obligation will be on my side should you be

able to discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it of all value. I cannot let it, for

I cannot even get a servant to keep it in order or answer the door. Unluckily the house is haunted, if I may use

that expression, not only by night, but by day; though at night the disturbances are of a more unpleasant and

sometimes of a more alarming character. The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper

whom I took out of a workhouse; for in her childhood she had been known to some of my family, and had

once been in such good circumstances that she had rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of

superior education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in the house.

Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner's inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the

neighborhood, I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of the house, much more a tenant, that

I would willingly let it rent free for a year to anyone who would pay its rates and taxes."

"That I can scarcely tell you, but very many years since. The old woman I spoke of, said it was haunted when

she rented it between thirty and forty years ago. The fact is, that my life has been spent in the East Indies, and

in the civil service of the Company. I returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle,

among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and uninhabited. I was told that it was

haunted, that no one would inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story. I spent some money in

repairing it, added to its oldfashioned furniture a few modern articles,advertised it, and obtained a lodger

for a year. He was a colonel on half pay. He came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five

servants: they all left the house the next day; and, although each of them declared that he had seen something

different from that which had scared the others, a something still was equally terrible to all. I really could not

in conscience sue, nor even blame, the colonel for breach of agreement. Then I put in the old woman I have

spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in apartments. I never had one lodger who stayed more

than three days. I do not tell you their stories,to no two lodgers have there been exactly the same

phenomena repeated. It is better that you should judge for yourself, than enter the house with an imagination

influenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or other, and take whatever

"Yes. I passed not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in that house. My curiosity is not satisfied,

but it is quenched. I have no desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that I am not

sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually strong, I

"My interest IS exceedingly keen," said I; "and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations

wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to

Mr. J said very little more; he took the keys of the house out of his bureau, gave them to me,and,

thanking him cordially for his frankness, and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.

Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home, I summoned my confidential servant,a young

man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and as free from superstitious prejudice as anyone I could think of.

F," said I, "you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at not finding a ghost in that old

castle, which was said to be haunted by a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London

which, I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there tonight. From what I hear, there is

no doubt that something will allow itself to be seen or to be heard,something, perhaps, excessively

horrible. Do you think if I take you with me, I may rely on your presence of mind, whatever may happen?"

"Very well; then here are the keys of the house,this is the address. Go now,select for me any bedroom

you please; and since the house has not been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire, air the bed

well,see, of course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my revolver and my dagger,so

much for my weapons; arm yourself equally well; and if we are not a match for a dozen ghosts, we shall be

I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had not leisure to think much on the

nocturnal adventure to which I had plighted my honor. I dined alone, and very late, and while dining, read, as

is my habit. I selected one of the volumes of Macaulay's Essays. I thought to myself that I would take the

book with me; there was so much of healthfulness in the style, and practical life in the subjects, that it would

Accordingly, about halfpast nine, I put the book into my pocket, and strolled leisurely toward the haunted

house. I took with me a favorite dog: an exceedingly sharp, bold, and vigilant bull terrier,a dog fond of

prowling about strange, ghostly corners and passages at night in search of rats; a dog of dogs for a ghost.

We did not stay long in the drawingrooms,in fact, they felt so damp and so chilly that I was glad to get to

the fire upstairs. We locked the doors of the drawingrooms,a precaution which, I should observe, we had

taken with all the rooms we had searched below. The bedroom my servant had selected for me was the best

on the floor,a large one, with two windows fronting the street. The fourposted bed, which took up no

inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burned clear and bright; a door in the wall to the left,

between the bed and the window, communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself.

This last was a small room with a sofa bed, and had no communication with the landing place,no other

door but that which conducted to the bedroom I was to occupy. On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard

without locks, flush with the wall, and covered with the same dullbrown paper. We examined these

cupboards,only hooks to suspend female dresses, nothing else; we sounded the walls, evidently solid,

the outer walls of the building. Having finished the survey of these apartments, warmed myself a few

moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still accompanied by F, went forth to complete my reconnoiter.

In the landing place there was another door; it was closed firmly. "Sir," said my servant, in surprise, "I

unlocked this door with all the others when I first came; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for"

Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us then was touching, opened quietly of itself.

We looked at each other a single instant. The same thought seized both,some human agency might be

detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small, blank, dreary room without furniture; a few

empty boxes and hampers in a corner; a small window; the shutters closed; not even a fireplace; no other door

but that by which we had entered; no carpet on the floor, and the floor seemed very old, uneven, wormeaten,

mended here and there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no visible

place in which a living being could have hidden. As we stood gazing round, the door by which we had

For the first time I felt a creep of indefinable horror. Not so my servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir;

"Try first if it will open to your hand," said I, shaking off the vague apprehension that had seized me, "while I

I unbarred the shutters,the window looked on the little back yard I have before described; there was no

ledge without,nothing to break the sheer descent of the wall. No man getting out of that window would

F, meanwhile, was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me and asked my

permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any

superstitious terrors, his nerve, composure, and even gayety amidst circumstances so extraordinary,

compelled my admiration, and made me congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way

fitted to the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But though he was a remarkably

strong man, his force was as idle as his milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick.

Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself, equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort,

again that creep of horror came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if some strange

and ghastly exhalation were rising up from the chinks of that rugged floor, and filling the atmosphere with a

venomous influence hostile to human life. The door now very slowly and quietly opened as of its own accord.

We precipitated ourselves into the landing place. We both saw a large, pale lightas large as the human

figure, but shapeless and unsubstantialmove before us, and ascend the stairs that led from the landing into

the attics. I followed the light, and my servant followed me. It entered, to the right of the landing, a small

garret, of which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then collapsed into a small

globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid, rested a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished. We

approached the bed and examined it,a halftester, such as is commonly found in attics devoted to servants.

On the drawers that stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still left in a rent

half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last

died in that house, and this might have been her sleeping room. I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers:

there were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded

yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth

noticing,nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the

floor, just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to

be seen,nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending the stairs I

distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint, soft effort made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them

We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked that my dog had not followed us

when we had left it. He was thrusting himself close to the fire, and trembling. I was impatient to examine the

letters; and while I read them, my servant opened a little box in which he had deposited the weapons I had

ordered him to bring, took them out, placed them on a table close at my bed head, and then occupied himself

The letters were short,they were dated; the dates exactly thirtyfive years ago. They were evidently from a

lover to his mistress, or a husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a distinct

reference to a former voyage, indicated the writer to have been a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were

those of a man imperfectly educated, but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions of

endearment there was a kind of rough, wild love; but here and there were dark unintelligible hints at some

secret not of love,some secret that seemed of crime. "We ought to love each other," was one of the

sentences I remember, "for how everyone else would execrate us if all was known." Again: "Don't let anyone

be in the same room with you at night,you talk in your sleep." And again: "What's done can't be undone;

and I tell you there's nothing against us unless the dead could come to life." Here there was underlined in a

better handwriting (a female's), "They do!" At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand had

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to

keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth. I

roused myself; laid the letters on the table; stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering; and opened

my volume of Macaulay. I read quietly enough till about half past eleven. I then threw myself dressed upon

the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave

open the door between the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed head. I

placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned

clear; and on the hearth rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold

air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing

place, must have got open; but no,it was closed. I then turned my glance to my left, and saw the flame of

the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from

the table,softly, softly; no visible hand,it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver with the one hand,

the dagger with the other; I was not willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch. Thus armed,

I looked round the floor,no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backward and forward. He

kept his eyes fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself. Slowly he

rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare. I had no time, however,

to examine the dog. Presently my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human face,

it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the street, so altered was every lineament. He

passed by me quickly, saying, in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, "Run, run! it is after

me!" He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and rushed forth. I followed him into the landing

involuntarily, calling him to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging to the

balusters, and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I stood, the street door open,heard it again clap

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to follow my servant; pride and curiosity

alike forbade so dastardly a flight. I reentered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded cautiously

into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify my servant's terror. I again carefully examined the

walls, to see if there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one,not even a seam in the

dullbrown paper with which the room was hung. How, then, had the THING, whatever it was, which had so

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the interior one, and stood on the hearth,

expectant and prepared. I now perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was pressing

himself close against it, as if literally striving to force his way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it;

the poor brute was evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver dropping from its jaws,

and would certainly have bitten me if I had touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at

the Zoological Gardens a rabbit, fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a corner, may form some idea of the

anguish which the dog exhibited. Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his bite

might be as venomous in that state as in the madness of hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on

Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather a coolness, which the reader may

conceive I exaggerate, I may be pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.

As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely proportioned to familiarity with the

circumstances that lead to it, so I should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all experiments

that appertain to the marvelous. I had witnessed many very extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the

world,phenomena that would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to supernatural

agencies. Now, my theory is that the supernatural is the impossible, and that what is called supernatural is

only a something in the laws of Nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore, if a ghost rise

before me, I have not the right to say, "So, then, the supernatural is possible;" but rather, "So, then, the

apparition of a ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of Nature,that is, not supernatural."

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our

age record as facts, a material living agency is always required. On the Continent you will find still magicians

who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for the moment that they assert truly, still the living material

form of the magician is present; and he is the material agency by which, from some constitutional

peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit manifestation in America,musical or other sounds; writings on

paper, produced by no discernible hand; articles of furniture moved without apparent human agency; or the

actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies seem to belong,still there must be found the

MEDIUM, or living being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs. In fine, in all

such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like ourselves by

whom, or through whom, the effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now familiar

phenomena of mesmerism or electrobiology; the mind of the person operated on is affected through a

material living agent. Nor, supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a

mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned by a material being; it may be through a

material fluidcall it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you willwhich has the power of traversing space

and passing obstacles, that the material effect is communicated from one to the other. Hence, all that I had

hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some

agency or medium as mortal as myself; and this idea necessarily prevented the awe with which those who

regard as supernatural things that are not within the ordinary operations of Nature, might have been

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would be presented to my senses, must originate

in some human being gifted by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive so to

do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can

sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist could be in

awaiting the effects of some rare, though perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept

my mind detached from fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and I therefore

riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the page of my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the light,the page was

overshadowed. I looked up, and I saw what I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a Darkness shaping itself forth from the air in very undefined outline. I cannot say it was of a human

form, and yet it had more resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than to anything else. As it stood,

wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic, the summit

nearly touching the ceiling. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg before me could

not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced

that it was not the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thoughtbut this I cannot say with

precisionthat I distinguished two eyes looking down on me from the height. One moment I fancied that I

distinguished them clearly, the next they seemed gone; but still two rays of a paleblue light frequently shot

through the darkness, as from the height on which I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the

I strove to speak,my voice utterly failed me; I could only think to myself, "Is this fear? It is NOT fear!" I

strove to rise,in vain; I felt as if weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my impression was that of

an immense and overwhelming Power opposed to my volition,that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a

force beyond man's, which one may feel PHYSICALLY in a storm at sea, in a conflagration, or when

confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather, perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt MORALLY. Opposed to

my will was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and shark are superior in material force

And now, as this impression grew on me,now came, at last, horror, horror to a degree that no words can

convey. Still I retained pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, "This is horror; but it is not fear;

unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this thing; it is an illusion,I do not fear." With a violent

effort I succeeded at last in stretching out my hand toward the weapon on the table; as I did so, on the arm

and shoulder I received a strange shock, and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror,

the light began slowly to wane from the candles,they were not, as it were, extinguished, but their flame

seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the fire,the light was extracted from the fuel; in a

few minutes the room was in utter darkness. The dread that came over me, to be thus in the dark with that

dark Thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that

climax, that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell. I did burst

through it. I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I broke forth with words like these,

"I do not fear, my soul does not fear"; and at the same time I found strength to rise. Still in that profound

gloom I rushed to one of the windows; tore aside the curtain; flung open the shutters; my first thought

wasLIGHT. And when I saw the moon high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost compensated for the

previous terror. There was the moon, there was also the light from the gas lamps in the deserted slumberous

street. I turned to look back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely and partiallybut still

there was light. The dark Thing, whatever it might be, was gone,except that I could yet see a dim shadow,

My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was without cloth or cover,an old

mahogany round table) there rose a hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of

flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person, lean, wrinkled, small too,a woman's hand.

That hand very softly closed on the two letters that lay on the table; hand and letters both vanished. There

then came the same three loud, measured knocks I had heard at the bed head before this extraordinary drama

As those sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly; and at the far end there rose, as from

the floor, sparks or globules like bubbles of light, many colored,green, yellow, firered, azure. Up and

down, to and fro, hither, thither as tiny Willo'theWisps, the sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own

caprice. A chair (as in the drawingroom below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent agency,

and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as forth from the chair, there grew a shape,a

woman's shape. It was distinct as a shape of life, ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of youth,

with a strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of

cloudy white. It began sleeking its long, yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were not turned

toward me, but to the door; it seemed listening, watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the

background grew darker; and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the summit of the

As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another shape, equally distinct, equally

ghastly,a man's shape, a young man's. It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such

dress (for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable,

simulacra, phantasms); and there was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast between

the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that oldfashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles,

and the corpselike aspect and ghostlike stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape approached the

female, the dark Shadow started from the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness. When the pale

light returned, the two phantoms were as if in the grasp of the Shadow that towered between them; and there

was a blood stain on the breast of the female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and

blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate Shadow

swallowed them up,they were gone. And again the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated,

The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the aperture there came the form of an

aged woman. In her hand she held letters,the very letters over which I had seen THE Hand close; and

behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and then she opened the letters and seemed to

read; and over her shoulder I saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned,bloated, bleached,

seaweed tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse; and beside the corpse there

cowered a child, a miserable, squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked in

the old woman's face, the wrinkles and lines vanished, and it became a face of youth,hardeyed, stony, but

still youth; and the Shadow darted forth, and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the last.

Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the

Shadow,malignant, serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered,

irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves, as

from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them: larvae so bloodless and so

hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar

microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water,things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other,

devouring each other; forms like naught ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry,

so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and

round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was

outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by

them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold, soft fingers at my throat. I was still

equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentered all my faculties in

the single focus of resisting stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the Shadow; above all, from those

strange serpent eyes,eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in naught else around

me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and will of intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of some near conflagration. The larvae

grew lurid as things that live in fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured knocks;

and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark Shadow, as if out of that darkness all had

As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had been withdrawn, the flame grew again

into the candles on the table, again into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly,

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the servant's room still locked. In the corner of

the wall, into which he had so convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him,no movement; I

approached,the animal was dead: his eyes protruded; his tongue out of his mouth; the froth gathered round

his jaws. I took him in my arms; I brought him to the fire. I felt acute grief for the loss of my poor

favorite,acute selfreproach; I accused myself of his death; I imagined he had died of fright. But what was

my surprise on finding that his neck was actually broken. Had this been done in the dark? Must it not have

been by a hand human as mine; must there not have been a human agency all the while in that room? Good

cause to suspect it. I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader may draw his own

Another surprising circumstance,my watch was restored to the table from which it had been so

mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn, nor, despite all the skill

of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since,that is, it will go in a strange, erratic way for a few hours, and

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long to wait before the dawn broke. Not till

it was broad daylight did I quit the haunted house. Before I did so, I revisited the little blind room in which

my servant and myself had been for a time imprisoned. I had a strong impressionfor which I could not

accountthat from that room had originated the mechanism of the phenomena, if I may use the term, which

had been experienced in my chamber. And though I entered it now in the clear day, with the sun peering

through the filmy window, I still felt, as I stood on its floors, the creep of the horror which I had first there

experienced the night before, and which had been so aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber. I

could not, indeed, bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the stairs, and again I

heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the street door, I thought I could distinguish a very low

laugh. I gained my own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there; but he had not presented himself,

nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool to this

"HONORED SIR,I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely hope that you will think that I

deserve it, unlesswhich Heaven forbid!you saw what I did. I feel that it will be years before I can

recover myself; and as to being fit for service, it is out of the question. I am therefore going to my

brotherinlaw at Melbourne. The ship sails tomorrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set me up. I do

nothing now but start and tremble, and fancy it is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored sir, to order my

clothes, and whatever wages are due to me, to be sent to my mother's, at Walworth,John knows her

The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and explanatory details as to effects that

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or

other fraudulently mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather,

I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences.

My belief in my own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away in a

hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog's body. In this task I was not disturbed, nor did any

incident worth note befall me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard the same

footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J's. He was at home. I returned him the keys,

told him that my curiosity was sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed, when

he stopped me, and said, though with much politeness, that he had no longer any interest in a mystery which

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well as of the extraordinary manner in which

they had disappeared; and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died

in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions

to which the letters gave rise. Mr. J seemed startled, and, after musing a few moments, answered, "I am

but little acquainted with the woman's earlier history, except as I before told you, that her family were known

to mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of

their result. Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition that a person who had been either the

perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene in which those

crimes had been committed, I should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds before

"I would say this, that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of these mysteries, we should find a

"Not an imposture in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were to sink into a deep sleep, from which

you could not awake me, but in that sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend

to when awake,tell you what money you had in your pocket, nay, describe your very thoughts,it is not

necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself,

under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being who had acquired power over

"But if a mesmerizer could so affect another living being, can you suppose that a mesmerizer could also

"Or impress our senses with the belief in such effects,we never having been en rapport with the person

acting on us? No. What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to

mesmerism, and superior to it,the power that in the old days was called Magic. That such a power may

extend to all inanimate objects of matter, I do not say; but if so, it would not be against Nature,it would be

only a rare power in Nature which might be given to constitutions with certain peculiarities, and cultivated by

practice to an extraordinary degree. That such a power might extend over the dead,that is, over certain

thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain,and compel, not that which ought properly to be

called the SOUL, and which is far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been most

earthstained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses, is a very ancient though obsolete theory upon

which I will hazard no opinion. But I do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustrate what

I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and which the author of the

'Curiosities of Literature' cites as credible: A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that

flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never discover nor recollect them.

But you can, by chemistry, out of the burned dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it

seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. The soul has as much escaped you as the essence or

elements of the flower. Still you may make a spectrum of it. And this phantom, though in the popular

superstition it is held to be the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it is but the

eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the bestattested stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes

us is the absence of what we hold to be soul,that is, of superior emancipated intelligence. These apparitions

come for little or no object,they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above

those of an ordinary person on earth. American spirit seers have published volumes of communications, in

prose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of the most illustrious dead: Shakespeare,

Bacon,Heaven knows whom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of higher

order than would be communications from living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously

inferior to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more noticeable,

do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth before. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may

be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is incumbent on

philosophy to deny, namely, nothing supernatural. They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we

have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables walk of

their own accord, or fiendlike shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material

objects, or a Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood,still am I persuaded that

these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another. In some

constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic wonders,in others a

natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Normal

Science in this,they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results;

and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw

or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciously to himself as to the

exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced

exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same dream. If this were

an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a

supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end. These phenomena

belong to neither class; my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had

no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley,

evershifting, halfformed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action

and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement,

that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force

might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog,had my

"It killed your dog,that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house;

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man's reason has a sense less

subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?"

"Yes, though imperfectly,and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd, rather than embrace

at once the notion of ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house, the

"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal feelings that the small, unfurnished

room at right angles to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point or receptacle for the

influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have the walls opened, the floor removed,

nay, the whole room pulled down. I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the

small backyard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the building."

"You would cut off the telegraph wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I am right, that I will pay half the

"Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest allow me to write to you."

About ten days after I received a letter from Mr. J telling me that he had visited the house since I had

seen him; that he had found the two letters I had described, replaced in the drawer from which I had taken

them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the

woman to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written. It seemed that thirtysix years ago (a year

before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish of her relations, an American of very

suspicions character; in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the daughter of

very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of a nursery governess before her marriage. She

had a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child of about six years old. A

month after the marriage the body of this brother was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there

seemed some marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to warrant the inquest

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased brother having by his will left his sister

the guardian of his only child,and in event of the child's death the sister inherited. The child died about six

months afterwards,it was supposed to have been neglected and illtreated. The neighbors deposed to have

heard it shriek at night. The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was emaciated as if from

want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child

had sought to escape; crept out into the back yard; tried to scale the wall; fallen back exhausted; and been

found at morning on the stones in a dying state. But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was

none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding

stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be halfwitted. Be that as it may, at the

orphan's death the aunt inherited her brother's fortune. Before the first wedded year was out, the American

quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the

Atlantic two years afterwards. The widow was left in affluence, but reverses of various kinds had befallen

her: a bank broke; an investment failed; she went into a small business and became insolvent; then she

entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maidofallwork,never long

retaining a place, though nothing decided against her character was ever alleged. She was considered sober,

honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the

workhouse, from which Mr. J had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had

Mr. J added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room which I had urged him to destroy,

and that his impressions of dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen anything,

that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house, we went into the blind, dreary room, took

up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trapdoor, quite large

enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we

descended into a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected. In this room there had been a

window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we

examined this place; it still retained some moldering furniture,three chairs, an oak settle, a table,all of

the fashion of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half

rotted away, oldfashioned articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years

ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court dresses, a

handsome court sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which was now blackened

and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of

entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the

In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several small bottles of

crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which I shall only

say that they were not poisons, phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them. There were also some

very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock crystal, and another of

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and retaining the freshness of its colors most

remarkably, considering the length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a man who

might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps fortyseven or fortyeight. It was a remarkable

face,a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in

the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long

descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising the

strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald,and withal a

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and on the back was engraved a

pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765.

Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature

as a lid. Withinside the lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and in death to ." Here

follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in

my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a great sensation in London for a year

or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house,that of his mistress

and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in

opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a

chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a

small, thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a clear

liquid,on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the

usual points of a compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote

the planets. A peculiar but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a

wood that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect

on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room,a creeping, tingling sensation

from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I

did so the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran

through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilled; the saucer was

broken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the

trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one

sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin,

which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate,

living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will! Accursed be the house, and restless be the dwellers

We found no more. Mr. J burned the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundations the part of the

building containing the secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house

himself for a month, and a quieter, betterconditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently

A drowning man clutching at a strawsuch is Dr. Fenwick, hero of BulwerLytton's "Strange Story" when

he determines to lend himself to alleged "magic" in the hope of saving his suffering wife from the physical

dangers which have succeeded her mental disease. The proposition has been made to him by Margrave, a

wanderer in many countries, who has followed the Fenwicks from England to Australia. Margrave declares

that he needs an accomplice to secure an "elixir of life" which his own failing strength demands. His

mysterious mesmeric or hypnotic influence over Mrs. Fenwick had in former days been marked; and on the

basis of this undeniable fact, he has endeavored to show that his own welfare and Mrs. Fenwick's are, in some

occult fashion, knit together, and that only by aiding him in some extraordinary experiment can the physician

As the first chapter opens, Fenwick is learning his wife's condition from his friend, Dr. Faber.

"I believe that for at least twelve hours there will be no change in her state. I believe also that if she recover

from it, calm and refreshed, as from a sleep, the danger of death will have passed away."

Oh, to lose her now; now that her love and her reason had both returned, each more vivid than before! Futile,

indeed, might be Margrave's boasted secret; but at least in that secret was hope. In recognized science I saw

And at that thought all dread of this mysterious visitor vanished all anxiety to question more of his

attributes or his history. His life itself became to me dear and precious. What if it should fail me in the steps

of the process, whatever that was, by which the life of my Lilian might be saved!

The shades of evening were now closing in. I remembered that I had left Margrave without even food for

many hours. I stole round to the back of the house, filled a basket with elements more generous than those of

the former day; extracted fresh drugs from my stores, and, thus laden, hurried back to the hut. I found

Margrave in the room below, seated on his mysterious coffer, leaning his face on his hand. When I entered,

"You have neglected me. My strength is waning. Give me more of the cordial, for we have work before us

I administered the cordial. I placed food before him, and this time he did not eat with repugnance. I poured

out wine, and he drank it sparingly, but with ready compliance, saying, "In perfect health, I looked upon wine

After he had thus recruited himself, he seemed to acquire an energy that startlingly contrasted with his

languor the day before; the effort of breathing was scarcely perceptible; the color came back to his cheeks;

"If I understood you rightly," said I, "the experiment you ask me to aid can be accomplished in a single

"Command me. Why not begin at once? What apparatus or chemical agencies do you need?"

"Ah!" said Margrave. "Formerly, how I was misled! Formerly, how my conjectures blundered! I thought,

when I asked you to give a month to the experiment I wish to make, that I should need the subtlest skill of the

chemist. I then believed, with Van Helmont, that the principle of life is a gas, and that the secret was but in

the mode by which the gas might be rightly administered. But now, all that I need is contained in this coffer,

save one very simple materialfuel sufficient for a steady fire for six hours. I see even that is at hand, piled

up in your outhouse. And now for the substance itselfto that you must guide me."

"Near this very spot is there not goldin mines yet undiscovered and gold of the purest metal?"

"There is. What then? Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one discovery, gold and life?"

"No. But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold, that the substance from which the

great pabulum of life is extracted by ferment can be found. Possibly, in the attempts at that transmutation of

metals, which I think your own great chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, allowed might be possible, but held not to

be worth the cost of the processpossibly, in those attempts, some scanty grains of this substance were

found by the alchemists, in the crucible, with grains of the metal as niggardly yielded by pitiful mimicry of

Nature's stupendous laboratory; and from such grains enough of the essence might, perhaps, have been drawn

forth, to add a few years of existence to some feeble graybeardgranting, what rests on no proofs, that some

of the alchemists reached an age rarely given to man. But it is not in the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of

Nature herself, that we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principlelife. As the loadstone is

rife with the magnetic virtue, as amber contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we yet want a

name, is found the bright lifegiving fluid. In the old gold mines of Asia and Europe the substance exists, but

can rarely be met with. The soil for its nutriment may there be well nigh exhausted. It is here, where Nature

herself is all vital with youth, that the nutriment of youth must be sought. Near this spot is gold; guide me to

"You cannot come with me. The place which I know as auriferous is some miles distant, the way rugged. You

"Do you think I have come this distance and not foreseen and forestalled all that I want for my object?

Trouble yourself not with conjectures how I can arrive at the place. I have provided the means to arrive at and

leave it. My litter and its bearers are in reach of my call. Give me your arm to the rising ground, fifty yards

I obeyed mechanically, stifling all surprise. I had made my resolve, and admitted no thought that could shake

When we reached the summit of the grassy hillock, which sloped from the road that led to the seaport,

Margrave, after pausing to recover breath, lifted up his voice, in a key, not loud, but shrill and slow and

prolonged, half cry and half chant, like the nighthawk's. Through the airso limpid and still, bringing near

far objects, far soundsthe voice pierced its way, artfully pausing, till wave after wave of the atmosphere

In a few minutes the call seemed reechoed, so exactly, so cheerily, that for the moment I thought that the

note was the mimicry of the shy mocking lyre bird, which mimics so merrily all that it hears in its coverts,

"What king," said the mystical charmer, and as he spoke he carelessly rested his hand on my shoulder, so that

I trembled to feel that this dread son of Nature, Godless and soulless, who had beenand, my heart

whispered, who still could bemy bane and mind darkener, leaned upon me for support, as the spoiled

youngerborn on his brother"what king," said this cynical mocker, with his beautiful boyish face"what

king in your civilized Europe has the sway of a chief of the East? What link is so strong between mortal and

mortal as that between lord and slave? I transport you poor fools from the land of their birth; they preserve

here their old habitsobedience and awe. They would wait till they starved in the solitudewait to hearken

and answer my call. And I, who thus rule them, or charm themI use and despise them. They know that, and

yet serve me! Between you and me, my philosopher, there is but one thing worth living forlife for oneself."

Is it age, is it youth, that thus shocks all my sense, in my solemn completeness of man? Perhaps, in great

capitals, young men of pleasure will answer, "It is youth; and we think what he says!" Young friends, I do not

Along the grass track I saw now, under the moon, just risen, a strange processionnever seen before in

Australian pastures. It moved on, noiselessly but quickly. We descended the hillock, and met it on the way; a

sable litter, borne by four men, in unfamiliar Eastern garments; two other servitors, more bravely dressed,

with yataghans and silverhilted pistols in their belts, preceded this somber equipage. Perhaps Margrave

divined the disdainful thought that passed through my mind, vaguely and halfunconsciously; for he said

with a hollow, bitter laugh that had replaced the lively peal of his once melodious mirth:

"A little leisure and a little gold, and your raw colonist, too, will have the tastes of a pasha."

I made no answer. I had ceased to care who and what was my tempter. To me his whole being was resolved

But now, as the litter halted, from the long, dark shadow which it cast upon the turf, the figure of a woman

emerged and stood before us. The outlines of her shape were lost in the loose folds of a black mantle, and the

features of her face were hidden by a black veil, except only the darkbright, solemn eyes. Her stature was

Margrave accosted her in some language unknown to me. She replied in what seemed to me the same tongue.

The tones of her voice were sweet, but inexpressibly mournful. The words that they uttered appeared

intended to warn, or deprecate, or dissuade; but they called to Margrave's brow a lowering frown, and drew

from his lips a burst of unmistakable anger. The woman rejoined, in the same melancholy music of voice.

And Margrave then, leaning his arm upon her shoulder, as he had leaned it on mine, drew her away from the

group into a neighboring copse of the flowering eucalyptimystic trees, never changing the hues of their

palegreen leaves, ever shifting the tints of their ashgray, shedding bark. For some moments I gazed on the

two human forms, dimly seen by the glinting moonlight through the gaps in the foliage. Then turning away

my eyes, I saw, standing close at my side, a man whom I had not noticed before. His footstep, as it stole to

me, had fallen on the sward without sound. His dress, though Oriental, differed from that of his companions,

both in shape and colorfitting close to the breast, leaving the arms bare to the elbow, and of a uniform

ghastly white, as are the cerements of the grave. His visage was even darker than those of the Syrians or

Arabs behind him, and his features were those of a bird of prey: the beak of the eagle, but the eye of the

vulture. His cheeks were hollow; the arms, crossed on his breast, were long and fleshless. Yet in that skeleton

form there was a something which conveyed the idea of a serpent's suppleness and strength; and as the

hungry, watchful eyes met my own startled gaze, I recoiled impulsively with that inward warning of danger

which is conveyed to man, as to inferior animals, in the very aspect of the creatures that sting or devour. At

my movement the man inclined his head in the submissive Eastern salutation, and spoke in his foreign

I moved yet farther away from him with loathing, and now the human thought flashed upon me: was I, in

truth, exposed to no danger in trusting myself to the mercy of the weird and remorseless master of those

hirelings from the Eastseven men in number, two at least of them formidably armed, and docile as

bloodhounds to the hunter, who has only to show them their prey? But fear of man like myself is not my

weakness; where fear found its way to my heart, it was through the doubts or the fancies in which man like

myself disappeared in the attributes, dark and unknown, which we give to a fiend or a specter. And, perhaps,

if I could have paused to analyze my own sensations, the very presence of this escort creatures of flesh and

bloodlessened the dread of my incomprehensible tempter. Rather, a hundred times, front and defy those

seven Eastern slavesI, haughty son of the AngloSaxon who conquers all races because he fears no

oddsthan have seen again on the walls of my threshold the luminous, bodiless shadow! Besides:

LilianLilian! for one chance of saving her life, however wild and chimerical that chance might be, I would

Thus reassured and thus resolved, I advanced, with a smile of disdain, to meet Margrave and his veiled

"Well," I said to him, with an irony that unconsciously mimicked his own, "have you taken advice with your

nurse? I assume that the dark form by your side is that of Ayesha!"* *Margrave's former nurse and attendant.

The woman looked at me from her sable veil, with her steadfast, solemn eyes, and said, in English, though

with a foreign accent: "The nurse born in Asia is but wise through her love; the pale son of Europe is wise

"Peace!" exclaimed Margrave, stamping his foot on the ground. "I take no counsel from either; it is for me to

resolve, for you to obey, and for him to aid. Night is come, and we waste it; move on."

The woman made no reply, nor did I. He took my arm and walked back to the hut. The barbaric escort

followed. When we reached the door of the building, Margrave said a few words to the woman and to the

litter bearers. They entered the hut with us. Margrave pointed out to the woman his coffer, to the men the fuel

stowed in the outhouse. Both were borne away and placed within the litter. Meanwhile I took from the table,

on which it was carelessly thrown, the light hatchet that I habitually carried with me in my rambles.

"Do you think that you need that idle weapon?" said Margrave. "Do you fear the good faith of my swarthy

"Nay, take the hatchet yourself; its use is to sever the gold from the quartz in which we may find it imbedded,

or to clear, as this shovel, which will also be needed, from the slight soil above it, the ore that the mine in the

"Give me your hand, fellow laborer!" said Margrave, joyfully. "Ah, there is no faltering terror in this pulse! I

was not mistaken in the man. What rests, but the place and the hour?I shall live, I shall live!"

Margrave now entered the litter, and the Veiled Woman drew the black curtains round him. I walked on, as

the guide, some yards in advance. The air was still, heavy, and parched with the breath of the Australasian

We passed through the meadow lands, studded with slumbering flocks; we followed the branch of the creek,

which was linked to its source in the mountains by many a trickling waterfall; we threaded the gloom of

stunted, misshapen trees, gnarled with the stringy bark which makes one of the signs of the strata that nourish

gold; and at length the moon, now in all her pomp of light, midheaven among her subject stars, gleamed

through the fissures of the cave, on whose floor lay the relics of antediluvian races, and rested in one flood of

silvery splendor upon the hollows of the extinct volcano, with tufts of dank herbage, and wide spaces of paler

sward, covering the gold belowgold, the dumb symbol of organized Matter's great mystery, storing in

itself, according as Mind, the informer of Matter, can distinguish its uses, evil and good, bane and blessing.

Hitherto the Veiled Woman had remained in the rear, with the whiterobed, skeletonlike image that had crept

to my side unawares with its noiseless step. Thus, in each winding turn of the difficult path at which the

convoy following behind me came into sight, I had seen, first, the two gayly dressed, armed men, next the

black, bierlike litter, and last the Blackveiled Woman and the Whiterobed Skeleton.

But now, as I halted on the tableland, backed by the mountain and fronting the valley, the woman left her

companion, passed by the litter and the armed men, and paused by my side, at the mouth of the moonlit

There for a moment she stood, silent, the procession below mounting upward laboriously and slow; then she

The face on which I gazed was wondrously beautiful, and severely awful. There was neither youth nor age,

"Do you believe in that which you seek?" she asked in her foreign, melodious, melancholy accents.

"I have no belief," was my answer. "True science has none. True science questions all things, takes nothing

upon credit. It knows but three states of the minddenial, conviction, and that vast interval between the two

The woman let fall her veil, moved from me, and seated herself on a crag above that cleft between mountain

and creek, to which, when I had first discovered the gold that the land nourished, the rain from the clouds had

given the rushing life of the cataract; but which now, in the drought and the hush of the skies, was but a dead

The litter now ascended the height: its bearers halted; a lean hand tore the curtains aside, and Margrave

descended leaning, this time, not on the Blackveiled Woman, but on the Whiterobed Skeleton.

There, as he stood, the moon shone full on his wasted form; on his face, resolute, cheerful, and proud, despite

its hollowed outlines and sicklied hues. He raised his head, spoke in the language unknown to me, and the

armed men and the litter bearers grouped round him, bending low, their eyes fixed on the ground. The Veiled

Woman rose slowly and came to his side, motioning away, with a mute sign, the ghastly form on which he

leaned, and passing round him silently, instead, her own sustaining arm. Margrave spoke again a few

sentences, of which I could not even guess the meaning. When he had concluded, the armed men and the

litter bearers came nearer to his feet, knelt down, and kissed his hand. They then rose, and took from the

bierlike vehicle the coffer and the fuel. This done, they lifted again the litter, and again, preceded by the

armed men, the procession descended down the sloping hillside, down into the valley below.

Margrave now whispered, for some moments, into the ear of the hideous creature who had made way for the

Veiled Woman. The grim skeleton bowed his head submissively, and strode noiselessly away through the

long grassesthe slender stems, trampled under his stealthy feet, relifting themselves as after a passing

wind. And thus he, too, sank out of sight down into the valley below. On the tableland of the hill remained

She had reseated herself apart, on the gray crag above the dried torrent. He stood at the entrance of the

cavern, round the sides of which clustered parasital plants, with flowers of all colors, some among them

opening their petals and exhaling their fragrance only in the hours of night; so that, as his form filled up the

jaws of the dull arch, obscuring the moonbeam that strove to pierce the shadows that slept within, it stood

nowwan and blightedas I had seen it first, radiant and joyous, literally "framed in blooms."

"So," said Margrave, turning to me, "under the soil that spreads around us lies the gold which to you and to

me is at this moment of no value, except as a guide to its twinbornthe regenerator of life!"

"You have not yet described to me the nature of the substance which we are to explore, nor the process by

"Let us first find the gold, and instead of describing the lifeamber, so let me call it, I will point it out to your

own eyes. As to the process, your share in it is so simple that you will ask me why I seek aid from a chemist.

The lifeamber, when found, has but to be subjected to heat and fermentation for six hours; it will be placed

in a small caldron which that coffer contains, over the fire which that fuel will feed. To give effect to the

process, certain alkalies and other ingredients are required; but these are prepared, and mine is the task to

commingle them. From your science as chemist I need and ask naught. In you I have sought only the aid of a

"If that be so, why, indeed, seek me at all? Why not confide in those swarthy attendants, who doubtless are

"Confide in slaves, when the first task enjoined to them would be to discover, and refrain from purloining

gold! Seven such unscrupulous knaves, or even one such, and I, thus defenseless and feeble! Such is not the

work that wise masters confide to fierce slaves. But that is the least of the reasons which exclude them from

my choice, and fix my choice of assistant on you. Do you forget what I told you of the danger which the

Dervish declared no bribe I could offer could tempt him a second time to brave?"

"And because they had passed away from your mind, I chose you for my comrade. I need a man by whom

"But in the process of which you tell me I see no possible danger unless the ingredients you mix in your

"What other danger, except you dread your own Eastern slaves? But, if so, why lead them to these solitudes;

"The Eastern slaves, fulfilling my commands, wait for my summons, where their eyes cannot see what we do.

The danger is of a kind in which the boldest son of the East would be more craven, perhaps, that the daintiest

Sybarite of Europe, who would shrink from a panther and laugh at a ghost. In the creed of the Dervish, and of

all who adventure into that realm of Nature which is closed to philosophy and open to magic, there are races

in the magnitude of space unseen as animalcules in the world of a drop. For the tribes of the drop science has

its microscope. Of the host of yon azure Infinite magic gains sight, and through them gains command over

fluid conductors that link all the parts of creation. Of these races, some are wholly indifferent to man, some

benign to him, and some deadly hostile. In all the regular and prescribed conditions of mortal being, this

magic realm seems as blank and tenantless as yon vacant air. But when a seeker of powers beyond the rude

functions by which man plies the clockwork that measures his hours, and stops when its chain reaches the end

of its coil, strives to pass over those boundaries at which philosophy says, 'Knowledge ends'then, he is like

all other travelers in regions unknown; he must propitiate or brave the tribes that are hostilemust depend

for his life on the tribes that are friendly. Though your science discredits the alchemist's dogmas, your

learning informs you that all alchemists were not ignorant impostors; yet those whose discoveries prove them

to have been the nearest allies to your practical knowledge, ever hint in their mystical works at the reality of

that realm which is open to magicever hint that some means less familiar than furnace and bellows are

essential to him who explores the elixir of life. He who once quaffs that elixir, obtains in his very veins the

bright fluid by which he transmits the force of his will to agencies dormant in Nature, to giants unseen in the

space. And here, as he passes the boundary which divides his allotted and normal mortality from the regions

and races that magic alone can explore, so, here, he breaks down the safeguard between himself and the tribes

that are hostile. Is it not ever thus between man and man? Let a race the most gentle and timid and civilized

dwell on one side a river or mountain, and another have home in the region beyond, each, if it pass not the

intervening barrier, may with each live in peace. But if ambitious adventurers scale the mountain, or cross the

river, with design to subdue and enslave the population they boldly invade, then all the invaded arise in wrath

and defiancethe neighbors are changed into foes. And therefore this processby which a simple though

rare material of Nature is made to yield to a mortal the boon of a life which brings, with its glorious

resistance to Time, desires and faculties to subject to its service beings that dwell in the earth and the air and

the deephas ever been one of the same peril which an invader must brave when he crosses the bounds of

his nation. By this key alone you unlock all the cells of the alchemist's lore; by this alone understand how a

labor, which a chemist's crudest apprentice could perform, has baffled the giant fathers of all your dwarfed

children of science. Nature, that stores this priceless boon, seems to shrink from conceding it to manthe

invisible tribes that abhor him oppose themselves to the gain that might give them a master. The duller of

those who were the lifeseekers of old would have told you how some chance, trivial, unlookedfor, foiled

their grand hope at the very point of fruition; some doltish mistake, some improvident oversight, a defect in

the sulphur, a wild overflow in the quicksilver, or a flaw in the bellows, or a pupil who failed to replenish the

fuel, by falling asleep by the furnace. The invisible foes seldom vouchsafe to make themselves visible where

they can frustrate the bungler as they mock at his toils from their ambush. But the mightier adventurers,

equally foiled in despite of their patience and skill, would have said, 'Not with us rests the fault; we neglected

no caution, we failed from no oversight. But out from the caldron dread faces arose, and the specters or

demons dismayed and baffled us.' Such, then, is the danger which seems so appalling to a son of the East, as

it seemed to a seer in the dark age of Europe. But we can deride all its threats, you and I. For myself, I own

frankly I take all the safety that the charms and resources of magic bestow. You, for your safety, have the

cultured and disciplined reason which reduces all fantasies to nervous impressions; and I rely on the courage

of one who has questioned, unquailing, the Luminous Shadow, and wrested from the hand of the magician

To this strange and long discourse I listened without interruption, and now quietly answered:

"I do not merit the trust you affect in my courage; but I am now on my guard against the cheats of the fancy,

and the fumes of a vapor can scarcely bewilder the brain in the open air of this mountain land. I believe in no

races like those which you tell me lie viewless in space, as do gases. I believe not in magic; I ask not its aids,

and I dread not its terrors. For the rest, I am confident of one mournful couragethe courage that comes

from despair. I submit to your guidance, whatever it be, as a sufferer whom colleges doom to the grave

submits to the quack who says, 'Take my specific and live!' My life is naught in itself; my life lives in

another. You and I are both brave from despair; you would turn death from yourselfI would turn death

from one I love more than myself. Both know how little aid we can win from the colleges, and both,

therefore, turn to the promises most audaciously cheering. Dervish or magician, alchemist or phantom, what

care you and I? And if they fail us, what then? They cannot fail us more than the colleges do!"

The gold has been gained with an easy labor. I knew where to seek for it, whether under the turf or in the bed

of the creek. But Margrave's eyes, hungrily gazing round every spot from which the ore was disburied, could

not detect the substance of which he alone knew the outward appearance. I had begun to believe that, even in

the description given to him of this material, he had been credulously duped, and that no such material

existed, when, coming back from the bed of the watercourse, I saw a faint, yellow gleam amidst the roots of a

giant parasite plant, the leaves and blossoms of which climbed up the sides of the cave with its antediluvian

relics. The gleam was the gleam of gold, and on removing the loose earth round the roots of the plant, we

came on No, I will not, I dare not, describe it. The gold digger would cast it aside; the naturalist would

pause not to heed it; and did I describe it, and chemistry deign to subject it to analysis, could chemistry alone

Its particles, indeed, are very minute, not seeming readily to crystallize with each other; each in itself of

uniform shape and size, spherical as the egg which contains the germ of life, and small as the egg from which

But Margrave's keen eye caught sight of the atoms upcast by the light of the moon. He exclaimed to me,

"Found! I shall live!" And then, as he gathered up the grains with tremulous hands, he called out to the Veiled

Woman, hitherto still seated motionless on the crag. At his word she rose and went to the place hard by,

where the fuel was piled, busying herself there. I had no leisure to heed her. I continued my search in the soft

and yielding soil that time and the decay of vegetable life had accumulated over the preAdamite strata on

When we had collected of these particles about thrice as much as a man might hold in his hand, we seemed to

have exhausted their bed. We continued still to find gold, but no more of the delicate substance to which, in

"Enough," then said Margrave, reluctantly desisting. "What we have gained already will suffice for a life

thrice as long as legend attributes to Haroun. I shall liveI shall live through the centuries."

"Your shareyours! Trueyour half of my life! It is true." He paused with a low, ironical, malignant laugh,

While we had thus labored and found, Ayesha had placed the fuel where the moonlight fell fullest on the

sward of the tablelanda part of it already piled as for a fire, the rest of it heaped confusedly close at hand;

and by the pile she had placed the coffer. And, there she stood, her arms folded under her mantle, her dark

image seeming darker still as the moonlight whitened all the ground from which the image rose motionless.

Margrave opened his coffer, the Veiled Woman did not aid him, and I watched in silence, while he as silently

On the ground a wide circle was traced by a small rod, tipped apparently with sponge saturated with some

combustible naphthalike fluid, so that a pale, lambent flame followed the course of the rod as Margrave

guided it, burning up the herbage over which it played, and leaving a distinct ring, like that which, in our

lovely native fable talk, we call the "Fairy's ring," but yet more visible because marked in phosphorescent

light. On the ring thus formed were placed twelve small lamps, fed with the fluid from the same vessel, and

lighted by the same rod. The light emitted by the lamps was more vivid and brilliant than that which circled

Within the circumference, and immediately round the woodpile, Margrave traced certain geometrical figures,

in whichnot without a shudder, that I overcame at once by a strong effort of will in murmuring to myself

the name of "Lilian"I recognized the interlaced triangles which my own hand, in the spell enforced on a

sleepwalker, had described on the floor of the wizard's pavilion. The figures were traced like the circle, in

flame, and at the point of each triangle (four in number) was placed a lamp, brilliant as those on the ring. This

task performed, the caldron, based on an iron tripod, was placed on the woodpile. And then the woman,

before inactive and unheeding, slowly advanced, knelt by the pile and lighted it. The dry wood crackled and

Margrave flung into the caldron the particles we had collected, poured over them first a liquid, colorless as

water, from the largest of the vessels drawn from his coffer, and then, more sparingly, drops from small

Having surmounted my first impulse of awe, I watched these proceedings, curious yet disdainful, as one who

"If," thought I, "these are but artful devices to inebriate and fool my own imagination, my imagination is on

"And now," said Margrave, "I consign to you the easy task by which you are to merit your share of the elixir.

It is my task to feed and replenish the caldron; it is Ayesha's to feed the fire, which must not for a moment

relax in its measured and steady heat. Your task is the lightest of all: it is but to renew from this vessel the

fluid that burns in the lamps, and on the ring. Observe, the contents of the vessel must be thriftily husbanded;

there is enough, but not more than enough, to sustain the light in the lamps, on the lines traced round the

caldron, and on the farther ring, for six hours. The compounds dissolved in this fluid are scarceonly

obtainable in the East, and even in the East months might have passed before I could have increased my

supply. I had no months to waste. Replenish, then, the light only when it begins to flicker or fade. Take heed,

above all, that no part of the outer ringno, not an inchand no lamp of the twelve, that are to its zodiac

"The vessel is small," said I, "and what is yet left of its contents is but scanty; whether its drops suffice to

replenish the lights I cannot guessI can but obey your instructions. But, more important by far than the

light to the lamps and the circle, which in Asia or Africa might scare away the wild beasts unknown to this

landmore important than light to a lamp is the strength to your frame, weak magician! What will support

"Hope," answered Margrave, with a ray of his old dazzling style. "Hope! I shall liveI shall live through the

One hour passed away; the fagots under the caldron burned clear in the sullen, sultry air. The materials within

began to seethe, and their color, at first dull and turbid, changed into a palerose hue; from time to time the

Veiled Woman replenished the fire, after she had done so reseating herself close by the pyre, with her head

The lights in the lamps and along the ring and the triangles now began to pale. I resupplied their nutriment

from the crystal vessel. As yet nothing strange startled my eye or my ear beyond the rim of the

circlenothing audible, save, at a distance, the musical wheellike click of the locusts, and, farther still, in

the forest, the howl of the wild dogs that never bark; nothing visible, but the trees and the mountain range

girding the plains silvered by the moon, and the arch of the cavern, the flush of wild blooms on its sides, and

The second hour passed like the first. I had taken my stand by the side of Margrave, watching with him the

process at work in the caldron, when I felt the ground slightly vibrate beneath my feet, and looking up, it

seemed as if all the plains beyond the circle were heaving like the swell of the sea, and as if in the air itself

I placed my hand on Margrave's shoulder and whispered, "To me earth and air seem to vibrate. Do they seem

"I know not, I care not," he answered impetuously. "The essence is bursting the shell that confined it. Here

are my air and my earth! Trouble me not. Look to the circlefeed the lamps if they fail!"

I passed by the Veiled Woman as I walked toward a place in the ring in which the flame was waning dim;

and I whispered to her the same question which I had whispered to Margrave. She looked slowly around and

answered, "So is it before the Invisible make themselves visible! Did I not bid him forbear?" Her head again

I advanced to the circle and stooped to replenish the light where it waned. As I did so, on my arm, which

stretched somewhat beyond the line of the ring, I felt a shock like that of electricity. The arm fell to my side

numbed and nerveless, and from my hand dropped, but within the ring, the vessel that contained the fluid.

Recovering my surprise or my stun, hastily with the other hand I caught up the vessel, but some of the scanty

liquid was already spilled on the sward; and I saw with a thrill of dismay, that contrasted indeed the tranquil

indifference with which I had first undertaken my charge, how small a supply was now left.

I went back to Margrave, and told him of the shock, and of its consequence in the waste of the liquid.

"Beware," said he, that not a motion of the arm, not an inch of the foot, pass the verge of the ring; and if the

fluid be thus unhappily stinted, reserve all that is left for the protecting circle and the twelve outer lamps! See

how the Grand Work advances, how the hues in the caldron are glowing bloodred through the film on the

And now four hours of the six were gone; my arm had gradually recovered its strength. Neither the ring nor

the lamps had again required replenishing; perhaps their light was exhausted less quickly, as it was no longer

to be exposed to the rays of the intense Australian moon. Clouds had gathered over the sky, and though the

moon gleamed at times in the gaps that they left in blue air, her beam was more hazy and dulled. The locusts

no longer were heard in the grass, nor the howl of the dogs in the forest. Out of the circle, the stillness was

And about this time I saw distinctly in the distance a vast Eye. It drew nearer and nearer, seeming to move

from the ground at the height of some lofty giant. Its gaze riveted mine; my blood curdled in the blaze from

its angry ball; and now as it advanced larger and larger, other Eyes, as if of giants in its train, grew out from

the space in its rearnumbers on numbers, like the spearheads of some Eastern army, seen afar by pale

warders of battlements doomed to the dust. My voice long refused an utterance to my awe; at length it burst

"Look, look! Those terrible Eyes! Legions on legions. And hark! that tramp of numberless feet; THEY are

Margrave, more than ever intent on the caldron, in which, from time to time, he kept dropping powders or

"Ye come," he said in a low mutter, his once mighty voice sounding hollow and laboring, but fearless and

firm"ye comenot to conquer, vain rebels!ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet in the tomb

where my spell had raised up the ghost of your first human master, the Chaldee! Earth and air have their

armies still faithful to me, and still I remember the war song that summons them up to confront you! Ayesha,

Ayesha! recall the wild troth that we pledged among the roses; recall the dread bond by which we united our

sway over hosts that yet own thee as queen, though my scepter is broken, my diadem reft from my brows!"

The Veiled Woman rose at this adjuration. Her veil now was withdrawn, and the blaze of the fire between

Margrave and herself flushed, as with the rosy bloom of youth, the grand beauty of her softened face. It was

seen, detached, as it were, from her darkmantled form; seen through the mist of the vapors which rose from

the caldron, framing it round like the clouds that are yieldingly pierced by the light of the evening star.

Through the haze of the vapor came her voice, more musical, more plaintive than I had heard it before, but

far softer, more tender: still in her foreign tongue; the words unknown to me, and yet their sense, perhaps,

made intelligible by the love, which has one common language and one common look to all who have

lovedthe love unmistakably heard in the loving tone, unmistakably seen in the loving face.

A moment or so more and she had come round from the opposite side of the fire pile, and bending over

Margrave's upturned brow, kissed it quietly, solemnly; and then her countenance grew fierce, her crest rose

erect: it was the lioness protecting her young. She stretched forth her arm from the black mantle, athwart the

pale front that now again bent over the caldronstretched it toward the haunted and hollowsounding space

beyond, in the gesture of one whose right hand has the sway of the scepter. And then her voice stole on the

air in the music of a chant, not loud yet farreaching; so thrilling, so sweet and yet so solemn that I could at

once comprehend how legend united of old the spell of enchantment with the power of song. All that I

recalled of the effects which, in the former time, Margrave's strange chants had produced on the ear that they

ravished and the thoughts they confused, was but as the wild bird's imitative carol, compared to the depth and

the art and the soul of the singer, whose voice seemed endowed with a charm to inthrall all the tribes of

creation, though the language it used for that charm might to them, as to me, be unknown. As the song

ceased, I heard from behind sounds like those I had heard in the spaces before methe tramp of invisible

feet, the whir of invisible wings, as if armies were marching to aid against armies in march to destroy.

"Look not in front nor around," said Ayesha. "Look, like him, on the caldron below. The circle and the lamps

"See," whispered Margrave, "the sparkles at last begin to arise, and the rose hues to deepensigns that we

The fifth hour had passed away, when Ayesha said to me, "Lo! the circle is fading; the lamps grow dim. Look

now without fear on the space beyond; the eyes that appalled thee are again lost in air, as lightnings that fleet

I looked up, and the specters had vanished. The sky was tinged with sulphurous hues, the red and the black

intermixed. I replenished the lamps and the ring in front, thriftily, heedfully; but when I came to the sixth

lamp, not a drop in the vessel that fed them was left. In a vague dismay, I now looked round the half of the

wide circle in rear of the two bended figures intent on the caldron. All along that disk the light was already

broken, here and there flickering up, here and there dying down; the six lamps in that half of the circle still

twinkled, but faintly, as stars shrinking fast from the dawn of day. But it was not the fading shine in that half

of the magical ring which daunted my eye and quickened with terror the pulse of my heart; the Bushland

beyond was on fire. From the background of the forest rose the flame and the smokethe smoke, there, still

half smothering the flame. But along the width of the grasses and herbage, between the verge of the forest

and the bed of the water creek just below the raised platform from which I beheld the dread conflagration, the

fire was advancingwave upon wave, clear and red against the columns of rock behind; as the rush of a

Roused from my stun at the first sight of a danger not foreseen by the mind I had steeled against far rarer

portents of Nature, I cared no more for the lamps and the circle. Hurrying hack to Ayesha I exclaimed: "The

phantoms have gone from the spaces in front; but what incantation or spell can arrest the red march of the foe

speeding on in the rear! While we gazed on the caldron of life, behind us, unheeded, behold the Destroyer!"

Ayesha looked and made no reply, but, as by involuntary instinct, bowed her majestic head, then rearing it

erect, placed herself yet more immediately before the wasted form of the young magician (he still, bending

over the caldron, and hearing me not in the absorption and hope of his watch)placed herself before him, as

As we two there stood, fronting the deluge of fire, we heard Margrave behind us, murmuring low, "See the

bubbles of light, how they sparkle and danceI shall live, I shall live!" And his words scarcely died in our

ears before, crash upon crash, came the fall of the agelong trees in the forest, and nearer, all near us, through

the blazing grasses, the hiss of the serpents, the scream of the birds, and the bellow and tramp of the herds

Ayesha now wound her arms around Margrave, and wrenched him, reluctant and struggling, from his watch

over the seething caldron. In rebuke of his angry exclamations, she pointed to the march of the fire, spoke in

sorrowful tones a few words in her own language, and then, appealing to me in English, said:

"I tell him that, here, the Spirits who oppose us have summoned a foe that is deaf to my voice, and"

"And," exclaimed Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all

the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below"and this witch, whom I

trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should

scorn and forsake her, that in death I should die in her arms! Sorceress, avaunt! Art thou useless and

powerless now when I need thee most? Go! Let the world be one funeral pyre! What to ME is the world? My

world is my life! Thou knowest that my last hope is herethat all the strength left me this night will die

down, like the lamps in the circle, unless the elixir restore it. Bold friend, spurn that sorceress away. Hours

yet ere those flames can assail us! A few minutes more, and life to your Lilian and me!"

Thus having said, Margrave turned from us, and cast into the caldron the last essence yet left in his empty

Ayesha silently drew her black veil over her face, and turned, with the being she loved, from the terror he

Thus left alone, with my reason disinthralled, disenchanted, I surveyed more calmly the extent of the actual

It is true all the Bushland behind, almost up to the bed of the creek, was on fire; but the grasses, through

which the flame spread so rapidly, ceased at the opposite marge of the creek. Watery pools were still, at

intervals, left in the bed of the creek, shining tremulous, like waves of fire, in the glare reflected from the

burning land; and even where the water failed, the stony course of the exhausted rivulet was a barrier against

the march of the conflagration. Thus, unless the wind, now still, should rise, and waft some sparks to the

parched combustible herbage immediately around us, we were saved from the fire, and our work might yet be

"Thinkest thou," she answered without raising her mournful head, "that the Agencies of Nature are the

movements of chance? The Spirits I invoked to his aid are leagued with the hosts that assail. A mightier than

Scarcely had she uttered these words before Margrave exclaimed, "Behold how the Rose of the alchemist's

dream enlarges its blooms from the folds of its petals! I shall live, I shall live!"

I looked, and the liquid which glowed in the caldron had now taken a splendor that mocked all comparisons

borrowed from the luster of gems. In its prevalent color it had, indeed, the dazzle and flash of the ruby; but

out from the mass of the molten red, broke coruscations of all prismal hues, shooting, shifting, in a play that

made the wavelets themselves seem living things, sensible of their joy. No longer was there scum or film

upon the surface; only ever and anon a light, rosy vapor floating up, and quick lost in the haggard, heavy,

sulphurous air, hot with the conflagration rushing toward us from behind. And these coruscations formed, on

the surface of the molten ruby, literally the shape of a rose, its leaves made distinct in their outlines by sparks

Even while gazing on this animated liquid luster, a buoyant delight seemed infused into my senses; all terrors

conceived before were annulled; the phantoms, whose armies had filled the wide spaces in front, were

forgotten; the crash of the forest behind was unheard. In the reflection of that glory, Margrave's wan cheek

seemed already restored to the radiance it wore when I saw it first in the framework of blooms.

"Hush!" whispered Ayesha, from the black veil, against which the rays of the caldron fell blunt, and absorbed

into Dark. "Behind us, the light of the circle is extinct; but there, we are guarded from all save the brutal and

soulless destroyers. But, before! but, before!see, two of the lamps have died out!see the blank of the

"Not a drop is there left in this vessel by which to replenish the lamps on the ring."

"Advance, then; thou hast still the light of the soul, and the demons may recoil before a soul that is dauntless

Thus adjured, silently, involuntarily, I passed from the Veiled Woman's side, over the sear lines on the turf

which had been traced by the triangles of light long since extinguished, and toward the verge of the circle. As

I advanced, overhead rushed a dark cloud of wingsbirds dislodged from the forest on fire, and screaming,

in dissonant terror, as they flew toward the farthermost mountains; close by my feet hissed and glided the

snakes, driven forth from their blazing coverts, and glancing through the ring, unscared by its waning lamps;

all undulating by me, brighteyed, and hissing, all made innocuous by feareven the terrible Deathadder,

which I trampled on as I halted at the verge of the circle, did not turn to bite, but crept harmless away. I

halted at the gap between the two dead lamps, and bowed my head to look again into the crystal vessel. Were

there, indeed, no lingering drops yet left, if but to recruit the lamps for some priceless minutes more? As I

thus stood, right into the gap between the two dead lamps strode a gigantic Foot. All the rest of the form was

unseen; only, as volume after volume of smoke poured on from the burning land behind, it seemed as if one

great column of vapor, eddying round, settled itself aloft from the circle, and that out from that column strode

the giant Foot. And, as strode the Foot, so with it came, like the sound of its tread, a roll of muttered thunder.

"Courage!" said the voice of Ayesha. "Trembling soul, yield not an inch to the demon!"

At the charm, the wonderful charm, in the tone of the Veiled Woman's voice, my will seemed to take a force

more sublime than its own. I folded my arms on my breast, and stood as if rooted to the spot, confronting the

Again, in the momentary hush of that suspense, I heard a voiceit was Margrave's.

"The last hour expiresthe work is accomplished! Come! come! Aid me to take the caldron from the fire;

and, quick!or a drop may be wasted in vaporthe Elixir of Life from the caldron!"

And at that moment, suddenly, unawares, from behind, I was stricken down. Over me, as I lay, swept a

whirlwind of trampling hoofs and glancing horns. The herds, in their flight from the burning pastures, had

rushed over the bed of the water course, scaled the slopes of the banks. Snorting and bellowing, they plunged

their blind way to the mountains. One cry alone, more wild than their own savage blare, pierced the reek

through which the Brute Hurricane swept. At that cry of wrath and despair I struggled to rise, again dashed to

earth by the hoofs and the horns. But was it the dreamlike deceit of my reeling senses, or did I see that giant

Foot stride past through the closeserried ranks of the maddening herds? Did I hear, distinct through all the

huge uproar of animal terror, the roll of low thunder which followed the stride of that Foot?

When my sense had recovered its shock, and my eyes looked dizzily round, the charge of the beasts had

swept by; and of all the wild tribes which had invaded the magical circle, the only lingerer was the brown

Deathadder, coiled close by the spot where my head had rested. Beside the extinguished lamps which the

hoofs had confusedly scattered, the fire, arrested by the water course, had consumed the grasses that fed it,

and there the plains stretched black and desert as the Phlegraean Field of the Poet's Hell. But the fire still

raged in the forest beyondwhite flames, soaring up from the trunks of the tallest trees, and forming,

through the sullen dark of the smoke reck, innumerable pillars of fire, like the halls in the city of fiends.

Gathering myself up, I turned my eyes from the terrible pomp of the lurid forest, and looked fearfully down

I saw the dark image of Ayesha still seated, still bending, as I had seen it last. I saw a pale hand feebly

grasping the rim of the magical caldron, which lay, hurled down from its tripod by the rush of the beasts,

yards away from the dim, fading embers of the scattered wood pyre. I saw the faint writhings of a frail,

wasted frame, over which the Veiled Woman was bending. I saw, as I moved with bruised limbs to the place,

close by the lips of the dying magician, the flash of the rubylike essence spilled on the sward, and,

I now reached Margrave's side. Bending over him as the Veiled Woman bent, and as I sought gently to raise

him, he turned his face, fiercely faltering out, "Touch me not, rob me not! YOU share with me! Never, never!

These glorious drops are all mine! Die all else! I will live, I will live!" Writhing himself from my pitying

arms, he plunged his face amidst the beautiful, playful flame of the essence, as if to lap the elixir with lips

scorched away from its intolerable burning. Suddenly, with a low shriek, he fell back, his face upturned to

Then Ayesha tenderly, silently, drew the young head to her lap, and it vanished from my sight behind her

I knelt beside her, murmuring some trite words of comfort; but she heeded me not, rocking herself to and fro

as the mother who cradles a child to sleep. Soon the fastflickering sparkles of the lost elixir died out on the

grass; and with their last sportive diamondlike tremble of light, up, in all the suddenness of Australian day,

rose the sun, lifting himself royally above the mountain tops, and fronting the meaner blaze of the forest as a

young king fronts his rebels. And as there, where the bush fires had ravaged, all was a desert, so there, where

their fury had not spread, all was a garden. Afar, at the foot of the mountains, the fugitive herds were grazing;

the cranes, flocking back to the pools, renewed the strange grace of their gambols; and the great kingfisher,

whose laugh, half in mirth, half in mockery, leads the choir that welcome the mornwhich in Europe is

nightalighted bold on the roof of the cavern, whose floors were still white with the bones of races, extinct

But there, on the ground where the dazzling elixir had wasted its virtuesthere the herbage already had a

freshness of verdure which, amid the duller sward round it, was like an oasis of green in a desert. And, there,

wild flowers, whose chill hues the eye would have scarcely distinguished the day before, now glittered forth

in blooms of unfamiliar beauty. Toward that spot were attracted myriads of happy insects, whose hum of

intense joy was musically loud. But the form of the lifeseeking sorcerer lay rigid and stark; blind to the

bloom of the wild flowers, deaf to the glee of the insectsone hand still resting heavily on the rim of the

emptied caldron, and the face still hid behind the Black Veil. What! the wondrous elixir, sought with such

hope and wellnigh achieved through such dread, fleeting back to the earth from which its material was drawn

And now, in the flash of the sun, slowly wound up the slopes that led to the circle, the same barbaric

procession which had sunk into the valley under the ray of the moon. The armed men came first, stalwart and

tall, their vests brave with crimson and golden lace, their weapons gayly gleaming with holiday silver. After

them, the Black Litter. As they came to the place, Ayesha, not raising her head, spoke to them in her own

Eastern tongue. A wail was her answer. The armed men bounded forward, and the bearers left the litter.

All gathered round the dead form with the face concealed under the Black Veil; all knelt, and all wept. Far in

the distance, at the foot of the blue mountains, a crowd of the savage natives had risen up as if from the earth;

they stood motionless leaning on their clubs and spears, and looking toward the spot on which we were

strangely thus brought into the landscape, as if they too, the wild dwellers on the verge which Humanity

guards from the Brute, were among the mourners for the mysterious Child of mysterious Nature! And still, in

the herbage, hummed the small insects, and still, from the cavern, laughed the great kingfisher. I said to

Ayesha, "Farewell! your love mourns the dead, mine calls me to the living. You are now with your own

"There is no consolation for me! What mourner can be consoled if the dead die forever? Nothing for him is

left but a grave; that grave shall be in the land where the song of Ayesha first lulled him to sleep. Thou assist

MEthou, the wise man of Europe! From me ask assistance. What road wilt thou take to thy home?"

"There is but one road known to me through the maze of the solitudethat which we took to this upland."

"On that road Death lurks, and awaits thee! Blind dupe, couldst thou think that if the grand secret of life had

been won, he whose head rests on my lap would have yielded thee one petty drop of the essence which had

filched from his store of life but a moment? Me, who so loved and so cherished himme he would have

doomed to the pitiless cord of my servant, the Strangler, if my death could have lengthened a hairbreadth the

span of his being. But what matters to me his crime or his madness? I loved him, I loved him!"

She bowed her veiled head lower and lower; perhaps under the veil her lips kissed the lips of the dead. Then

"Juma the Strangler, whose word never failed to his master, whose prey never slipped from his snare, waits

thy step on the road to thy home! But thy death cannot now profit the dead, the beloved. And thou hast had

pity for him who took but thine aid to design thy destruction. His life is lost, thine is saved!"

She spoke no more in the tongue that I could interpret. She spoke, in the language unknown, a few murmured

words to her swarthy attendants; then the armed men, still weeping, rose, and made a dumb sign to me to go

with them. I understood by the sign that Ayesha had told them to guard me on my way; but she gave no reply

I descended into the valley; the armed men followed. The path, on that side of the water course not reached

by the flames, wound through meadows still green, or amidst groves still unscathed. As a turning in the way

brought in front of my sight the place I had left behind, I beheld the black litter creeping down the descent,

with its curtains closed, and the Veiled Woman walking by its side. But soon the funeral procession was lost

to my eyes, and the thoughts that it roused were erased. The waves in man's brain are like those of the sea,

rushing on, rushing over the wrecks of the vessels that rode on their surface, to sink, after storm, in their

deeps. One thought cast forth into the future now mastered all in the past: "Was Lilian living still?" Absorbed

in the gloom of that thought, hurried on by the goad that my heart, in its tortured impatience, gave to my

footstep, I outstripped the slow stride of the armed men, and, midway between the place I had left and the

home which I sped to, came, far in advance of my guards, into the thicket in which the Bushmen had started

up in my path on the night that Lilian had watched for my coming. The earth at my feet was rife with

creeping plants and manycolored flowers, the sky overhead was half hid by motionless pines. Suddenly,

whether crawling out from the herbage or dropping down from the trees, by my side stood the whiterobed

I sprang from him shuddering, then halted and faced him. The hideous creature crept toward me, cringing and

fawning, making signs of humble goodwill and servile obeisance. Again I recoiled wrathfully, loathingly,

turned my face homeward, and fled on. I thought I had baffled his chase, when, just at the mouth of the

thicket, he dropped from a bough in my path close behind me. Before I could turn, some dark muffling

substance fell between my sight and the sun, and I felt a fierce strain at my throat. But the words of Ayesha

had warned me; with one rapid hand I seized the noose before it could tighten too closely, with the other I

tore the bandage away from my eyes, and, wheeling round on the dastardly foe, struck him down with one

spurn of my foot. His hand, as he fell, relaxed its hold on the noose; I freed my throat from the knot, and

sprang from the copse into the broad sunlit plain. I saw no more of the armed men or the Strangler. Panting

and breathless, I paused at last before the fence, fragrant with blossoms, that divided my home from the

Darkened and silenced home, with the light and sounds of the jocund day all around it. Was there yet hope in

the Universe for me? All to which I had trusted Hope had broken down; the anchors I had forged for her hold

in the beds of the ocean, her stay from the drifts of the storm, had snapped like the reeds which pierce the side

that leans on the barb of their points, and confides in the strength of their stems. No hope in the baffled

resources of recognized knowledge! No hope in the daring adventures of Mind into regions unknown; vain

alike the calm lore of the practiced physician, and the magical arts of the fated Enchanter! I had fled from the

commonplace teachings of Nature, to explore in her Shadowland marvels at variance with reason. Made

brave by the grandeur of love, I had opposed without quailing the stride of the Demon, and my hope, when

fruition seemed nearest, had been trodden into dust by the hoofs of the beast! And yet, all the while, I had

scorned, as a dream, more wild than the word of a sorcerer, the hope that the old man and the child, the wise

and the ignorant, took from their souls as inborn. Man and fiend had alike failed a mind, not ignoble, not

skillless, not abjectly craven; alike failed a heart not feeble and selfish, not dead to the hero's devotion,

willing to shed every drop of its blood for a something more dear than an animal's life for itself! What

remainedwhat remained for man's hope?man's mind and man's heart thus exhausting their all with no

other result but despair! What remained but the mystery of mysteries, so clear to the sunrise of childhood, the

sunset of age, only dimmed by the clouds which collect round the noon of our manhood? Where yet was

Hope found? In the soul; in its everyday impulse to supplicate comfort and light, from the Giver of soul,

Then the words of Ayesha rushed over me: "What mourner can be consoled, if the dead die forever?"

Through every pulse of my frame throbbed that dread question; all Nature around seemed to murmur it. And

suddenly, as by a flash from heaven, the grand truth in Faber's grand reasoning shone on me, and lighted up

all, within and without. Man alone, of all earthly creatures, asks, "Can the dead die forever?" and the instinct

And born with the instinct of soul is the instinct that leads the soul from the seen to the unseen, from time to

eternity, from the torrent that foams toward the Ocean of Death, to the source of its stream, far aloft from the

"Know thyself," said the Pythian of old. "That precept descended from Heaven." Know thyself! Is that maxim

wise? If so, know thy soul. But never yet did man come to the thorough conviction of soul but what he

acknowledged the sovereign necessity of prayer. In my awe, in my rapture, all my thoughts seemed enlarged

and illumed and exalted. I prayedall my soul seemed one prayer. All my past, with its pride and

presumption and folly, grew distinct as the form of a penitent, kneeling for pardon before setting forth on the

pilgrimage vowed to a shrine. And, sure now, in the deeps of a soul first revealed to myself, that the Dead do

not die forever, my human love soared beyond its brief trial of terror and sorrow. Daring not to ask from

Heaven's wisdom that Lilian, for my sake, might not yet pass away from the earth, I prayed that my soul

might be fitted to bear with submission whatever my Maker might ordain. And if surviving herwithout

whom no beam from yon material sun could ever warm into joy a morrow in human lifeso to guide my

How trivial now became the weird riddle, that, a little while before, had been clothed in so solemn an awe!

What mattered it to the vast interests involved in the clear recognition of Soul and Hereafter, whether or not

my bodily sense, for a moment, obscured the face of the Nature I should one day behold as a spirit?

Doubtless the sights and the sounds which had haunted the last gloomy night, the calm reason of Faber would

strip of their magical seemings; the Eyes in the space and the Foot in the circle might be those of no terrible

Demons, but of the wild's savage children whom I had seen, halting, curious and mute, in the light of the

morning. The tremor of the ground (if not, as heretofore, explicable by the illusory impression of my own

treacherous senses) might be but the natural effect of elements struggling yet under a soil unmistakably

charred by volcanoes. The luminous atoms dissolved in the caldron might as little be fraught with a vital

elixir as are the splendors of naphtha or phosphor. As it was, the weird rite had no magic result. The magician

was not rent limb from limb by the fiends. By causes as natural as ever extinguished life's spark in the frail

What mattered henceforth to Faith, in its far grander questions and answers, whether Reason, in Faber, or

Fancy, in me, supplied the more probable guess at a hieroglyph which, if construed aright, was but a word of

small mark in the mystical language of Nature? If all the arts of enchantment recorded by Fable were attested

by facts which Sages were forced to acknowledge, Sages would sooner or later find some cause for such

portentsnot supernatural. But what Sage, without cause supernatural, both without and within him, can

guess at the wonders he views in the growth of a blade of grass, or the tints on an insect's wing? Whatever art

Man can achieve in his progress through time, Man's reason, in time, can suffice to explain. But the wonders

of God? These belong to the Infinite; and these, O Immortal! will but develop new wonder on wonder,

though thy sight be a spirit's, and thy leisure to track and to solve an eternity.

As I raised my face from my clasped hands, my eyes fell full upon a form standing in the open doorway.

There, where on the night in which Lilian's long struggle for reason and life had begun, the Luminous

Shadow had been beheld in the doubtful light of a dying moon and a yet hazy dawn; there, on the threshold,

gathering round her bright locks the aureole of the glorious sun, stood Amy, the blessed child! And as I

gazed, drawing nearer and nearer to the silenced house, and that Image of Peace on its threshold, I felt that

Hope met me at the doorHope in the child's steadfast eyes, Hope in the child's welcoming smile!

"She livesshe will recover!" said another voice, as my head sunk on Faber's shoulder. "For some hours in

the night her sleep was disturbed, convulsed. I feared, then, the worst. Suddenly, just before the dawn, she

"'The cold and dark shadow has passed away from me and from Allen passed away from us both forever!'

"And from that moment the fever left her; the breathing became soft, the pulse steady, and the color stole

gradually back to her cheek. The crisis is past. Nature's benign Disposer has permitted Nature to restore your

"And soul to soul," I cried in my solemn joy. "Above as below, soul to soul!" Then, at a sign from Faber, the

Again those dear arms closed around me in wifelike and holy love, and those true lips kissed away my

tearseven as now, at the distance of years from that happy morn, while I write the last words of this

Strange Story, the same faithful arms close around me, the same tender lips kiss away my tears.

"Why callest thou me murderer, and not rather the wrath of God burning after the steps of the oppressor, and

That series of terrific events by which our quiet city and university in the northeastern quarter of Germany

were convulsed during the year 1816, has in itself, and considered merely as a blind movement of human

tigerpassion ranging unchained among men, something too memorable to be forgotten or left without its

own separate record; but the moral lesson impressed by these events is yet more memorable, and deserves the

deep attention of coming generations in their struggle after human improvement, not merely in its own

limited field of interest directly awakened, but in all analogous fields of interest; as in fact already, and more

than once, in connection with these very events, this lesson has obtained the effectual attention of Christian

kings and princes assembled in congress. No tragedy, indeed, among all the sad ones by which the charities

of the human heart or of the fireside have ever been outraged, can better merit a separate chapter in the

private history of German manners or social life than this unparalleled case. And, on the other hand, no one

I was at the time, and still am, a professor in that city and university which had the melancholy distinction of

being its theater. I knew familiarly all the parties who were concerned in it, either as sufferers or as agents. I

was present from first to last, and watched the whole course of the mysterious storm which fell upon our

devoted city in a strength like that of a West Indian hurricane, and which did seriously threaten at one time to

depopulate our university, through the dark suspicions which settled upon its members, and the natural

reaction of generous indignation in repelling them; while the city in its more stationary and native classes

would very soon have manifested THEIR awful sense of things, of the hideous insecurity for life, and of the

unfathomable dangers which had undermined their hearths below their very feet, by sacrificing, whenever

circumstances allowed them, their houses and beautiful gardens in exchange for days uncursed by panic, and

nights unpolluted by blood. Nothing, I can take upon myself to assert, was left undone of all that human

foresight could suggest, or human ingenuity could accomplish. But observe the melancholy result: the more

certain did these arrangements strike people as remedies for the evil, so much the more effectually did they

aid the terror, but, above all, the awe, the sense of mystery, when ten cases of total extermination, applied to

separate households, had occurred, in every one of which these precautionary aids had failed to yield the

slightest assistance. The horror, the perfect frenzy of fear, which seized upon the town after that experience,

baffles all attempt at description. Had these various contrivances failed merely in some human and

intelligible way, as by bringing the aid too tardily still, in such cases, though the danger would no less have

been evidently deepened, nobody would have felt any further mystery than what, from the very first, rested

upon the persons and the motives of the murderers. But, as it was, when, in ten separate cases of

exterminating carnage, the astounded police, after an examination the most searching, pursued from day to

day, and almost exhausting the patience by the minuteness of the investigation, had finally pronounced that

no attempt apparently had been made to benefit by any of the signals preconcerted, that no footstep

apparently had moved in that directionthen, and after that result, a blind misery of fear fell upon the

population, so much the worse than any anguish of a beleaguered city that is awaiting the storming fury of a

victorious enemy, by how much the shadowy, the uncertain, the infinite, is at all times more potent in

mastering the mind than a danger that is known, measurable, palpable, and human. The very police, instead

of offering protection or encouragement, were seized with terror for themselves. And the general feeling, as it

was described to me by a grave citizen whom I met in a morning walk (for the overmastering sense of a

public calamity broke down every barrier of reserve, and all men talked freely to all men in the streets, as

they would have done during the rockings of an earthquake), was, even among the boldest, like that which

sometimes takes possession of the mind in dreamswhen one feels oneself sleeping alone, utterly divided

from all call or hearing of friends, doors open that should be shut, or unlocked that should be triply secured,

the very walls gone, barriers swallowed up by unknown abysses, nothing around one but frail curtains, and a

world of illimitable night, whisperings at a distance, correspondence going on between darkness and

darkness, like one deep calling to another, and the dreamer's own heart the center from which the whole

network of this unimaginable chaos radiates, by means of which the blank PRIVATIONS of silence and

Agencies of fear, as of any other passion, and, above all, of passion felt in communion with thousands, and in

which the heart beats in conscious sympathy with an entire city, through all its regions of high and low,

young and old, strong and weak; such agencies avail to raise and transfigure the natures of men; mean minds

become elevated; dull men become eloquent; and when matters came to this crisis, the public feeling, as

made known by voice, gesture, manner, or words, was such that no stranger could represent it to his fancy. In

that respect, therefore, I had an advantage, being upon the spot through the whole course of the affair, for

giving a faithful narrative; as I had still more eminently, from the sort of central station which I occupied,

with respect to all the movements of the case. I may add that I had another advantage, not possessed, or not in

the same degree, by any other inhabitant of the town. I was personally acquainted with every family of the

slightest account belonging to the resident population; whether among the old local gentry, or the new settlers

It was in September, 1815, that I received a letter from the chief secretary to the Prince of M, a

nobleman connected with the diplomacy of Russia, from which I quote an extract: "I wish, in short, to

recommend to your attentions, and in terms stronger than I know how to devise, a young man on whose

behalf the czar himself is privately known to have expressed the very strongest interest. He was at the battle

of Waterloo as an aidedecamp to a Dutch general officer, and is decorated with distinctions won upon that

awful day. However, though serving in that instance under English orders, and although an Englishman of

rank, he does not belong to the English military service. He has served, young as he is, under VARIOUS

banners, and under ours, in particular, in the cavalry of our imperial guard. He is English by birth, nephew to

the Earl of E., and heir presumptive to his immense estates. There is a wild story current, that his mother was

a gypsy of transcendent beauty, which may account for his somewhat Moorish complexion, though, after all,

THAT is not of a deeper tinge than I have seen among many an Englishman. He is himself one of the noblest

looking of God's creatures. Both father and mother, however, are now dead. Since then he has become the

favorite of his uncle, who detained him in England after the emperor had departedand, as this uncle is now

in the last stage of infirmity, Mr. Wyndham's succession to the vast family estates is inevitable, and probably

near at hand. Meantime, he is anxious for some assistance in his studies. Intellectually he stands in the very

first rank of men, as I am sure you will not be slow to discover; but his long military service, and the

unparalleled tumult of our European history since 1805, have interfered (as you may suppose) with the

cultivation of his mind; for he entered the cavalry service of a German power when a mere boy, and shifted

about from service to service as the hurricane of war blew from this point or from that. During the French

anabasis to Moscow he entered our service, made himself a prodigious favorite with the whole imperial

family, and even now is only in his twentysecond year. As to his accomplishments, they will speak for

themselves; they are infinite, and applicable to every situation of life. Greek is what he wants from

you;never ask about terms. He will acknowledge any trouble he may give you, as he acknowledges all

trouble, en prince. And ten years hence you will look back with pride upon having contributed your part to

the formation of one whom all here at St. Petersburg, not soldiers only, but we diplomates, look upon as

certain to prove a great man, and a leader among the intellects of Christendom."

Two or three other letters followed; and at length it was arranged that Mr. Maximilian Wyndham should take

up his residence at my monastic abode for one year. He was to keep a table, and an establishment of servants,

at his own cost; was to have an apartment of some dozen or so of rooms; the unrestricted use of the library;

with some other public privileges willingly conceded by the magistracy of the town; in return for all which he

was to pay me a thousand guineas; and already beforehand, by way of acknowledgment for the public

civilities of the town, he sent, through my hands, a contribution of three hundred guineas to the various local

The Russian secretary had latterly corresponded with me from a little German town, not more than ninety

miles distant; and, as he had special couriers at his service, the negotiations advanced so rapidly that all was

closed before the end of September. And, when once that consummation was attained, I, that previously had

breathed no syllable of what was stirring, now gave loose to the interesting tidings, and suffered them to

spread through the whole compass of the town. It will be easily imagined that such a story, already romantic

enough in its first outline, would lose nothing in the telling. An Englishman to begin with, which name of

itself, and at all times, is a passport into German favor, but much more since the late memorable wars that but

for Englishmen would have drooped into disconnected effortsnext, an Englishman of rank and of the haute

noblessethen a soldier covered with brilliant distinctions, and in the most brilliant arm of the service;

young, moreover, and yet a veteran by his experiencefresh from the most awful battle of this planet since

the day of Pharsalia,radiant with the favor of courts and of imperial ladies; finally (which alone would

have given him an interest in all female hearts), an Antinous of faultless beauty, a Grecian statue, as it were,

into which the breath of life had been breathed by some modern Pygmalion;such a pomp of gifts and

endowments settling upon one man's head, should not have required for its effect the vulgar consummation

(and yet to many it WAS the consummation and crest of the whole) that he was reputed to be rich beyond the

dreams of romance or the necessities of a fairy tale. Unparalleled was the impression made upon our stagnant

society; every tongue was busy in discussing the marvelous young Englishman from morning to night; every

female fancy was busy in depicting the personal appearance of this gay apparition.

On his arrival at my house, I became sensible of a truth which I had observed some years before. The

commonplace maxim is, that it is dangerous to raise expectations too high. This, which is thus generally

expressed, and without limitation, is true only conditionally; it is true then and there only where there is but

little merit to sustain and justify the expectation. But in any case where the merit is transcendent of its kind, it

is always useful to rack the expectation up to the highest point. In anything which partakes of the infinite, the

most unlimited expectations will find ample room for gratification; while it is certain that ordinary observers,

possessing little sensibility, unless where they have been warned to expect, will often fail to see what exists in

the most conspicuous splendor. In this instance it certainly did no harm to the subject of expectation that I

had been warned to look for so much. The warning, at any rate, put me on the lookout for whatever eminence

there might be of grandeur in his personal appearance; while, on the other hand, this existed in such excess,

so far transcending anything I had ever met with in my experience, that no expectation which it is in words to

These thoughts traveled with the rapidity of light through my brain, as at one glance my eye took in the

supremacy of beauty and power which seemed to have alighted from the clouds before me. Power, and the

contemplation of power, in any absolute incarnation of grandeur or excess, necessarily have the instantaneous

effect of quelling all perturbation. My composure was restored in a moment. I looked steadily at him. We

both bowed. And, at the moment when he raised his head from that inclination, I caught the glance of his eye;

and, therefore, meant by nature for the residence and organ of serene and gentle emotions; but it surprised,

and at the same time filled me more almost with consternation than with pity, to observe that in those eyes a

light of sadness had settled more profound than seemed possible for youth, or almost commensurate to a

human sorrow; a sadness that might have become a Jewish prophet, when laden with inspirations of woe.

Two months had now passed away since the arrival of Mr. Wyndham. He had been universally introduced to

the superior society of the place; and, as I need hardly say, universally received with favor and distinction. In

reality, his wealth and importance, his military honors, and the dignity of his character, as expressed in his

manners and deportment, were too eminent to allow of his being treated with less than the highest attention in

any society whatever. But the effect of these various advantages, enforced and recommended as they were by

a personal beauty so rare, was somewhat too potent for the comfort and selfpossession of ordinary people;

and really exceeded in a painful degree the standard of pretensions under which such people could feel

themselves at their ease. He was not naturally of a reserved turn; far from it. His disposition had been open,

frank, and confiding, originally; and his roving, adventurous life, of which considerably more than one half

had been passed in camps, had communicated to his manners a more than military frankness. But the

profound melancholy which possessed him, from whatever cause it arose, necessarily chilled the native

freedom of his demeanor, unless when it was revived by strength of friendship or of love. The effect was

awkward and embarrassing to all parties. Every voice paused or faltered when he entered a roomdead

silence ensuednot an eye but was directed upon him, or else, sunk in timidity, settled upon the floor; and

young ladies seriously lost the power, for a time, of doing more than murmuring a few confused,

halfinarticulate syllables, or halfinarticulate sounds. The solemnity, in fact, of a first presentation, and the

utter impossibility of soon recovering a free, unembarrassed movement of conversation, made such scenes

really distressing to all who participated in them, either as actors or spectators. Certainly this result was not a

pure effect of manly beauty, however heroic, and in whatever excess; it arose in part from the many and

extraordinary endowments which had centered in his person, not less from fortune than from nature; in part

also, as I have said, from the profound sadness and freezing gravity of Mr. Wyndham's manner; but still more

Were there, then, no exceptions to this condition of awestruck admiration? Yes; one at least there was in

whose bosom the spell of allconquering passion soon thawed every trace of icy reserve. While the rest of

the world retained a dim sentiment of awe toward Mr. Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only heard of such a

feeling to wonder that it could exist toward HIM. Never was there so victorious a conquest interchanged

between two youthful hearts never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy. I did not witness the

first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this magnificent Margaret, and do not know whether

Margaret manifested that trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so many of her youthful corivals;

but, if she did, it must have fled before the first glance of the young man's eye, which would interpret, past all

misunderstanding, the homage of his soul and the surrender of his heart. Their third meeting I DID see; and

there all shadow of embarrassment had vanished, except, indeed, of that delicate embarrassment which clings

to impassioned admiration. On the part of Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned upon her that

she had not so much as suspected among the capacities of human experience. Like some bird she seemed,

with powers unexercised for soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and that never until now had

found an element of air capable of sustaining her wings, or tempting her to put forth her buoyant instincts.

He, on the other hand, now first found the realization of his dreams, and for a mere possibility which he had

long too deeply contemplated, fearing, however, that in his own case it might prove a chimera, or that he

might never meet a woman answering the demands of his heart, he now found a corresponding reality that

Here, then, and thus far, nothing but happiness had resulted from the new arrangement. But, if this had been

little anticipated by many, far less had I, for my part, anticipated the unhappy revolution which was wrought

in the whole nature of Ferdinand von Harrelstein. He was the son of a German baron; a man of good family,

but of small estate who had been pretty nearly a soldier of fortune in the Prussian service, and had, late in life,

won sufficient favor with the king and other military superiors, to have an early prospect of obtaining a

commission, under flattering auspices, for this only sona son endeared to him as the companion of

unprosperous years, and as a dutifully affectionate child. Ferdinand had yet another hold upon his father's

affections: his features preserved to the baron's unclouded remembrance a most faithful and living memorial

of that angelic wife who had died in giving birth to this third childthe only one who had long survived her.

Anxious that his son should go through a regular course of mathematical instruction, now becoming annually

more important in all the artillery services throughout Europe, and that he should receive a tincture of other

liberal studies which he had painfully missed in his own military career, the baron chose to keep his son for

the last seven years at our college, until he was now entering upon his twentythird year. For the four last he

had lived with me as the sole pupil whom I had, or meant to have, had not the brilliant proposals of the young

Russian guardsman persuaded me to break my resolution. Ferdinand von Harrelstein had good talents, not

dazzling but respectable; and so amiable were his temper and manners that I had introduced him everywhere,

and everywhere he was a favorite; and everywhere, indeed, except exactly there where only in this world he

cared for favor. Margaret Liebenheim, she it was whom he loved, and had loved for years, with the whole

ardor of his ardent soul; she it was for whom, or at whose command, he would willingly have died. Early he

had felt that in her hands lay his destiny; that she it was who must be his good or his evil genius.

At first, and perhaps to the last, I pitied him exceedingly. But my pity soon ceased to be mingled with respect.

Before the arrival of Mr. Wyndham he had shown himself generous, indeed magnanimous. But never was

there so painful an overthrow of a noble nature as manifested itself in him. I believe that he had not himself

suspected the strength of his passion; and the sole resource for him, as I said often, was to quit the cityto

engage in active pursuits of enterprise, of ambition, or of science. But he heard me as a somnambulist might

have heard medreaming with his eyes open. Sometimes he had fits of reverie, starting, fearful, agitated;

sometimes he broke out into maniacal movements of wrath, invoking some absent person, praying,

beseeching, menacing some airwove phantom; sometimes he slunk into solitary corners, muttering to

himself, and with gestures sorrowfully significant, or with tones and fragments of expostulation that moved

the most callous to compassion. Still he turned a deaf ear to the only practical counsel that had a chance for

reaching his ears. Like a bird under the fascination of a rattlesnake, he would not summon up the energies of

his nature to make an effort at flying away. "Begone, while it is time!" said others, as well as myself; for

more than I saw enough to fear some fearful catastrophe. "Lead us not into temptation!" said his confessor to

him in my hearing (for, though Prussians, the Von Harrelsteins were Roman Catholics), "lead us not into

temptation!that is our daily prayer to God. Then, my son, being led into temptation, do not you persist in

courting, nay, almost tempting temptation. Try the effects of absence, though but for a month." The good

father even made an overture toward imposing a penance upon him, that would have involved an absence of

some duration. But he was obliged to desist; for he saw that, without effecting any good, he would merely

add spiritual disobedience to the other offenses of the young man. Ferdinand himself drew his attention to

THIS; for he said: "Reverend father! do not you, with the purpose of removing me from temptation, be

yourself the instrument for tempting me into a rebellion against the church. Do not you weave snares about

my steps; snares there are already, and but too many." The old man sighed, and desisted.

Then cameBut enough! From pity, from sympathy, from counsel, and from consolation, and from

scornfrom each of these alike the poor stricken deer "recoiled into the wilderness;" he fled for days

together into solitary parts of the forest; fled, as I still hoped and prayed, in good earnest and for a long

farewell; but, alas! no: still he returned to the haunts of his ruined happiness and his buried hopes, at each

return looking more like the wreck of his former self; and once I heard a penetrating monk observe, whose

convent stood near the city gates: "There goes one ready equally for doing or suffering, and of whom we shall

soon hear that he is involved in some great catastropheit may be of deep calamityit may be of

So stood matters among us. January was drawing to its close; the weather was growing more and more

winterly; high winds, piercingly cold, were raving through our narrow streets; and still the spirit of social

festivity bade defiance to the storms which sang through our ancient forests. From the accident of our

magistracy being selected from the tradesmen of the city, the hospitalities of the place were far more

extensive than would otherwise have happened; for every member of the corporation gave two annual

entertainments in his official character. And such was the rivalship which prevailed, that often one quarter of

the year's income was spent upon these galas. Nor was any ridicule thus incurred; for the costliness of the

entertainment was understood to be an expression of OFFICIAL pride, done in honor of the city, not as an

effort of personal display. It followed, from the spirit in which these halfyearly dances originated, that,

being given on the part of the city, every stranger of rank was marked out as a privileged guest, and the

hospitality of the community would have been equally affronted by failing to offer or by failing to accept the

Hence it had happened that the Russian guardsman had been introduced into many a family which otherwise

could not have hoped for such a distinction. Upon the evening at which I am now arrived, the twentysecond

of January, 1816, the whole city, in its wealthier classes, was assembled beneath the roof of a tradesman who

had the heart of a prince. In every point our entertainment was superb; and I remarked that the music was the

finest I had heard for years. Our host was in joyous spirits; proud to survey the splendid company he had

gathered under his roof; happy to witness their happiness; elated in their elation. Joyous was the

dancejoyous were all faces that I sawup to midnight, very soon after which time supper was announced;

and that also, I think, was the most joyous of all the banquets I ever witnessed. The accomplished guardsman

outshone himself in brilliancy; even his melancholy relaxed. In fact, how could it be otherwise? near to him

sat Margaret Liebenheimhanging upon his wordsmore lustrous and bewitching than ever I had beheld

her. There she had been placed by the host; and everybody knew why. That is one of the luxuries attached to

love; all men cede their places with pleasure; women make way. Even she herself knew, though not obliged

to know, why she was seated in that neighborhood; and took her place, if with a rosy suffusion upon her

The guardsman pressed forward to claim Miss Liebenheim's hand for the next dance; a movement which she

was quick to favor, by retreating behind one or two parties from a person who seemed coming toward her.

The music again began to pour its voluptuous tides through the bounding pulses of the youthful company;

again the flying feet of the dancers began to respond to the measures; again the mounting spirit of delight

began to fill the sails of the hurrying night with steady inspiration. All went happily. Already had one dance

finished; some were pacing up and down, leaning on the arms of their partners; some were reposing from

Every eye was bent toward the doorsevery eye strained forward to discover what was passing. But there,

every moment, less and less could be seen, for the gathering crowd more and more intercepted the view;so

much the more was the ear at leisure for the shrieks redoubled upon shrieks. Miss Liebenheim had moved

downward to the crowd. From her superior height she overlooked all the ladies at the point where she stood.

In the center stood a rustic girl, whose features had been familiar to her for some months. She had recently

come into the city, and had lived with her uncle, a tradesman, not ten doors from Margaret's own residence,

partly on the terms of a kinswoman, partly as a servant on trial. At this moment she was exhausted with

excitement, and the nature of the shock she had sustained. Mere panic seemed to have mastered her; and she

was leaning, unconscious and weeping, upon the shoulder of some gentleman, who was endeavoring to

soothe her. A silence of horror seemed to possess the company, most of whom were still unacquainted with

the cause of the alarming interruption. A few, however, who had heard her first agitated words, finding that

they waited in vain for a fuller explanation, now rushed tumultuously out of the ballroom to satisfy

themselves on the spot. The distance was not great; and within five minutes several persons returned hastily,

and cried out to the crowd of ladies that all was true which the young girl had said. "What was true?" That her

uncle Mr. Weishaupt's family had been murdered; that not one member of the family had been

sparednamely, Mr. Weishaupt himself and his wife, neither of them much above sixty, but both infirm

beyond their years; two maiden sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, from forty to fortysix years of age, and an elderly

An incident happened during the recital of these horrors, and of the details which followed, that furnished

matter for conversation even in these hours when so thrilling an interest had possession of all minds. Many

ladies fainted; among them Miss Liebenheimand she would have fallen to the ground but for Maximilian,

who sprang forward and caught her in his arms. She was long of returning to herself; and, during the agony of

his suspense, he stooped and kissed her pallid lips. That sight was more than could be borne by one who

stood a little behind the group. He rushed forward, with eyes glaring like a tiger's, and leveled a blow at

Maximilian. It was poor, maniacal Von Harrelstein, who had been absent in the forest for a week. Many

people stepped forward and checked his arm, uplifted for a repetition of this outrage. One or two had some

influence with him, and led him away from the spot; while as to Maximilian, so absorbed was he that he had

not so much as perceived the affront offered to himself. Margaret, on reviving, was confounded at finding

herself so situated amid a great crowd; and yet the prudes complained that there was a look of love exchanged

between herself and Maximilian, that ought not to have escaped her in such a situation. If they meant by such

a situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that it was a situation of excessive agitation; but, if they

alluded to the horrors of the moment, no situation more naturally opens the heart to affection and confiding

An examination went on that night before the magistrates, but all was dark; although suspicion attached to a

negro named Aaron, who had occasionally been employed in menial services by the family, and had been in

the house immediately before the murder. The circumstances were such as to leave every man in utter

perplexity as to the presumption for and against him. His mode of defending himself, and his general

deportment, were marked by the coolest, nay, the most sneering indifference. The first thing he did, on being

acquainted with the suspicions against himself, was to laugh ferociously, and to all appearance most cordially

and unaffectedly. He demanded whether a poor man like himself would have left so much wealth as lay

scattered abroad in that housegold repeaters, massy plate, gold snuff boxesuntouched? That argument

certainly weighed much in his favor. And yet again it was turned against him; for a magistrate asked him how

HE happened to know already that nothing had been touched. True it was, and a fact which had puzzled no

less than it had awed the magistrates, that, upon their examination of the premises, many rich articles of

bijouterie, jewelry, and personal ornaments, had been found lying underanged, and apparently in their usual

situations; articles so portable that in the very hastiest flight some might have been carried off. In particular,

there was a crucifix of gold, enriched with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a

prize of great magnitude. Yet this was left untouched, though suspended in a little oratory that had been

magnificently adorned by the elder of the maiden sisters. There was an altar, in itself a splendid object,

furnished with every article of the most costly material and workmanship, for the private celebration of mass.

This crucifix, as well as everything else in the little closet, must have been seen by one at least of the

murderous party; for hither had one of the ladies fled; hither had one of the murderers pursued. She had

clasped the golden pillars which supported the altarhad turned perhaps her dying looks upon the crucifix;

for there, with one arm still wreathed about the altar foot, though in her agony she had turned round upon her

face, did the elder sister lie when the magistrates first broke open the street door. And upon the beautiful

parquet, or inlaid floor which ran round the room, were still impressed the footsteps of the murderer. These, it

was hoped, might furnish a clew to the discovery of one at least among the murderous band. They were rather

difficult to trace accurately; those parts of the traces which lay upon the black tessellae being less distinct in

the outline than the others upon the white or colored. Most unquestionably, so far as this went, it furnished a

negative circumstance in favor of the negro, for the footsteps were very different in outline from his, and

smaller, for Aaron was a man of colossal build. And as to his knowledge of the state in which the premises

had been found, and his having so familiarly relied upon the fact of no robbery having taken place as an

argument on his own behalf, he contended that he had himself been among the crowd that pushed into the

house along with the magistrates; that, from his previous acquaintance with the rooms and their ordinary

condition, a glance of the eye had been sufficient for him to ascertain the undisturbed condition of all the

valuable property most obvious to the grasp of a robber that, in fact, he had seen enough for his argument

before he and the rest of the mob had been ejected by the magistrates; but, finally, that independently of all

this, he had heard both the officers, as they conducted him, and all the tumultuous gatherings of people in the

street, arguing for the mysteriousness of the bloody transaction upon that very circumstance of so much gold,

In six weeks or less from the date of this terrific event, the negro was set at liberty by a majority of voices

among the magistrates. In that short interval other events had occurred no less terrific and mysterious. In this

first murder, though the motive was dark and unintelligible, yet the agency was not so; ordinary assassins

apparently, and with ordinary means, had assailed a helpless and unprepared family; had separated them;

attacked them singly in flight (for in this first case all but one of the murdered persons appeared to have been

making for the street door); and in all this there was no subject for wonder, except the original one as to the

motive. But now came a series of cases destined to fling this earliest murder into the shade. Nobody could

now be unprepared; and yet the tragedies, henceforward, which passed before us, one by one, in sad,

leisurely, or in terrific groups, seemed to argue a lethargy like that of apoplexy in the victims, one and all.

Three weeks had passed since the murder at Mr. Weishaupt'sthree weeks the most agitated that had been

known in this sequestered city. We felt ourselves solitary, and thrown upon our own resources; all

combination with other towns being unavailing from their great distance. Our situation was no ordinary one.

Had there been some mysterious robbers among us, the chances of a visit, divided among so many, would

have been too small to distress the most timid; while to young and highspirited people, with courage to

spare for ordinary trials, such a state of expectation would have sent pulses of pleasurable anxiety among the

nerves. But murderers! exterminating murderers!clothed in mystery and utter darknessthese were

objects too terrific for any family to contemplate with fortitude. Had these very murderers added to their

functions those of robbery, they would have become less terrific; nine out of every ten would have found

themselves discharged, as it were, from the roll of those who were liable to a visit; while such as knew

themselves liable would have had warning of their danger in the fact of being rich; and would, from the very

riches which constituted that danger, have derived the means of repelling it. But, as things were, no man

could guess what it was that must make him obnoxious to the murderers. Imagination exhausted itself in vain

guesses at the causes which could by possibility have made the poor Weishaupts objects of such hatred to any

man. True, they were bigoted in a degree which indicated feebleness of intellect; but THAT wounded no man

in particular, while to many it recommended them. True, their charity was narrow and exclusive, but to those

of their own religious body it expanded munificently; and, being rich beyond their wants, or any means of

employing wealth which their gloomy asceticism allowed, they had the power of doing a great deal of good

among the indigent papists of the suburbs. As to the old gentleman and his wife, their infirmities confined

them to the house. Nobody remembered to have seen them abroad for years. How, therefore, or when could

they have made an enemy? And, with respect to the maiden sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, they were simply

weakminded persons, now and then too censorious, but not placed in a situation to incur serious anger from

any quarter, and too little heard of in society to occupy much of anybody's attention.

Conceive, then, that three weeks have passed away, that the poor Weishaupts have been laid in that narrow

sanctuary which no murderer's voice will ever violate. Quiet has not returned to us, but the first flutterings of

panic have subsided. People are beginning to respire freely again; and such another space of time would have

cicatrized our woundswhen, hark! a church bell rings out a loud alarm;the night is starlight and

frostythe iron notes are heard clear, solemn, but agitated. What could this mean? I hurried to a room over

the porter's lodge, and, opening the window, I cried out to a man passing hastily below, "What, in God's

name, is the meaning of this?" It was a watchman belonging to our district. I knew his voice, he knew mine,

"It is another murder, sir, at the old town councilor's, Albernass; and this time they have made a clear house

"God preserve us! Has a curse been pronounced upon this city? What can be done? What are the magistrates

"I don't know, sir. I have orders to run to the Black Friars, where another meeting is gathering. Shall I say you

I went instantly to Maximilian's room. He was lying asleep on a sofa, at which I was not surprised, for there

had been a severe stag chase in the morning. Even at this moment I found myself arrested by two objects, and

I paused to survey them. One was Maximilian himself. A person so mysterious took precedency of other

interests even at a time like this; and especially by his features, which, composed in profound sleep, as

sometimes happens, assumed a new expression, which arrested me chiefly by awaking some confused

remembrance of the same features seen under other circumstances and in times long past; but where? This

was what I could not recollect, though once before a thought of the same sort had crossed my mind. The other

object of my interest was a miniature, which Maximilian was holding in his hand. He had gone to sleep

apparently looking at this picture; and the hand which held it had slipped down upon the sofa, so that it was

in danger of falling. I released the miniature from his hand, and surveyed it attentively. It represented a lady

of sunny, oriental complexion, and features the most noble that it is possible to conceive. One might have

imagined such a lady, with her raven locks and imperial eyes, to be the favorite sultana of some Amurath or

Mohammed. What was she to Maximilian, or what HAD she been? For, by the tear which I had once seen

him drop upon this miniature when he believed himself unobserved, I conjectured that her dark tresses were

already laid low, and her name among the list of vanished things. Probably she was his mother, for the dress

was rich with pearls, and evidently that of a person in the highest rank of court beauties. I sighed as I thought

of the stern melancholy of her son, if Maximilian were he, as connected, probably, with the fate and fortunes

of this majestic beauty; somewhat haughty, perhaps, in the expression of her fine features, but still

noblegenerous confiding. Laying the picture on the table, I awoke Maximilian, and told him of the

dreadful news. He listened attentively, made no remark, but proposed that we should go together to the

meeting of our quarter at the Black Friars. He colored upon observing the miniature on the table; and,

therefore, I frankly told him in what situation I had found it, and that I had taken the liberty of admiring it for

a few moments. He pressed it tenderly to his lips, sighed heavily, and we walked away together.

I pass over the frenzied state of feeling in which we found the meeting. Fear, or rather horror, did not promote

harmony; many quarreled with each other in discussing the suggestions brought forward, and Maximilian was

the only person attended to. He proposed a nightly mounted patrol for every district. And in particular he

offered, as being himself a member of the university, that the students should form themselves into a guard,

and go out by rotation to keep watch and ward from sunset to sunrise. Arrangements were made toward that

object by the few people who retained possession of their senses, and for the present we separated.

Never, in fact, did any events so keenly try the difference between man and man. Some started up into heroes

under the excitement. Some, alas for the dignity of man! drooped into helpless imbecility. Women, in some

cases, rose superior to men, but yet not so often as might have happened under a less mysterious danger. A

woman is not unwomanly because she confronts danger boldly. But I have remarked, with respect to female

courage, that it requires, more than that of men, to be sustained by hope; and that it droops more certainly in

the presence of a MYSTERIOUS danger. The fancy of women is more active, if not stronger, and it

influences more directly the physical nature. In this case few were the women who made even a show of

defying the danger. On the contrary, with THEM fear took the form of sadness, while with many of the men

And how did the Russian guardsman conduct himself amidst this panic? Many were surprised at his behavior;

some complained of it; I did neither. He took a reasonable interest in each separate case, listened to the details

with attention, and, in the examination of persons able to furnish evidence, never failed to suggest judicious

questions. But still he manifested a coolness almost amounting to carelessness, which to many appeared

revolting. But these people I desired to notice that all the other military students, who had been long in the

army, felt exactly in the same way. In fact, the military service of Christendom, for the last ten years, had

been anything but a parade service; and to those, therefore, who were familiar with every form of horrid

butchery, the mere outside horrors of death had lost much of their terror. In the recent murder there had not

been much to call forth sympathy. The family consisted of two old bachelors, two sisters, and one grandniece.

The niece was absent on a visit, and the two old men were cynical misers, to whom little personal interest

attached. Still, in this case as in that of the Weishaupts, the same twofold mystery confounded the public

mindthe mystery of the HOW, and the profounder mystery of the WHY. Here, again, no atom of property

was taken, though both the misers had hordes of ducats and English guineas in the very room where they

died. Their bias, again, though of an unpopular character, had rather availed to make them unknown than to

make them hateful. In one point this case differed memorably from the otherthat, instead of falling

helpless, or flying victims (as the Weishaupts had done), these old men, strong, resolute, and not so much

taken by surprise, left proofs that they had made a desperate defense. The furniture was partly smashed to

pieces, and the other details furnished evidence still more revolting of the acharnement with which the

struggle had been maintained. In fact, with THEM a surprise must have been impracticable, as they admitted

nobody into their house on visiting terms. It was thought singular that from each of these domestic tragedies a

benefit of the same sort should result to young persons standing in nearly the same relation. The girl who

gave the alarm at the ball, with two little sisters, and a little orphan nephew, their cousin, divided the very

large inheritance of the Weishaupts; and in this latter case the accumulated savings of two long lives all

But now, as if in mockery of all our anxious consultations and elaborate devices, three fresh murders took

place on the two consecutive nights succeeding these new arrangements. And in one case, as nearly as time

could be noted, the mounted patrol must have been within call at the very moment when the awful work was

going on. I shall not dwell much upon them; but a few circumstances are too interesting to be passed over.

The earliest case on the first of the two nights was that of a currier. He was fifty years old; not rich, but well

off. His first wife was dead, and his daughters by her were married away from their father's house. He had

married a second wife, but, having no children by her, and keeping no servants, it is probable that, but for an

accident, no third person would have been in the house at the time when the murderers got admittance. About

seven o'clock, a wayfaring man, a journeyman currier, who, according to our German system, was now in his

wanderjahre, entered the city from the forest. At the gate he made some inquiries about the curriers and

tanners of our town; and, agreeably to the information he received, made his way to this Mr. Heinberg. Mr.

Heinberg refused to admit him, until he mentioned his errand, and pushed below the door a letter of

recommendation from a Silesian correspondent, describing him as an excellent and steady workman. Wanting

such a man, and satisfied by the answers returned that he was what he represented himself, Mr. Heinberg

unbolted his door and admitted him. Then, after slipping the bolt into its place, he bade him sit to the fire,

brought him a glass of beer, conversed with him for ten minutes, and said: "You had better stay here

tonight; I'll tell you why afterwards; but now I'll step upstairs, and ask my wife whether she can make up a

bed for you; and do you mind the door while I'm away." So saying, he went out of the room. Not one minute

had he been gone when there came a gentle knock at the door. It was raining heavily, and, being a stranger to

the city, not dreaming that in any crowded town such a state of things could exist as really did in this, the

young man, without hesitation, admitted the person knocking. He has declared sincebut, perhaps,

confounding the feelings gained from better knowledge with the feelings of the momentthat from the

moment he drew the bolt he had a misgiving that he had done wrong. A man entered in a horseman's cloak,

and so muffled up that the journeyman could discover none of his features. In a low tone the stranger said,

"Where's Heinberg?""Upstairs.""Call him down, then." The journeyman went to the door by which Mr.

Heinberg had left him, and called, "Mr. Heinberg, here's one wanting you!" Mr. Heinberg heard him, for the

man could distinctly catch these words: "God bless me! has the man opened the door? O, the traitor! I see it."

Upon this he felt more and more consternation, though not knowing why. Just then he heard a sound of feet

behind him. On turning round, he beheld three more men in the room; one was fastening the outer door; one

was drawing some arms from a cupboard, and two others were whispering together. He himself was disturbed

and perplexed, and felt that all was not right. Such was his confusion, that either all the men's faces must have

been muffled up, or at least he remembered nothing distinctly but one fierce pair of eyes glaring upon him.

Then, before he could look round, came a man from behind and threw a sack over his head, which was drawn

tight about his waist, so as to confine his arms, as well as to impede his hearing in part, and his voice

altogether. He was then pushed into a room; but previously he had heard a rush upstairs, and words like those

of a person exulting, and then a door closed. Once it opened, and he could distinguish the words, in one

voice, "And for THAT!" to which another voice replied, in tones that made his heart quake, "Aye, for THAT,

sir." And then the same voice went on rapidly to say, "O dog! could you hope"at which word the door

closed again. Once he thought that he heard a scuffle, and he was sure that he heard the sound of feet, as if

rushing from one corner of a room to another. But then all was hushed and still for about six or seven

minutes, until a voice close to his ear said, "Now, wait quietly till some persons come in to release you. This

will happen within half an hour." Accordingly, in less than that time, he again heard the sound of feet within

the house, his own bandages were liberated, and he was brought to tell his story at the police office. Mr.

Heinberg was found in his bedroom. He had died by strangulation, and the cord was still tightened about his

neck. During the whole dreadful scene his youthful wife had been locked into a closet, where she heard or

In the second case, the object of vengeance was again an elderly man. Of the ordinary family, all were absent

at a country house, except the master and a female servant. She was a woman of courage, and blessed with

the firmest nerves; so that she might have been relied on for reporting accurately everything seen or heard.

But things took another course. The first warning that she had of the murderers' presence was from their steps

and voices already in the hall. She heard her master run hastily into the hall, crying out, "Lord Jesus!Mary,

Mary, save me!" The servant resolved to give what aid she could, seized a large poker, and was hurrying to

his assistance, when she found that they had nailed up the door of communication at the head of the stairs.

What passed after this she could not tell; for, when the impulse of intrepid fidelity had been balked, and she

found that her own safety was provided for by means which made it impossible to aid a poor fellow creature

who had just invoked her name, the generoushearted creature was overcome by anguish of mind, and sank

down on the stair, where she lay, unconscious of all that succeeded, until she found herself raised in the arms

of a mob who had entered the house. And how came they to have entered? In a way characteristically

dreadful. The night was starlit; the patrols had perambulated the street without noticing anything suspicious,

when two foot passengers, who were following in their rear, observed a darkcolored stream traversing the

causeway. One of them, at the same instant tracing the stream backward with his eyes, observed that it flowed

from under the door of Mr. Munzer, and, dipping his finger in the trickling fluid, he held it up to the

lamplight, yelling out at the moment, "Why, this is blood!" It was so, indeed, and it was yet warm. The other

saw, heard, and like an arrow flew after the horse patrol, then in the act of turning the corner. One cry, full of

meaning, was sufficient for ears full of expectation. The horsemen pulled up, wheeled, and in another

moment reined up at Mr. Munzer's door. The crowd, gathering like the drifting of snow, supplied implements

which soon forced the chains of the door and all other obstacles. But the murderous party had escaped, and all

Rarely did any case occur without some peculiarity more or less interesting. In that which happened on the

following night, making the fifth in the series, an impressive incident varied the monotony of horrors. In this

case the parties aimed at were two elderly ladies, who conducted a female boarding school. None of the

pupils had as yet returned to school from their vacation; but two sisters, young girls of thirteen and sixteen,

coming from a distance, had stayed at school throughout the Christmas holidays. It was the youngest of these

who gave the only evidence of any value, and one which added a new feature of alarm to the existing panic.

Thus it was that her testimony was given: On the day before the murder, she and her sister were sitting with

the old ladies in a room fronting to the street; the elder ladies were reading, the younger ones drawing.

Louisa, the youngest, never had her ear inattentive to the slightest sound, and once it struck her that she heard

the creaking of a foot upon the stairs. She said nothing, but, slipping out of the room, she ascertained that the

two female servants were in the kitchen, and could not have been absent; that all the doors and windows, by

which ingress was possible, were not only locked, but bolted and barreda fact which excluded all

possibility of invasion by means of false keys. Still she felt persuaded that she had heard the sound of a heavy

foot upon the stairs. It was, however, daylight, and this gave her confidence; so that, without communicating

her alarm to anybody, she found courage to traverse the house in every direction; and, as nothing was either

seen or heard, she concluded that her ears had been too sensitively awake. Yet that night, as she lay in bed,

dim terrors assailed her, especially because she considered that, in so large a house, some closet or other

might have been overlooked, and, in particular, she did not remember to have examined one or two chests, in

which a man could have lain concealed. Through the greater part of the night she lay awake; but as one of the

town clocks struck four, she dismissed her anxieties, and fell asleep. The next day, wearied with this unusual

watching, she proposed to her sister that they should go to bed earlier than usual. This they did; and, on their

way upstairs, Louisa happened to think suddenly of a heavy cloak, which would improve the coverings of her

bed against the severity of the night. The cloak was hanging up in a closet within a closet, both leading off

from a large room used as the young ladies' dancing school. These closets she had examined on the previous

day, and therefore she felt no particular alarm at this moment. The cloak was the first article which met her

sight; it was suspended from a hook in the wall, and close to the door. She took it down, but, in doing so,

exposed part of the wall and of the floor, which its folds had previously concealed. Turning away hastily, the

chances were that she had gone without making any discovery. In the act of turning, however, her light fell

brightly on a man's foot and leg. Matchless was her presence of mind; having previously been humming an

air, she continued to do so. But now came the trial; her sister was bending her steps to the same closet. If she

suffered her to do so, Lottchen would stumble on the same discovery, and expire of fright. On the other hand,

if she gave her a hint, Lottchen would either fail to understand her, or, gaining but a glimpse of her meaning,

would shriek aloud, or by some equally decisive expression convey the fatal news to the assassin that he had

been discovered. In this torturing dilemma fear prompted an expedient, which to Lottchen appeared madness,

and to Louisa herself the act of a sibyl instinct with blind inspiration. "Here," said she, "is our dancing room.

When shall we all meet and dance again together?" Saying which, she commenced a wild dance, whirling her

candle round her head until the motion extinguished it; then, eddying round her sister in narrowing circles,

she seized Lottchen's candle also, blew it out, and then interrupted her own singing to attempt a laugh. But

the laugh was hysterical. The darkness, however, favored her; and, seizing her sister's arm, she forced her

along, whispering, "Come, come, come!" Lottchen could not be so dull as entirely to misunderstand her. She

suffered herself to be led up the first flight of stairs, at the head of which was a room looking into the street.

In this they would have gained an asylum, for the door had a strong bolt. But, as they were on the last steps of

the landing, they could hear the hard breathing and long strides of the murderer ascending behind them. He

had watched them through a crevice, and had been satisfied by the hysterical laugh of Louisa that she had

seen him. In the darkness he could not follow fast, from ignorance of the localities, until he found himself

upon the stairs. Louisa, dragging her sister along, felt strong as with the strength of lunacy, but Lottchen hung

like a weight of lead upon her. She rushed into the room, but at the very entrance Lottchen fell. At that

moment the assassin exchanged his stealthy pace for a loud clattering ascent. Already he was on the topmost

stair; already he was throwing himself at a bound against the door, when Louisa, having dragged her sister

into the room, closed the door and sent the bolt home in the very instant that the murderer's hand came into

contact with the handle. Then, from the violence of her emotions, she fell down in a fit, with her arm around

How long they lay in this state neither ever knew. The two old ladies had rushed upstairs on hearing the

tumult. Other persons had been concealed in other parts of the house. The servants found themselves

suddenly locked in, and were not sorry to be saved from a collision which involved so awful a danger. The

old ladies had rushed, side by side, into the very center of those who were seeking them. Retreat was

impossible; two persons at least were heard following them upstairs. Something like a shrieking

expostulation and counterexpostulation went on between the ladies and the murderers; then came louder

voicesthen one heartpiercing shriek, and then anotherand then a slow moaning and a dead silence.

Shortly afterwards was heard the first crashing of the door inward by the mob; but the murderers had fled

upon the first alarm, and, to the astonishment of the servants, had fled upward. Examination, however,

explained this: from a window in the roof they had passed to an adjoining house recently left empty; and

here, as in other cases, we had proof how apt people are, in the midst of elaborate provisions against remote

The reign of terror, it may be supposed, had now reached its acme. The two old ladies were both lying dead at

different points on the staircase, and, as usual, no conjecture could be made as to the nature of the offense

which they had given; but that the murder WAS a vindictive one, the usual evidence remained behind, in the

proofs that no robbery had been attempted. Two new features, however, were now brought forward in this

system of horrors, one of which riveted the sense of their insecurity to all families occupying extensive

houses, and the other raised ill blood between the city and the university, such as required years to allay. The

first arose out of the experience, now first obtained, that these assassins pursued the plan of secreting

themselves within the house where they meditated a murder. All the care, therefore, previously directed to the

securing of doors and windows after nightfall appeared nugatory. The other feature brought to light on this

occasion was vouched for by one of the servants, who declared that, the moment before the door of the

kitchen was fastened upon herself and fellow servant, she saw two men in the hall, one on the point of

ascending the stairs, the other making toward the kitchen; that she could not distinguish the faces of either,

but that both were dressed in the academic costume belonging to the students of the university. The

consequences of such a declaration need scarcely be mentioned. Suspicion settled upon the students, who

were more numerous since the general peace, in a much larger proportion military, and less select or

respectable than heretofore. Still, no part of the mystery was cleared up by this discovery. Many of the

students were poor enough to feel the temptation that might be offered by any LUCRATIVE system of

outrage. Jealous and painful collusions were, in the meantime, produced; and, during the latter two months of

this winter, it may be said that our city exhibited the very anarchy of evil passions. This condition of things

It will be supposed that communications were made to the supreme government of the land as soon as the

murders in our city were understood to be no casual occurrences, but links in a systematic series. Perhaps it

might happen from some other business, of a higher kind, just then engaging the attention of our governors,

that our representations did not make the impression we had expected. We could not, indeed, complain of

absolute neglect from the government. They sent down one or two of their most accomplished police officers,

and they suggested some counsels, especially that we should examine more strictly into the quality of the

miscellaneous population who occupied our large suburb. But they more than hinted that no necessity was

seen either for quartering troops upon us, or for arming our local magistracy with ampler powers.

This correspondence with the central government occupied the month of March, and, before that time, the

bloody system had ceased as abruptly as it began. The new police officer flattered himself that the terror of

his name had wrought this effect; but judicious people thought otherwise. All, however, was quiet until the

depth of summer, when, by way of hinting to us, perhaps, that the dreadful power which clothed itself with

darkness had not expired, but was only reposing from its labors, all at once the chief jailer of the city was

missing. He had been in the habit of taking long rides in the forest, his present situation being much of a

sinecure. It was on the first of July that he was missed. In riding through the city gates that morning, he had

mentioned the direction which he meant to pursue; and the last time he was seen alive was in one of the forest

avenues, about eight miles from the city, leading toward the point he had indicated. This jailer was not a man

to be regretted on his own account; his life had been a tissue of cruelty and brutal abuse of his powers, in

which he had been too much supported by the magistrates, partly on the plea that it was their duty to back

their own officers against all complainers, partly also from the necessities created by the turbulent times for a

more summary exercise of their magisterial authority. No man, therefore, on his own separate account, could

more willingly have been spared than this brutal jailer; and it was a general remark that, had the murderous

band within our walls swept away this man only, they would have merited the public gratitude as purifiers

from a public nuisance. But was it certain that the jailer had died by the same hands as had so deeply afflicted

the peace of our city during the winteror, indeed, that he had been murdered at all? The forest was too

extensive to be searched; and it was possible that he might have met with some fatal accident. His horse had

returned to the city gates in the night, and was found there in the morning. Nobody, however, for months

could give information about his rider; and it seemed probable that he would not be discovered until the

autumn and the winter should again carry the sportsman into every thicket and dingle of this sylvan tract. One

person only seemed to have more knowledge on this subject than others, and that was poor Ferdinand von

Harrelstein. He was now a mere ruin of what he had once been, both as to intellect and moral feeling; and I

observed him frequently smile when the jailer was mentioned. "Wait," he would say, "till the leaves begin to

drop; then you will see what fine fruit our forest bears." I did not repeat these expressions to anybody except

one friend, who agreed with me that the jailer had probably been hanged in some recess of the forest, which

summer veiled with its luxuriant umbrage; and that Ferdinand, constantly wandering in the forest, had

discovered the body; but we both acquitted him of having been an accomplice in the murder.

Meantime the marriage between Margaret Liebenheim and Maximilian was understood to be drawing near.

Yet one thing struck everybody with astonishment. As far as the young people were concerned, nobody could

doubt that all was arranged; for never was happiness more perfect than that which seemed to unite them.

Margaret was the impersonation of Maytime and youthful rapture; even Maximilian in her presence seemed

to forget his gloom, and the worm which gnawed at his heart was charmed asleep by the music of her voice,

and the paradise of her smiles. But, until the autumn came, Margaret's grandfather had never ceased to frown

upon this connection, and to support the pretensions of Ferdinand. The dislike, indeed, seemed reciprocal

between him and Maximilian. Each avoided the other's company and as to the old man, he went so far as to

speak sneeringly of Maximilian. Maximilian despised him too heartily to speak of him at all. When he could

not avoid meeting him, he treated him with a stern courtesy, which distressed Margaret as often as she

witnessed it. She felt that her grandfather had been the aggressor; and she felt also that he did injustice to the

merits of her lover. But she had a filial tenderness for the old man, as the father of her sainted mother, and on

his own account, continually making more claims on her pity, as the decay of his memory, and a childish

Equally mysterious it seemed, that about this time Miss Liebenheim began to receive anonymous letters,

written in the darkest and most menacing terms. Some of them she showed to me. I could not guess at their

drift. Evidently they glanced at Maximilian, and bade her beware of connection with him; and dreadful things

were insinuated about him. Could these letters be written by Ferdinand? Written they were not, but could they

be dictated by him? Much I feared that they were; and the more so for one reason.

All at once, and most inexplicably, Margaret's grandfather showed a total change of opinion in his views as to

her marriage. Instead of favoring Harrelstein's pretensions, as he had hitherto done, he now threw the feeble

weight of his encouragement into Maximilian's scale; though, from the situation of all the parties, nobody

attached any PRACTICAL importance to the change in Mr. Liebenheim's way of thinking. Nobody? Is that

true? No; one person DID attach the greatest weight to the changepoor, ruined Ferdinand. He, so long as

there was one person to take his part, so long as the grandfather of Margaret showed countenance to himself,

Thus were things situated, when in November, all the leaves daily blowing off from the woods, and leaving

bare the most secret haunts of the thickets, the body of the jailer was left exposed in the forest; but not, as I

and my friend had conjectured, hanged. No; he had died apparently by a more horrid deathby that of

crucifixion. The tree, a remarkable one, bore upon a part of its trunk this brief but savage inscription:"T.

A great deal of talk went on throughout the city upon this discovery; nobody uttered one word of regret on

account of the wretched jailer; on the contrary, the voice of vengeance, rising up in many a cottage, reached

my ears in every direction as I walked abroad. The hatred in itself seemed horrid and unchristian, and still

more so after the man's death; but, though horrid and fiendish for itself, it was much more impressive,

considered as the measure and exponent of the damnable oppression which must have existed to produce it.

At first, when the absence of the jailer was a recent occurrence, and the presence of the murderers among us

was, in consequence, revived to our anxious thoughts, it was an event which few alluded to without fear. But

matters were changed now; the jailer had been dead for months, and this interval, during which the

murderer's hand had slept, encouraged everybody to hope that the storm had passed over our city; that peace

had returned to our hearths; and that henceforth weakness might sleep in safety, and innocence without

anxiety. Once more we had peace within our walls, and tranquillity by our firesides. Again the child went to

bed in cheerfulness, and the old man said his prayers in serenity. Confidence was restored; peace was

reestablished; and once again the sanctity of human life became the rule and the principle for all human

O heavens! by what a thunderbolt were we awakened from our security! On the night of the twentyseventh

of December, half an hour, it might be, after twelve o'clock, an alarm was given that all was not right in the

house of Mr. Liebenheim. Vast was the crowd which soon collected in breathless agitation. In two minutes a

man who had gone round by the back of the house was heard unbarring Mr. Liebenheim's door: he was

incapable of uttering a word; but his gestures, as he threw the door open and beckoned to the crowd, were

quite enough. In the hall, at the further extremity, and as if arrested in the act of making for the back door, lay

the bodies of old Mr. Liebenheim and one of his sisters, an aged widow; on the stair lay another sister,

younger and unmarried, but upward of sixty. The hall and lower flight of stairs were floating with blood.

Where, then, was Miss Liebenheim, the granddaughter? That was the universal cry; for she was beloved as

generally as she was admired. Had the infernal murderers been devilish enough to break into that temple of

innocent and happy life? Everyone asked the question, and everyone held his breath to listen; but for a few

moments no one dared to advance; for the silence of the house was ominous. At length some one cried out

that Miss Liebenheim had that day gone upon a visit to a friend, whose house was forty miles distant in the

forest. "Aye," replied another," she had settled to go; but I heard that something had stopped her." The

suspense was now at its height, and the crowd passed from room to room, but found no traces of Miss

Liebenheim. At length they ascended the stair, and in the very first room, a small closet, or boudoir, lay

Margaret, with her dress soiled hideously with blood. The first impression was that she also had been

murdered; but, on a nearer approach, she appeared to be unwounded, and was manifestly alive. Life had not

departed, for her breath sent a haze over a mirror, but it was suspended, and she was laboring in some kind of

fit. The first act of the crowd was to carry her into the house of a friend on the opposite side of the street, by

which time medical assistance had crowded to the spot. Their attentions to Miss Liebenheim had naturally

deranged the condition of things in the little room, but not before many people found time to remark that one

of the murderers must have carried her with his bloody hands to the sofa on which she lay, for water had been

sprinkled profusely over her face and throat, and water was even placed ready to her hand, when she might

On the following morning, Maximilian, who had been upon a hunting party in the forest, returned to the city,

and immediately learned the news. I did not see him for some hours after, but he then appeared to me

thoroughly agitated, for the first time I had known him to be so. In the evening another perplexing piece of

intelligence transpired with regard to Miss Liebenheim, which at first afflicted every friend of that young

lady. It was that she had been seized with the pains of childbirth, and delivered of a son, who, however, being

born prematurely, did not live many hours. Scandal, however, was not allowed long to batten upon this

imaginary triumph, for within two hours after the circulation of this first rumor, followed a second,

authenticated, announcing that Maximilian had appeared with the confessor of the Liebenheim family, at the

residence of the chief magistrate, and there produced satisfactory proofs of his marriage with Miss

Liebenheim, which had been duly celebrated, though with great secrecy, nearly eight months before. In our

city, as in all the cities of our country, clandestine marriages, witnessed, perhaps, by two friends only of the

parties, besides the officiating priest, are exceedingly common. In the mere fact, therefore, taken separately,

there was nothing to surprise us, but, taken in connection with the general position of the parties, it DID

surprise us all; nor could we conjecture the reason for a step apparently so needless. For, that Maximilian

could have thought it any point of prudence or necessity to secure the hand of Margaret Liebenheim by a

private marriage, against the final opposition of her grandfather, nobody who knew the parties, who knew the

perfect love which possessed Miss Liebenbeim, the growing imbecility of her grandfather, or the utter

contempt with which Maximilian regarded him, could for a moment believe. Altogether, the matter was one

Meantime, it rejoiced me that poor Margaret's name had been thus rescued from the fangs of the

scandalmongers. These harpies had their prey torn from them at the very moment when they were sitting

down to the unhallowed banquet. For this I rejoiced, but else there was little subject for rejoicing in anything

which concerned poor Margaret. Long she lay in deep insensibility, taking no notice of anything, rarely

opening her eyes, and apparently unconscious of the revolutions, as they succeeded, of morning or evening,

light or darkness, yesterday or today. Great was the agitation which convulsed the heart of Maximilian

during this period; he walked up and down in the cathedral nearly all day long, and the ravages which anxiety

was working in his physical system might be read in his face. People felt it an intrusion upon the sanctity of

his grief to look at him too narrowly, and the whole town sympathized with his situation.

At length a change took place in Margaret, but one which the medical men announced to Maximilian as

boding ill for her recovery. The wanderings of her mind did not depart, but they altered their character. She

became more agitated; she would start up suddenly, and strain her eyesight after some figure which she

seemed to see; then she would apostrophize some person in the most piteous terms, beseeching him, with

streaming eyes, to spare her old grandfather. "Look, look," she would cry out, "look at his gray hairs! O, sir!

he is but a child; he does not know what he says; and he will soon be out of the way and in his grave; and

very soon, sir, he will give you no more trouble." Then, again, she would mutter indistinctly for hours

together; sometimes she would cry out frantically, and say things which terrified the bystanders, and which

the physicians would solemnly caution them how they repeated; then she would weep, and invoke

Maximilian to come and aid her. But seldom, indeed, did that name pass her lips that she did not again begin

to strain her eyeballs, and start up in bed to watch some phantom of her poor, fevered heart, as if it seemed

After nearly seven weeks passed in this agitating state, suddenly, on one morning, the earliest and the

loveliest of dawning spring, a change was announced to us all as having taken place in Margaret; but it was a

change, alas! that ushered in the last great change of all. The conflict, which had for so long a period raged

within her, and overthrown her reason, was at an end; the strife was over, and nature was settling into an

everlasting rest. In the course of the night she had recovered her senses. When the morning light penetrated

through her curtain, she recognized her attendants, made inquiries as to the month and the day of the month,

and then, sensible that she could not outlive the day, she requested that her confessor might be summoned.

About an hour and a half the confessor remained alone with her. At the end of that time he came out, and

hastily summoned the attendants, for Margaret, he said, was sinking into a fainting fit. The confessor himself

might have passed through many a fit, so much was he changed by the results of this interview. I crossed him

coming out of the house. I spoke to himI called to him; but he heard me nothe saw me not. He saw

nobody. Onward he strode to the cathedral, where Maximilian was sure to be found, pacing about upon the

graves. Him he seized by the arm, whispered something into his ear, and then both retired into one of the

many sequestered chapels in which lights are continually burning. There they had some conversation, but not

very long, for within five minutes Maximilian strode away to the house in which his young wife was dying.

One step seemed to carry him upstairs. The attendants, according to the directions they had received from the

physicians, mustered at the head of the stairs to oppose him. But that was idle: before the rights which he held

as a lover and a husband before the still more sacred rights of grief, which he carried in his countenance,

all opposition fled like a dream. There was, besides, a fury in his eye. A motion of his hand waved them off

like summer flies; he entered the room, and once again, for the last time, he was in company with his

What passed who could pretend to guess? Something more than two hours had elapsed, during which

Margaret had been able to talk occasionally, which was known, because at times the attendants heard the

sound of Maximilian's voice evidently in tones of reply to something which she had said. At the end of that

time, a little bell, placed near the bedside, was rung hastily. A fainting fit had seized Margaret; but she

recovered almost before her women applied the usual remedies. They lingered, however, a little, looking at

the youthful couple with an interest which no restraints availed to check. Their hands were locked together,

and in Margaret's eyes there gleamed a farewell light of love, which settled upon Maximilian, and seemed to

indicate that she was becoming speechless. Just at this moment she made a feeble effort to draw Maximilian

toward her; he bent forward and kissed her with an anguish that made the most callous weep, and then he

whispered something into her ear, upon which the attendants retired, taking this as a proof that their presence

was a hindrance to a free communication. But they heard no more talking, and in less than ten minutes they

returned. Maximilian and Margaret still retained their former position. Their hands were fast locked together;

the same parting ray of affection, the same farewell light of love, was in the eye of Margaret, and still it

settled upon Maximilian. But her eyes were beginning to grow dim; mists were rapidly stealing over them.

Maximilian, who sat stupefied and like one not in his right mind, now, at the gentle request of the women,

resigned his seat, for the hand which had clasped his had already relaxed its hold; the farewell gleam of love

had departed. One of the women closed her eyelids; and there fell asleep forever the loveliest flower that our

The funeral took place on the fourth day after her death. In the morning of that day, from strong

affectionhaving known her from an infantI begged permission to see the corpse. She was in her coffin;

snowdrops and crocuses were laid upon her innocent bosom, and roses, of that sort which the season allowed,

over her person. These and other lovely symbols of youth, of springtime, and of resurrection, caught my eye

for the first moment; but in the next it fell upon her face. Mighty God! what a change! what a transfiguration!

Still, indeed, there was the same innocent sweetness; still there was something of the same loveliness; the

expression still remained; but for the featuresall trace of flesh seemed to have vanished; mere outline of

bony structure remained; mere pencilings and shadowings of what she once had been. This is, indeed, I

Maximilian, to the astonishment of everybody, attended the funeral. It was celebrated in the cathedral. All

made way for him, and at times he seemed collected; at times he reeled like one who was drunk. He heard as

one who hears not; he saw as one in a dream. The whole ceremony went on by torchlight, and toward the

close he stood like a pillar, motionless, torpid, frozen. But the great burst of the choir, and the mighty blare

ascending from our vast organ at the closing of the grave, recalled him to himself, and he strode rapidly

homeward. Half an hour after I returned, I was summoned to his bedroom. He was in bed, calm and collected.

What he said to me I remember as if it had been yesterday, and the very tone with which he said it, although

more than twenty years have passed since then. He began thus: "I have not long to live"; and when he saw me

start, suddenly awakened into a consciousness that perhaps he had taken poison, and meant to intimate as

much, he continued: "You fancy I have taken poison;no matter whether I have or not; if I have, the poison

is such that no antidote will now avail; or, if they would, you well know that some griefs are of a kind which

leave no opening to any hope. What difference, therefore, can it make whether I leave this earth today,

tomorrow, or the next day? Be assured of thisthat whatever I have determined to do is past all power of

being affected by a human opposition. Occupy yourself not with any fruitless attempts, but calmly listen to

me, else I know what to do." Seeing a suppressed fury in his eye, notwithstanding I saw also some change

stealing over his features as if from some subtle poison beginning to work upon his frame, awestruck I

consented to listen, and sat still. "It is well that you do so, for my time is short. Here is my will, legally drawn

up, and you will see that I have committed an immense property to your discretion. Here, again, is a paper

still more important in my eyes; it is also testamentary, and binds you to duties which may not be so easy to

execute as the disposal of my property. But now listen to something else, which concerns neither of these

papers. Promise me, in the first place, solemnly, that whenever I die you will see me buried in the same grave

as my wife, from whose funeral we are just returned. Promise."I promised. "Swear."I

swore."Finally, promise me that, when you read this second paper which I have put into your hands,

whatsoever you may think of it, you will say nothingpublish nothing to the world until three years shall

have passed."I promised."And now farewell for three hours. Come to me again about ten o'clock, and

take a glass of wine in memory of old times." This he said laughingly; but even then a dark spasm crossed his

face. Yet, thinking that this might be the mere working of mental anguish within him, I complied with his

desire, and retired. Feeling, however, but little at ease, I devised an excuse for looking in upon him about one

hour and a half after I had left him. I knocked gently at his door; there was no answer. I knocked louder; still

no answer. I went in. The light of day was gone, and I could see nothing. But I was alarmed by the utter

stillness of the room. I listened earnestly, but not a breath could be heard. I rushed back hastily into the hall

for a lamp; I returned; I looked in upon this marvel of manly beauty, and the first glance informed me that he

and all his splendid endowments had departed forever. He had died, probably, soon after I left him, and had

dismissed me from some growing instinct which informed him that his last agonies were at hand.

I took up his two testamentary documents; both were addressed in the shape of letters to myself. The first was

a rapid though distinct appropriation of his enormous property. General rules were laid down, upon which the

property was to be distributed, but the details were left to my discretion, and to the guidance of circumstances

as they should happen to emerge from the various inquiries which it would become necessary to set on foot.

This first document I soon laid aside, both because I found that its provisions were dependent for their

meaning upon the second, and because to this second document I looked with confidence for a solution of

many mysteries;of the profound sadness which had, from the first of my acquaintance with him, possessed

a man so gorgeously endowed as the favorite of nature and fortune; of his motives for huddling up, in a

clandestine manner, that connection which formed the glory of his life; and possibly (but then I hesitated) of

the late unintelligible murders, which still lay under as profound a cloud as ever. Much of this WOULD be

unveiled all might be: and there and then, with the corpse lying beside me of the gifted and mysterious

"My trial is finished; my conscience, my duty, my honor, are liberated; my 'warfare is accomplished.'

Margaret, my innocent young wife, I have seen for the last time. Her, the crown that might have been of my

earthly felicityher, the one temptation to put aside the bitter cup which awaited meher, sole seductress

(O innocent seductress!) from the stern duties which my fate had imposed upon meher, even her, I have

"Before I go, partly lest the innocent should be brought into question for acts almost exclusively mine, but

still more lest the lesson and the warning which God, by my hand, has written in blood upon your guilty

walls, should perish for want of its authentic exposition, hear my last dying avowal, that the murders which

have desolated so many families within your walls, and made the household hearth no sanctuary, age no

charter of protection, are all due originally to my head, if not always to my hand, as the minister of a dreadful

"That account of my history, and my prospects, which you received from the Russian diplomatist, among

some errors of little importance, is essentially correct. My father was not so immediately connected with

English blood as is there represented. However, it is true that he claimed descent from an English family of

even higher distinction than that which is assigned in the Russian statement. He was proud of this English

descent, and the more so as the war with revolutionary France brought out more prominently than ever the

moral and civil grandeur of England. This pride was generous, but it was imprudent in his situation. His

immediate progenitors had been settled in Italyat Rome first, but latterly at Milan; and his whole property,

large and scattered, came, by the progress of the revolution, to stand under French domination. Many

spoliations he suffered; but still he was too rich to be seriously injured. But he foresaw, in the progress of

events, still greater perils menacing his most capital resources. Many of the states or princes in Italy were

deeply in his debt; and, in the great convulsions which threatened his country, he saw that both the

contending parties would find a colorable excuse for absolving themselves from engagements which pressed

unpleasantly upon their finances. In this embarrassment he formed an intimacy with a French officer of high

rank and high principle. My father's friend saw his danger, and advised him to enter the French service. In his

younger days, my father had served extensively under many princes, and had found in every other military

service a spirit of honor governing the conduct of the officers. Here only, and for the first time, he found

ruffian manners and universal rapacity. He could not draw his sword in company with such men, nor in such

a cause. But at length, under the pressure of necessity, he accepted (or rather bought with an immense bribe)

the place of a commissary to the French forces in Italy. With this one resource, eventually he succeeded in

making good the whole of his public claims upon the Italian states. These vast sums he remitted, through

various channels, to England, where he became proprietor in the funds to an immense amount. Incautiously,

however, something of this transpired, and the result was doubly unfortunate; for, while his intentions were

thus made known as finally pointing to England, which of itself made him an object of hatred and suspicion,

it also diminished his means of bribery. These considerations, along with another, made some French officers

of high rank and influence the bitter enemies of my father. My mother, whom he had married when holding a

brigadiergeneral's commission in the Austrian service, was, by birth and by religion, a Jewess. She was of

exquisite beauty, and had been sought in Morganatic marriage by an archduke of the Austrian family; but she

had relied upon this plea, that hers was the purest and noblest blood among all Jewish families that her

family traced themselves, by tradition and a vast series of attestations under the hands of the Jewish high

priests, to the Maccabees, and to the royal houses of Judea; and that for her it would be a degradation to

accept even of a sovereign prince on the terms of such marriage. This was no vain pretension of ostentatious

vanity. It was one which had been admitted as valid for time immemorial in Transylvania and adjacent

countries, where my mother's family were rich and honored, and took their seat among the dignitaries of the

land. The French officers I have alluded to, without capacity for anything so dignified as a deep passion, but

merely in pursuit of a vagrant fancy that would, on the next day, have given place to another equally fleeting,

had dared to insult my mother with proposals the most licentiousproposals as much below her rank and

birth, as, at any rate, they would have been below her dignity of mind and her purity. These she had

communicated to my father, who bitterly resented the chains of subordination which tied up his hands from

avenging his injuries. Still his eye told a tale which his superiors could brook as little as they could the

disdainful neglect of his wife. More than one had been concerned in the injuries to my father and mother;

more than one were interested in obtaining revenge. Things could be done in German towns, and by favor of

old German laws or usages, which even in France could not have been tolerated. This my father's enemies

well knew, but this my father also knew; and he endeavored to lay down his office of commissary. That,

however, was a favor which he could not obtain. He was compelled to serve on the German campaign then

commencing, and on the subsequent one of Friedland and Eylau. Here he was caught in some one of the

snares laid for him; first trepanned into an act which violated some rule of the service; and then provoked into

a breach of discipline against the general officer who had thus trepanned him. Now was the longsought

opportunity gained, and in that very quarter of Germany best fitted for improving it. My father was thrown

into prison in your city, subjected to the atrocious oppression of your jailer, and the more detestable

oppression of your local laws. The charges against him were thought even to affect his life, and he was

humbled into suing for permission to send for his wife and children. Already, to his proud spirit, it was

punishment enough that he should be reduced to sue for favor to one of his bitterest foes. But it was no part of

their plan to refuse THAT. By way of expediting my mother's arrival, a military courier, with every facility

for the journey, was forwarded to her without delay. My mother, her two daughters, and myself, were then

residing in Venice. I had, through the aid of my father's connections in Austria, been appointed in the

imperial service, and held a high commission for my age. But, on my father's marching northward with the

French army, I had been recalled as an indispensable support to my mother. Not that my years could have

made me such, for I had barely accomplished my twelfth year; but my premature growth, and my military

"Our journey I pass over; but as I approach your city, that sepulcher of honor and happiness to my poor

family, my heart beats with frantic emotions. Never do I see that venerable dome of your minster from the

forest, but I curse its form, which reminds me of what we then surveyed for many a mile as we traversed the

forest. For leagues before we approached the city, this object lay before us in relief upon the frosty blue sky;

and still it seemed never to increase. Such was the complaint of my little sister Mariamne. Most innocent

child! would that it never had increased for thy eyes, but remained forever at a distance! That same hour

began the series of monstrous indignities which terminated the career of my illfated family. As we drew up

to the city gates, the officer who inspected the passports, finding my mother and sisters described as

Jewesses, which in my mother's ears (reared in a region where Jews are not dishonored) always sounded a

title of distinction, summoned a subordinate agent, who in coarse terms demanded his toll. We presumed this

to be a road tax for the carriage and horses, but we were quickly undeceived; a small sum was demanded for

each of my sisters and my mother, as for so many head of cattle. I, fancying some mistake, spoke to the man

temperately, and, to do him justice, he did not seem desirous of insulting us; but he produced a printed board,

on which, along with the vilest animals, Jews and Jewesses were rated at so much a head. While we were

debating the point, the officers of the gate wore a sneering smile upon their faces the postilions were

laughing together; and this, too, in the presence of three creatures whose exquisite beauty, in different styles,

agreeably to their different ages, would have caused noblemen to have fallen down and worshiped. My

mother, who had never yet met with any flagrant insult on account of her national distinctions, was too much

shocked to be capable of speaking. I whispered to her a few words, recalling her to her native dignity of

mind, paid the money, and we drove to the prison. But the hour was past at which we could be admitted, and,

as Jewesses, my mother and sisters could not be allowed to stay in the city; they were to go into the Jewish

quarter, a part of the suburb set apart for Jews, in which it was scarcely possible to obtain a lodging tolerably

clean. My father, on the next day, we found, to our horror, at the point of death. To my mother he did not tell

the worst of what he had endured. To me he told that, driven to madness by the insults offered to him, he had

upbraided the courtmartial with their corrupt propensities, and had even mentioned that overtures had been

made to him for quashing the proceedings in return for a sum of two millions of francs; and that his sole

reason for not entertaining the proposal was his distrust of those who made it. 'They would have taken my

money,' said he, 'and then found a pretext for putting me to death, that I might tell no secrets.' This was too

near the truth to be tolerated; in concert with the local authorities, the military enemies of my father conspired

against himwitnesses were suborned; and, finally, under some antiquated law of the place, he was

subjected, in secret, to a mode of torture which still lingers in the east of Europe.

"He sank under the torture and the degradation. I, too, thoughtlessly, but by a natural movement of filial

indignation, suffered the truth to escape me in conversing with my mother. And she;but I will preserve the

regular succession of things. My father died; but he had taken such measures, in concert with me, that his

enemies should never benefit by his property. Meantime my mother and sisters had closed my father's eyes;

had attended his remains to the grave; and in every act connected with this last sad rite had met with insults

and degradations too mighty for human patience. My mother, now become incapable of selfcommand, in

the fury of her righteous grief, publicly and in court denounced the conduct of the magistracytaxed some

of them with the vilest proposals to herselftaxed them as a body with having used instruments of torture

upon my father; and, finally, accused them of collusion with the French military oppressors of the district.

This last was a charge under which they quailed; for by that time the French had made themselves odious to

all who retained a spark of patriotic feeling. My heart sank within me when I looked up at the bench, this

tribunal of tyrants, all purple or livid with rage; when I looked at them alternately and at my noble mother

with her weeping daughtersthese so powerless, those so basely vindictive, and locally so omnipotent.

Willingly I would have sacrificed all my wealth for a simple permission to quit this infernal city with my

poor female relations safe and undishonored. But far other were the intentions of that incensed magistracy.

My mother was arrested, charged with some offense equal to petty treason, or scandalum magnatum, or the

sowing of sedition; and, though what she said was true, where, alas! was she to look for evidence? Here was

seen the want of gentlemen. Gentlemen, had they been even equally tyrannical, would have recoiled with

shame from taking vengeance on a woman. And what a vengeance! O heavenly powers! that I should live to

mention such a thing! Man that is born of woman, to inflict upon woman personal scourging on the bare

back, and through the streets at noonday! Even for Christian women the punishment was severe which the

laws assigned to the offense in question. But for Jewesses, by one of the ancient laws against that persecuted

people, far heavier and more degrading punishments were annexed to almost every offense. What else could

be looked for in a city which welcomed its Jewish guests by valuing them at its gates as brute beasts?

Sentence was passed, and the punishment was to be inflicted on two separate days, with an interval between

each doubtless to prolong the tortures of mind, but under a vile pretense of alleviating the physical torture.

Three days after would come the first day of punishment. My mother spent the time in reading her native

Scriptures; she spent it in prayer and in musing; while her daughters clung and wept around her day and

nightgroveling on the ground at the feet of any people in authority that entered their mother's cell. That

same interval how was it passed by me? Now mark, my friend. Every man in office, or that could be

presumed to bear the slightest influence, every wife, mother, sister, daughter of such men, I besieged

morning, noon, and night. I wearied them with my supplications. I humbled myself to the dust; I, the

haughtiest of God's creatures, knelt and prayed to them for the sake of my mother. I besought them that I

might undergo the punishment ten times over in her stead. And once or twice I DID obtain the

encouragement of a few natural tearsgiven more, however, as I was told, to my piety than to my mother's

deserts. But rarely was I heard out with patience; and from some houses repelled with personal indignities.

The day came: I saw my mother half undressed by the base officials; I heard the prison gates expand; I heard

the trumpets of the magistracy sound. She had warned me what to do; I had warned myself. Would I sacrifice

a retribution sacred and comprehensive, for the momentary triumph over an individual? If not, let me forbear

to look out of doors; for I felt that in the selfsame moment in which I saw the dog of an executioner raise his

accursed hand against my mother, swifter than the lightning would my dagger search his heart. When I heard

the roar of the cruel mob, I pausedenduredforbore. I stole out by bylanes of the city from my poor

exhausted sisters, whom I left sleeping in each other's innocent arms, into the forest. There I listened to the

shouting populace; there even I fancied that I could trace my poor mother's route by the course of the

triumphant cries. There, even then, even then, I madeO silent forest! thou heardst me when I madea

vow that I have kept too faithfully. Mother, thou art avenged: sleep, daughter of Jerusalem! for at length the

oppressor sleeps with thee. And thy poor son has paid, in discharge of his vow, the forfeit of his own

happiness, of a paradise opening upon earth, of a heart as innocent as thine, and a face as fair.

"I returned, and found my mother returned. She slept by starts, but she was feverish and agitated; and when

she awoke and first saw me, she blushed, as if I could think that real degradation had settled upon her. Then it

was that I told her of my vow. Her eyes were lambent with fierce light for a moment; but, when I went on

more eagerly to speak of my hopes and projects, she called me to herkissed me, and whispered: 'Oh, not

so, my son! think not of methink not of vengeancethink only of poor Berenice and Mariamne.' Aye, that

thought WAS startling. Yet this magnanimous and forbearing mother, as I knew by the report of our one

faithful female servant, had, in the morning, during her bitter trial, behaved as might have become a daughter

of Judas Maccabaeus: she had looked serenely upon the vile mob, and awed even them by her serenity; she

had disdained to utter a shriek when the cruel lash fell upon her fair skin. There is a point that makes the

triumph over natural feelings of pain easy or not easythe degree in which we count upon the sympathy of

the bystanders. My mother had it not in the beginning; but, long before the end, her celestial beauty, the

divinity of injured innocence, the pleading of common womanhood in the minds of the lowest class, and the

reaction of manly feeling in the men, had worked a great change in the mob. Some began now to threaten

those who had been active in insulting her. The silence of awe and respect succeeded to noise and uproar; and

feelings which they scarcely understood, mastered the rude rabble as they witnessed more and more the

patient fortitude of the sufferer. Menaces began to rise toward the executioner. Things wore such an aspect

"That day we received permission to go home to our poor house in the Jewish quarter. I know not whether

you are learned enough in Jewish usages to be aware that in every Jewish house, where old traditions are kept

up, there is one room consecrated to confusion; a room always locked up and sequestered from vulgar use,

disorderbrokenshatteredmutilated: to typify, by symbols appalling to the eye, that desolation which

has so long trampled on Jerusalem, and the ravages of the boar within the vineyards of Judea. My mother, as

a Hebrew princess, maintained all traditional customs. Even in this wretched suburb she had her 'chamber of

desolation.' There it was that I and my sisters heard her last words. The rest of her sentence was to be carried

into effect within a week. She, meantime, had disdained to utter any word of fear; but that energy of

selfcontrol had made the suffering but the more bitter. Fever and dreadful agitation had succeeded. Her

dreams showed sufficiently to us, who watched her couch, that terror for the future mingled with the sense of

degradation for the past. Nature asserted her rights. But the more she shrank from the suffering, the more did

she proclaim how severe it had been, and consequently how noble the selfconquest. Yet, as her weakness

increased, so did her terror; until I besought her to take comfort, assuring her that, in case any attempt should

be made to force her out again to public exposure, I would kill the man who came to execute the orderthat

we would all die togetherand there would be a common end to her injuries and her fears. She was

reassured by what I told her of my belief that no future attempt would be made upon her. She slept more

tranquillybut her fever increased; and slowly she slept away into the everlasting sleep which knows of no

"Here came a crisis in my fate. Should I stay and attempt to protect my sisters? But, alas! what power had I to

do so among our enemies? Rachael and I consulted; and many a scheme we planned. Even while we

consulted, and the very night after my mother had been committed to the Jewish burying ground, came an

officer, bearing an order for me to repair to Vienna. Some officer in the French army, having watched the

transaction respecting my parents, was filled with shame and grief. He wrote a statement of the whole to an

Austrian officer of rank, my father's friend, who obtained from the emperor an order, claiming me as a page

of his own, and an officer in the household service. O heavens! what a neglect that it did not include my

sisters! However, the next best thing was that I should use my influence at the imperial court to get them

passed to Vienna. This I did, to the utmost of my power. But seven months elapsed before I saw the emperor.

If my applications ever met his eye he might readily suppose that your city, my friend, was as safe a place as

another for my sisters. Nor did I myself know all its dangers. At length, with the emperor's leave of absence, I

returned. And what did I find? Eight months had passed, and the faithful Rachael had died. The poor sisters,

clinging together, but now utterly bereft of friends, knew not which way to turn. In this abandonment they fell

into the insidious hands of the ruffian jailer. My eldest sister, Berenice, the stateliest and noblest of beauties,

had attracted this ruffian's admiration while she was in the prison with her mother. And when I returned to

your city, armed with the imperial passports for all, I found that Berenice had died in the villain's custody;

nor could I obtain anything beyond a legal certificate of her death. And, finally, the blooming, laughing

Mariamne, she also had diedand of affliction for the loss of her sister. You, my friend, had been absent

upon your travels during the calamitous history I have recited. You had seen neither my father nor my

mother. But you came in time to take under your protection, from the abhorred wretch the jailer, my little

brokenhearted Mariamne. And when sometimes you fancied that you had seen me under other

circumstances, in her it was, my dear friend, and in her features that you saw mine.

"Now was the world a desert to me. I cared little, in the way of love, which way I turned. But in the way of

hatred I cared everything. I transferred myself to the Russian service, with the view of gaining some

appointment on the Polish frontier, which might put it in my power to execute my vow of destroying all the

magistrates of your city. War, however, raged, and carried me into far other regions. It ceased, and there was

little prospect that another generation would see it relighted; for the disturber of peace was a prisoner forever,

and all nations were exhausted. Now, then, it became necessary that I should adopt some new mode for

executing my vengeance; and the more so, because annually some were dying of those whom it was my

mission to punish. A voice ascended to me, day and night, from the graves of my father and mother, calling

I took my measures thus: Many Jews were present at Waterloo. From among these, all irritated against

Napoleon for the expectations he had raised, only to disappoint, by his great assembly of Jews at Paris, I

selected eight, whom I knew familiarly as men hardened by military experience against the movements of

pity. With these as my beagles, I hunted for some time in your forest before opening my regular campaign;

and I am surprised that you did not hear of the death which met the executionerhim I mean who dared to

lift his hand against my mother. This man I met by accident in the forest; and I slew him. I talked with the

wretch, as a stranger at first, upon the memorable case of the Jewish lady. Had he relented, had he expressed

compunction, I might have relented. But far otherwise: the dog, not dreaming to whom he spoke, exulted;

he But why repeat the villain's words? I cut him to pieces. Next I did this: My agents I caused to

matriculate separately at the college. They assumed the college dress. And now mark the solution of that

mystery which caused such perplexity. Simply as students we all had an unsuspected admission at any house.

Just then there was a common practice, as you will remember, among the younger students, of going out a

maskingthat is, of entering houses in the academic dress, and with the face masked. This practice subsisted

even during the most intense alarm from the murderers; for the dress of the students was supposed to bring

protection along with it. But, even after suspicion had connected itself with this dress, it was sufficient that I

should appear unmasked at the head of the maskers, to insure them a friendly reception. Hence the facility

with which death was inflicted, and that unaccountable absence of any motion toward an alarm. I took hold of

my victim, and he looked at me with smiling security. Our weapons were hid under our academic robes; and

even when we drew them out, and at the moment of applying them to the threat, they still supposed our

gestures to be part of the pantomime we were performing. Did I relish this abuse of personal confidence in

myself? NoI loathed it, and I grieved for its necessity; but my mother, a phantom not seen with bodily

eyes, but ever present to my mind, continually ascended before me; and still I shouted aloud to my astounded

victim, 'This comes from the Jewess! Hound of hounds! Do you remember the Jewess whom you dishonored,

and the oaths which you broke in order that you might dishonor her, and the righteous law which you

violated, and the cry of anguish from her son which you scoffed at?' Who I was, what I avenged, and whom, I

made every man aware, and every woman, before I punished them. The details of the cases I need not repeat.

One or two I was obliged, at the beginning, to commit to my Jews. The suspicion was thus, from the first,

turned aside by the notoriety of my presence elsewhere; but I took care that none suffered who had not either

been upon the guilty list of magistrates who condemned the mother, or of those who turned away with

"It pleased God, however, to place a mighty temptation in my path, which might have persuaded me to forego

all thoughts of vengeance, to forget my vow, to forget the voices which invoked me from the grave. This was

Margaret Liebenheim. Ah! how terrific appeared my duty of bloody retribution, after her angel's face and

angel's voice had calmed me. With respect to her grandfather, strange it is to mention, that never did my

innocent wife appear so lovely as precisely in the relation of granddaughter. So beautiful was her goodness to

the old man, and so divine was the childlike innocence on her part, contrasted with the guilty recollections

associated with himfor he was among the guiltiest toward my motherstill I delayed HIS punishment to

the last; and, for his child's sake, I would have pardoned himnay, I had resolved to do so, when a fierce

Jew, who had a deep malignity toward this man, swore that he would accomplish HIS vengeance at all

events, and perhaps might be obliged to include Margaret in the ruin, unless I adhered to the original scheme.

Then I yielded; for circumstances armed this man with momentary power. But the night fixed on was one in

which I had reason to know that my wife would be absent; for so I had myself arranged with her, and the

unhappy counterarrangement I do not yet understand. Let me add, that the sole purpose of my clandestine

marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the belief that HIS family had been dishonored, even as he

had dishonored mine. He learned, as I took care that he should, that his granddaughter carried about with her

the promises of a mother, and did not know that she had the sanction of a wife. This discovery made him, in

one day, become eager for the marriage he had previously opposed; and this discovery also embittered the

misery of his death. At that moment I attempted to think only of my mother's wrongs; but, in spite of all I

could do, this old man appeared to me in the light of Margaret's grandfatherand, had I been left to myself,

he would have been saved. As it was, never was horror equal to mine when I met her flying to his succor. I

had relied upon her absence; and the misery of that moment, when her eye fell upon me in the very act of

seizing her grandfather, far transcended all else that I have suffered in these terrific scenes. She fainted in my

arms, and I and another carried her upstairs and procured water. Meantime her grandfather had been

murdered, even while Margaret fainted. I had, however, under the fear of discovery, though never

anticipating a reencounter with herself, forestalled the explanation requisite in such a case to make my

conduct intelligible. I had told her, under feigned names, the story of my mother and my sisters. She knew

their wrongs: she had heard me contend for the right of vengeance. Consequently, in our parting interview,

one word only was required to place myself in a new position to her thoughts. I needed only to say I was that

"As to the jailer, he was met by a party of us. Not suspecting that any of us could be connected with the

family, he was led to talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor Berenice. The child had not, as

had been insinuated, aided her own degradation, but had nobly sustained the dignity of her sex and her

family. Such advantages as the monster pretended to have gained over hersick, desolate, and latterly

deliriouswere, by his own confession, not obtained without violence. This was too much. Forty thousand

lives, had he possessed them, could not have gratified my thirst for revenge. Yet, had he but showed courage,

he should have died the death of a soldier. But the wretch showed cowardice the most abject, and,but you

"Now, then, all is finished, and human nature is avenged. Yet, if you complain of the bloodshed and the

terror, think of the wrongs which created my rights; think of the sacrifice by which I gave a tenfold strength

to those rights; think of the necessity for a dreadful concussion and shock to society, in order to carry my

"This will now have been effected. And ye, victims of dishonor, will be glorified in your deaths; ye will not

have suffered in vain, nor died without a monument. Sleep, therefore, sister Berenicesleep, gentle

Mariamne, in peace. And thou, noble mother, let the outrages sown in thy dishonor, rise again and blossom in

wide harvests of honor for the women of thy afflicted race. Sleep, daughters of Jerusalem, in the sanctity of

your sufferings. And thou, if it be possible, even more beloved daughter of a Christian fold, whose company

was too soon denied to him in life, open thy grave to receive HIM, who, in the hour of death, wishes to

remember no title which he wore on earth but that of thy chosen and adoring lover,

Balzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred,

Maturin's Melmothgreat allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe."

"But what is 'Melmoth'? Why is HE classed as 'a great allegorical figure'?" exclaimed many a surprised

reader. Few had perusedfew know at this daythe terrible story of Melmoth the Wanderer, half man, half

devil, who has bartered away his soul for the glory of power and knowledge, and, repenting of his bargain,

tries again and again to persuade some desperate human to change places with him penetrates to the refuge

of misery, the death chamber, even the madhouse, seeking one in such utter agony as to accept his help, and

Why this extraordinary tale, told with wild and compelling sweep, has remained so deep in oblivion, appears

immediately on a glance at the original. The author, Charles Robert Maturin, a needy, eccentric Irish

clergyman of 17801824, could cause intense suspense and horrorcould read keenly into human

motivescould teach an awful moral lesson in the guise of fascinating fiction, but he could not stick to a

long story with simplicity. His dozens of shifting scenes, his fantastic coils of "tales within tales" sadly

perplex the reader of "Melmoth" in the first version. It is hoped, however, that the present selection, by its

directness and the clearness of the story thread, may please the modern reader better than the involved

original, and bring before a wider public some of the most gripping descriptions ever penned in English.

In Volume IV of these stories comes a tale, "Melmoth Reconciled," which Balzac himself wrote, while under

the spell of Maturin's "great allegorical figure." Here the unhappy being succeeds in his purpose. The story

takes place in mocking, careless Paris, "that branch establishment of hell"; a cashier, on the eve of

embezzlement and detection, cynically accedes to Melmoth's terms, and accepts his helpwith what

John Melmoth, student at Trinity College, Dublin, having journeyed to County Wicklow for attendance at the

deathbed of his miserly uncle, finds the old man, even in his last moments, tortured by avarice, and by

"I want a glass of wine, it would keep me alive for some hours, but there is not one I can trust to get it for

me,they'd steal a bottle, and ruin me." John was greatly shocked. "Sir, for God's sake, let ME get a glass of

wine for you." "Do you know where?" said the old man, with an expression in his face John could not

understand. "No, Sir; you know I have been rather a stranger here, Sir." "Take this key," said old Melmoth,

after a violent spasm; "take this key, there is wine in that closet,Madeira. I always told them there was

nothing there, but they did not believe me, or I should not have been robbed as I have been. At one time I said

it was whisky, and then I fared worse than ever, for they drank twice as much of it."

John took the key from his uncle's hand; the dying man pressed it as he did so, and John, interpreting this as a

mark of kindness, returned the pressure. He was undeceived by the whisper that followed,"John, my lad,

don't drink any of that wine while you are there." "Good God!" said John, indignantly throwing the key on

the bed; then, recollecting that the miserable being before him was no object of resentment, he gave the

promise required, and entered the closet, which no foot but that of old Melmoth had entered for nearly sixty

years. He had some difficulty in finding out the wine, and indeed stayed long enough to justify his uncle's

suspicions,but his mind was agitated, and his hand unsteady. He could not but remark his uncle's

extraordinary look, that had the ghastliness of fear superadded to that of death, as he gave him permission to

enter his closet. He could not but see the looks of horror which the women exchanged as he approached it.

And, finally, when he was in it, his memory was malicious enough to suggest some faint traces of a story, too

horrible for imagination, connected with it. He remembered in one moment most distinctly, that no one but

Before he quitted it, he held up the dim light, and looked around him with a mixture of terror and curiosity.

There was a great deal of decayed and useless lumber, such as might be supposed to be heaped up to rot in a

miser's closet; but John's eyes were in a moment, and as if by magic, riveted on a portrait that hung on the

wall, and appeared, even to his untaught eye, far superior to the tribe of family pictures that are left to molder

on the walls of a family mansion. It represented a man of middle age. There was nothing remarkable in the

costume, or in the countenance, but THE EYES, John felt, were such as one feels they wish they had never

seen, and feels they can never forget. Had he been acquainted with the poetry of Southey, he might have

From an impulse equally resistless and painful, he approached the portrait, held the candle toward it, and

could distinguish the words on the border of the painting,Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646. John was neither timid

by nature, nor nervous by constitution, nor superstitious from habit, yet he continued to gaze in stupid horror

on this singular picture, till, aroused by his uncle's cough, he hurried into his room. The old man swallowed

the wine. He appeared a little revived; it was long since he had tasted such a cordial,his heart appeared to

expand to a momentary confidence. "John, what did you see in that room?" "Nothing, Sir." "That's a lie;

everyone wants to cheat or to rob me." "Sir, I don't want to do either." "Well, what did you see that youyou

took notice of?" "Only a picture, Sir." "A picture, Sir!the original is still alive." John, though under the

impression of his recent feelings, could not but look incredulous. "John," whispered his uncle; "John, they

say I am dying of this and that; and one says it is for want of nourishment, and one says it is for want of

medicine,but, John," and his face looked hideously ghastly, "I am dying of a fright. That man," and he

extended his meager arm toward the closet, as if he was pointing to a living being; "that man, I have good

reason to know, is alive still." "How is that possible, Sir?" said John involuntarily, "the date on the picture is

1646." "You have seen it,you have noticed it," said his uncle. "Well,"he rocked and nodded on his

bolster for a moment, then, grasping John's hand with an unutterable look, he exclaimed, "You will see him

again, he is alive." Then, sinking back on his bolster, he fell into a kind of sleep or stupor, his eyes still open,

The house was now perfectly silent, and John had time and space for reflection. More thoughts came

crowding on him than he wished to welcome, but they would not be repulsed. He thought of his uncle's habits

and character, turned the matter over and over again in his mind, and he said to himself, "The last man on

earth to be superstitious. He never thought of anything but the price of stocks, and the rate of exchange, and

my college expenses, that hung heavier at his heart than all; and such a man to die of a fright,a ridiculous

fright, that a man living 150 years ago is alive still, and yethe is dying." John paused, for facts will confute

the most stubborn logician. "With all his hardness of mind, and of heart, he is dying of a fright. I heard it in

the kitchen, I have heard it from himself,he could not be deceived. If I had ever heard he was nervous, or

fanciful, or superstitious, but a character so contrary to all these impressions;a man that, as poor Butler

says, in his 'Remains of the Antiquarian,' would have 'sold Christ over again for the numerical piece of silver

which Judas got for him,'such a man to die of fear! Yet he IS dying," said John, glancing his fearful eye on

the contracted nostril, the glazed eye, the drooping jaw, the whole horrible apparatus of the facies

Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor; his eyes lost that little expression they had

before, and his hands, that had convulsively been catching at the blankets, let go their short and quivering

grasp, and lay extended on the bed like the claws of some bird that had died of hunger,so meager, so

yellow, so spread. John, unaccustomed to the sight of death, believed this to be only a sign that he was going

to sleep; and, urged by an impulse for which he did not attempt to account to himself, caught up the miserable

light, and once more ventured into the forbidden room, the BLUE CHAMBER of the dwelling. The

motion roused the dying man;he sat bolt upright in his bed. This John could not see, for he was now in the

closet; but he heard the groan, or rather the choked and gurgling rattle of the throat, that announces the

horrible conflict between muscular and mental convulsion. He started, turned away; but, as he turned away,

he thought he saw the eyes of the portrait, on which his own was fixed, MOVE, and hurried back to his

Old Melmoth died in the course of that night, and died as he had lived, in a kind of avaricious delirium. John

could not have imagined a scene so horrible as his last hours presented. He cursed and blasphemed about

three halfpence, missing, as he said, some weeks before, in an account of change with his groom, about hay

to a starved horse that he kept. Then he grasped John's hand, and asked him to give him the sacrament. "If I

send to the clergyman, he will charge me something for it, which I cannot pay, I cannot. They say I am

rich,look at this blanket;but I would not mind that, if I could save my soul." And, raving, he added,

"Indeed, Doctor, I am a very poor man. I never troubled a clergyman before, and all I want is, that you will

grant me two trifling requests, very little matters in your way,save my soul, and (whispering) make interest

to get me a parish coffin,I have not enough left to bury me. I always told everyone I was poor, but the

John, greatly shocked, retired from the bedside, and sat down in a distant corner of the room. The women

were again in the room, which was very dark. Melmoth was silent from exhaustion, and there was a deathlike

pause for some time. At this moment John saw the door open, and a figure appear at it, who looked round the

room, and then quietly and deliberately retired, but not before John had discovered in his face the living

original of the portrait. His first impulse was to utter an exclamation of terror, but his breath felt stopped. He

was then rising to pursue the figure, but a moment's reflection checked him. What could be more absurd, than

to be alarmed or amazed at a resemblance between a living man and the portrait of a dead one! The likeness

was doubtless strong enough to strike him even in that darkened room, but it was doubtless only a likeness;

and though it might be imposing enough to terrify an old man of gloomy and retired habits, and with a broken

But while he was applauding himself for this resolution, the door opened, and the figure appeared at it,

beckoning and nodding to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying. John now started up, determined to

pursue it; but the pursuit was stopped by the weak but shrill cries of his uncle, who was struggling at once

with the agonies of death and his housekeeper. The poor woman, anxious for her master's reputation and her

own, was trying to put on him a clean shirt and nightcap, and Melmoth, who had just sensation enough to

perceive they were taking something from him, continued exclaiming feebly, "They are robbing

me,robbing me in my last moments,robbing a dying man. John, won't you assist me,I shall die a

A few days after the funeral, the will was opened before proper witnesses, and John was found to be left sole

heir to his uncle's property, which, though originally moderate, had, by his grasping habits, and parsimonious

As the attorney who read the will concluded, he added, "There are some words here, at the corner of the

parchment, which do not appear to be part of the will, as they are neither in the form of a codicil, nor is the

signature of the testator affixed to them; but, to the best of my belief, they are in the handwriting of the

deceased." As he spoke he showed the lines to Melmoth, who immediately recognized his uncle's hand (that

perpendicular and penurious hand, that seems determined to make the most of the very paper, thriftily

abridging every word, and leaving scarce an atom of margin), and read, not without some emotion, the

following words: "I enjoin my nephew and heir, John Melmoth, to remove, destroy, or cause to be destroyed,

the portrait inscribed J. Melmoth, 1646, hanging in my closet. I also enjoin him to search for a manuscript,

which I think he will find in the third and lowest lefthand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that

portrait,it is among some papers of no value, such as manuscript sermons, and pamphlets on the

improvement of Ireland, and such stuff; he will distinguish it by its being tied round with a black tape, and

the paper being very moldy and discolored. He may read it if he will;I think he had better not. At all

events, I adjure him, if there be any power in the adjuration of a dying man, to burn it."

After reading this singular memorandum, the business of the meeting was again resumed; and as old

Melmoth's will was very clear and legally worded, all was soon settled, the party dispersed, and John

He resolutely entered the closet, shut the door, and proceeded to search for the manuscript. It was soon found,

for the directions of old Melmoth were forcibly written, and strongly remembered. The manuscript, old,

tattered, and discolored, was taken from the very drawer in which it was mentioned to be laid. Melmoth's

hands felt as cold as those of his dead uncle, when he drew the blotted pages from their nook. He sat down to

read,there was a dead silence through the house. Melmoth looked wistfully at the candles, snuffed them,

and still thought they looked dim, (perchance he thought they burned blue, but such thought he kept to

himself). Certain it is, he often changed his posture, and would have changed his chair, had there been more

He sank for a few moments into a fit of gloomy abstraction, till the sound of the clock striking twelve made

him start,it was the only sound he had heard for some hours, and the sounds produced by inanimate things,

while all living beings around are as dead, have at such an hour an effect indescribably awful. John looked at

his manuscript with some reluctance, opened it, paused over the first lines, and as the wind sighed round the

desolate apartment, and the rain pattered with a mournful sound against the dismantled window,

wishedwhat did he wish for?he wished the sound of the wind less dismal, and the dash of the rain less

monotonous.He may be forgiven, it was past midnight, and there was not a human being awake but

The manuscript was discolored, obliterated, and mutilated beyond any that had ever before exercised the

patience of a reader. Michaelis himself, scrutinizing into the pretended autograph of St. Mark at Venice,

never had a harder time of it.Melmoth could make out only a sentence here and there. The writer, it

appeared, was an Englishman of the name of Stanton, who had traveled abroad shortly after the Restoration.

Traveling was not then attended with the facilities which modern improvement has introduced, and scholars

and literati, the intelligent, the idle, and the curious, wandered over the Continent for years, like Tom Corvat,

though they had the modesty, on their return, to entitle the result of their multiplied observations and labors

Stanton, about the year 1676, was in Spain; he was, like most of the travelers of that age, a man of literature,

intelligence, and curiosity, but ignorant of the language of the country, and fighting his way at times from

convent to convent, in quest of what was called "Hospitality," that is, obtaining board and lodging on the

condition of holding a debate in Latin, on some point theological or metaphysical, with any monk who would

become the champion of the strife. Now, as the theology was Catholic, and the metaphysics Aristotelian,

Stanton sometimes wished himself at the miserable Posada from whose filth and famine he had been fighting

his escape; but though his reverend antagonists always denounced his creed, and comforted themselves, even

in defeat, with the assurance that he must be damned, on the double score of his being a heretic and an

Englishman, they were obliged to confess that his Latin was good, and his logic unanswerable; and he was

allowed, in most cases, to sup and sleep in peace. This was not doomed to be his fate on the night of the 17th

August 1677, when he found himself in the plains of Valencia, deserted by a cowardly guide, who had been

terrified by the sight of a cross erected as a memorial of a murder, had slipped off his mule unperceived,

crossing himself every step he took on his retreat from the heretic, and left Stanton amid the terrors of an

approaching storm, and the dangers of an unknown country. The sublime and yet softened beauty of the

scenery around, had filled the soul of Stanton with delight, and he enjoyed that delight as Englishmen

The magnificent remains of two dynasties that had passed away, the ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish

fortresses, were around and above him;the dark and heavy thunder clouds that advanced slowly, seemed

like the shrouds of these specters of departed greatness; they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or

conceal them, as if Nature herself was for once awed by the power of man; and far below, the lovely valley of

Valencia blushed and burned in all the glory of sunset, like a bride receiving the last glowing kiss of the

bridegroom before the approach of night. Stanton gazed around. The difference between the architecture of

the Roman and Moorish ruins struck him. Among the former are the remains of a theater, and something like

a public place; the latter present only the remains of fortresses, embattled, castellated, and fortified from top

to bottom,not a loophole for pleasure to get in by,the loopholes were only for arrows; all denoted

military power and despotic subjugation a l'outrance. The contrast might have pleased a philosopher, and he

might have indulged in the reflection, that though the ancient Greeks and Romans were savages (as Dr.

Johnson says all people who want a press must be, and he says truly), yet they were wonderful savages for

their time, for they alone have left traces of their taste for pleasure in the countries they conquered, in their

superb theaters, temples (which were also dedicated to pleasure one way or another), and baths, while other

conquering bands of savages never left anything behind them but traces of their rage for power. So thought

Stanton, as he still saw strongly defined, though darkened by the darkening clouds, the huge skeleton of a

Roman amphitheater, its arched and gigantic colonnades now admitting a gleam of light, and now

commingling with the purple thunder cloud; and now the solid and heavy mass of a Moorish fortress, no light

playing between its impermeable walls, the image of power, dark, isolated, impenetrable. Stanton forgot

his cowardly guide, his loneliness, his danger amid an approaching storm and an inhospitable country, where

his name and country would shut every door against him, and every peal of thunder would be supposed

justified by the daring intrusion of a heretic in the dwelling of an old Christian, as the Spanish Catholics

absurdly term themselves, to mark the distinction between them and the baptized Moors.

All this was forgot in contemplating the glorious and awful scenery before him,light struggling with

darkness,and darkness menacing a light still more terrible, and announcing its menace in the blue and livid

mass of cloud that hovered like a destroying angel in the air, its arrows aimed, but their direction awfully

indefinite. But he ceased to forget these local and petty dangers, as the sublimity of romance would term

them, when he saw the first flash of the lightning, broad and red as the banners of an insulting army whose

motto is Vae victis, shatter to atoms the remains of a Roman tower;the rifted stones rolled down the hill,

and fell at the feet of Stanton. He stood appalled, and, awaiting his summons from the Power in whose eye

pyramids, palaces, and the worms whose toil has formed them, and the worms who toil out their existence

under their shadow or their pressure, are perhaps all alike contemptible, he stood collected, and for a moment

felt that defiance of danger which danger itself excites, and we love to encounter it as a physical enemy, to

bid it "do its worst," and feel that its worst will perhaps be ultimately its best for us. He stood and saw

another flash dart its bright, brief, and malignant glance over the ruins of ancient power, and the luxuriance of

recent fertility. Singular contrast! The relics of art forever decaying,the productions of nature forever

renewed.(Alas! for what purpose are they renewed, better than to mock at the perishable monuments

which men try in vain to rival them by.) The pyramids themselves must perish, but the grass that grows

Stanton was thinking thus, when all power of thought was suspended, by seeing two persons bearing between

them the body of a young, and apparently very lovely girl, who had been struck dead by the lightning.

Stanton approached, and heard the voices of the bearers repeating, "There is none who will mourn for her!"

"There is none who will mourn for her!" said other voices, as two more bore in their arms the blasted and

blackened figure of what had once been a man, comely and graceful;"there is not ONE to mourn for her

now!" They were lovers, and he had been consumed by the flash that had destroyed her, while in the act of

endeavoring to defend her. As they were about to remove the bodies, a person approached with a calmness of

step and demeanor, as if he were alone unconscious of danger, and incapable of fear; and after looking on

them for some time, burst into a laugh so loud, wild, and protracted, that the peasants, starting with as much

horror at the sound as at that of the storm, hurried away, bearing the corpses with them. Even Stanton's fears

were subdued by his astonishment, and, turning to the stranger, who remained standing on the same spot, he

asked the reason of such an outrage on humanity. The stranger, slowly turning round, and disclosing a

countenance which(Here the manuscript was illegible for a few lines), said in English(A long hiatus

followed here, and the next passage that was legible, though it proved to be a continuation of the narrative,

The terrors of the night rendered Stanton a sturdy and unappeasable applicant; and the shrill voice of the old

woman, repeating, "no hereticno EnglishMother of God protect usavaunt Satan!" combined with

the clatter of the wooden casement (peculiar to the houses in Valencia) which she opened to discharge her

volley of anathematization, and shut again as the lightning glanced through the aperture, were unable to repel

his importunate request for admittance, in a night whose terrors ought to soften all the miserable petty local

passions into one awful feeling of fear for the Power who caused it, and compassion for those who were

exposed to it.But Stanton felt there was something more than national bigotry in the exclamations of the

old woman; there was a peculiar and personal horror of the English.And he was right; but this did not

The house was handsome and spacious, but the melancholy appearance of desertion . . . .

The benches were by the wall, but there were none to sit there; the tables were spread in what had been the

hall, but it seemed as if none had gathered round them for many years;the clock struck audibly, there was

no voice of mirth or of occupation to drown its sound; time told his awful lesson to silence alone;the

hearths were black with fuel long since consumed;the family portraits looked as if they were the only

tenants of the mansion; they seemed to say, from their moldering frames, "there are none to gaze on us;" and

the echo of the steps of Stanton and his feeble guide, was the only sound audible between the peals of thunder

that rolled still awfully, but more distantly,every peal like the exhausted murmurs of a spent heart. As they

passed on, a shriek was heard. Stanton paused, and fearful images of the dangers to which travelers on the

Continent are exposed in deserted and remote habitations, came into his mind. "Don't heed it," said the old

The old woman having now satisfied herself, by ocular demonstration, that her English guest, even if he was

the devil, had neither horn, hoof, nor tail, that he could bear the sign of the cross without changing his form,

and that, when he spoke, not a puff of sulphur came out of his mouth, began to take courage, and at length

Every obstacle was now removed; parents and relations at last gave up all opposition, and the young pair

were united. Never was there a lovelier,they seemed like angels who had only anticipated by a few years

their celestial and eternal union. The marriage was solemnized with much pomp, and a few days after there

was a feast in that very wainscoted chamber which you paused to remark was so gloomy. It was that night

hung with rich tapestry, representing the exploits of the Cid, particularly that of his burning a few Moors who

refused to renounce their accursed religion. They were represented beautifully tortured, writhing and

howling, and "Mahomet! Mahomet!" issuing out of their mouths, as they called on him in their burning

agonies;you could almost hear them scream. At the upper end of the room, under a splendid estrade, over

which was an image of the blessed Virgin, sat Donna Isabella de Cardoza, mother to the bride, and near her

Donna Ines, the bride, on rich almohadas; the bridegroom sat opposite to her, and though they never spoke to

each other, their eyes, slowly raised, but suddenly withdrawn (those eyes that blushed), told to each other the

delicious secret of their happiness. Don Pedro de Cardoza had assembled a large party in honor of his

daughter's nuptials; among them was an Englishman of the name of MELMOTH, a traveler; no one knew

who had brought him there. He sat silent like the rest, while the iced waters and the sugared wafers were

presented to the company. The night was intensely hot, and the moon glowed like a sun over the ruins of

Saguntum; the embroidered blinds flapped heavily, as if the wind made an effort to raise them in vain, and

The company were dispersed through various alleys of the garden; the bridegroom and bride wandered

through one where the delicious perfume of the orange trees mingled itself with that of the myrtles in blow.

On their return to the ball, both of them asked, Had the company heard the exquisite sounds that floated

through the garden just before they quitted it? No one had heard them. They expressed their surprise. The

Englishman had never quitted the hall; it was said he smiled with a most particular and extraordinary

expression as the remark was made. His silence had been noticed before, but it was ascribed to his ignorance

of the Spanish language, an ignorance that Spaniards are not anxious either to expose or remove by speaking

to a stranger. The subject of the music was not again reverted to till the guests were seated at supper, when

Donna Ines and her young husband, exchanging a smile of delighted surprise, exclaimed they heard the same

delicious sounds floating round them. The guests listened, but no one else could hear it;everyone felt there

was something extraordinary in this. Hush! was uttered by every voice almost at the same moment. A dead

silence followed,you would think, from their intent looks, that they listened with their very eyes. This deep

silence, contrasted with the splendor of the feast, and the light effused from torches held by the domestics,

produced a singular effect,it seemed for some moments like an assembly of the dead. The silence was

interrupted, though the cause of wonder had not ceased, by the entrance of Father Olavida, the Confessor of

Donna Isabella, who had been called away previous to the feast, to administer extreme unction to a dying

man in the neighborhood. He was a priest of uncommon sanctity, beloved in the family, and respected in the

neighborhood, where he had displayed uncommon taste and talents for exorcism;in fact, this was the good

Father's forte, and he piqued himself on it accordingly. The devil never fell into worse hands than Father

Olavida's, for when he was so contumacious as to resist Latin, and even the first verses of the Gospel of St.

John in Greek, which the good Father never had recourse to but in cases of extreme stubbornness and

difficulty, (here Stanton recollected the English story of the Boy of Bilson, and blushed even in Spain for

his countrymen),then he always applied to the Inquisition; and if the devils were ever so obstinate before,

they were always seen to fly out of the possessed, just as, in the midst of their cries (no doubt of blasphemy),

they were tied to the stake. Some held out even till the flames surrounded them; but even the most stubborn

must have been dislodged when the operation was over, for the devil himself could no longer tenant a crisp

and glutinous lump of cinders. Thus Father Olavida's fame spread far and wide, and the Cardoza family had

made uncommon interest to procure him for a Confessor, and happily succeeded. The ceremony he had just

been performing had cast a shade over the good Father's countenance, but it dispersed as he mingled among

the guests, and was introduced to them. Room was soon made for him, and he happened accidentally to be

seated opposite the Englishman. As the wine was presented to him, Father Olavida (who, as I observed, was a

man of singular sanctity) prepared to utter a short internal prayer. He hesitated, trembled,desisted; and,

putting down the wine, wiped the drops from his forehead with the sleeve of his habit. Donna Isabella gave a

sign to a domestic, and other wine of a higher quality was offered to him. His lips moved, as if in the effort to

pronounce a benediction on it and the company, but the effort again failed; and the change in his countenance

was so extraordinary, that it was perceived by all the guests. He felt the sensation that his extraordinary

appearance excited, and attempted to remove it by again endeavoring to lift the cup to his lips. So strong was

the anxiety with which the company watched him, that the only sound heard in that spacious and crowded

hall was the rustling of his habit as he attempted to lift the cup to his lips once morein vain. The guests sat

in astonished silence. Father Olavida alone remained standing; but at that moment the Englishman rose, and

appeared determined to fix Olavida's regards by a gaze like that of fascination. Olavida rocked, reeled,

grasped the arm of a page, and at last, closing his eyes for a moment, as if to escape the horrible fascination

of that unearthly glare (the Englishman's eyes were observed by all the guests, from the moment of his

entrance, to effuse a most fearful and preternatural luster), exclaimed, "Who is among us?Who?I cannot

utter a blessing while he is here. I cannot feel one. Where he treads, the earth is parched!Where he

breathes, the air is fire!Where he feeds, the food is poison! Where he turns his glance is

lightning!WHO IS AMONG US?WHO?" repeated the priest in the agony of adjuration, while his cowl

fallen back, his few thin hairs around the scalp instinct and alive with terrible emotion, his outspread arms

protruded from the sleeves of his habit, and extended toward the awful stranger, suggested the idea of an

inspired being in the dreadful rapture of prophetic denunciation. He stoodstill stood, and the Englishman

stood calmly opposite to him. There was an agitated irregularity in the attitudes of those around them, which

contrasted strongly the fixed and stern postures of those two, who remained gazing silently at each other.

"Who knows him?" exclaimed Olavida, starting apparently from a trance; "who knows him? who brought

The guests severally disclaimed all knowledge of the Englishman, and each asked the other in whispers, "who

HAD brought him there?" Father Olavida then pointed his arm to each of the company, and asked each

individually, "Do you know him?" No! no! no!" was uttered with vehement emphasis by every individual.

"But I know him," said Olavida, "by these cold drops!" and he wiped them off; "by these convulsed

joints!" and he attempted to sign the cross, but could not. He raised his voice, and evidently speaking with

increased difficulty,"By this bread and wine, which the faithful receive as the body and blood of Christ,

but which HIS presence converts into matter as viperous as the suicide foam of the dying Judas,by all

theseI know him, and command him to be gone!He ishe is" and he bent forward as he spoke, and

gazed on the Englishman with an expression which the mixture of rage, hatred, and fear rendered terrible. All

the guests rose at these words, the whole company now presented two singular groups, that of the amazed

guests all collected together, and repeating, "Who, what is he?" and that of the Englishman, who stood

The body was removed into another room, and the departure of the Englishman was not noticed till the

company returned to the hall. They sat late together, conversing on this extraordinary circumstance, and

finally agreed to remain in the house, lest the evil spirit (for they believed the Englishman no better) should

take certain liberties with the corse by no means agreeable to a Catholic, particularly as he had manifestly

died without the benefit of the last sacraments. Just as this laudable resolution was formed, they were roused

by cries of horror and agony from the bridal chamber, where the young pair had retired.

They hurried to the door, but the father was first. They burst it open, and found the bride a corse in the arms

He never recovered his reason; the family deserted the mansion rendered terrible by so many misfortunes.

One apartment is still tenanted by the unhappy maniac; his were the cries you heard as you traversed the

deserted rooms. He is for the most part silent during the day, but at midnight he always exclaims, in a voice

frightfully piercing, and hardly human, "They are coming! they are coming!" and relapses into profound

The funeral of Father Olavida was attended by an extraordinary circumstance. He was interred in a

neighboring convent; and the reputation of his sanctity, joined to the interest caused by his extraordinary

death, collected vast numbers at the ceremony. His funeral sermon was preached by a monk of distinguished

eloquence, appointed for the purpose. To render the effect of his discourse more powerful, the corse,

extended on a bier, with its face uncovered, was placed in the aisle. The monk took his text from one of the

prophets,"Death is gone up into our palaces." He expatiated on mortality, whose approach, whether abrupt

or lingering, is alike awful to man.He spoke of the vicisstudes of empires with much eloquence and

learning, but his audience were not observed to be much affected.He cited various passages from the lives

of the saints, descriptive of the glories of martyrdom, and the heroism of those who had bled and blazed for

Christ and his blessed mother, but they appeared still waiting for something to touch them more deeply.

When he inveighed against the tyrants under whose bloody persecution those holy men suffered, his hearers

were roused for a moment, for it is always easier to excite a passion than a moral feeling. But when he spoke

of the dead, and pointed with emphatic gesture to the corse, as it lay before them cold and motionless, every

eye was fixed, and every ear became attentive. Even the lovers, who, under pretense of dipping their fingers

into the holy water, were contriving to exchange amorous billets, forbore for one moment this interesting

intercourse, to listen to the preacher. He dwelt with much energy on the virtues of the deceased, whom he

declared to be a particular favorite of the Virgin; and enumerating the various losses that would be caused by

his departure to the community to which he belonged, to society, and to religion at large; he at last worked up

himself to a vehement expostulation with the Deity on the occasion. "Why hast thou," he exclaimed, "why

hast thou, Oh God! thus dealt with us? Why hast thou snatched from our sight this glorious saint, whose

merits, if properly applied, doubtless would have been sufficient to atone for the apostasy of St. Peter, the

opposition of St. Paul (previous to his conversion), and even the treachery of Judas himself? Why hast thou,

Oh God! snatched him from us?"and a deep and hollow voice from among the congregation

answered,"Because he deserved his fate." The murmurs of approbation with which the congregation

honored this apostrophe half drowned this extraordinary interruption; and though there was some little

commotion in the immediate vicinity of the speaker, the rest of the audience continued to listen intently.

"What," proceeded the preacher, pointing to the corse, "what hath laid thee there, servant of God?""Pride,

ignorance, and fear," answered the same voice, in accents still more thrilling. The disturbance now became

universal. The preacher paused, and a circle opening, disclosed the figure of a monk belonging to the

After all the usual modes of admonition, exhortation, and discipline had been employed, and the bishop of the

diocese, who, under the report of these extraordinary circumstances, had visited the convent in person to

obtain some explanation from the contumacious monk in vain, it was agreed, in a chapter extraordinary, to

surrender him to the power of the Inquisition. He testified great horror when this determination was made

known to him,and offered to tell over and over again all that he COULD relate of the cause of Father

Olavida's death. His humiliation, and repeated offers of confession, came too late. He was conveyed to the

Inquisition. The proceedings of that tribunal are rarely disclosed, but there is a secret report (I cannot answer

for its truth) of what he said and suffered there. On his first examination, he said he would relate all he

"Why did you testify such horror at the funeral of Father Olavida?""Everyone testified horror and grief at

the death of that venerable ecclesiastic, who died in the odor of sanctity. Had I done otherwise, it might have

been reckoned a proof of my guilt." "Why did you interrupt the preacher with such extraordinary

exclamations?"To this no answer. "Why do you refuse to explain the meaning of those

exclamations?"No answer. "Why do you persist in this obstinate and dangerous silence? Look, I beseech

you, brother, at the cross that is suspended against this wall," and the Inquisitor pointed to the large black

crucifix at the back of the chair where he sat; "one drop of the blood shed there can purify you from all the

sin you have ever committed; but all that blood, combined with the intercession of the Queen of Heaven, and

the merits of all its martyrs, nay, even the absolution of the Pope, cannot deliver you from the curse of dying

in unrepented sin.""What sin, then, have I committed?""The greatest of all possible sins; you refuse

answering the questions put to you at the tribunal of the most holy and merciful Inquisition;you will not

tell us what you know concerning the death of Father Olavida.""I have told you that I believe he perished

in consequence of his ignorance and presumption." "What proof can you produce of that?" "He sought the

knowledge of a secret withheld from man." "What was that?""The secret of discovering the presence or

agency of the evil power." "Do you possess that secret?"After much agitation on the part of the prisoner,

he said distinctly, but very faintly, "My master forbids me to disclose it." "If your master were Jesus Christ,

he would not forbid you to obey the commands, or answer the questions of the Inquisition.""I am not sure

of that." There was a general outcry of horror at these words. The examination then went on. "If you believed

Olavida to be guilty of any pursuits or studies condemned by our mother the church, why did you not

denounce him to the Inquisition?""Because I believed him not likely to be injured by such pursuits; his

mind was too weak, he died in the struggle," said the prisoner with great emphasis. "You believe, then, it

requires strength of mind to keep those abominable secrets, when examined as to their nature and

tendency?""No, I rather imagine strength of body." "We shall try that presently," said an Inquisitor, giving

The prisoner underwent the first and second applications with unshrinking courage, but on the infliction of

the watertorture, which is indeed insupportable to humanity, either to suffer or relate, he exclaimed in the

gasping interval, he would disclose everything. He was released, refreshed, restored, and the following day

and that the Englishman certainly had been seen in the neighborhood since;seen, as she had heard, that

very night. "Great Gd!" exclaimed Stanton, as he recollected the stranger whose demoniac laugh had so

appalled him, while gazing on the lifeless bodies of the lovers, whom the lightning had struck and blasted.

As the manuscript, after a few blotted and illegible pages, became more distinct, Melmoth read on, perplexed

and unsatisfied, not knowing what connection this Spanish story could have with his ancestor, whom,

however, he recognized under the title of the Englishman; and wondering how Stanton could have thought it

worth his while to follow him to Ireland, write a long manuscript about an event that occurred in Spain, and

leave it in the hands of his family, to "verify untrue things," in the language of Dogberry, his wonder was

diminished, though his curiosity was still more inflamed, by the perusal of the next lines, which he made out

About the year 1677, Stanton was in London, his mind still full of his mysterious countryman. This constant

subject of his contemplations had produced a visible change in his exterior,his walk was what Sallust tells

us of Catiline's,his were, too, the "faedi oculi." He said to himself every moment, "If I could but trace that

being, I will not call him man,"and the next moment he said, "and what if I could?" In this state of mind, it

is singular enough that he mixed constantly in public amusements, but it is true. When one fierce passion is

devouring the soul, we feel more than ever the necessity of external excitement; and our dependence on the

world for temporary relief increases in direct proportion to our contempt of the world and all its works. He

It was that memorable night, when, according to the history of the veteran Betterton,* Mrs. Barry, who

personated Roxana, had a greenroom squabble with Mrs. Bowtell, the representative of Statira, about a veil,

which the partiality of the property man adjudged to the latter. Roxana suppressed her rage till the fifth act,

when, stabbing Statira, she aimed the blow with such force as to pierce through her stays, and inflict a severe

though not dangerous wound. Mrs. Bowtell fainted, the performance was suspended, and, in the commotion

which this incident caused in the house, many of the audience rose, and Stanton among them. It was at this

moment that, in a seat opposite to him, he discovered the object of his search for four years,the

Englishman whom he had met in the plains of Valencia, and whom he believed the same with the subject of

He was standing up. There was nothing particular or remarkable in his appearance, but the expression of his

eyes could never be mistaken or forgotten. The heart of Stanton palpitated with violence,a mist overspread

his eye,a nameless and deadly sickness, accompanied with a creeping sensation in every pore, from which

Before he had well recovered, a strain of music, soft, solemn, and delicious, breathed round him, audibly

ascending from the ground, and increasing in sweetness and power till it seemed to fill the whole building.

Under the sudden impulse of amazement and pleasure, he inquired of some around him from whence those

exquisite sounds arose. But, by the manner in which he was answered, it was plain that those he addressed

considered him insane; and, indeed, the remarkable change in his expression might well justify the suspicion.

He then remembered that night in Spain, when the same sweet and mysterious sounds were heard only by the

young bridegroom and bride, of whom the latter perished on that very night. "And am I then to be the next

victim?" thought Stanton; "and are those celestial sounds, that seem to prepare us for heaven, only intended to

announce the presence of an incarnate fiend, who mocks the devoted with 'airs from heaven,' while he

prepares to surround them with 'blasts from hell'?" It is very singular that at this moment, when his

imagination had reached its highest pitch of elevation,when the object he had pursued so long and

fruitlessly, had in one moment become as it were tangible to the grasp both of mind and body,when this

spirit, with whom he had wrestled in darkness, was at last about to declare its name, that Stanton began to feel

a kind of disappointment at the futility of his pursuits, like Bruce at discovering the source of the Nile, or

Gibbon on concluding his History. The feeling which he had dwelt on so long, that he had actually converted

it into a duty, was after all mere curiosity; but what passion is more insatiable, or more capable of giving a

kind of romantic grandeur to all its wanderings and eccentricities? Curiosity is in one respect like love, it

always compromises between the object and the feeling; and provided the latter possesses sufficient energy,

no matter how contemptible the former may be. A child might have smiled at the agitation of Stanton, caused

as it was by the accidental appearance of a stranger; but no man, in the full energy of his passions, was there,

but must have trembled at the horrible agony of emotion with which he felt approaching, with sudden and

When the play was over, he stood for some moments in the deserted streets. It was a beautiful moonlight

night, and he saw near him a figure, whose shadow, projected half across the street (there were no flagged

ways then, chains and posts were the only defense of the foot passenger), appeared to him of gigantic

magnitude. He had been so long accustomed to contend with these phantoms of the imagination, that he took

a kind of stubborn delight in subduing them. He walked up to the object, and observing the shadow only was

magnified, and the figure was the ordinary height of man, he approached it, and discovered the very object of

his search,the man whom he had seen for a moment in Valencia, and, after a search of four years,

"You were in quest of me?""I was." "Have you anything to inquire of me?""Much." "Speak,

then.""This is no place." "No place! poor wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, if you have

anything to ask or to learn.""I have many things to ask, but nothing to learn, I hope, from you." "You

deceive yourself, but you will be undeceived when next we meet.""And when shall that be?" said Stanton,

grasping his arm; "name your hour and your place." "The hour shall be midday," answered the stranger, with

a horrid and unintelligible smile; "and the place shall be the bare walls of a madhouse, where you shall rise

rattling in your chains, and rustling from your straw, to greet me,yet still you shall have THE CURSE OF

SANITY, and of memory. My voice shall ring in your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be

reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold them again.""Is it under circumstances

so horrible we are to meet again?" said Stanton, shrinking under the fulllighted blaze of those demon eyes.

"I never," said the stranger, in an emphatic tone,"I never desert my friends in misfortune. When they are

plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, they are sure to be visited by me."

The narrative, when Melmoth was again able to trace its continuation, described Stanton, some years after,

He had been always reckoned of a singular turn of mind, and the belief of this, aggravated by his constant

talk of Melmoth, his wild pursuit of him, his strange behavior at the theater, and his dwelling on the various

particulars of their extraordinary meetings, with all the intensity of the deepest conviction (while he never

could impress them on any one's conviction but his own), suggested to some prudent people the idea that he

was deranged. Their malignity probably took part with their prudence. The selfish Frenchman* says, we feel

a pleasure even in the misfortunes of our friends,a plus forte in those of our enemies; and as everyone is an

enemy to a man of genius of course, the report of Stanton's malady was propagated with infernal and

successful industry. Stanton's next relative, a needy unprincipled man, watched the report in its circulation,

and saw the snares closing round his victim. He waited on him one morning, accompanied by a person of a

grave, though somewhat repulsive appearance. Stanton was as usual abstracted and restless, and, after a few

moments' conversation, he proposed a drive a few miles out of London, which he said would revive and

refresh him. Stanton objected, on account of the difficulty of getting a hackney coach (for it is singular that at

this period the number of private equipages, though infinitely fewer than they are now, exceeded the number

of hired ones), and proposed going by water. This, however, did not suit the kinsman's views; and, after

pretending to send for a carriage (which was in waiting at the end of the street), Stanton and his companions

The carriage then stopped. Come, Cousin," said the younger Stanton,"come and view a purchase I have

made." Stanton absently alighted, and followed him across a small paved court; the other person followed.

"In troth, Cousin," said Stanton, "your choice appears not to have been discreetly made; your house has

somewhat of a gloomy aspect.""Hold you content, Cousin," replied the other; "I shall take order that you

like it better, when you have been some time a dweller therein." Some attendants of a mean appearance, and

with most suspicious visages, awaited them on their entrance, and they ascended a narrow staircase, which

led to a room meanly furnished. "Wait here," said the kinsman, to the man who accompanied them, "till I go

for company to divertise my cousin in his loneliness." They were left alone. Stanton took no notice of his

companion, but as usual seized the first book near him, and began to read. It was a volume in

The first lines struck him as indicating insanity in the writer. It was a wild proposal (written apparently after

the great fire of London) to rebuild it with stone, and attempting to prove, on a calculation wild, false, and yet

sometimes plausible, that this could be done out of the colossal fragments of Stonehenge, which the writer

proposed to remove for that purpose. Subjoined were several grotesque drawings of engines designed to

remove those massive blocks, and in a corner of the page was a note,"I would have drawn these more

The next was entitled, "A modest proposal for the spreading of Christianity in foreign parts, whereby it is

hoped its entertainment will become general all over the world."This modest proposal was, to convert the

Turkish ambassadors (who had been in London a few years before), by offering them their choice of being

strangled on the spot, or becoming Christians. Of course the writer reckoned on their embracing the easier

alternative, but even this was to be clogged with a heavy condition,namely, that they must be bound before

a magistrate to convert twenty Mussulmans a day, on their return to Turkey. The rest of the pamphlet was

reasoned very much in the conclusive style of Captain Bobadil, these twenty will convert twenty more

apiece, and these two hundred converts, converting their due number in the same time, all Turkey would be

converted before the Grand Signior knew where he was. Then comes the coup d'eclat,one fine morning,

every minaret in Constantinople was to ring out with bells, instead of the cry of the Muezzins; and the

Imaum, coming out to see what was the matter, was to be encountered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in

pontificalibus, performing Cathedral service in the church of St. Sophia, which was to finish the business.

Here an objection appeared to arise, which the ingenuity of the writer had anticipated."It may be

redargued," saith he, "by those who have more spleen than brain, that forasmuch as the Archbishop preacheth

in English, he will not thereby much edify the Turkish folk, who do altogether hold in a vain gabble of their

own." But this (to use his own language) he "evites," by judiciously observing, that where service was

performed in an unknown tongue, the devotion of the people was always observed to be much increased

thereby; as, for instance, in the church of Rome,that St. Augustine, with his monks, advanced to meet King

Ethelbert singing litanies (in a language his majesty could not possibly have understood), and converted him

Between the pages were cut most exquisitely in paper the likenesses of some of these Turkish ambassadors;

the hair of the beards, in particular, was feathered with a delicacy of touch that seemed the work of fairy

fingers,but the pages ended with a complaint of the operator, that his scissors had been taken from him.

However, he consoled himself and the reader with the assurance, that he would that night catch a moonbeam

as it entered through the grating, and, when he had whetted it on the iron knobs of his door, would do

wonders with it. In the next page was found a melancholy proof of powerful but prostrated intellect. It

There is no proof whatever that these miserable lines were really written by Lee, except that the measure is

the fashionable quatrain of the period. It is singular that Stanton read on without suspicion of his own danger,

quite absorbed in the album of a madhouse, without ever reflecting on the place where he was, and which

It was after a long interval that he looked round, and perceived that his companion was gone. Bells were

unusual then. He proceeded to the door,it was fastened. He called aloud,his voice was echoed in a

moment by many others, but in tones so wild and discordant, that he desisted in involuntary terror. As the day

advanced, and no one approached, he tried the window, and then perceived for the first time it was grated. It

looked out on the narrow flagged yard, in which no human being was; and if there had, from such a being no

Sickening with unspeakable horror, he sunk rather than sat down beside the miserable window, and "wished

At midnight he started from a doze, half a swoon, half a sleep, which probably the hardness of his seat, and of

He was in complete darkness; the horror of his situation struck him at once, and for a moment he was indeed

almost qualified for an inmate of that dreadful mansion. He felt his way to the door, shook it with desperate

strength, and uttered the most frightful cries, mixed with expostulations and commands. His cries were in a

moment echoed by a hundred voices. In maniacs there is a peculiar malignity, accompanied by an

extraordinary acuteness of some of the senses, particularly in distinguishing the voice of a stranger. The cries

that he heard on every side seemed like a wild and infernal yell of joy, that their mansion of misery had

He paused, exhausted,a quick and thundering step was heard in the passage. The door was opened, and a

man of savage appearance stood at the entrance,two more were seen indistinctly in the passage. "Release

me, villain!""Stop, my fine fellow, what's all this noise for?" "Where am I?" "Where you ought to be."

"Will you dare to detain me?""Yes, and a little more than that," answered the ruffian, applying a loaded

horsewhip to his back and shoulders, till the patient soon fell to the ground convulsed with rage and pain.

"Now you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him,

"and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies,

and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were

advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or

used), and showed, by their frightful countenances and gestures, no unwillingness to apply them. Their harsh

rattle on the stone pavement made Stanton's blood run cold; the effect, however, was useful. He had the

presence of mind to acknowledge his (supposed) miserable condition, to supplicate the forbearance of the

ruthless keeper, and promise complete submission to his orders. This pacified the ruffian, and he retired.

Stanton collected all his resolution to encounter the horrible night; he saw all that was before him, and

summoned himself to meet it. After much agitated deliberation, he conceived it best to continue the same

appearance of submission and tranquillity, hoping that thus he might in time either propitiate the wretches in

whose hands he was, or, by his apparent inoffensiveness, procure such opportunities of indulgence, as might

perhaps ultimately facilitate his escape. He therefore determined to conduct himself with the utmost

tranquillity, and never to let his voice be heard in the house; and he laid down several other resolutions with a

degree of prudence which he already shuddered to think might be the cunning of incipient madness, or the

These resolutions were put to desperate trial that very night. Just next to Stanton's apartment were lodged two

most uncongenial neighbors. One of them was a puritanical weaver, who had been driven mad by a single

sermon from the celebrated Hugh Peters, and was sent to the madhouse as full of election and reprobation as

he could hold,and fuller. He regularly repeated over the five points while daylight lasted, and imagined

himself preaching in a conventicle with distinguished success; toward twilight his visions were more gloomy,

and at midnight his blasphemies became horrible. In the opposite cell was lodged a loyalist tailor, who had

been ruined by giving credit to the cavaliers and their ladies,(for at this time, and much later, down to the

reign of Anne, tailors were employed by females even to make and fit on their stays),who had run mad

with drink and loyalty on the burning of the Rump, and ever since had made the cells of the madhouse echo

with fragments of the illfated Colonel Lovelace's song, scraps from Cowley's "Cutter of Coleman street,"

and some curious specimens from Mrs. Aphra Behn's plays, where the cavaliers are denominated the

heroicks, and Lady Lambert and Lady Desborough represented as going to meeting, their large Bibles carried

before them by their pages, and falling in love with two banished cavaliers by the way. The voice in which he

shrieked out such words was powerfully horrible, but it was like the moan of an infant compared to the voice

which took up and reechoed the cry, in a tone that made the building shake. It was the voice of a maniac, who

had lost her husband, children, subsistence, and finally her reason, in the dreadful fire of London. The cry of

fire never failed to operate with terrible punctuality on her associations. She had been in a disturbed sleep,

and now started from it as suddenly as on that dreadful night. It was Saturday night too, and she was always

observed to be particularly violent on that night,it was the terrible weekly festival of insanity with her. She

was awake, and busy in a moment escaping from the flames; and she dramatized the whole scene with such

hideous fidelity, that Stanton's resolution was far more in danger from her than from the battle between his

neighbors Testimony and Hothead. She began exclaiming she was suffocated by the smoke; then she sprung

from her bed, calling for a light, and appeared to be struck by the sudden glare that burst through her

casement."The last day," she shrieked, "The last day! The very heavens are on fire!""That will not come

till the Man of Sin be first destroyed," cried the weaver; "thou ravest of light and fire, and yet thou art in utter

darkness.I pity thee, poor mad soul, I pity thee!" The maniac never heeded him; she appeared to be

scrambling up a staircase to her children's room. She exclaimed she was scorched, singed, suffocated; her

courage appeared to fail, and she retreated. "But my children are there!" she cried in a voice of unspeakable

agony, as she seemed to make another effort; "here I amhere I am come to save you.Oh God! They are

all blazing!Take this armno, not that, it is scorched and disabled well, any armtake hold of my

clothesno, they are blazing too! Well, take me all on fire as I am!And their hair, how it

hisses!Water, one drop of water for my youngesthe is but an infantfor my youngest, and let me

burn!" She paused in horrid silence, to watch the fall of a blazing rafter that was about to shatter the staircase

on which she stood."The roof has fallen on my head!" she exclaimed. "The earth is weak, and all the

The maniac marked the destruction of the spot where she thought she stood by one desperate bound,

accompanied by a wild shriek, and then calmly gazed on her infants as they rolled over the scorching

fragments, and sunk into the abyss of fire below. "There they go, onetwothreeall!" and her voice

sunk into low mutterings, and her convulsions into faint, cold shudderings, like the sobbings of a spent storm,

as she imagined herself to "stand in safety and despair," amid the thousand houseless wretches assembled in

the suburbs of London on the dreadful nights after the fire, without food, roof, or raiment, all gazing on the

burning ruins of their dwellings and their property. She seemed to listen to their complaints, and even

repeated some of them very affectingly, but invariably answered them with the same words, "But I have lost

all my childrenall!" It was remarkable, that when this sufferer began to rave, all the others became silent.

The cry of nature hushed every other cry,she was the only patient in the house who was not mad from

politics, religion, ebriety, or some perverted passion; and terrifying as the outbreak of her frenzy always was,

Stanton used to await it as a kind of relief from the dissonant, melancholy, and ludicrous ravings of the

But the utmost efforts of his resolution began to sink under the continued horrors of the place. The

impression on his senses began to defy the power of reason to resist them. He could not shut out these

frightful cries nightly repeated, nor the frightful sound of the whip employed to still them. Hope began to fail

him, as he observed, that the submissive tranquillity (which he had imagined, by obtaining increased

indulgence, might contribute to his escape, or perhaps convince the keeper of his sanity) was interpreted by

the callous ruffian, who was acquainted only with the varieties of MADNESS, as a more refined species of

On his first discovery of his situation, he had determined to take the utmost care of his health and intellect

that the place allowed, as the sole basis of his hope of deliverance. But as that hope declined, he neglected the

means of realizing it. He had at first risen early, walked incessantly about his cell, and availed himself of

every opportunity of being in the open air. He took the strictest care of his person in point of cleanliness, and

with or without appetite, regularly forced down his miserable meals; and all these efforts were even pleasant,

as long as hope prompted them. But now he began to relax them all. He passed half the day in his wretched

bed, in which he frequently took his meals, declined shaving or changing his linen, and, when the sun shone

into his cell, he turned from it on his straw with a sigh of heartbroken despondency. Formerly, when the air

breathed through his grating, he used to say, "Blessed air of heaven, I shall breathe you once more in

freedom!Reserve all your freshness for that delicious evening when I shall inhale you, and be as free as

you myself." Now when he felt it, he sighed and said nothing. The twitter of the sparrows, the pattering of

rain, or the moan of the wind, sounds that he used to sit up in his bed to catch with delight, as reminding him

He began at times to listen with sullen and horrible pleasure to the cries of his miserable companions. He

It was one of those dismal nights, that, as he tossed on his loathsome bed,more loathsome from the

impossibility to quit it without feeling more "unrest,"he perceived the miserable light that burned in the

hearth was obscured by the intervention of some dark object. He turned feebly toward the light, without

curiosity, without excitement, but with a wish to diversify the monotony of his misery, by observing the

slightest change made even accidentally in the dusky atmosphere of his cell. Between him and the light stood

the figure of Melmoth, just as he had seen him from the first; the figure was the same; the expression of the

face was the same,cold, stony, and rigid; the eyes, with their infernal and dazzling luster, were still the

Stanton's ruling passion rushed on his soul; he felt this apparition like a summons to a high and fearful

encounter. He heard his heart beat audibly, and could have exclaimed with Lee's unfortunate heroine,"It

Melmoth approached him with that frightful calmness that mocks the terror it excites. "My prophecy has been

fulfilled;you rise to meet me rattling from your chains, and rustling from your strawam I not a true

prophet?" Stanton was silent. "Is not your situation very miserable?"Still Stanton was silent; for he was

beginning to believe this an illusion of madness. He thought to himself, "How could he have gained entrance

here?""Would you not wish to be delivered from it?" Stanton tossed on his straw, and its rustling seemed

to answer the question. "I have the power to deliver you from it." Melmoth spoke very slowly and very softly,

and the melodious smoothness of his voice made a frightful contrast to the stony rigor of his features, and the

fiendlike brilliancy of his eyes. "Who are you, and whence come you?" said Stanton, in a tone that was meant

to be interrogatory and imperative, but which, from his habits of squalid debility, was at once feeble and

querulous. His intellect had become affected by the gloom of his miserable habitation, as the wretched inmate

of a similar mansion, when produced before a medical examiner, was reported to be a complete Albino.His

skin was bleached, his eyes turned white; he could not bear the light; and, when exposed to it, he turned away

with a mixture of weakness and restlessness, more like the writhings of a sick infant than the struggles of a

Such was Stanton's situation. He was enfeebled now, and the power of the enemy seemed without a

Of all their horrible dialogue, only these words were legible in the manuscript, "You know me now.""I

always knew you.""That is false; you imagined you did, and that has been the cause of all the wild . of the

. . . . . . of your finally being lodged in this mansion of misery, where only I would seek, where only I can

succor you.""You, demon!" "Demon!Harsh words!Was it a demon or a human being placed you

here?Listen to me, Stanton; nay, wrap not yourself in that miserable blanket,that cannot shut out my

words. Believe me, were you folded in thunder clouds, you must hear ME! Stanton, think of your misery.

These bare wallswhat do they present to the intellect or to the senses?Whitewash, diversified with the

scrawls of charcoal or red chalk, that your happy predecessors have left for you to trace over. You have a

taste for drawingI trust it will improve. And here's a grating, through which the sun squints on you like a

stepdame, and the breeze blows, as if it meant to tantalize you with a sigh from that sweet mouth, whose kiss

you must never enjoy. And where's your library,intellectual man,traveled man?" he repeated in a tone of

bitter derision; "where be your companions, your peaked men of countries, as your favorite Shakespeare has

it? You must be content with the spider and the rat, to crawl and scratch round your flock bed! I have known

prisoners in the Bastille to feed them for companions,why don't you begin your task? I have known a

spider to descend at the tap of a finger, and a rat to come forth when the daily meal was brought, to share it

with his fellow prisoner!How delightful to have vermin for your guests! Aye, and when the feast fails

them, they make a meal of their entertainer!You shudder.Are you, then, the first prisoner who has been

devoured alive by the vermin that infested his cell?Delightful banquet, not 'where you eat, but where you

are eaten'! Your guests, however, will give you one token of repentance while they feed; there will be

gnashing of teeth, and you shall hear it, and feel it too perchance!And then for mealsOh you are daintily

off!The soup that the cat has lapped; and (as her progeny has probably contributed to the hell broth) why

not? Then your hours of solitude, deliciously diversified by the yell of famine, the howl of madness, the crash

of whips, and the brokenhearted sob of those who, like you, are supposed, or DRIVEN mad by the crimes of

others!Stanton, do you imagine your reason can possibly hold out amid such scenes? Supposing your

reason was unimpaired, your health not destroyed, suppose all this, which is, after all, more than fair

supposition can grant, guess the effect of the continuance of these scenes on your senses alone. A time will

come, and soon, when, from mere habit, you will echo the scream of every delirious wretch that harbors near

you; then you will pause, clasp your hands on your throbbing head, and listen with horrible anxiety whether

the scream proceeded from YOU or THEM. The time will come, when, from the want of occupation, the

listless and horrible vacancy of your hours, you will feel as anxious to hear those shrieks, as you were at first

terrified to hear them,when you will watch for the ravings of your next neighbor, as you would for a scene

on the stage. All humanity will be extinguished in you. The ravings of these wretches will become at once

your sport and your torture. You will watch for the sounds, to mock them with the grimaces and bellowings

of a fiend. The mind has a power of accommodating itself to its situation, that you will experience in its most

frightful and deplorable efficacy. Then comes the dreadful doubt of one's own sanity, the terrible announcer

that THAT doubt will soon become fear, and THAT fear certainty. Perhaps (still more dreadful) the FEAR

will at last become a HOPE,shut out from society, watched by a brutal keeper, writhing with all the

impotent agony of an incarcerated mind, without communication and without sympathy, unable to exchange

ideas but with those whose ideas are only the hideous specters of departed intellect, or even to hear the

welcome sound of the human voice, except to mistake it for the howl of a fiend, and stop the ear desecrated

by its intrusion, then at last your fear will become a more fearful hope; you will wish to become one of

them, to escape the agony of consciousness. As those who have long leaned over a precipice, have at last felt

a desire to plunge below, to relieve the intolerable temptation of their giddiness,* you will hear them laugh

amid their wildest paroxysms; you will say, 'Doubtless those wretches have some consolation, but I have

none; my sanity is my greatest curse in this abode of horrors. They greedily devour their miserable meals,

while I loathe mine. They sleep sometimes soundly, while my sleep isworse than their waking. They are

revived every morning by some delicious illusion of cunning madness, soothing them with the hope of

escaping, baffling or tormenting their keeper; my sanity precludes all such hope. I KNOW I NEVER CAN

ESCAPE, and the preservation of my faculties is only an aggravation of my sufferings. I have all their

miseries,I have none of their consolations. They laugh,I hear them; would I could laugh like them.' You

will try, and the very effort will be an invocation to the demon of insanity to come and take full possession of

A fact, related to me by a person who was near committing suicide in a similar situation, to escape

(There were other details, both of the menaces and temptations employed by Melmoth, which are too horrible

"You think that the intellectual power is something distinct from the vitality of the soul, or, in other words,

that if even your reason should be destroyed (which it nearly is), your soul might yet enjoy beatitude in the

full exercise of its enlarged and exalted faculties, and all the clouds which obscured them be dispelled by the

Sun of Righteousness, in whose beams you hope to bask forever and ever. Now, without going into any

metaphysical subtleties about the distinction between mind and soul, experience must teach you, that there

can be no crime into which madmen would not, and do not, precipitate themselves; mischief is their

occupation, malice their habit, murder their sport, and blasphemy their delight. Whether a soul in this state

can be in a hopeful one, it is for you to judge; but it seems to me, that with the loss of reason (and reason

cannot long be retained in this place) you lose also the hope of immortality.Listen," said the tempter,

pausing, "listen to the wretch who is raving near you, and whose blasphemies might make a demon

start.He was once an eminent puritanical preacher. Half the day he imagines himself in a pulpit,

denouncing damnation against Papists, Arminians, and even Sublapsarians (he being a Supralapsarian

himself). He foams, he writhes, he gnashes his teeth; you would imagine him in the hell he was painting, and

that the fire and brimstone he is so lavish of were actually exhaling from his jaws. At night his creed retaliates

on him; he believes himself one of the reprobates he has been all day denouncing, and curses God for the

"He, whom he has for twelve hours been vociferating 'is the loveliest among ten thousand,' becomes the

object of demoniac hostility and execration. He grapples with the iron posts of his bed, and says he is rooting

out the cross from the very foundations of Calvary; and it is remarkable, that in proportion as his morning

exercises are intense, vivid, and eloquent, his nightly blasphemies are outrageous and horrible.Hark! Now

"Escapeescape for your life," cried the tempter; "break forth into life, liberty, and sanity. Your social

happiness, your intellectual powers, your immortal interests, perhaps, depend on the choice of this

moment.There is the door, and the key is in my hand.Choosechoose!""And how comes the key in

The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of young Melmoth, were wholly illegible. It

seemed, however, to have been rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for Melmoth at last made

out,"Begone, monster, demon!begone to your native place. Even this mansion of horror trembles to

The conclusion of this extraordinary manuscript was in such a state, that, in fifteen moldy and crumbling

pages, Melmoth could hardly make out that number of lines. No antiquarian, unfolding with trembling hand

the calcined leaves of an Herculaneum manuscript, and hoping to discover some lost lines of the Aeneis in

Virgil's own autograph, or at least some unutterable abomination of Petronius or Martial, happily elucidatory

of the mysteries of the Spintriae, or the orgies of the Phallic worshipers, ever pored with more luckless

diligence, or shook a head of more hopeless despondency over his task. He could but just make out what

tended rather to excite than assuage that feverish thirst of curiosity which was consuming his inmost soul.

The manuscript told no more of Melmoth, but mentioned that Stanton was finally liberated from his

confinement,that his pursuit of Melmoth was incessant and indefatigable,that he himself allowed it to be

a species of insanity,that while he acknowledged it to be the master passion, he also felt it the master

torment of his life. He again visited the Continent, returned to England,pursued, inquired, traced, bribed,

but in vain. The being whom he had met thrice, under circumstances so extraordinary, he was fated never to

encounter again IN HIS LIFETIME. At length, discovering that he had been born in Ireland, he resolved to

go there,went, and found his pursuit again fruitless, and his inquiries unanswered. The family knew

nothing of him, or at least what they knew or imagined, they prudently refused to disclose to a stranger, and

Stanton departed unsatisfied. It is remarkable, that he too, as appeared from many halfobliterated pages of

the manuscript, never disclosed to mortal the particulars of their conversation in the madhouse; and the

slightest allusion to it threw him into fits of rage and gloom equally singular and alarming. He left the

manuscript, however, in the hands of the family, possibly deeming, from their incuriosity, their apparent

indifference to their relative, or their obvious unacquaintance with reading of any kind, manuscript or books,

his deposit would be safe. He seems, in fact, to have acted like men, who, in distress at sea, intrust their

letters and dispatches to a bottle sealed, and commit it to the waves. The last lines of the manuscript that were

"I have sought him everywhere.The desire of meeting him once more is become as a burning fire within

me,it is the necessary condition of my existence. I have vainly sought him at last in Ireland, of which I find

Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in his uncle's closet. When he had finished

it, he sunk down on the table near which he had been reading it, his face hid in his folded arms, his senses

reeling, his mind in a mingled state of stupor and excitement. After a few moments, he raised himself with an

involuntary start, and saw the picture gazing at him from its canvas. He was within ten inches of it as he sat,

and the proximity appeared increased by the strong light that was accidentally thrown on it, and its being the

only representation of a human figure in the room. Melmoth felt for a moment as if he were about to receive

He gazed on it in return,all was silent in the house,they were alone together. The illusion subsided at

length: and as the mind rapidly passes to opposite extremes, he remembered the injunction of his uncle to

destroy the portrait. He seized it;his hand shook at first, but the moldering canvas appeared to assist him in

the effort. He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific, half triumphant,it fell at his feet, and he

shuddered as it fell. He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginable breathings of prophetic

horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for such he felt it, to tear the portrait of his ancestor from his native walls.

He paused and listened:"There was no voice, nor any that answered;"but as the wrinkled and torn

canvas fell to the floor, its undulations gave the portrait the appearance of smiling. Melmoth felt horror

indescribable at this transient and imaginary resuscitation of the figure. He caught it up, rushed into the next

room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in

the turf fire which had been lit in his room. As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope

of a deep and intense sleep. He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted both in mind and

body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had hoped for. The sullen light of the turf fire, burning but

never blazing, disturbed him every moment. He turned and turned, but still there was the same red light

glaring on, but not illuminating, the dusky furniture of the apartment. The wind was high that night, and as

the creaking door swung on its hinges, every noise seemed like the sound of a hand struggling with the lock,

or of a foot pausing on the threshold. But (for Melmoth never could decide) was it in a dream or not, that he

saw the figure of his ancestor appear at the door?hesitatingly as he saw him at first on the night of his

uncle's death,saw him enter the room, approach his bed, and heard him whisper, "You have burned me,

then; but those are flames I can survive.I am alive,I am beside you." Melmoth started, sprung from his

bed,it was broad daylight. He looked round,there was no human being in the room but himself. He felt a

slight pain in the wrist of his right arm. He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of a

Balzac's tale, Melmoth Reconciled, in Vol. IV., furnishes a solution to the terrible problem which Maturin

The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence

Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is

generally unknown. His rollicking frankness, his audacious unconventionality, are enough to account for the

neglect. Even the easy mannered England of 1760 opened its eyes in horror when "Tristram Shandy"

appeared. "A most unclerical clergyman," the public pronounced the rector of Sutton and prebendary of

Besides, his style was rambling to the last degree. Plot concerned him least of all authors of fiction.

For instance, it is more than doubtful that the whimsical parson really INTENDED a moral to be read into the

adventures of his "Sentimental Journey" that follow in these pages. He used to declare that he never intended

anythinghe never knew whither his pen was leadingthe rash implement, once in hand, was likely to fly

with him from Yorkshire to Italyor to Parisor across the road to Uncle Toby's; and what could the

So here is one such "occasion" thus "improved" by disjointed sequelsheedless, one would say, and yet

glittering with the unreturnable thrust of subtle wit, or softening with simple emotion, like a thousand

Even the slightest turns of Sterne's pen bear inspiration. No less a critic than the severe Hazlitt was satisfied

And because the editors of the present volumes found added to "The Mystery" not only a "Solution" but an

"Application" of worldly wisdom, and a "Contrast" in Sterne's best vein of quiet happiness they have felt

As regards the "Application": Sterne knew whereof he wrote. He sought the South of France for health in

1762, and was run after and feted by the most brilliant circles of Parisian litterateurs. This foreign sojourn

failed to cure his lung complaint, but suggested the idea to him of the rambling and charming "Sentimental

Journey." Only three weeks after its publication, on March 18, 1768, Sterne died alone in his London

Spite of all that marred his genius, his work has lived and wil1 live, if only for the exquisite literary art which

I remained at the gate of the hotel for some time, looking at everyone who passed by, and forming

conjectures upon them, till my attention got fixed upon a single object, which confounded all kind of

It was a tall figure of a philosophic, serious adult look, which passed and repassed sedately along the street,

making a turn of about sixty paces on each side of the gate of the hotel. The man was about fiftytwo, had a

small cane under his arm, was dressed in a dark drabcolored coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which seemed to

have seen some years' service. They were still clean, and there was a little air of frugal propriete throughout

him. By his pulling off his hat, and his attitude of accosting a good many in his way, I saw he was asking

charity; so I got a sous or two out of my pocket, ready to give him as he took me in his turn. He passed by me

without asking anything, and yet he did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman. I

was much more likely to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat

off to another who was coming the same way. An ancient gentleman came slowly, and after him a young

smart one. He let them both pass and asked nothing. I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had

made a dozen turns backward and forward, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.

There were two things very singular in this which set my brain to work, and to no purpose; the first was, why

the man should only tell his story to the sex; and secondly, what kind of a story it was and what species of

eloquence it could be which softened the hearts of the women which he knew it was to no purpose to practice

There were two other circumstances which entangled this mystery. The one was, he told every woman what

he had to say in her ear, and in a way which had much more the air of a secret than a petition; the other was,

it was always successfulhe never stopped a woman but she pulled out her purse and immediately gave him

I had got a riddle to amuse me for the rest of the evening, so I walked upstairs to my chamber.

The man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent, good man, and fit for a

hundred things, but he will not do to make a sentimental traveler. I count little of the many things I see pass at

broad noonday, in large and open streets; Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an

unobservable corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen

French plays compounded together; and yet they are ABSOLUTELY fine, and whenever I have a more

brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make

my sermon out of them, and for the text, "Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia," is as good

There is a long, dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a narrow street. It is trod by a few

who humbly wait for a fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done. At the end of it,

toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get halfway

down, but near the doorit is more for ornament than useyou see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude;

In returning [from the opera] along this passage, I discerned, as I approached within five or six paces of the

door, two ladies standing arm in arm with their backs against the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a fiacre. As

they were next the door, I thought they had a prior right, so I edged myself up within a yard or little more of

The lady next me was a tall, lean figure of a woman of about thirtysix; the other, of the same size and make

of about forty. There was no mark of wife or widow in any one part of either of them. They seemed to be two

upright vestal sisters, unsapped by caresses, unbroke in upon by tender salutations. I could have wished to

have made them happy. Their happiness was destined, that night, to come from another quarter.

A low voice with a good turn of expression and sweet cadence at the end of it, begged for a twelvesous

piece between them for the love of heaven. I thought it singular that a beggar should fix the quota of an alms,

and that the sum should be twelve times as much as what is usually given in the dark. They both seemed

astonished at it as much as myself. "Twelve sous," said one. "A twelvesous piece," said the other, and made

The poor man said he knew not how to ask less of ladies of their rank, and bowed down his head to the

"Then God bless you," said the poor man, "and multiply those joys which you can give to others without

I observed the older sister put her hand into her pocket. "I will see," said she, "if I have a sous."

"A sous! Give twelve," said the suppliant. "Nature has been bountiful to you; be bountiful to a poor man."

"My fair charitable," said he, addressing himself to the elder, "what is it but your goodness and humanity

which make your bright eyes so sweet that they outshine the morning even in this dark passage? And what

was it which made the Marquis de Santerre and his brother say so much of you both, as they just passed by?"

The two ladies seemed much affected, and impulsively at the same time they put their hands into their

The contest between them and the poor suppliant was no more. It was continued between themselves which

of the two should give the twelvesous piece in charity, and, to end the dispute, they both gave it together,

I stepped hastily after him; it was the very man whose success in asking charity of the woman before the door

of the hotel had so puzzled me, and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it: it was flattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! How strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses

on thy side! How sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous

The poor man, as he was not straitened for time, had given it here in a larger dose. It is certain he had a way

of bringing it into less form for the many sudden causes he had to do with in the streets; but how he contrived

to correct, sweeten, concenter, and qualify itI vex not my spirit with the inquiry. It is enough, the beggar

gained two twelvesous pieces, and they can best tell the rest who have gained much greater matters by it.

We get forward in the world not so much by doing services as receiving them. You take a withering twig and

Monsieur le Comte de B, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport,

would go on and do me another the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank;

I had got master of my SECRET just in time to turn these honors to some little account; otherwise, as is

commonly the case, I should have dined or supped a single time or two round, and then by TRANSLATING

French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen that I had got hold of the couvert*

of some more entertaining guest; and in course of time should have resigned all my places one after another,

merely upon the principle that I could not keep them. As it was, things did not go much amiss.

I had the honor of being introduced to the old Marquis de B. In days of yore he had signalized himself

by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the idea of tilts and

tournaments ever since. The Marquis de B wished to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than

in his brain. "He could like to take a trip to England," and asked much of the English ladies. "Stay where you

are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis," said I. "Les Messieurs Anglais can scarce get a kind look from

M. P, the farmergeneral, was just as inquisitive about our taxes. They were very considerable, he

I had been misrepresented to Mme. de Q as an espritMme. de Q was an esprit herself; she

burned with impatience to see me and hear me talk. I had not taken my seat before I saw she did not care a

sou whether I had any wit or no. I was let in to be convinced she had. I call Heaven to witness I never once

Mme. de V vowed to every creature she met, "She had never had a more improving conversation with a

There are three epochs in the empire of a Frenchwomanshe is coquette, then deist, then devote. The empire

during these is never lostshe only changes her subjects. When thirtyfive years and more have unpeopled

her dominion of the slaves of love she repeoples it with slaves of infidelity, and, then with the slaves of the

Mme. de V was vibrating between the first of these epochs; the color of the rose was fading fast away;

she ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the honor to pay my first visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her for the sake of disputing the point of religion more closely. In

I told Mme. de V it might be her principle, but I was sure it could not be her interest, to level the

outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as hers could be defended; that there was

not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist; that it was a debt I owed my creed not

to conceal it from her; that I had not been five minutes upon the sofa beside her before I had begun to form

designs; and what is it but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in her breast, which

"We are not adamant," said I, taking hold of her hand, "and there is need of all restraints till age in her own

time steals in and lays them on us; but, my dear lady," said I, kissing her hand, "it is tootoo soon."

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Mme. de V. She affirmed to M. D and the

Abbe M that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion than all their encyclopaedia had said

against it. I was listed directly into Mme. de Vo's coterie, and she put off the epoch of deism for two

I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was showing the necessity of a first

cause, that the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room, to tell me that

my solitaire was pinned too strait about my neck. "It should be plus badinant," said the count, looking down

The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardor than ever I was embraced by mortal man.

For three weeks together I was of every man's opinion I met. "Pardi! ce M. Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous

And at this price I could have eaten and drunk and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but it was a

dishonest reckoning. I grew ashamed of it; it was the gain of a slave; every sentiment of honor revolted

against it; the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system; the better the coterie, the more

children of Art, I languished for those of Nature. And one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to

half a dozen different people, I grew sick, went to bed, and ordered horses in the morning to set out for Italy.

A shoe coming loose from the forefoot of the thill horse at the beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the

postilion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket; as the ascent was of five or six miles, and

that horse our main dependence I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again as well as we could, but

the postilion had thrown away the nails, and the hammer in the chaise box being of no great use without

He had not mounted half a mile higher when, coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second

shoe, and from off his other forefoot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest, and seeing a house about a

quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postilion to turn up to it. The

look of the house, and of everything about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. It was a

little farmhouse surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn, and close to the house

on one side was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of everything which could make plenty in a French

peasant's house, and on the other side was a little wood which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about

eight in the evening when I got to the house, so I left the postilion to manage his point as he could, and for

The family consisted of an old grayheaded man and his wife, with five or six sons and sonsinlaws, and

They were all sitting down together to their lentil soup. A large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table,

and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast 'twas a feast of love.

The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table. My

heart was sat down the moment I entered the room, so I sat down at once like a son of the family, and to

invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up

the loaf cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest

Was it this, or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel so sweet, and to what magic I owe it

that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it that they remain upon my palate to this hour?

When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife to bid them prepare

for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment

to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots, and in three

minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. The old man and his wife

came out last, and, placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,* and at the age he was then

of, touched well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and

joined her old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

A small violin, such as was used by the wandering jongleurs of the Middle Ages.EDITOR.

It was not till the middle of the second dance when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all

seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or

the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld RELIGION mixing in the dance; but, as I had never

seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination, which is

eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant

way, and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and

rejoice, believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an

When you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons. Adieu then to all rapid

movements! It is a journey of caution, and it fares better with sentiments not to be in a hurry with them, so I

contracted with a volturin to take his time with a couple of mules and convey me in my own chaise safe to

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people, fear not! Your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be

envied you by the world, nor will your values be invaded by it. Nature, in the midst of thy disorders, thou art

still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created; with all thy great works about thee little hast thou left to give,

either to the scythe or to the sickle, but to that little thou grantest safety and protection, and sweet are the

At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for

young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden

at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little

thing just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the house was for tools or hens), and in that

house to put our hands into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it. I put my hand into the

sack. My hand came out quite black. I went and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands

By reason of my tender age (and there are some critics who, I hope, will be satisfied by my acknowledging

that I am a hundred and fiftysix next birthday) I could not understand what was the meaning of this night

excursionthis candle, this tool house, this bag of soot. I think we little boys were taken out of our sleep to

be brought to the ordeal. We came, then, and showed our little hands to the master; washed them or

Something had been stolen in the school that day; and Mr. Wiseacre having read in a book of an ingenious

method of finding out a thief by making him put his hand into a sack (which, if guilty, the rogue would shirk

from doing), all we boys were subjected to the trial. Goodness knows what the lost object was, or who stole

it. We all had black hands to show the master. And the thief, whoever he was, was not Found Out that time.

I wonder if the rascal is alivean elderly scoundrel he must be by this time; and a hoary old hypocrite, to

whom an old schoolfellow presents his kindest regardsparenthetically remarking what a dreadful place that

private school was; cold, chilblains, bad dinners, not enough victuals, and caning awful!Are you alive still,

I say, you nameless villain, who escaped discovery on that day of crime? I hope you have escaped often

since, old sinner. Ah, what a lucky thing it is, for you and me, my man, that we are NOT found out in all our

Just consider what life would be, if every rogue was found out, and flogged coram populo! What a butchery,

what an indecency, what an endless swishing of the rod! Don't cry out about my misanthropy. My good

friend Mealymouth, I will trouble you to tell me, do you go to church? When there, do you say, or do you

not, that you are a miserable sinner, and saying so do you believe or disbelieve it? If you are a M. S., don't

you deserve correction, and aren't you grateful if you are to be let off? I say again what a blessed thing it is

Just picture to yourself everybody who does wrong being found out, and punished accordingly. Fancy all the

boys in all the school being whipped; and then the assistants, and then the headmaster (Dr. Badford let us call

him). Fancy the provost marshal being tied up, having previously superintended the correction of the whole

army. After the young gentlemen have had their turn for the faulty exercises, fancy Dr. Lincolnsinn being

taken up for certain faults in HIS Essay and Review. After the clergyman has cried his peccavi, suppose we

hoist up a bishop, and give him a couple of dozen! (I see my Lord Bishop of DoubleGloucester sitting in a

very uneasy posture on his right reverend bench.) After we have cast off the bishop, what are we to say to the

Minister who appointed him? My Lord Cinqwarden, it is painful to have to use personal correction to a boy

of your age; but really . . . Siste tandem carnifex! The butchery is too horrible. The hand drops powerless,

appalled at the quantity of birch which it must cut and brandish. I am glad we are not all found out, I say

To fancy all men found out and punished is bad enough; but imagine all the women found out in the

distinguished social circle in which you and I have the honor to move. Is it not a mercy that a many of these

fair criminals remain unpunished and undiscovered! There is Mrs. Longbow, who is forever practicing, and

who shoots poisoned arrows, too; when you meet her you don't call her liar, and charge her with the

wickedness she has done and is doing. There is Mrs. Painter, who passes for a most respectable woman, and a

model in society. There is no use in saying what you really know regarding her and her goings on. There is

Diana Hunterwhat a little haughty prude it is; and yet WE know stories about her which are not altogether

edifying. I say it is best for the sake of the good, that the bad should not all be found out. You don't want your

children to know the history of that lady in the next box, who is so handsome, and whom they admire so. Ah

me, what would life be if we were all found out and punished for all our faults? Jack Ketch would be in

They talk of murderers being pretty certainly found out. Psha! I have heard an authority awfully competent

vow and declare that scores and hundreds of murders are committed, and nobody is the wiser. That terrible

man mentioned one or two ways of committing murder, which he maintained were quite common, and were

scarcely ever found out. A man, for instance, comes home to his wife, and . . . but I pauseI know that this

Magazine has a very large circulation.* Hundreds and hundreds of thousandswhy not say a million of

people at once?well, say a million, read it. And among these countless readers, I might be teaching some

monster how to make away with his wife without being found out, some fiend of a woman how to destroy her

dear husband. I will NOT then tell this easy and simple way of murder, as communicated to me by a most

respectable party in the confidence of private intercourse. Suppose some gentle reader were to try this most

simple and easy receiptit seems to me almost infallibleand come to grief in consequence, and be found

out and hanged? Should I ever pardon myself for having been the means of doing injury to a single one of our

esteemed subscribers? The prescription whereof I speakthat is to say, whereof I DON'T speakshall be

buried in this bosom. No, I am a humane man. I am not one of your Bluebeards to go and say to my wife,

"My dear! I am going away for a few days to Brighton. Here are all the keys of the house. You may open

every door and closet, except the one at the end of the oak room opposite the fireplace, with the little bronze

Shakespeare on the mantelpiece (or what not)." I don't say this to a womanunless, to be sure, I want to get

rid of herbecause, after such a caution, I know she'll peep into the closet. I say nothing about the closet at

all. I keep the key in my pocket, and a being whom I love, but who, as I know, has many weaknesses, out of

harm's way. You toss up your head, dear angel, drub on the ground with your lovely little feet, on the table

with your sweet rosy fingers, and cry, "Oh, sneerer! You don't know the depth of woman's feeling, the lofty

scorn of all deceit, the entire absence of mean curiosity in the sex, or never, never would you libel us so!" Ah,

Delia! dear, dear Delia! It is because I fancy I DO know something about you (not all, mindno, no; no man

knows that).Ah, my bride, my ringdove, my rose, my poppetchoose, in fact, whatever name you

likebulbul of my grove, fountain of my desert, sunshine of my darkling life, and joy of my dungeoned

existence, it is because I DO know a little about you that I conclude to say nothing of that private closet, and

keep my key in my pocket. You take away that closet key then, and the house key. You lock Delia in. You

And yet by little strange accidents and coincidents how we are being found out every day. You remember that

old story of the Abbe Kakatoes, who told the company at supper one night how the first confession he ever

received wasfrom a murderer, let us say. Presently enters to supper the Marquis de Croquemitaine.

"Palsambleu, abbe!" says the brilliant marquis, taking a pinch of snuff, "are you here? Gentlemen and ladies!

I was the abbe's first penitent, and I made him a confession, which I promise you astonished him."

To be sure how queerly things are found out! Here is an instance. Only the other day I was writing in these

Roundabout Papers about a certain man, whom I facetiously called Baggs, and who had abused me to my

friends, who of course told me. Shortly after that paper was published another friendSacks let us call

himscowls fiercely at me as I am sitting in perfect good humor at the club, and passes on without speaking.

A cut. A quarrel. Sacks thinks it is about him that I was writing: whereas, upon my honor and conscience, I

never had him once in my mind, and was pointing my moral from quite another man. But don't you see, by

this wrath of the guiltyconscienced Sacks, that he had been abusing me too? He has owned himself guilty,

never having been accused. He has winced when nobody thought of hitting him. I did but put the cap out, and

madly butting and chafing, behold my friend rushes out to put his head into it! Never mind, Sacks, you are

And yet to be found out, I know from my own experience, must be painful and odious, and cruelly mortifying

to the inward vanity. Suppose I am a poltroon, let us say. With fierce mustache, loud talk, plentiful oaths, and

an immense stick, I keep up nevertheless a character for courage. I swear fearfully at cabmen and women;

brandish my bludgeon, and perhaps knock down a little man or two with it: brag of the images which I break

at the shooting gallery, and pass among my friends for a whiskery fireeater, afraid of neither man nor

dragon. Ah me! Suppose some brisk little chap steps up and gives me a caning in St. James's Street, with all

the heads of my friends looking out of all the club windows. My reputation is gone. I frighten no man more.

My nose is pulled by whippersnappers, who jump up on a chair to reach it. I am found out. And in the days

of my triumphs, when people were yet afraid of me, and were taken in by my swagger, I always knew that I

That certainty of being found out must haunt and depress many a bold braggadocio spirit. Let us say it is a

clergyman, who can pump copious floods of tears out of his own eyes and those of his audience. He thinks to

himself, "I am but a poor swindling, chattering rogue. My bills are unpaid. I have jilted several women whom

I have promised to marry. I don't know whether I believe what I preach, and I know I have stolen the very

sermon over which I have been sniveling. Have they found me out?" says he, as his head drops down on the

Then your writer, poet, historian, novelist, or what not? The Beacon says that "Jones's work is one of the first

order." The Lamp declares that Jones's tragedy surpasses every work since the days of Him of Avon." The

Comet asserts that "J's 'Life of Goody Twoshoes' is a [Greek text omitted], a noble and enduring monument

to the fame of that admirable Englishwoman," and so forth. But then Jones knows that he has lent the critic of

the Beacon five pounds; that his publisher has a half share in the Lamp; and that the Cornet comes repeatedly

to dine with him. It is all very well. Jones is immortal until he is found out; and then down comes the

extinguisher, and the immortal is dead and buried. The idea (dies irae!) of discovery must haunt many a man,

and make him uneasy, as the trumpets are puffing in his triumph. Brown, who has a higher place than he

deserves, cowers before Smith, who has found him out. What is the chorus of critics shouting "Bravo"?a

public clapping hands and flinging garlands? Brown knows that Smith has found him out. Puff, trumpets!

Wave, banners! Huzza, boys, for the immortal Brown! This is all very well," B. thinks (bowing the while,

smiling, laying his hand to his heart); "but there stands Smith at the window: HE has measured me; and some

day the others will find me out too." It is a very curious sensation to sit by a man who has found you out, and

who, as you know, has found you out; or, vice versa, to sit with a man whom YOU have found out. His

talent? Bah! His virtue? We know a little story or two about his virtue, and he knows we know it. We are

thinking over friend Robinson's antecedents, as we grin, bow and talk; and we are both humbugs together.

Robinson a good fellow, is he? You know how he behaved to Hicks? A goodnatured man, is he? Pray do

you remember that little story of Mrs. Robinson's black eye? How men have to work, to talk, to smile, to go

to bed, and try and sleep, with this dread of being found out on their consciences! Bardolph, who has robbed

a church, and Nym, who has taken a purse, go to their usual haunts, and smoke their pipes with their

companions. Mr. Detective Bullseye appears, and says, "Oh, Bardolph! I want you about that there pyx

business!" Mr. Bardolph knocks the ashes out of his pipe, puts out his hands to the little steel cuffs, and walks

away quite meekly. He is found out. He must go. "Goodby, 'Doll Tearsheet! Goodby, Mrs. Quickly,

ma'am!" The other gentlemen and ladies de la societe look on and exchange mute adieux with the departing

friends. And an assured time will come when the other gentlemen and ladies will be found out too.

What a wonderful and beautiful provision of nature it has been that, for the most part, our womankind are not

endowed with the faculty of finding us out! THEY don't doubt, and probe, and weigh, and take your measure.

Lay down this paper, my benevolent friend and reader, go into your drawingroom now, and utter a joke ever

so old, and I wager sixpence the ladies there will all begin to laugh. Go to Brown's house, and tell Mrs.

Brown and the young ladies what you think of him, and see what a welcome you will get! In like manner, let

him come to your house, and tell YOUR good lady his candid opinion of you, and fancy how she will receive

him! Would you have your wife and children know you exactly for what you are, and esteem you precisely at

your worth? If so, my friend, you will live in a dreary house, and you will have but a chilly fireside. Do you

suppose the people round it don't see your homely face as under a glamour, and, as it were, with a halo of

love round it? You don't fancy you ARE as you seem to them? No such thing, my man. Put away that

(Here Thackeray reduces to an absurdity the literary fashion of the daythe vogue for startling

stories and "Tales of Terror," which was high in his time, and which influenced several of the stories

which precede in this volume. But while Dickens made fun, with mental reservations; while Bulwer

Lytton tried to explain by rising to the heights of natural philosophy, and Maturin did not explain at

all, but let his extravagant genius roam between heaven and earthThackeray's keen wit saw mainly

one chance for exquisite literary satire and parody. At one point or another in this skit, the style of

each principal sensational novelist of the day is delightfully imitated.EDITOR.)

Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of your Blind Bard (to whose sightless orbs

no doubt Glorious Shapes were apparent, and Visions Celestial), how Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright

"'How often,' says Father Adam, 'from the steep of echoing hill or thicket, have we heard celestial voices to

the midnight air, sole, or responsive to each other's notes, singing!' After the Act of Disobedience, when the

erring pair from Eden took their solitary way, and went forth to toil and trouble on common earththough

the Glorious Ones no longer were visible, you cannot say they were gone. It was not that the Bright Ones

were absent, but that the dim eyes of rebel man no longer could see them. In your chamber hangs a picture of

one whom you never knew, but whom you have long held in tenderest regard, and who was painted for you

by a friend of mine, the Knight of Plympton. She communes with you. She smiles on you. When your spirits

are low, her bright eyes shine on you and cheer you. Her innocent sweet smile is a caress to you. She never

fails to soothe you with her speechless prattle. You love her. She is alive with you. As you extinguish your

candle and turn to sleep, though your eyes see her not, is she not there still smiling? As you lie in the night

awake, and thinking of your duties, and the morrow's inevitable toil oppressing the busy, weary, wakeful

brain as with a remorse, the crackling fire flashes up for a moment in the grate, and she is there, your little

Beauteous Maiden, smiling with her sweet eyes! When moon is down, when fire is out, when curtains are

drawn, when lids are closed, is she not there, the little Beautiful One, though invisible, present and smiling

still? Friend, the Unseen Ones are round about us. Does it not seem as if the time were drawing near when it

The print of which my friend spoke, and which, indeed, hangs in my room, though he has never been there, is

that charming little winter piece of Sir Joshua, representing the little Lady Caroline Montague, afterwards

Duchess of Buccleuch. She is represented as standing in the midst of a winter landscape, wrapped in muff

and cloak; and she looks out of her picture with a smile so exquisite that a Herod could not see her without

"I beg your pardon, Mr. PINTO," I said to the person with whom I was conversing. (I wonder, by the way,

that I was not surprised at his knowing how fond I am of this print.) "You spoke of the Knight of Plympton.

As I spoke I chanced to look at Mr. Pinto; and then it suddenly struck me: Gracious powers! Perhaps you

ARE a hundred years old, now I think of it. You look more than a hundred. Yes, you may be a thousand years

old for what I know. Your teeth are false. One eye is evidently false. Can I say that the other is not? If a man's

age may be calculated by the rings round his eyes, this man may be as old as Methuselah. He has no beard.

He wears a large curly glossy brown wig, and his eyebrows are painted a deep olivegreen. It was odd to hear

this man, this walking mummy, talking sentiment, in these queer old chambers in Shepherd's Inn.

Pinto passed a yellow bandanna handkerchief over his awful white teeth, and kept his glass eye steadily fixed

on me. "Sir Joshua's friend?" said he (you perceive, eluding my direct question). "Is not everyone that knows

his pictures Reynolds's friend? Suppose I tell you that I have been in his painting room scores of times, and

that his sister The has made me tea, and his sister Toffy has made coffee for me? You will only say I am an

old ombog." (Mr. Pinto, I remarked, spoke all languages with an accent equally foreign.) "Suppose I tell you

that I knew Mr. Sam Johnson, and did not like him? that I was at that very ball at Madame Cornelis', which

you have mentioned in one of your littlewhat do you call them?bah! my memory begins to fail mein

one of your little Whirligig Papers? Suppose I tell you that Sir Joshua has been here, in this very room?"

"They look as if they had not been swept for that timedon't they? Hey? I did not say that I had them for

"When?" I asked, eying the man sternly, for I began to think he was an impostor.

He answered me with a glance still more stern: "Sir Joshua Reynolds was here this very morning, with

Angelica Kaufmann and Mr. Oliver Goldschmidt. He is still very much attached to Angelica, who still does

not care for him. Because he is dead (and I was in the fourth mourning coach at his funeral) is that any reason

why he should not come back to earth again? My good sir, you are laughing at me. He has sat many a time on

that very chair which you are now occupying. There are several spirits in the room now, whom you cannot

see. Excuse me." Here he turned round as if he was addressing somebody, and began rapidly speaking a

language unknown to me. "It is Arabic," he said; "a bad patois, I own. I learned it in Barbary, when I was a

prisoner among the Moors. In anno 1609, bin ick aldus ghekledt gheghaen. Ha! you doubt me: look at me

Perhaps some of my readers remember a paper of which the figure of a man carrying a barrel formed the

initial letter, and which I copied from an old spoon now in my possession. As I looked at Mr. Pinto I do

declare he looked so like the figure on that old piece of plate that I started and felt very uneasy. "Ha!" said he,

laughing through his false teeth (I declare they were falseI could see utterly toothless gums working up

and down behind the pink coral), "you see I wore a beard den; I am shafed now; perhaps you tink I am A

SPOON. Ha, ha!" And as he laughed he gave a cough which I thought would have coughed his teeth out, his

glass eye out, his wig off, his very head off; but he stopped this convulsion by stumping across the room and

seizing a little bottle of bright pink medicine, which, being opened, spread a singular acrid aromatic odor

through the apartment; and I thought I sawbut of this I cannot take an affirmationa light green and violet

flame flickering round the neck of the vial as he opened it. By the way, from the peculiar stumping noise

which he made in crossing the bareboarded apartment, I knew at once that my strange entertainer had a

wooden leg. Over the dust which lay quite thick on the boards, you could see the mark of one foot very neat

and pretty, and then a round O, which was naturally the impression made by the wooden stump. I own I had a

queer thrill as I saw that mark, and felt a secret comfort that it was not CLOVEN.

In this desolate apartment in which Mr. Pinto had invited me to see him, there were three chairs, one

bottomless, a little table on which you might put a breakfast tray, and not a single other article of furniture. In

the next room, the door of which was open, I could see a magnificent gilt dressing case, with some splendid

diamond and ruby shirt studs lying by it, and a chest of drawers, and a cupboard apparently full of clothes.

Remembering him in BadenBaden in great magnificence I wondered at his present denuded state. "You

"Many," says he. "I have apartments in many cities. I lock dem up, and do not carry mosh logish."

I then remembered that his apartment at Baden, where I first met him, was bare, and had no bed in it.

"This is the sleeping room." (He pronounces it DIS. Can this, by the way, give any clew to the nationality of

"If you sleep on these two old chairs you have a rickety couch; if on the floor, a dusty one."

"Suppose I sleep up dere?" said this strange man, and he actually pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad

or what he himself called "an ombog." "I know. You do not believe me; for why should I deceive you? I

came but to propose a matter of business to you. I told you I could give you the clew to the mystery of the

Two Children in Black, whom you met at Baden, and you came to see me. If I told you you would not

believe me. What for try and convinz you? Ha hey?" And he shook his hand once, twice, thrice, at me, and

Of what happened now I protest I cannot give an accurate account. It seemed to me that there shot a flame

from his eye into my brain, while behind his GLASS eye there was a green illumination as if a candle had

been lit in it. It seemed to me that from his long fingers two quivering flames issued, sputtering, as it were,

which penetrated me, and forced me back into one of the chairsthe broken oneout of which I had much

difficulty in scrambling, when the strange glamour was ended. It seemed to me that, when I was so fixed, so

transfixed in the broken chair, the man floated up to the ceiling, crossed his legs, folded his arms as if he was

lying on a sofa, and grinned down at me. When I came to myself he was down from the ceiling, and, taking

me out of the broken canebottomed chair, kindly enough"Bah!" said he, "it is the smell of my medicine.

It often gives the vertigo. I thought you would have had a little fit. Come into the open air." And we went

down the steps, and into Shepherd's Inn, where the setting sun was just shining on the statue of Shepherd; the

laundresses were traipsing about; the porters were leaning against the railings; and the clerks were playing at

"You said you were going to dine at the 'Gray'sInn CoffeeHouse,'" he said. I was. I often dine there. There

is excellent wine at the "Gray'sInn CoffeeHouse"; but I declare I NEVER SAID so. I was not astonished at

his remark; no more astonished than if I was in a dream. Perhaps I WAS in a dream. Is life a dream? Are

dreams facts? Is sleeping being really awake? I don't know. I tell you I am puzzled. I have read "The Woman

in White," "The Strange Story"not to mention that story "Stranger than Fiction" in the Cornhill

Magazinethat story for which THREE credible witnesses are ready to vouch. I have had messages from the

dead; and not only from the dead, but from people who never existed at all. I own I am in a state of much

bewilderment: but, if you please, will proceed with my simple, my artless story.

Well, then. We passed from Shepherd's Inn into Holborn, and looked for a while at Woodgate's bricabrac

shop, which I never can pass without delaying at the windowsindeed, if I were going to be hung, I would

beg the cart to stop, and let me have one look more at that delightful omnium gatherum. And passing

Woodgate's, we come to Gale's little shop, "No. 47," which is also a favorite haunt of mine.

Mr. Gale happened to be at his door, and as we exchanged salutations, "Mr. Pinto," I said, "will you like to

see a real curiosity in this curiosity shop? Step into Mr. Gale's little back room."

In that little back parlor there are Chinese gongs; there are old Saxe and Sevres plates; there is Furstenberg,

Carl Theodor, Worcester, Amstel, Nankin and other jimcrockery. And in the corner what do you think there

is? There is an actual GUILLOTINE. If you doubt me, go and seeGale, High Holborn, No. 47. It is a slim

instrument, much slighter than those which they make now;some nine feet high, narrow, a pretty piece of

upholstery enough. There is the hook over which the rope used to play which unloosened the dreadful ax

above; and look! dropped into the orifice where the head used to gothere is THE AX itself, all rusty, with

As Pinto looked at itMr. Gale was not in the room, I recollect; happening to have been just called out by a

customer who offered him three pound fourteen and sixpence for a blue Shepherd in pate tendre,Mr. Pinto

gave a little start, and seemed crispe for a moment. Then he looked steadily toward one of those great

porcelain stools which you see in gardensandit seemed to meI tell you I won't take my affidavitI

may have been maddened by the six glasses I took of that pink elixirI may have been sleepwalking:

perhaps am as I write nowI may have been under the influence of that astounding MEDIUM into whose

hands I had fallen but I vow I heard Pinto say, with rather a ghastly grin at the porcelain stool,

(He pronounced it, by the way, I DIT it, by which I KNOW that Pinto was a German.)

I heard Pinto say those very words, and sitting on the porcelain stool I saw, dimly at first, then with an awful

distinctnessa ghostan EIDOLONa formA HEADLESS MAN seated with his head in his lap,

At this minute, Mr. Gale entered from the front shop to show a customer some Delft plates; and he did not

seebut WE DIDthe figure rise up from the porcelain stool, shake its head, which it held in its hand, and

"Come to the 'Gray'sInn CoffeeHouse,'" Pinto said, "and I will tell you how the notch came to the ax." And

If there is anything in the above statement which astonishes the reader, I promise him that in the next chapter

"You will excuse me," I said to my companion, "for remarking that when you addressed the individual sitting

on the porcelain stool, with his head in his lap, your ordinarily benevolent features" (this I confess was a

bouncer, for between ourselves a more sinister and illlooking rascal than Mons. P. I have seldom set eyes

on)"your ordinarily handsome face wore an expression that was by no means pleasing. You grinned at the

individual just as you did at me when you went up to the cei, pardon me, as I THOUGHT you did, when I

fell down in a fit in your chambers"; and I qualified my words in a great flutter and tremble; I did not care to

offend the manI did not DARE to offend the man. I thought once or twice of jumping into a cab, and

flying; of taking refuge in Day and Martin's Blacking Warehouse; of speaking to a policeman, but not one

would come. I was this man's slave. I followed him like his dog. I COULD not get away from him. So, you

see, I went on meanly conversing with him, and affecting a simpering confidence. I remember, when I was a

little boy at school, going up fawning and smiling in this way to some great hulking bully of a sixthform

boy. So I said in a word, "Your ordinarily handsome face wore a disagreeable expression," &c.

"It is ordinarily VERY handsome," said he, with such a leer at a couple of passersby, that one of them cried,

"Oh, crickey, here's a precious guy!" and a child, in its nurse's arms, screamed itself into convulsions. "Oh,

oui, che suis trescholi garcon, bien peau, cerdainement," continued Mr. Pinto; "but you were right. That

that person was not very well pleased when he saw me. There was no love lost between us, as you say: and

the world never knew a more worthless miscreant. I hate him, voyezvous? I hated him alife; I hate him

dead. I hate him man; I hate him ghost: and he know it, and tremble before me. If I see him twenty tausend

years hence and why not?I shall hate him still. You remarked how he was dressed?"

"In black satin breeches and striped stockings; a white pique waistcoat, a gray coat, with large metal buttons,

"Only it was CUT OFF! Ha, ha, ha!" Mr. Pinto cried, yelling a laugh, which I observed made the policeman

stare very much. "Yes. It was cut off by the same blow which took off the scoundrel's headho, ho, ho!"

And he made a circle with his hooknailed finger round his own yellow neck, and grinned with a horrible

triumph. "I promise you that fellow was surprised when he found his head in the pannier. Ha! ha! Do you

ever cease to hate those whom you hate?"fire flashed terrifically from his glass eye as he spoke"or to

love dose whom you once loved? Oh, never, never!" And here his natural eye was bedewed with tears. "But

That very respectful and efficient waiter brought in the bill of fare, and I, for my part, chose boiled leg of

pork, and pease pudding, which my acquaintance said would do as well as anything else; though I remarked

he only trifled with the pease pudding, and left all the pork on the plate. In fact, he scarcely ate anything. But

he drank a prodigious quantity of wine; and I must say that my friend Mr. Hart's port wine is so good that I

myself tookwell, I should think, I took three glasses. Yes, three, certainly. HEI mean Mr. P.the old

rogue, was insatiable: for we had to call for a second bottle in no time. When that was gone, my companion

wanted another. A little red mounted up to his yellow cheeks as he drank the wine, and he winked at it in a

strange manner. "I remember," said he, musing, "when port wine was scarcely drunk in this countrythough

the Queen liked it, and so did Hurley; but Bolingbroke didn'the drank Florence and Champagne. Dr. Swift

put water to his wine. 'Jonathan,' I once said to himbut bah! autres temps, autres moeurs. Another

This was all very well. "My good sir," I said, "it may suit YOU to order bottles of '20 port, at a guinea a

bottle; but that kind of price does not suit me. I only happen to have thirtyfour and sixpence in my pocket,

of which I want a shilling for the waiter, and eighteen pence for my cab. You rich foreigners and SWELLS

may spend what you like" (I had him there: for my friend's dress was as shabby as an oldclothes man's);

"but a man with a family, Mr. Whatd'youcall'im, cannot afford to spend seven or eight hundred a year on his

"Bah!" he said. "Nunkey pays for all, as you say. I will what you call stant the dinner, if you are SO POOR!"

and again he gave that disagreeable grin, and placed an odious crooknailed and by no means clean finger to

his nose. But I was not so afraid of him now, for we were in a public place; and the three glasses of port wine

"What a pretty snuffbox!" he remarked, as I handed him mine, which I am still oldfashioned enough to

carry. It is a pretty old gold box enough, but valuable to me especially as a relic of an old, old relative, whom

I can just remember as a child, when she was very kind to me. "Yes; a pretty box. I can remember when

many ladies most ladies, carried a boxnay, two boxestabatiere and bonbonniere. What lady carries

snuffbox now, hey? Suppose your astonishment if a lady in an assembly were to offer you a prise? I can

remember a lady with such a box as this, with a tour, as we used to call it then; with paniers, with a

tortoiseshell cane, with the prettiest little highheeled velvet shoes in the world! ah! that was a time, that

was a time! Ah, Eliza, Eliza, I have thee now in my mind's eye! At Bungay on the Waveney, did I not walk

with thee, Eliza? Aha, did I not love thee? Did I not walk with thee then? Do I not see thee still?"

This was passing strange. My ancestressbut there is no need to publish her revered namedid indeed live

at Bungay St. Mary's, where she lies buried. She used to walk with a tortoiseshell cane. She used to wear

There, I declare, was the very name of the kind old creature written in red on his arm.

"YOU knew her old," he said, divining my thoughts (with his strange knack); "I knew her young and lovely. I

As I live, he here mentioned dear grnny's MAIDEN name. Her maiden name was . Her honored

"She married your greatgrndfthr the year Poseidon won the Newmarket Plate," Mr. Pinto dryly

Merciful powers! I remember, over the old shagreen knife and spoon case on the sideboard in my grnny's

parlor, a print by Stubbs of that very horse. My grandsire, in a red coat, and his fair hair flowing over his

shoulders, was over the mantelpiece, and Poseidon won the Newmarket Cup in the year 1783!

"Yes; you are right. I danced a minuet with her at Bury that very night, before I lost my poor leg. And I

As he said "Ha!" there came three quiet little taps on the table it is the middle table in the "Gray'sInn

"I fired in the air," he continued; "did I not?" (Tap, tap, tap.) "Your grandfather hit me in the leg. He married

three months afterwards. 'Captain Brown,' I said 'who could see Miss Smth without loving her?' She is

"I forgot," he said, with a faint blush stealing over his wan features, "she was not my first love. In Germin

Tap, tap, tap. There was here quite a lively little treble knock; and when the old man said, "But I loved thee

And this I declare UPON MY HONOR. There was, I have said, a bottle of port wine before usI should say

a decanter. That decanter was LIFTED UP, and out of it into our respective glasses two bumpers of wine

were poured. I appeal to Mr. Hart, the landlordI appeal to James, the respectful and intelligent waiter, if

this statement is not true? And when we had finished that magnum, and I saidfor I did not now in the least

doubt her presence"Dear grnny, may we have another magnum?" the table DISTINCTLY rapped "No.".

"Now, my good sir," Mr. Pinto said, who really began to be affected by the wine, "you understand the interest

I have taken in you. I loved Eliza " (of course I don't mention family names). "I knew you had that box

which belonged to herI will give you what you like for that box. Name your price at once, and I pay you

"Come, come," said I, "the gold of the box may be worth nine guineas, and the facon we will put at six

"One tausend guineas!" he screeched. "One tausend and fifty pound dere!" and he sank back in his chairno,

by the way, on his bench, for he was sitting with his back to one of the partitions of the boxes, as I dare say

"DON'T go on in this way," I continued rather weakly, for I did not know whether I was in a dream. "If you

offer me a thousand guineas for this box I MUST take it. Mustn't I, dear grnny?"

The table most distinctly said "Yes"; and putting out his claws to seize the box, Mr. Pinto plunged his hooked

"But stay, you old harpy!" I exclaimed, being now in a sort of rage, and quite familiar with him. "Where is

"This is all mighty well, sir," I said, "but I don't know you; I never saw you before. I will trouble you to hand

The room happened to be very dark. Indeed all the waiters were gone to supper, and there were only two

gentlemen snoring in their respective boxes. I saw a hand come quivering down from the ceilinga very

pretty hand, on which was a ring with a coronet, with a lion rampant gules for a crest. I saw that hand take a

dip of ink and write across the paper. Mr. Pinto, then, taking a gray receipt stamp out of his blue leather

pocketbook, fastened it on to the paper by the usual process; and the hand then wrote across the receipt

stamp, went across the table and shook hands with Pinto, and then, as if waving him an adieu, vanished in the

There was the paper before me, wet with the ink. There was the pen which THE HAND had used. Does

anybody doubt me? I have that pen now,a cedar stick of a not uncommon sort, and holding one of Gillott's

pens. It is in my inkstand now, I tell you. Anybody may see it. The handwriting on the check, for such the

document was, was the writing of a female. It ran thus:"London, midnight, March 31, 1862. Pay the bearer

one thousand and fifty pounds. Rachel Sidonia. To Messrs. Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., London."

"Noblest and best of women!" said Pinto, kissing the sheet of paper with much reverence. "My good Mr.

Indeed the house of Sidonia, Pozzosanto and Co., is known to be one of the richest in Europe, and as for the

Countess Rachel, she was known to be the chief manager of that enormously wealthy establishment. There

I pointed out this circumstance, and tossed over the paper to Pinto with a sneer.

"C'est a brandre ou a laisser," he said with some heat. "You literary men are all imbrudent; but I did not tink

you such a fool wie dis. Your box is not worth twenty pound, and I offer you a tausend because I know you

want money to pay dat rascal Tom's college bills." (This strange man actually knew that my scapegrace Tom

had been a source of great expense and annoyance to me.) "You see money costs me nothing, and you refuse

to take it! Once, twice; will you take this check in exchange for your trumpery snuffbox?"

What could I do? My poor granny's legacy was valuable and dear to me, but after all a thousand guineas are

not to be had every day. "Be it a bargain," said I. "Shall we have a glass of wine on it?" says Pinto; and to this

proposal I also unwillingly acceded, reminding him, by the way, that he had not yet told me the story of the

"Your poor grndmther was right just now, when she said she was not my first love. 'Twas one of those

banale expressions" (here Mr. P. blushed once more) "which we use to women. We tell each she is our first

passion. They reply with a similar illusory formula. No man is any woman's first love; no woman any man's.

We are in love in our nurse's arms, and women coquette with their eyes before their tongue can form a word.

How could your lovely relative love me? I was far, far too old for her. I am older than I look. I am so old that

you would not believe my age were I to tell you. I have loved many and many a woman before your relative.

It has not always been fortunate for them to love me. Ah, Sophronia! Round the dreadful circus where you

fell, and whence I was dragged corpselike by the heels, there sat multitudes more savage than the lions which

mangled your sweet form! Ah, tenez! when we marched to the terrible stake together at Valladolidthe

Protestant and the J But away with memory! Boy! it was happy for thy grandam that she loved me not.

"During that strange period," he went on, "when the teeming Time was great with the revolution that was

speedily to be born, I was on a mission in Paris with my excellent, my maligned friend, Cagliostro. Mesmer

was one of our band. I seemed to occupy but an obscure rank in it: though, as you know, in secret societies

the humble man may be a chief and directorthe ostensible leader but a puppet moved by unseen hands.

Never mind who was chief, or who was second. Never mind my age. It boots not to tell it: why shall I expose

myself to your scornful incredulityor reply to your questions in words that are familiar to you, but which

you cannot understand? Words are symbols of things which you know, or of things which you don't know. If

you don't know them, to speak is idle." (Here I confess Mr. P. spoke for exactly thirtyeight minutes, about

physics, metaphysics, language, the origin and destiny of man, during which time I was rather bored, and to

relieve my ennui, drank a half glass or so of wine.) "LOVE, friend, is the fountain of youth! It may not

happen to me once once in an age: but when I love then I am young. I loved when I was in Paris. Bathilde,

Bathilde, I loved theeah, how fondly! Wine, I say, more wine! Love is ever young. I was a boy at the little

feet of Bathilde de Bechamelthe fair, the fond, the fickle, ah, the false!" The strange old man's agony was

here really terrific, and he showed himself much more agitated than when he had been speaking about my

"I thought Blanche might love me. I could speak to her in the language of all countries, and tell her the lore of

all ages. I could trace the nursery legends which she loved up to their Sanscrit source, and whisper to her the

darkling mysteries of the Egyptian Magi. I could chant for her the wild chorus that rang in the disheveled

Eleusinian revel: I could tell her and I would, the watchword never known but to one woman, the Saban

Queen, which Hiram breathed in the abysmal ear of SolomonYou don't attend. Psha! you have drunk too

much wine!" Perhaps I may as well own that I was NOT attending, for he had been carrying on for about

"Blanche de Bechamel was wild, then, about this secret of Masonry. In early, early days I loved, I married a

girl fair as Blanche, who, too, was tormented by curiosity, who, too, would peep into my closet, into the only

secret guarded from her. A dreadful fate befell poor Fatima. An ACCIDENT shortened her life. Poor thing!

she had a foolish sister who urged her on. I always told her to beware of Ann. She died. They said her

brothers killed me. A gross falsehood. AM I dead? If I were, could I pledge you in this wine?"

"Was your name," I asked, quite bewildered, "was your name, pray, then, ever Blueb?"

"Hush! the waiter will overhear you. Methought we were speaking of Blanche de Bechamel. I loved her,

young man. My pearls, and diamonds, and treasure, my wit, my wisdom, my passion, I flung them all into the

child's lap. I was a fool. Was strong Samson not as weak as I? Was Solomon the Wise much better when

Balkis wheedled him? I said to the kingBut enough of that, I spake of Blanche de Bechamel.

"Curiosity was the poor child's foible. I could see, as I talked to her, that her thoughts were elsewhere (as

yours, my friend, have been absent once or twice tonight). To know the secret of Masonry was the wretched

child's mad desire. With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she strove to coax it from mefrom MEha!

"I had an apprenticethe son of a dear friend, who died by my side at Rossbach, when Soubise, with whose

army I happened to be, suffered a dreadful defeat for neglecting my advice. The Young Chevalier Goby de

Mouchy was glad enough to serve as my clerk, and help in some chemical experiments in which I was

engaged with my friend Dr. Mesmer. Bathilde saw this young man. Since women were, has it not been their

business to smile and deceive, to fondle and lure? Away! From the very first it has been so!" And as my

companion spoke, he looked as wicked as the serpent that coiled round the tree, and hissed a poisoned

"One evening I went, as was my wont, to see Blanche. She was radiant: she was wild with spirits: a saucy

triumph blazed in her blue eyes. She talked, she rattled in her childish way. She uttered, in the course of her

rhapsody, a hintan intimationso terrible that the truth flashed across me in a moment. Did I ask her? She

would lie to me. But I knew how to make falsehood impossible. And I ordered her to go to sleep."

At this moment the clock (after its previous convulsions) sounded TWELVE. And as the new Editor* of the

Cornhill Magazineand HE, I promise you, won't stand any nonsensewill only allow seven pages, I am

Mr. Thackeray retired from the Editorship of the Cornhill Magazine in March, 1862

"Are you of our fraternity? I see you are not. The secret which Mademoiselle de Bechamel confided to me in

her mad triumph and wild hoyden spiritsshe was but a child, poor thing, poor thing, scarce fifteen;but I

love them younga folly not unusual with the old!" (Here Mr. Pinto thrust his knuckles into his hollow eyes;

and, I am sorry to say, so little regardful was he of personal cleanliness, that his tears made streaks of white

over his guarled dark hands.) "Ah, at fifteen, poor child, thy fate was terrible! Go to! It is not good to love

me, friend. They prosper not who do. I divine you. You need not say what you are thinking"

In truth, I was thinking, if girls fall in love with this sallow, hooknosed, glasseyed, woodenlegged, dirty,

hideous old man, with the sham teeth, they have a queer taste. THAT is what I was thinking.

"Jack Wilkes said the handsomest man in London had but half an hour's start of him. And, without vanity, I

am scarcely uglier than Jack Wilkes. We were members of the same club at Medenham Abbey, Jack and I,

and had many a merry night together. Well, sir, IMary of Scotland knew me but as a little hunchbacked

music master; and yet, and yet, I think she was not indifferent to her David Rizand SHE came to

"Sir, you are wandering from your point!" I said, with some severity. For, really, for this old humbug to hint

that he had been the baboon who frightened the club at Medenham, that he had been in the Inquisition at

Valladolidthat under the name of D. Riz, as he called it, he had known the lovely Queen of Scotswas a

LITTLE too much. "Sir," then I said, "you were speaking about a Miss Bechamel. I really have not time to

"Faith, the good wine gets into my head." (I should think so, the old toper! Four bottles all but two glasses.)

"To return to poor Blanche. As I sat laughing, joking with her, she let slip a word, a little word, which filled

me with dismay. Some one had told her a part of the Secretthe secret which has been divulged scarce

thrice in three thousand yearsthe Secret of the Freemasons. Do you know what happens to those uninitiate

As Pinto spoke to me, he looked through and through me with his horrible piercing glance, so that I sat quite

uneasily on my bench. He continued: "Did I question her awake? I knew she would lie to me. Poor child! I

loved her no less because I did not believe a word she said. I loved her blue eye, her golden hair, her delicious

voice, that was true in song, though when she spoke, false as Eblis! You are aware that I possess in rather a

remarkable degree what we have agreed to call the mesmeric power. I set the unhappy girl to sleep. THEN

she was obliged to tell me all. It was as I had surmised. Goby de Mouchy, my wretched, besotted miserable

secretary, in his visits to the chateau of the Marquis de Bechamel, who was one of our society, had seen

Blanche. I suppose it was because she had been warned that he was worthless, and poor, artful and a coward,

she loved him. She wormed out of the besotted wretch the secrets of our Order. 'Did he tell you the

"'Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me!' she said, writhing on the sofa, where she lay in the presence of the Marquis

de Bechamel, her most unhappy father. Poor Bechamel, poor Bechamel! How pale he looked as I spoke! 'Did

he tell you,' I repeated with a dreadful calm, 'the NUMBER TWO?' She said, 'Yes.'

"The poor old marquis rose up, and clasping his hands, fell on his knees before Count Cagl Bah! I went

by a different name then. Vat's in a name? Dat vich ye call a Rosicrucian by any other name vil smell as

sveet. 'Monsieur,' he said, 'I am oldI am rich. I have five hundred thousand livres of rentes in Picardy. I

have half as much in Artois. I have two hundred and eighty thousand on the Grand Livre. I am promised by

my Sovereign a dukedom and his orders with a reversion to my heir. I am a Grandee of Spain of the First

Class, and Duke of Volovento. Take my titles, my ready money, my life, my honor, everything I have in the

"'Godfroid de Bouillon, Comte de Bechamel, Grandee of Spain and Prince of Volovento, in our Assembly

what was the oath you swore?' The old man writhed as he remembered its terrific purport.

"Though my heart was racked with agony, and I would have died, aye, cheerfully" (died, indeed, as if THAT

were a penalty!) "to spare yonder lovely child a pang, I said to her calmly, 'Blanche de Bechamel, did Goby

"She whispered a oui that was quite faint, faint and small. But her poor father fell in convulsions at her feet.

"She died suddenly that night. Did I not tell you those I love come to no good? When General Bonaparte

crossed the Saint Bernard, he saw in the convent an old monk with a white beard, wandering about the

corridors, cheerful and rather stout, but madmad as a March hare. 'General,' I said to him, 'did you ever see

that face before?' He had not. He had not mingled much with the higher classes of our society before the

Revolution. I knew the poor old man well enough; he was the last of a noble race, and I loved his child."

"Man! did I say so? Do I whisper the secrets of the Vehmgericht? I say she died that night: and hehe, the

heartless, the villain, the betrayer,you saw him seated in yonder curiosity shop, by yonder guillotine, with

"You saw how slight that instrument was? It was one of the first which Guillotin made, and which he showed

to private friends in a hangar in the Rue Picpus, where he lived. The invention created some little

conversation among scientific men at the time, though I remember a machine in Edinburgh of a very similar

construction, two hundredwell, many, many years agoand at a breakfast which Guillotin gave he

showed us the instrument, and much talk arose among us as to whether people suffered under it.

"And now I must tell you what befell the traitor who had caused all this suffering. Did he know that the poor

child's death was a SENTENCE? He felt a cowardly satisfaction that with her was gone the secret of his

treason. Then he began to doubt. I had MEANS to penetrate all his thoughts, as well as to know his acts.

Then he became a slave to a horrible fear. He fled in abject terror to a convent. They still existed in Paris; and

behind the walls of Jacobins the wretch thought himself secure. Poor fool! I had but to set one of my

somnambulists to sleep. Her spirit went forth and spied the shuddering wretch in his cell. She described the

street, the gate, the convent, the very dress which he wore, and which you saw today.

"And now THIS is what happened. In his chamber in the Rue St. Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONEa

man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been

persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man who

"And looking toward the Jacobins Convent (of which, from his chamber, he could see the spires and trees),

this man WILLED. And it was not yet dawn. And he willed; and one who was lying in his cell in the convent

of Jacobins, awake and shuddering with terror for a crime which he had committed, fell asleep.

"And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the pallet, and saying 'No, I will not go,' he rose up and

donned his clothesa gray coat, a vest of white pique, black satin smallclothes, ribbed silk stockings, and a

white stock with a steel buckle; and he arranged his hair, and he tied his queue, all the while being in that

strange somnolence which walks, which moves, which FLIES sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent to

pain, which OBEYS. And he put on his hat, and he went forth from his cell: and though the dawn was not

yet, he trod the corridors as seeing them. And he passed into the cloister, and then into the garden where lie

the ancient dead. And he came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome was opening just at the dawning. And the

crowd was already waiting with their cans and bowls to receive the alms of the good brethren.

"And he passed through the crowd and went on his way, and the few people then abroad who marked him,

said, 'Tiens! How very odd he looks! He looks like a man walking in his sleep!' This was said by various

"By roysterers who had been drinking at the taverns of the Barrier, for it was MidLent.

"By the sergeants of the watch, who eyed him sternly as he passed near their halberds.

"And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpusa house which then stood between a court and garden

"Behind the house was a gardena garden of two hundred and fifty French feet in length.

"And as one hundred feet of France equal one hundred and six feet of England, this garden, my friend,

"In the center of the garden was a fountain and a statueor, to speak more correctly, two statues. One was

"The man was Olofernes. The woman was Judith. From the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It was the

"At the end of the garden was the doctor's cabinet of study. My faith, a singular cabinet, and singular

"Decapitation of Cinq Mars. When I tell you that he was a man of taste, charming!

"Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, went the pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew

the way of the house. He did. Turning neither right nor left, he seemed to walk THROUGH the statues, the

"In the corner of the room was THAT INSTRUMENT, which Guillotin had just invented and perfected. One

day he was to lay his own head under his own ax. Peace be to his name! With him I deal not!

"In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board with a half circle in it, over which another board fitted.

Above was a heavy ax, which fellyou know how. It was held up by a rope, and when this rope was untied,

"To the story which I now have to relate, you may give credence, or not, as you will. The sleeping man went

"He then took a little penknife out of the pocket of his white dimity waistcoat.

"The ax descended on the head of the traitor and villain. The notch in it was made by the steel buckle of his

"A strange legend has got abroad that after the deed was done, the figure rose, took the head from the basket,

walked forth through the garden, and by the screaming porters at the gate, and went and laid itself down at

the Morgue. But for this I will not vouch. Only of this be sure. 'There are more things in heaven and earth,

Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.' More and more the light peeps through the chinks. Soon,

amidst music ravishing, the curtain will rise, and the glorious scene be displayed. Adieu! Remember me. Ha!

I am ashamed to say that my first movement was to clutch the check which he had left with me, and which I

was determined to present the very moment the bank opened. I know the importance of these things, and that

men change their mind sometimes. I sprang through the streets to the great banking house of Manasseh in

Duke Street. It seemed to me as if I actually flew as I walked. As the clock struck ten I was at the counter and

The gentleman who received it, who was one of the Hebrew persuasion, as were the other two hundred clerks

of the establishment, having looked at the draft with terror in his countenance, then looked at me, then called

to himself two of his fellow clerks, and queer it was to see all their aquiline beaks over the paper.

"Come, come!" said I, "don't keep me here all day. Hand me over the money, short, if you please!" for I was,

"Will you have the kindness to step into the parlor to the partners?" the clerk said, and I followed him.

"What, AGAIN?" shrieked a baldheaded, redwhiskered gentleman, whom I knew to be Mr. Manasseh.

"Mr. Salathiel, this is too bad! Leave me with this gentleman, S." And the clerk disappeared.

"Sir," he said, "I know how you came by this: the Count de Pinto gave it you. It is too bad! I honor my

parents; I honor THEIR parents; I honor their bills! But this one of grandma's is too badit is, upon my

word, now! She've been dead these fiveandthirty years. And this last four months she has left her burial

place and took to drawing on our 'ouse! It's too bad, grandma; it is too bad!" and he appealed to me, and tears

"But, I tell you, she's dead! It's a shame!it's a shame!it is, grandmamma!" and he cried, and wiped his

great nose in his yellow pocket handkerchief. "Look yearwill you take pounds instead of guineas? She's

dead, I tell you! It's no go! Take the pounds one tausend pound!ten nice, neat, crisp hundredpound

"I will have my bond, sir, or nothing," I said; and I put on an attitude of resolution which I confess surprised

"Wery veil," he shrieked, with many oaths, "then you shall have notingha, ha, ha!noting but a

policeman! Mr. Abednego, call a policeman! Take that, you humbug and impostor!" and here with an

abundance of frightful language which I dare not repeat, the wealthy banker abused and defied me.

Au bout du compte, what was I to do, if a banker did not choose to honor a check drawn by his dead

grandmother? I began to wish I had my snuffbox back. I began to think I was a fool for changing that little

Meanwhile the banker had passed from his fit of anger to a paroxysm of despair. He seemed to be addressing

some person invisible, but in the room: "Look here, ma'am, you've really been coming it too strong. A

hundred thousand in six months, and now a thousand more! The 'ouse can't stand it; it WON'T stand it, I say!

As he uttered these words, A HAND fluttered over the table in the air! It was a female hand: that which I had

seen the night before. That female hand took a pen from the green baize table, dipped it in a silver inkstand,

and wrote on a quarter of a sheet of foolscap on the blotting book, "How about the diamond robbery? If you

What diamonds? what robbery? what was this mystery? That will never be ascertained, for the wretched

man's demeanor instantly changed. "Certainly, sir;oh, certainly," he said, forcing a grin. "How will you

"I hope I shall often see you again," I said; on which I own poor Manasseh gave a dreadful grin, and shot

I ran home, clutching the ten delicious, crisp hundred pounds, and the dear little fifty which made up the

account. I flew through the streets again. I got to my chambers. I bolted the outer doors. I sank back in my

My first thing on waking was to feel for my money. Perdition! Where was I? Ha!on the table before me

was my grandmother's snuffbox, and by its side one of those awfulthose admirable sensation novels,

But that the guillotine is still to be seen at Mr. Gale's, No. 47, High Holborn, I give you MY HONOR. I

suppose I was dreaming about it. I don't know. What is dreaming? What is life? Why shouldn't I sleep on the

ceiling?and am I sitting on it now, or on the floor? I am puzzled. But enough. If the fashion for sensation

novels goes on, I tell you I will write one in fifty volumes. For the present, DIXI. But between ourselves, this

Pinto, who fought at the Colosseum, who was nearly being roasted by the Inquisition, and sang duets at

Holyrood, I am rather sorry to lose him after three little bits of Roundabout Papers. Et vous?

At the close of February, 1848, I was in Nuremberg. My original intention had been to pass a couple of days

there on my way to Munich, that being, I thought, as much time as could reasonably be spared for so small a

city, beckoned as my footsteps were to the Bavarian Athens, of whose glories of ancient art and German

Renaissance I had formed expectations the most exaggerated expectations fatal to any perfect enjoyment,

and certain to be disappointed, however great the actual merit of Munich might be. But after two days at

Nuremberg I was so deeply interested in its antique sequestered life, the charms of which had not been

deadened by previous anticipations, that I resolved to remain there until I had mastered every detail and knew

I have a story to tell which will move amidst tragic circumstances of too engrossing a nature to be disturbed

by archaeological interests, and shall not, therefore, minutely describe here what I observed in Nuremberg,

although no adequate description of that wonderful city has yet fallen in my way. To readers unacquainted

with this antique place, it will be enough to say that in it the old German life seems still to a great extent

rescued from the alldevouring, allequalizing tendencies of European civilization. The houses are either of

the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, or are constructed after those ancient models. The citizens have

preserved much of the simple manners and customs of their ancestors. The hurrying feet of commerce and

curiosity pass rapidly by, leaving it sequestered from the agitations and the turmoils of metropolitan

existence. It is as quiet as a village. During my stay there rose in its quiet streets the startled echoes of horror

at a crime unparalleled in its annals, which, gathering increased horror from the very peacefulness and

serenity of the scene, arrested the attention and the sympathy in a degree seldom experienced. Before

narrating that, it will be necessary to go back a little, that my own connection with it may be intelligible,

especially in the fanciful weaving together of remote conjectures which strangely involved me in the story.

The table d'hote at the Bayerischer Hof had about thirty visitors all, with one exception, of that local

commonplace which escapes remark. Indeed this may almost always be said of tables d'hote; though there is

a current belief, which I cannot share, of a table d'hote being very delightfulof one being certain to meet

pleasant people there." It may be so. For many years I believed it was so. The general verdict received my

assent. I had never met those delightful people, but was always expecting to meet them. Hitherto they had

been conspicuous by their absence. According to my experience in Spain, France, and Germany, such dinners

had been dreary or noisy and vapid. If the guests were English, they were chillingly silent, or surlily

monosyllabic: to their neighbors they were frigid; amongst each other they spoke in low undertones. And if

the guests were foreigners, they were noisy, clattering, and chattering, foolish for the most part, and

vivaciously commonplace. I don't know which made me feel most dreary. The predominance of my

countrymen gave the dinner the gayety of a funeral; the predominance of the Mossoo gave it the fatigue of

gotup enthusiasm, of trivial expansiveness. To hear strangers imparting the scraps of erudition and

connoisseurship which they had that morning gathered from their valets de place and guidebooks, or

describing the sights they had just seen, to you, who either saw them yesterday, or would see them

tomorrow, could not be permanently attractive. My mind refuses to pasture on such food with gusto. I

cannot be made to care what the Herr Baron's sentiments about Albert Durer or Lucas Cranach may be. I can

digest my rindfleisch without the aid of the commis voyageur's criticisms on Gothic architecture. This may be

my misfortune. In spite of the Italian blood which I inherit, I am a shy manshy as the purest Briton. But,

like other shy men, I make up in obstinacy what may be deficient in expansiveness. I can be frightened into

silence, but I won't be dictated to. You might as well attempt the persuasive effect of your eloquence upon a

snail who has withdrawn into his shell at your approach, and will not emerge till his confidence is restored.

To be told that I MUST see this, and ought to go there, because my casual neighbor was charme, has never

From this you readily gather that I am severely taciturn at a table d'hote. I refrain from joining in the

"delightful conversation" which flies across the table, and know that my reticence is attributed to "insular

pride." It is really and truly nothing but impatience of commonplace. I thoroughly enjoy good talk; but, ask

yourself, what are the probabilities of hearing that rare thing in the casual assemblage of forty or fifty people,

not brought together by any natural affinities or interests, but thrown together by the accident of being in the

same district, and in the same hotel? They are not "forty feeding like one," but like forty. They have no

community, except the community of commonplace. No, tables d'hote are not delightful, and do not gather

Such has been my extensive experience. But this at Nuremberg is a conspicuous exception. At that table there

was one guest who, on various grounds, personal and incidental, remains the most memorable man I ever

met. From the first he riveted my attention in an unusual degree. He had not, as yet, induced me to emerge

from my habitual reserve, for in truth, although he riveted my attention, he inspired me with a strange feeling

of repulsion. I could scarcely keep my eyes from him; yet, except the formal bow on sitting down and rising

from the table, I had interchanged no sign of fellowship with him. He was a young Russian, named

Bourgonef, as I at once learned; rather handsome, and peculiarly arresting to the eye, partly from an air of

settled melancholy, especially in his smile, the amiability of which seemed breaking from under clouds of

grief, and still more so from the mute appeal to sympathy in the empty sleeve of his right arm, which was

looped to the breastbutton of his coat. His eyes were large and soft. He had no beard or whisker, and only

delicate moustaches. The sorrow, quiet but profound, the amiable smile and the lost arm, were appealing

details which at once arrested attention and excited sympathy. But to me this sympathy was mingled with a

vague repulsion, occasioned by a certain falseness in the amiable smile, and a furtiveness in the eyes, which I

sawor fanciedand which, with an inexplicable reserve, forming as it were the impregnable citadel in the

center of his outwardly polite and engaging manner, gave me something of that vague impression which we

It was, when calmly considered, eminently absurd. To see one so young, and by his conversation so highly

cultured and intelligent, condemned to early helplessness, his food cut up for him by a servant, as if he were a

child, naturally engaged pity, and, on the first day, I cudgeled my brains during the greater part of dinner in

the effort to account for his lost arm. He was obviously not a military man; the unmistakable look and stoop

of a student told that plainly enough. Nor was the loss one dating from early life: he used his left arm too

awkwardly for the event not to have had a recent date. Had it anything to do with his melancholy? Here was a

topic for my vagabond imagination, and endless were the romances woven by it during my silent dinner. For

the reader must be told of one peculiarity in me, because to it much of the strange complications of my story

are due; complications into which a mind less active in weaving imaginary hypotheses to interpret casual and

trifling facts would never have been drawn. From my childhood I have been the victim of my constructive

imagination, which has led me into many mistakes and some scrapes; because, instead of contenting myself

with plain, obvious evidence, I have allowed myself to frame hypothetical interpretations, which, to acts

simple in themselves, and explicable on ordinary motives, render the simpleseeming acts portentous. With

bitter pangs of selfreproach I have at times discovered that a long and plausible history constructed by me,

relating to personal friends, has crumpled into a ruin of absurdity, by the disclosure of the primary

misconception on which the whole history was based. I have gone, let us say, on the supposition that two

people were secretly lovers; on this supposition my imagination has constructed a whole scheme to explain

certain acts, and one fine day I have discovered indubitably that the supposed lovers were not lovers, but

confidants of their passions in other directions, and, of course, all my conjectures have been utterly false. The

secret flush of shame at failure has not, however, prevented my falling into similar mistakes immediately

When, therefore, I hereafter speak of my "constructive imagination," the reader will know to what I am

alluding. It was already busy with Bourgonef. To it must be added that vague repulsion, previously

mentioned. This feeling abated on the second day; but, although lessened, it remained powerful enough to

prevent my speaking to him. Whether it would have continued to abate until it disappeared, as such

antipathies often disappear, under the familiarities of prolonged intercourse, without any immediate appeal to

my amour propre, I know not; but every reflective mind, conscious of being accessible to antipathies, will

remember that one certain method of stifling them is for the object to make some appeal to our interest or our

vanity: in the engagement of these more powerful feelings, the antipathy is quickly strangled. At any rate it is

On the third day, the conversation at table happening to turn, as it often turned, upon St. Sebald's Church, a

young Frenchman, who was criticising its architecture with fluent dogmatism, drew Bourgonef into the

discussion, and thereby elicited such a display of accurate and extensive knowledge, no less than delicacy of

appreciation, that we were all listening spellbound. In the midst of this triumphant exposition the irritated

vanity of the Frenchman could do nothing to regain his position but oppose a flat denial to a historical

statement made by Bourgonef, backing his denial by the confident assertion that "all the competent

authorities" held with him. At this point Bourgonef appealed to me, and in that tone of deference so

exquisitely flattering from one we already know to be superior he requested my decision; observing that,

from the manner in which he had seen me examine the details of the architecture, he could not be mistaken in

his confidence that I was a connoisseur. All eyes were turned upon me. As a shy man, this made me blush; as

a vain man, the blush was accompanied with delight. It might easily have happened that such an appeal,

acting at once upon shyness and ignorance, would have inflamed my wrath; but the appeal happening to be

directed on a point which I had recently investigated and thoroughly mastered, I was flattered at the

The pleasure of my triumph diffused itself over my feelings towards him who had been the occasion of it.

The Frenchman was silenced; the general verdict of the company was too obviously on our side. From this

time the conversation continued between Bourgonef and myself; and he not only succeeded in entirely

dissipating my absurd antipathywhich I now saw to have been founded on purely imaginary grounds, for

neither the falseness nor the furtiveness could now be detectedbut he succeeded in captivating all my

sympathy. Long after dinner was over, and the salle empty, we sat smoking our cigars, and discussing

politics, literature, and art in that suggestive desultory manner which often gives a charm to casual

It was a stirring epoch, that of February, 1848. The Revolution, at first so hopeful, and soon to manifest itself

in failure so disastrous, was hurrying to an outburst. France had been for many months agitated by cries of

electoral reform, and by indignation at the corruption and scandals in high places. The Praslin murder, and

the dishonor of M. Teste, terminated by suicide, had been interpreted as signs of the coming destruction. The

political banquets given in various important cities had been occasions for inflaming the public mind, and to

the farseeing, these banquets were interpreted as the sounds of the tocsin. Louis Philippe had become odious

to France, and contemptible to Europe. Guizot and Duchatel, the ministers of that day, although backed by a

parliamentary majority on which they blindly relied, were unpopular, and were regarded as infatuated even

by their admirers in Europe. The Spanish marriages had all but led to a war with England. The Opposition,

headed by Thiers and Odillon Barrot, was strengthened by united action with the republican party, headed by

Bourgonef was an ardent republican. So was I; but my color was of a different shade from his. He belonged

to the Reds. My own dominant tendencies being artistic and literary, my dream was of a republic in which

intelligence would be the archon or ruler; and, of course, in such a republic, art and literature, as the highest

manifestation of mind, would have the supreme direction. Do you smile, reader? I smile now; but it was

serious earnest with me then. It is unnecessary to say more on this point. I have said so much to render

intelligible the stray link of communion which riveted the charm of my new acquaintance's conversation;

there was both agreement enough and difference enough in our views to render our society mutually

On retiring to my room that afternoon I could not help laughing at my absurd antipathy against Bourgonef.

All his remarks had disclosed a generous, ardent, and refined nature. While my antipathy had specially

fastened upon a certain falseness in his smilea falseness the more poignantly hideous if it were falseness,

because hidden amidst the wreaths of amiabilitymy delight in his conversation had specially justified itself

by the truthfulness of his mode of looking at things. He seemed to be sincerity itself. There was, indeed, a

certain central reserve; but that might only he an integrity of pride; or it might be connected with painful

circumstances in his history, of which the melancholy in his face was the outward sign.

That very evening my constructive imagination was furnished with a detail on which it was soon to be

actively set to work. I had been rambling about the old fortifications, and was returning at nightfall through

the old archway near Albert Durer's house, when a man passed by me. We looked at each other in that

automatic way in which men look when they meet in narrow places, and I felt, so to speak, a start of

recognition in the eyes of the man who passed. Nothing else, in features or gestures, betrayed recognition or

surprise. But although there was only that, it flashed from his eyes to mine like an electric shock. He passed. I

looked back. He continued his way without turning. The face was certainly known to me; but it floated in a

I walked on slowly, pestering my memory with fruitless calls upon it, hopelessly trying to recover the place

where I could have seen the stranger before. In vain memory traveled over Europe in concertrooms,

theaters, shops, and railway carriages. I could not recall the occasion on which those eyes had previously met

mine. That they had met them I had no doubt. I went to bed with the riddle undiscovered.

Next morning Nuremberg was agitated with a horror such as can seldom have disturbed its quiet; a young and

lovely girl had been murdered. Her corpse was discovered at daybreak under the archway leading to the old

fortifications. She had been stabbed to the heart. No other signs of violence were visible; no robbery had been

In great cities, necessarily great centers of crime, we daily hear of murders; their frequency and remoteness

leave us undisturbed. Our sympathies can only be deeply moved either by some scenic peculiarities investing

the crime with unusual romance or unusual atrocity, or else by the more immediate appeal of direct

neighborly interest. The murder which is read of in the Times as having occurred in Westminster, has seldom

any special horror to the inhabitants of Islington or Oxford Street; but to the inhabitants of Westminster, and

especially to the inhabitants of the particular street in which it was perpetrated, the crime assumes

heartshaking proportions. Every detail is asked for, and every surmise listened to, with feverish eagerness is

repeated and diffused through the crowd with growing interest. The family of the victim; the antecedents of

the assassin, if he is known; or the conjectures pointing to the unknown assassin,are eagerly discussed. All

the trivial details of household care or domestic fortunes, all the items of personal gossip, become invested

with a solemn and affecting interest. Pity for the victim and survivors mingle and alternate with fierce cries

for vengeance on the guilty. The whole street becomes one family, commingled by an energetic sympathy,

In villages, and in cities so small as Nuremberg, the same community of feeling is manifested. The town

became as one street. The horror spread like a conflagration, the sympathy surged and swelled like a tide.

Everyone felt a personal interest in the event, as if the murder had been committed at his own door. Never

shall I forget that wail of passionate pity, and that cry for the vengeance of justice, which rose from all sides

of the startled city. Never shall I forget the hurry, the agitation, the feverish restlessness, the universal

communicativeness, the volunteered services, the eager suggestion, surging round the house of the unhappy

parents. Herr Lehfeldt, the father of the unhappy girl, was a respected burgher known to almost every one.

His mercer's shop was the leading one of the city. A worthy, pious man, somewhat strict, but of

irreproachable character; his virtues, no less than those of his wife, and of his only daughter, Lieschen

now, alas; for ever snatched from their yearning eyeswere canvassed everywhere, and served to intensify

the general grief. That such a calamity should have fallen on a household so estimable, seemed to add fuel to

the people's wrath. Poor Lieschen! her pretty, playful waysher opening prospects, as the only daughter of

parents so well to do and so kindher youth and abounding lifethese were detailed with impassioned

fervor by friends, and repeated by strangers who caught the tone of friends, as if they, too, had known and

loved her. But amidst the surging uproar of this sea of many voices no one clear voice of direction could be

Cries had been heard in the streets that night at various parts of the town, which, although then interpreted as

the quarrels of drunken brawlers, and the conflicts of cats, were now confidently asserted to have proceeded

from the unhappy girl in her deathstruggle. But none of these cries had been heard in the immediate

neighborhood of the archway. All the inhabitants of that part of the town agreed that in their waking hours the

streets had been perfectly still. Nor were there any traces visible of a struggle having taken place. Lieschen

might have been murdered elsewhere, and her corpse quietly deposited where it was found, as far as any

Wild and vague were the conjectures. All were baffled in the attempt to give them a definite direction. The

crime was apparently prompted by revengecertainly not by lust, or desire of money. But she was not

known to stand in any one's way. In this utter blank as to the assignable motive, I, perhaps alone among the

furious crowd, had a distinct suspicion of the assassin. No sooner had the news reached me, than with the

specification of the theater of the crime there at once flashed upon me the intellectual vision of the criminal:

the stranger with the dark beard and startled eyes stood confessed before me! I held my breath for a few

moments, and then there came a tide of objections rushing over my mind, revealing the inadequacy of the

grounds on which rested my suspicions. What were the grounds? I had seen a man in a particular spot, not an

unfrequented spot, on the evening of the night when the crime had been committed there; that man had

seemed to recognize me, and wished to avoid being recognized. Obviously these grounds were too slender to

bear any weight of construction such as I had based on them. Mere presence on the spot could no more

inculpate him than it could inculpate me; if I had met him there, equally had he met me there. Nor even if my

suspicion were correct that he knew me, and refused to recognize me, could that be any argument tending to

criminate him in an affair wholly disconnected with me. Besides, he was walking peaceably, openly, and he

looked like a gentleman. All these objections pressed themselves upon me, and kept me silent. But in spite of

their force I could not prevent the suspicion from continually arising. Ashamed to mention it, because it may

have sounded too absurd, I could not prevent my constructive imagination indulging in its vagaries, and with

this secret conviction I resolved to await events, and in case suspicion from other quarters should ever

designate the probable assassin, I might then come forward with my bit of corroborative evidence, should the

By twelve o'clock a new direction was given to rumor. Hitherto the stories, when carefully sifted of all

exaggerations of flying conjecture, had settled themselves into something like this: The Lehfeldts had retired

to rest at a quarter before ten, as was their custom. They had seen Lieschen go into her bedroom for the night,

and had themselves gone to sleep with unclouded minds. From this peaceful security they were startled early

in the morning by the appalling news of the calamity which had fallen on them. Incredulous at first, as well

they might be, and incapable of believing in a ruin so unexpected and so overwhelming, they imagined some

mistake, asserting that Lieschen was in her own room. Into that room they rushed, and there the undisturbed

bed, and the open window, but a few feet from the garden, silently and pathetically disclosed the fatal truth.

The bereaved parents turned a revealing look upon each other's whitened faces, and then slowly retired from

the room, followed in affecting silence by the others. Back into their own room they went. The father knelt

beside the bed, and, sobbing, prayed. The mother sat staring with a stupefied stare, her lips faintly moving. In

a short while the flood of grief, awakened to a thorough consciousness, burst from their laboring hearts.

When the first paroxysms were over they questioned others, and gave incoherent replies to the questions

addressed to them. From all which it resulted that Lieschen's absence, though obviously voluntary, was

wholly inexplicable to them; and no clew whatever could be given as to the motives of the crime. When these

details became known, conjecture naturally interpreted Lieschen's absence at night as an assignation. But

with whom? She was not known to have a lover. Her father, on being questioned, passionately affirmed that

she had none; she loved no one but her parents, poor child! Her mother, on being questioned, told the same

storyadding, however, that about seventeen months before, she had fancied that Lieschen was a little

disposed to favor Franz Kerkel, their shopman; but on being spoken to on the subject with some seriousness,

and warned of the distance between them, she had laughed heartily at the idea, and since then had treated

Franz with so much indifference that only a week ago she had drawn from her mother a reproof on the

"I told her Franz was a good lad, though not good enough for her, and that she ought to treat him kindly. But

she said my lecture had given her an alarm, lest Franz should have got the same maggot into his head."

This was the story now passing through the curious crowds in every street. After hearing it I had turned into a

tobacconist's in the Adlergrasse, to restock my cigarcase, and found there, as everywhere, a group

discussing the one topic of the hour. Herr Fischer, the tobacconist, with a long porcelain pipe pendent from

his screwedup lips, was solemnly listening to the particulars volubly communicated by a stout Bavarian

priest; while behind the counter, in a corner, swiftly knitting, sat his wife, her black beadlike eyes also fixed

on the orator. Of course I was dragged into the conversation. Instead of attending to commercial interests,

they looked upon me as the possible bearer of fresh news. Nor was it without a secret satisfaction that I found

I could gratify them in that respect. They had not heard of Franz Kerkel in the matter. No sooner had I told

what I had heard than the knittingneedles of the vivacious little woman were at once suspended.

"Who? Why, Kerkel, of course. If she changed, and treated him with indifference, it was because she loved

"How you run on, wife!" remonstrated Fischer; while the priest shook a dubious head.

"Well, say she did," continued Fischer, "and I won't deny that it may be so; but then that makes against the

"Don't tell me," retorted the convinced woman. "She loved him. She went out to meet him in secret, and he

murdered herthe villain did. I'm as sure of it as if these eyes had seen him do it."

The husband winked at us, as much as to say, "You hear these women!" and the priest and I endeavored to

reason her out of her illogical position. But she was immovable. Kerkel had murdered her; she knew it; she

couldn't tell why, but she knew it. Perhaps he was jealous, who knows? At any rate, he ought to be arrested.

And by twelve o'clock, as I said, a new rumor ran through the crowd, which seemed to confirm the little

woman in her rash logic. Kerkel had been arrested, and a waistcoat stained with blood had been found in his

room! By halfpast twelve the rumor ran that he had confessed the crime. This, however, proved on inquiry

to be the hasty anticipation of public indignation. He had been arrested; the waistcoat had been found: so

When first Frau Fischer had started the suggestion it flew like wildfire. Then people suddenly noticed, as very

surprising, that Kerkel had not that day made his appearance at the shop. His absence had not been noticed in

the tumult of grief and inquiry; but it became suddenly invested with a dreadful significance, now that it was

rumored that he had been Lieschen's lover. Of all men he would be the most affected by the tragic news; of

all men he would have been the first to tender sympathy and aid to the afflicted parents, and the most

clamorous in the search for the undiscovered culprit. Yet, while all Nuremberg was crowding round the house

of sorrow, which was also his house of business, he alone remained away. This naturally pointed suspicion at

him. When the messengers had gone to seek him, his mother refused them admission, declaring in incoherent

phrases, betraying great agitation, that her son was gone distracted with grief and could see no one. On this it

was determined to order his arrest. The police went, the house was searched, and the waistcoat found.

The testimony of the girl who lived as servant in Kerkel's house was also criminatory. She deposed that on

the night in question she awoke about halfpast eleven with a violent toothache; she was certain as to the

hour, because she heard the clock afterwards strike twelve. She felt some alarm at hearing voices in the

rooms at an hour when her mistress and young master must long ago have gone to bed; but as the voices were

seemingly in quiet conversation, her alarm subsided, and she concluded that instead of having gone to bed her

mistress was still up. In her pain she heard the door gently open, and then she heard footsteps in the garden.

This surprised her very much. She couldn't think what the young master could want going out at that hour.

She became terrified without knowing exactly at what. Fear quite drove away the toothache, which had not

since returned. After lying there quaking for some time, again she heard footsteps in the garden; the door

opened and closed gently; voices were heard; and she at last distinctly heard her mistress say, "Be a man,

Franz. Goodnight sleep well;" upon which Franz replied in a tone of great agony, "There's no chance of

sleep for me." Then all was silent. Next morning her mistress seemed "very queer." Her young master went

out very early, but soon came back again; and there were dreadful scenes going on in his room, as she heard,

but she didn't know what it was all about. She heard of the murder from a neighbor, but never thought of its

having any particular interest for Mr. Franz, though, of course, he would be very sorry for the Lehfeldts.

The facts testified to by the servant, especially the going out at that late hour, and the "dreadful scenes" of the

morning, seemed to bear but one interpretation. Moreover, she identified the waistcoat as the one worn by

Now at last the pentup wrath found a vent. From the distracting condition of wandering uncertain suspicion,

it had been recalled into the glad security of individual hate. Although up to this time Kerkel had borne an

exemplary reputation, it was now remembered that he had always been of a morose and violent temper, a

hypocrite in religion, a selfish sensualist. Several sagacious critics had long "seen through him"; others had

"never liked him"; others had wondered how it was he kept his place so long in Lehfeldt's shop. Poor fellow!

his life and actions, like those of every one else when illuminated by a light thrown back upon them, seemed

so conspicuously despicable, although when illuminated in their own light they had seemed innocent enough.

His mother's frantic protestations of her son's innocenceher assertions that Franz loved Lieschen more than

his own soulonly served to envelop her in the silent accusation of being an accomplice, or at least of being

I cannot say why it was, but I did not share the universal belief. The logic seemed to me forced; the evidence

trivial. On first hearing of Kerkel's arrest, I eagerly questioned my informant respecting his personal

appearance; and on hearing that he was fair, with blue eyes and flaxen hair, my conviction of his innocence

was fixed. Looking back on these days, I am often amused at this characteristic of my constructive

imagination. While rejecting the disjointed logic of the mob, which interpreted his guilt, I was myself

deluded by a logic infinitely less rational. Had Kerkel been dark, with dark eyes and beard, I should probably

have sworn to his guilt, simply because the idea of that stranger had firmly fixed itself in my mind.

All that afternoon, and all the next day, the busy hum of voices was raised by the one topic of commanding

interest. Kerkel had been examined. He at once admitted that a secret betrothal had for some time existed

between him and Lieschen. They had been led to take this improper step by fear of her parents, who, had the

attachment been discovered, would, it was thought, have separated them for ever. Herr Lehfeldt's sternness,

no less than his superior position, seemed an invincible obstacle, and the good mother, although doting upon

her only daughter, was led by the very intensity of her affection to form ambitious hopes of her daughter's

future. It was barely possible that some turn in events might one day yield an opening for their consent; but

meanwhile prudence dictated secrecy, in order to avert the most pressing danger, that of separation.

And so the pretty Lieschen, with feminine instinct of ruse, had affected to treat her lover with indifference;

and to compensate him and herself for this restraint, she had been in the habit of escaping from home once or

twice a week, and spending a delicious hour or two at night in the company of her lover and his mother.

Kerkel and his mother lived in a cottage a little way outside the town. Lehfeldt's shop stood not many yards

from the archway. Now, as in Nuremberg no one was abroad after ten o'clock, except a few loungers at the

cafes and beerhouses, and these were only to be met inside the town, not outside it, Lieschen ran extremely

little risk of being observed in her rapid transit from her father's to her lover's house. Nor, indeed, had she

On the fatal night Lieschen was expected at the cottage. Mother and son waited at first hopefully, then

anxiously, at last with some vague uneasiness at her nonappearance. It was now a quarter past

elevennearly an hour later than her usual time. They occasionally went to the door to look for her; then

they walked a few yards down the road, as if to catch an earlier glimpse of her advancing steps. But in vain.

The halfhour struck. They came back into the cottage, discussing the various probabilities of delay.

Threequarters struck. Perhaps she had been detected; perhaps she was ill; perhapsbut this was his

mother's suggestion, and took little hold of himthere had been visitors who had stayed later than usual, and

Lieschen, finding the night so advanced, had postponed her visit to the morrow. Franz, who interpreted

Lieschen's feelings by his own, was assured that no postponement of a voluntary kind was credible of her.

Twelve o'clock struck. Again Franz went out into the road, and walked nearly up to the archway; he returned

with heavy sadness and foreboding at his heart, reluctantly admitting that now all hope of seeing her that

night was over. That night? Poor sorrowing heart, the night was to be eternal! The anguish of the desolate

There is something intensely pathetic in being thus, as it were, spectators of a tragic drama which is being

acted on two separate stages at oncethe dreadful link of connection, which is unseen to the separate actors,

being only too vividly seen by the spectators. It was with some interest that I, who believed in Kerkel's

innocence, heard this story; and in imagination followed its unfolding stage. He went to bed, not, as may be

expected, to sleep; tossing restlessly in feverish agitation, conjuring up many imaginary terrorsbut all of

them trifles compared with the dread reality which he was so soon to face. He pictured her weepingand she

was lying dead on the cold pavement of the dark archway. He saw her in agitated eloquence pleading with

offended parentsand she was removed for ever from all agitations, with the peace of death upon her young

At an early hour he started, that he might put an end to his suspense. He had not yet reached the archway

before the shattering news burst upon him. From that moment he remembered nothing. But his mother

described his ghastly agitation, as, throwing himself upon her neck, he told her, through dreadful sobs, the

calamity which had fallen. She did her best to comfort him; but he grew wilder and wilder, and rolled upon

the ground in the agony of an immeasurable despair. She trembled for his reason and his life. And when the

messengers came to seek him, she spoke but the simple truth in saying that he was like one distracted. Yet no

sooner had a glimpse of light dawned on him that some vague suspicion rested on him in reference to the

murder, than he started up, flung away his agitation, and, with a calmness which was awful, answered every

question, and seemed nerved for every trial. From that moment not a sob escaped him until, in the narrative

of the night's events, he came to that part which told of the sudden disclosure of his bereavement. And the

simple, straightforward manner in which he told this tale, with a face entirely bloodless, and eyes that seemed

to have withdrawn all their light inwards, made a great impression on the audience, which was heightened

into sympathy when the final sob, breaking through the forced calmness, told of the agony which was eating

The story was not only plausible in itself, but accurately tallied with what before had seemed like the

criminating evidence of the maid; tallied, moreover, precisely as to time, which would hardly have been the

case had the story been an invention. As to the waistcoat which had figured so conspicuously in all the

rumors, it appeared that suspicion had monstrously exaggerated the facts. Instead of a waistcoat plashed with

bloodas popular imagination pictured itit was a gray waistcoat, with one spot and a slight smear of

blood, which admitted of a very simple explanation. Three days before, Franz had cut his left hand in cutting

some bread; and to this the maid testified, because she was present when the accident occurred. He had not

noticed that his waistcoat was marked by it until the next day, and had forgotten to wash out the stains.

People outside shook skeptical heads at this story of the cut hand. The bloody waistcoat was not to be

disposed of in that easy way. It had fixed itself too strongly in their imagination. Indeed, my belief is that

even could they have seen the waistcoat, its insignificant marks would have appeared murderous patches to

their eyes. I had seen it, and my report was listened to with illconcealed disbelief, when not with open

protestation. And when Kerkel was discharged as free from all suspicion, there was a low growl of

This may sympathetically be understood by whomsoever remembers the painful uneasiness of the mind under

a great stress of excitement with no definite issue. The lust for a vengeance, demanded by the aroused

sensibilities of compassion, makes men credulous in their impatience; they easily believe anyone is guilty,

because they feel an imperious need for fastening the guilt upon some definite head. Few verdicts of "Not

Guilty" are well received, unless another victim is at hand upon whom the verdict of guilty is likely to fall. It

was demonstrable to all judicial minds that Kerkel was wholly, pathetically innocent. In a few days this

gradually became clear to the majority, but at first it was resisted as an attempt to balk justice; and to the last

there were some obstinate doubters, who shook their heads mysteriously, and said, with a certain

incisiveness, "Somebody must have done it; I should very much like to know who."

Suspicion once more was drifting aimlessly. None had pointed in any new direction. No mention of anyone

whom I could identify with the stranger had yet been made; but, although silent on the subject, I kept firm in

my conviction, and I sometimes laughed at the pertinacity with which I scrutinized the face of every man I

met, if he happened to have a black beard; and as black beards are excessively common, my curiosity, though

Meanwhile Lieschen's funeral had been emphatically a public mourning. Nay, so great was the emotion, that

it almost deadened the interest which otherwise would have been so powerful, in the news now daily reaching

us from Paris. Blood had flowed upon her streetsin consequence of that pistolshot, which, either by

accident or criminal intent, had converted the demonstration before the hotel of the Minister of Foreign

Affairs into an insurrection. Paris had risen; barricades were erected. The troops were under arms. This was

Such is the solidarity of all European nations, and so quick are all to vibrate in unison with the vibrations of

each, that events like those transacted in Paris necessarily stirred every city, no matter how remote, nor

politically how secure. And it says much for the intense interest excited by the Lehfeldt tragedy that

Nuremberg was capable of sustaining that interest even amid the tremendous pressure of the February

Revolution. It is true that Nuremberg is at all times somewhat sequestered from the great movements of the

day, following slowly in the rear of great waves; it is true, moreover, that some politicians showed

remarkable eagerness in canvassing the characters and hopes of Louis Philippe and Guizot; but although such

events would at another period have formed the universal interest, the impenetrable mystery hanging over

Lieschen's death threw the Revolution into the background of their thoughts. If when a storm is raging over

the dreary moorland, a human cry of suffering is heard at the door, at once the thunders and the tumult sink

into insignificance, and are not even heard by the ear which is pierced with the feeble human voice: the

grandeurs of storm and tempest, the uproar of surging seas, the clamorous wail of seabirds amid the

volleying artillery of heaven, in vain assail the ear that has once caught even the distant cry of a human

agony, or serve only as scenical accompaniments to the tragedy which is foreshadowed by that cry. And so it

was amid the uproar of 1848. A kingdom was in convulsions; but here, at our door, a young girl had been

murdered, and two hearths made desolate. Rumors continued to fly about. The assassin was always about to

be discovered; but he remained shrouded in impenetrable darkness. A remark made by Bourgonef struck me

much. Our host, Zum Bayerischen Hof, one day announced with great satisfaction that he had himself heard

"It is a proof," he added, "that even the police now give it up as hopeless. I always notice that whenever the

police are said to be on the traces the malefactor is never tracked. When they are on his traces they wisely say

nothing about it; they allow it to be believed that they are baffled, in order to lull their victim into a dangerous

security. When they know themselves to be baffled, there is no danger in quieting the public mind, and saving

Bourgonef's remark had been but too sagacious. The police were hoplessly baffled. In all such cases possible

success depends upon the initial suggestion either of a motive which leads to a suspicion of the person, or of

some person which leads to a suspicion of the motive. Once set suspicion on the right track, and evidence is

suddenly alight in all quarters. But, unhappily, in the present case there was no assignable motive, no shadow

An episode now came to our knowledge in which Bourgonef manifested an unusual depth of interest. I was

led to notice this interest, because it had seemed to me that in the crime itself, and the discussions which

arose out of it, he shared but little of the universal excitement. I do not mean that he was indifferentby no

means; but the horror of the crime did not seem to fascinate his imagination as it fascinated ours. He could

talk quite as readily of other things, and far more readily of the French affairs. But on the contrary, in this

new episode he showed peculiar interest. It appeared that Lehfeldt, moved, perhaps, partly by a sense of the

injustice which had been done to Kerkel in even suspecting him of the crime, and in submitting him to an

examination more poignantly affecting to him under such circumstances than a public trial would have been

under others; and moved partly by the sense that Lieschen's love had practically drawn Kerkel within the

familyfor her choice of him as a husband had made him morally, if not legally, a soninlaw; and moved

partly by the sense of loneliness which had now settled on their childless home,Lehfeldt had in the most

pathetic and considerate terms begged Kerkel to take the place of his adopted son, and become joint partner

with him in the business. This, however, Kerkel had gently yet firmly declined. He averred that he felt no

injury, though great pain had been inflicted on him by the examination. He himself in such a case would not

have shrunk from demanding that his own brother should be tried, under suspicions of similar urgency. It was

simple justice that all who were suspected should be examined; justice also to them that they might for ever

clear themselves of doubtful appearances. But for the rest, while he felt his old affectionate respect for his

master, he could recognize no claim to be removed from his present position. Had she lived, said the

heartbroken youth, he would gladly have consented to accept any fortune which her love might bestow,

because he felt that his own love and the devotion of a life might repay it. But there was nothing now that he

could give in exchange. For his services he was amply paid; his feelings towards Lieschen's parents must

continue what they had ever been. In vain Lehfeldt pleaded, in vain many friends argued. Franz remained

This, as I said, interested Bourgonef immensely. He seemed to enter completely into the minds of the

sorrowing, pleading parents, and the sorrowing, denying lover. He appreciated and expounded their motives

with a subtlety and delicacy of perception which surprised and delighted me. It showed the refinement of his

moral nature. But, at the same time, it rendered his minor degree of interest in the other episodes of the story,

those which had a more direct and overpowering appeal to the heart, a greater paradox.

Human nature is troubled in the presence of all mystery which has not by long familiarity lost its power of

soliciting attention; and for my own part, I have always been uneasy in the presence of moral problems.

Puzzled by the contradictions which I noticed in Bourgonef, I tried to discover whether he had any general

repugnance to stories of crimes, or any special repugnance to murders, or, finally, any strange repugnance to

this particular case now everywhere discussed. And it is not a little remarkable that during three separate

interviews, in the course of which I severally, and as I thought artfully, introduced these topics, making them

seem to arise naturally out of the suggestion of our talk, I totally failed to arrive at any distinct conclusion. I

was afraid to put the direct question: Do you not share the common feeling of interest in criminal stories?

This question would doubtless have elicited a categorical reply; but somehow, the consciousness of an

Reflecting on this indifference on a special point, and on the numerous manifestations I had noticed of his

sensibility, I came at last to the conclusion that he must be a man of tender heart, whose delicate sensibilities

easily shrank from the horrible under every form; and no more permitted him to dwell unnecessarily upon

painful facts, than they permit imaginative minds to dwell on the details of an operation.

I had not long settled this in my mind before an accident suddenly threw a lurid light upon many details

noticed previously, and painfully revived that inexplicable repulsion with which I had at first regarded him. A

new suspicion filled my mind, or rather, let me say, a distinct shape was impressed upon many fluctuating

suspicions. It scarcely admitted of argument, and at times seemed preposterous, nevertheless it persisted. The

mind which in broad daylight assents to all that can be alleged against the absurdities of the belief in

apparitions, will often acknowledge the dim terrors of darkness and lonelinessterrors at possibilities of

supernatural visitations. In like manner, in the clear daylight of reason I could see the absurdity of my

suspicion, but the vague stirrings of feeling remained unsilenced. I was haunted by the dim horrors of a

Thus it arose. We were both going to Munich, and Bourgonef had shortened his contemplated stay at

Nuremberg that he might have the pleasure of accompanying me; adding also that he, too, should be glad to

reach Munich, not only for its art, but for its greater command of papers and intelligence respecting what was

then going on in France. On the night preceding the morning of our departure, I was seated in his room,

smoking and discussing as usual, while Ivan, his servant, packed up his things in two large portmanteaus.

Ivan was a serf who spoke no word of any language but his own. Although of a brutal, almost idiotic type, he

was loudly eulogized by his master as the model of fidelity and usefulness. Bourgonef treated him with

gentleness, though with a certain imperiousness; much as one might treat a savage mastiff which it was

necessary to dominate without exasperating. He more than once spoke of Ivan as a living satire on

physiognomists and phrenologists; and as I am a phrenologist, I listened with some incredulity.

"Look at him," he would say. "Observe the low, retreating brow, the flat face, the surly mouth, the broad base

of the head, and the huge bulllike neck. Would not anyone say Ivan was as destructive as a panther, as

tenacious as a bulldog, as brutal as a bull? Yet he is the gentlest of sluggish creatures, and as tenderhearted

as a girl! That thickset muscular frame shrouds a hare's heart. He is so faithful and so attached that I believe

for me he would risk his life; but on no account could you get him to place himself in danger on his own

account. Part of his love for me is gratitude for having rescued him from the conscription: the dangers

Now, although Bourgonef, who was not a phrenologist, might be convinced of the absence of ferocious

instincts in Ivan, to me, as a phrenologist, the statement was eminently incredible. All the appearances of his

manner were such as to confirm his master's opinion. He was quiet, even tender in his attentions. But the

tyrannous influence of ideas and physical impressions cannot be set aside; and no evidence would

permanently have kept down my distrust of this man. When women shriek at the sight of a gun, it is in vain

that you solemnly assure them that the gun is not loaded. "I don't know," they reply,"at any rate, I don't

like it." I was much in this attitude with regard to Ivan. He might be harmless. I didn't know that; what I did

On this night he was moving noiselessly about the room, employed in packing. Bourgonef's talk rambled over

the old themes; and I thought I had never before met with one of my own age whose society was so perfectly

delightful. He was not so conspicuously my superior on all points that I felt the restraints inevitably imposed

by superiority; yet he was in many respects sufficiently above me in knowledge and power to make me eager

to have his assent to my views where we differed, and to have him enlighten me where I knew myself to be

In the very moment of my most cordial admiration came a shock. Ivan, on passing from one part of the room

to the other, caught his foot in the strap of the portmanteau and fell. The small wooden box, something of a

glovebox, which he held in his hand at the time, fell on the floor, and falling over, discharged its contents

close to Bourgonef's feet. The objects which caught my eyes were several pairs of gloves, a rougepot and

By what caprice of imagination was it that the sight of this false beard lying at Bourgonef's feet thrilled me

with horror? In one lightningflash I beheld the archwaythe stranger with the startled eyesthis stranger

no longer unknown to me, but too fatally recognized as Bourgonefand at his feet the murdered girl!

Moved by what subtle springs of suggestion I know not, but there before me stood that dreadful vision, seen

in a lurid light, but seen as clearly as if the actual presence of the objects were obtruding itself upon my eyes.

In the inexpressible horror of this vision my heart seemed clutched with an icy hand.

Fortunately Bourgonef's attention was called away from me. He spoke angrily some short sentence, which of

course was in Russian, and therefore unintelligible to me. He then stooped, and picking up the rougepot,

held it towards me with his melancholy smile. He was very red in the face; but that may have been either

anger or the effect of sudden stooping. "I see you are surprised at these masquerading follies," he said in a

tone which, though low, was perfectly calm. "You must not suppose that I beautify my sallow cheeks on

He then quietly handed the pot to Ivan, who replaced it with the gloves and the beard in the box; and after

making an inquiry which sounded like a growl, to which Bourgonef answered negatively, he continued his

The vision had disappeared, but a confused mass of moving figures took its place. My heart throbbed so

violently that it seemed to me as if its tumult must be heard by others. Yet my face must have been tolerably

I answered his remarks in vague fragments, for, in truth, my thoughts were flying from conjecture to

conjecture. I remembered that the stranger had a florid complexion; was this rouge? It is true that I fancied

the stranger carried a walkingstick in his right hand; if so, this was enough to crush all suspicions of his

identity with Bourgonef; but then I was rather hazy on this point, and probably did not observe a

After a while my inattention struck him, and looking at me with some concern, he inquired if there was

anything the matter. I pleaded a colic, which I attributed to the imprudence of having indulged in sauerkraut

at dinner. He advised me to take a little brandy; but, affecting a fresh access of pain, I bade him goodnight.

He hoped I should be all right on the morrowif not, he added, we can postpone our journey till the day

Once in my own room I bolted the door, and sat down on the edge of the bed in a tumult of excitement.

Alone with my thoughts, and capable of pursuing conjectures and conclusions without external interruption, I

quickly exhausted all the hypothetical possibilities of the case, and, from having started with the idea that

Bourgonef was the assassin, I came at last to the more sensible conclusion that I was a constructive

blockhead. My suspicions were simply outrageous in their defect of evidence, and could never for one

moment have seemed otherwise to any imagination less riotously active than mine.

I bathed my heated head, undressed myself, and got into bed, considering what I should say to the police

when I went next morning to communicate my suspicions. And it is worthy of remark, as well as somewhat

ludicrously selfbetraying, that no sooner did I mentally see myself in the presence of the police, and was

thus forced to confront my suspicions with some appearance of evidence, than the whole fabric of my vision

rattled to the ground. What had I to say to the police? Simply that, on the evening of the night when Lieschen

was murdered, I had passed in a public thoroughfare a man whom I could not identify, but who as I could not

help fancying, seemed to recognize me. This man, I had persuaded myself, was the murderer; for which

persuasion I was unable to adduce a tittle of evidence. It was uncolored by the remotest possibility. It was

truly and simply the suggestion of my vagrant fancy, which had mysteriously settled itself into a conviction;

and having thus capriciously identified the stranger with Lieschen's murderer, I now, upon evidence quite as

The folly became apparent even to myself. If Bourgonef had in his possession a rougepot and false beard, I

could not but acknowledge that he made no attempt to conceal them, nor had he manifested any confusion on

their appearance. He had quietly characterized them as masquerading follies. Moreover, I now began to

remember distinctly that the stranger did carry a walkingstick in his right hand; and as Bourgonef had lost

Into such complications, would the tricks of imagination lead me! I blushed mentally, and resolved to let it

serve as a lesson in future. It is needless, however, to say that the lesson was lost, as such lessons always are

lost; a strong tendency in any direction soon disregards all the teachings of experience. I am still not the less

the victim of my constructive imagination, because I have frequently had to be ashamed of its vagaries.

The next morning I awoke with a lighter breast, rejoicing in the caution which had delayed me from any rash

manifestation of suspicions now seen to be absurd. I smiled as the thought arose: what if this suspected

stranger should also be pestered by an active imagination, and should entertain similar suspicions of me? He

must have seen in my eyes the look of recognition which I saw in his. On hearing of the murder, our meeting

may also have recurred to him; and his suspicions would have this color, wanting to mine, that I happen to

inherit with my Italian blood a somewhat truculent appearance, which has gained for me among my friends

Anxious to atone at once for my folly, and to remove from my mind any misgivingif it existedat my

quitting him so soon after the disclosures of the masquerading details, I went to Bourgonef as soon as I was

dressed and proposed a ramble till the diligence started for Munich. He was sympathetic in his inquiries about

my colic, which I assured him had quite passed away, and out we went. The sharp morning air of March

made us walk briskly, and gave a pleasant animation to our thoughts. As he discussed the acts of the

provisional government, so wise, temperate, and energetic, the fervor and generosity of his sentiments stood

out in such striking contrast with the deed I had last night recklessly imputed to him that I felt deeply

ashamed, and was nearly carried away by mingled admiration and selfreproach to confess the absurd

vagrancy of my thoughts and humbly ask his pardon. But you can understand the reluctance at a confession

so insulting to him, so degrading to me. It is at all times difficult to tell a man, face to face, eye to eye, the

evil you have thought of him, unless the recklessness of anger seizes on it as a weapon with which to strike;

and I had now so completely unsaid to myself all that I once had thought of evil, that to put it in words

A day or two after our arrival in Munich a reaction began steadily to set in. Ashamed as I was of my

suspicions, I could not altogether banish from my mind the incident which had awakened them. The image of

that false beard would mingle with my thoughts. I was vaguely uncomfortable at the idea of Bourgonef's

carrying about with him obvious materials of disguise. In itself this would have had little significance; but

coupled with the fact that his devoted servant wasin spite of all Bourgonef's eulogies repulsively

ferocious in aspect, capable, as I could not help believing, of any brutality,the suggestion was unpleasant.

You will understand that having emphatically acquitted Bourgonef in my mind, I did not again distinctly

charge him with any complicity in the mysterious murder; on the contrary, I should indignantly have repelled

such a thought; but the uneasy sense of some mystery about him, coupled with the accessories of disguise,

and the aspect of the servant, gave rise to dim, shadowy forebodings which ever and anon passed across my

Did it ever occur to you, reader, to reflect on the depths of deceit which lie still and dark even in the honestest

minds? Society reposes on a thin crust of convention, underneath which lie fathomless possibilities of crime,

and consequently suspicions of crime. Friendship, however close and dear, is not free from its reserves,

unspoken beliefs, more or less suppressed opinions. The man whom you would indignantly defend against

any accusation brought by another, so confident are you in his unshakable integrity, you may yourself

momentarily suspect of crimes far exceeding those which you repudiate. Indeed, I have known sagacious men

hold that perfect frankness in expressing the thoughts is a sure sign of imperfect friendship; something is

always suppressed; and it is not he who loves you that "tells you candidly what he thinks" of your person,

your pretensions, your children, or your poems. Perfect candor is dictated by envy, or some other unfriendly

feeling, making friendship a stalkinghorse, under cover of which it shoots the arrow which will rankle.

Friendship is candid only when the candor is urgentmeant to avert impending danger or to rectify an error.

The candor which is an impertinence never springs from friendship. Love is sympathetic.

I do not, of course, mean to intimate that my feeling for Bourgonef was of that deep kind which justifies the

name of friendship. I only want to say that in our social relations we are constantly hiding from each other,

under the smiles and courtesies of friendly interest, thoughts which, if expressed, would destroy all possible

communionand that, nevertheless, we are not insincere in our smiles and courtesies; and therefore there is

nothing paradoxical in my having felt great admiration for Bourgonef, and great pleasure in his society, while

all the time there was deep down in the recesses of my thoughts an uneasy sense of a dark mystery which

This feeling was roused into greater activity by an incident which now occurred. One morning I went to

Bourgonef's room, which was at some distance from mine on the same floor, intending to propose a visit to

the sculpture at the Glyptothek. To my surprise I found Ivan the serf standing before the closed door. He

looked at me like a mastiff about to spring; and intimated by significant gestures that I was not allowed to

enter the room. Concluding that his master was occupied in some way, and desired not to be disturbed, I

merely signified by a nod that my visit was of no consequence, and went out. On returning about an hour

afterwards I saw Ivan putting three pink letters into the letterbox of the hotel. I attached no significance to

this very ordinary fact at the time, but went up to my room and began writing my letters, one of which was to

my lawyer, sending him an important receipt. The dinnerbell sounded before I had half finished this letter;

but I wrote on, determined to have done with it at once, in case the afternoon should offer any expedition

At dinner he quietly intimated that Ivan had informed him of my visit, and apologized for not having been

able to see me. I, of course, assured him that no apology was necessary, and that we had plenty of time to

visit sculpture together without intruding on his private hours. He informed me that he was that afternoon

going to pay a visit to Schwanthaler, the sculptor, and if I desired it, he would ask permission on another

Dinner over, I strolled into the Englische Garten, and had my coffee and cigar there. On my return I was

vexed to find that in the hurry of finishing my letters I had sealed the one to my lawyer, and had not enclosed

the receipt which had been the object of writing. Fortunately it was not too late. Descending to the bureau of

the hotel, I explained my mistake to the headwaiter, who unlocked the letterbox to search for my letter. It

was found at once, for there were only seven or eight in the box. Among these my eye naturally caught the

three pink letters which I had that morning seen Ivan drop into the box; but although they were SEEN by me

they were not NOTICED at the time, my mind being solely occupied with rectifying the stupid blunder I had

Once more in my own room a sudden revelation startled me. Everyone knows what it is to have details come

under the eye which the mind first interprets long after the eye ceases to rest upon them. The impressions are

received passively; but they are registered, and can be calmly read whenever the mind is in activity. It was so

now. I suddenly, as if now for the first time, saw that the addresses on Bourgonef's letters were written in a

fluent, masterly hand, bold in character, and with a certain sweep which might have come from a painter. The

thrill which this vision gave will be intelligible when you remember that Bourgonef had lost or pretended to

have lost his right arm, and was, as I before intimated, far from dexterous with his left. That no man recently

thrown upon the use of a left hand could have written those addresses was too evident. What, then, was the

alternative? The empty sleeve was an imposture! At once the old horrible suspicion returned, and this time

Pressing my temples between my hands, I tried to be calm and to survey the evidence without precipitation;

but for some time the conflict of thoughts was too violent. Whatever might be the explanation, clear it was

that Bourgonef, for some purposes, was practising a deception, and had, as I knew, other means of disguising

his appearance. This, on the most favorable interpretation, branded him with suspicion. This excluded him

But did it connect him with the murder of Lieschen Lehfeldt? In my thought it did so indubitably; but I was

If the reader feels that my suspicions were not wholly unwarranted, were indeed inevitable, he will not laugh

at me on learning that once more these suspicions were set aside, and the factthe damnatory fact, as I

regarded itdiscovered by me so accidentally, and, I thought, providentially, was robbed of all its

significance by Bourgonef himself casually and carelessly avowing it in conversation, just as one may avow a

secret infirmity, with some bitterness, but without any implication of deceit in its concealment.

I was the more prepared for this revulsion of feeling, by the difficulty I felt in maintaining my suspicions in

the presence of one so gentle and so refined. He had come into my room that evening to tell me of his visit to

Schwanthaler, and of the sculptor's flattering desire to make my personal acquaintance. He spoke of

Schwanthaler, and his earnest efforts in art, with so much enthusiasm, and was altogether so charming, that I

felt abashed before him, incapable of ridding myself of the dreadful suspicions, yet incapable of firmly

believing him to be what I thought. But more than this, there came the new interest awakened in me by his

story; and when, in the course of his story, he accidentally disclosed the fact that he had not lost his arm, all

We had got, as usual, upon politics, and were differing more than usual, because he gave greater prominence

to his sympathy with the Red Republicans. He accused me of not being "thoroughgoing," which I admitted.

This he attributed to the fact of my giving a divided heart to politicsa condition natural enough at my age,

and with my hopes. "Well," said I, laughing, "you don't mean to take a lofty stand upon your few years'

seniority. If my age renders it natural, does yours profoundly alter such a conviction?"

"My age, no. But you have the hopes of youth. I have none. I am banished for ever from the joys and sorrows

of domestic life; and therefore, to live at all, must consecrate my soul to great abstractions and public affairs."

"Woman's love is impossible. You look incredulous. I do not allude to this," he said, taking up the empty

"The loss of your arm," I saidand my voice trembled slightly, for I felt that a crisis was at

hand"although a misfortune to you, would really be an advantage in gaining a woman's affections. Women

I started. He spoke bitterly, yet calmly. I awaited his explanation in great suspense.

"To have lost my arm in battle, or even by an accident, would perhaps have lent me a charm in woman's eyes.

"But it is not this which banishes me. Woman's love might be hoped for, had I far worse infirmities. The

cause lies deeper. It lies in my history. A wall of granite has grown up between me and the sex."

"But, my dear fellow, do youwounded, as I presume to guess, by some unworthy womanextend the fault

of one to the whole sex? Do you despair of finding another true, because a first was false?"

"They are all false," he exclaimed with energy. "Not, perhaps, all false from inherent viciousness, though

many are that, but false because their inherent weakness renders them incapable of truth. Oh! I know the

catalogue of their good qualities. They are often pitiful, selfdevoting, generous; but they are so by fits and

starts, just as they are cruel, remorseless, exacting, by fits and starts. They have no constancythey are too

weak to be constant even in evil; their minds are all impressions; their actions are all the issue of immediate

promptings. Swayed by the fleeting impulses of the hour, they have only one persistent, calculable motive on

which reliance can always be placedthat motive is vanity; you are always sure of them there. It is from

vanity they are goodfrom vanity they are evil; their devotion and their desertion equally vanity. I know

them. To me they have disclosed the shallows of their natures. God! how I have suffered from them!"

A deep, low exclamation, half sob, half curse, closed his tirade. He remained silent for a few minutes, looking

"I thought all your countrymen went there? Then you will never have heard anything of my story. Shall I tell

"I had reached the age of sevenandtwenty," he began, "without having once known even the vague

stirrings of the passion of love. I admired many women, and courted the admiration of them all; but I was as

yet not only heartwhole, but, to use your Shakespeare's phrase, Cupid had not tapped me on the shoulder.

"This detail is not unimportant in my story. You may possibly have observed that in those passionate natures

which reserve their force, and do not fritter away their feelings in scattered flirtations or trivial loveaffairs,

there is a velocity and momentum, when the movement of passion is once excited, greatly transcending all

that is ever felt by expansive and expressive natures. Slow to be moved, when they do move it is with the

whole mass of the heart. So it was with me. I purchased my immunity from earlier entanglements by the price

of my whole life. I am not what I was. Between my past and present self there is a gulf; that gulf is dark,

stormy, and profound. On the far side stands a youth of hope, energy, ambition, and unclouded happiness,

with great capacities for loving; on this side a blighted manhood, with no prospects but suffering and storm."

He paused. With an effort he seemed to master the suggestions which crowded upon his memory, and

"I had been for several weeks at Heidelberg. One of my intimate companions was Kestner, the architect, and

he one day proposed to introduce me to his sisterinlaw, Ottilie, of whom he had repeatedly spoken to me in

"We went, and we were most cordially received. Ottilie justified Kestner's praises. Pretty, but not strikingly

soclever, but not obtrusively so; her soft dark eyes were frank and winning; her manner was gentle and

retiring, with that dash of sentimentalism which seems native to all German girls, but without any of the

ridiculous extravagance too often seen in them. I liked her all the more because I was perfectly at my ease

with her, and this was rarely the case in my relations to young women. I don't enjoy their society.

"You leap at once to the conclusion that we fell in love. Your conclusion is precipitate. Seeing her

continually, I grew to admire and respect her; but the significant smiles, winks, and hints of friends, pointing

unmistakably at a supposed understanding existing between us, only made me more seriously examine the

state of my feelings, and assured me that I was not in love. It is true that I felt a serene pleasure in her society,

and that when away from her she occupied much of my thoughts. It is true that I often thought of her as a

wife; and in these meditations she appeared as one eminently calculated to make a happy home. But it is no

less true that during a temporary absence of hers of a few weeks I felt no sort of uneasiness, no yearning for

her presence, no vacancy in my life. I knew, therefore, that it was not love which I felt.

"So much for my feelings. What of hers? They seemed very like my own. That she admired me, and was

pleased to be with me, was certain. That she had a particle of fiery love for me I did not, could not believe.

And it was probably this very sense of her calmness which kept my feelings quiet. For love is a flame which

often can be kindled only by contact with flame. Certainly this is so in proud, reserved natures, which are

"On her return, however, from that absence I have mentioned, I was not a little fluttered by an obvious

change in her manner; an impression which subsequent meetings only served to confirm. Although still very

quiet, her manner had become more tender, and it had that delicious shyness which is the most exquisite of

flatteries, as it is one of the most enchanting of graces. I saw her tremble slightly beneath my voice, and blush

"There was no mistaking these signs. It was clear that she loved me; and it was no less clear that I, taking fire

at this discovery, was myself rapidly falling in love. I will not keep you from my story by idle reflections.

"At this juncture there arrived from Paris the woman to whom the great sorrow of my life is due. A fatalist

might read in her appearance at this particular moment the signs of a prearranged doom. A few weeks later,

and her arrival would have been harmless; I should have been shielded from all external influence by the

absorbing force of love. But, alas! this was not to be. My fate had taken another direction. The woman had

arrived whose shadow was to darken the rest of my existence. That woman was Agalma Liebenstein.

"How is it that the head which we can only see surrounded with a halo, or a shadow, when the splendors of

achievement or the infamy of shame instruct our eyes, is by the uninstructed eye observed as wholly vulgar?

We all profess to be physiognomists; how is it we are so lamentably mistaken in our judgments? Here was a

woman in whom my ignorant eyes saw nothing at all remarkable except golden hair of unusual beauty. When

I say golden, I am not speaking loosely. I do not mean red or flaxen hair, but hair actually resembling

burnished gold more than anything else. Its ripples on her brow caught the light like a coronet. This was her

one beauty, and it was superb. For the rest, her features were characterless. Her figure was tall and full; not

graceful, but sweepingly imposing. At first I noticed nothing about her except the braided splendor of her

He rose, and went into his bedroom, from which he returned with a small trinketbox in his hand. This he

laid open on the table, disclosing a long strand of exquisite fair hair lying on a cushion of darkblue velvet.

"It must have been hair like this which crowned the infamous head of Lucrezia Borgia," he said, bitterly.

"She, too, had golden hair; but hers must have been of paler tint, like her nature."

"She was one of Ottilie's friendsdear friends, they called each other,which meant that they kissed each

other profusely, and told each other all their secrets, or as much as the lying nature of the sex permitted and

suggested. It is, of course, impossible for me to disentangle my present knowledge from my past impressions

so as to give you a clear description of what I then thought of Agalma. Enough that, as a matter of fact, I

distinctly remember not to have admired her, and to have told Ottilie so; and when Ottilie, in surprise at my

insensibility, assured me that men were in general wonderfully charmed with her (though, for her part, she

had never understood why), I answered, and answered sincerely, that it might be true with the less refined

"It may have been the proximate cause of my sorrows. Without this stimulus to her vanity, she might have

left me undisturbed. I don't know. All I know is, that over many men Agalma exercised great influence, and

that over me she exercised the spell of fascination. No other word will explain her influence; for it was not

based on excellences such as the mind could recognize to be attractions; it was based on a mysterious

personal power, something awful in its mysteriousness, as all demoniac powers are. One source of her

influence over men I think I can explain: she at once captivated and repelled them. By artful appeals to their

vanity, she made them interested in her and in her opinion of them, and yet kept herself inaccessible by a

pride which was the more fascinating because it always seemed about to give way. Her instinct fastened upon

the weak point in those she approached. This made her seductive to men, because she flattered their weak

points; and hateful to women, because she flouted and disclosed their weak points.

"Her influence over me began in the following way. One day, at a picnic, having been led by her into a

conversation respecting the relative inferiority of the feminine intellect, I was forced to speak rather more

earnestly than usual, when suddenly she turned to me and exclaimed in a lower voice:

"'I am willing to credit anything you say; only pray don't continue talking to me so earnestly.'

"'Because, if you do, somebody may be jealous.' There was a laughing defiance in her eye as she spoke.

"It was true; I did know; and she knew that I knew it. To my shame be it said that I was weak enough to yield

to an equivocation which I now see to have been disloyal, but which I then pretended to have been no more

than delicacy to Ottilie. As, in point of fact, there had never been a word passed between us respecting our

mutual feelings, I considered myself bound in honor to assume that there was nothing tacitly acknowledged.

"Piqued by her tone and look, I disavowed the existence of any claims upon my attention; and to prove the

sincerity of my words, I persisted in addressing my attentions to her. Once or twice I fancied I caught flying

glances, in which some of the company criticised my conduct, and Ottilie also seemed to me unusually quiet.

But her manner, though quiet, was untroubled and unchanged. I talked less to her than usual, partly because I

talked so much to Agalma, and partly because I felt that Agalma's eyes were on us. But no shadow of 'temper'

"On our way back, I know not what devil prompted me to ask Agalma whether she had really been in earnest

"'Now I have doubts. I may have been misinformed. It's no concern of mine, anyway; but I had been given to

understand. However, I admit that my own eyes have not confirmed what my ears heard.'

"This speech was irritating on two separate grounds. It implied that people were talking freely of my

attachment, which, until I had formally acknowledged it, I resented as an impertinence; and it implied that,

from personal observation, Agalma doubted Ottilie's feelings for me. This alarmed my quickretreating

pride! I, too, began to doubt. Once let loose on that field, imagination soon saw shapes enough to confirm any

doubt. Ottilie's manner certainly had seemed less tendernay, somewhat indifferentduring the last few

days. Had the arrival of that heavy lout, her cousin, anything to do with this change?

"Not to weary you by recalling all the unfolding stages of this miserable story with the minuteness of detail

which my own memory morbidly lingers on, I will hurry to the catastrophe. I grew more and more doubtful

of the existence in Ottilie's mind of any feeling stronger than friendship for me; and as this doubt

strengthened, there arose the flattering suspicion that I was becoming an object of greater interest to Agalma,

who had quite changed her tone towards me, and had become serious in her speech and manner. Weeks

passed. Ottilie had fallen from her pedestal, and had taken her place among agreeable acquaintances. One day

"You will not wonder that Agalma, who before this had exercised great fascination over me, now doubly

became an object of the most tender interest. I fell madly in love. Hitherto I had never known that passion.

My feeling for Ottilie I saw was but the inarticulate stammerings of the mighty voice which now sounded

throught the depths of my nature. The phrase, madly in love, is no exaggeration; madness alone knows such a

fever of the brain, such a tumult of the heart. It was not that reason was overpowered; on the contrary, reason

was intensely active, but active with that logic of flames which lights up the vision of maniacs.

"Although, of course, my passion was but too evident to every one, I dreaded its premature avowal, lest I

should lose her; and almost equally dreaded delay, lest I should suffer from that also. At length the avowal

was extorted from me by jealousy of a brilliant PoleKorinskiwho had recently appeared in our circle,

and was obviously casting me in the shade by his superior advantages of novelty, of personal attraction, and

of a romantic history. She accepted me; and now, for a time, I was the happiest of mortals. The fever of the

last few weeks was abating; it gave place to a deep tide of hopeful joy. Could I have died then! Could I have

even died shortly afterwards, when I knew the delicious mystery of a jealousy not too absorbing! For you

must know that my happiness was brief. Jealousy, to which all passion of a deep and exacting power is

inevitably allied, soon began to disturb my content. Agalma had no tenderness. She permitted caresses, never

returned them. She was ready enough to listen to all my plans for the future, so long as the recital moved

amid details of fortune and her position in societythat is, so long as her vanity was interested; but I began

to observe with pain that her thoughts never rested on tender domesticities and poetic anticipations. This

vexed me more and more. The very spell which she exercised over me made her want of tenderness more

intolerable. I yearned for her lovefor some sympathy with the vehement passion which was burning within

"You will not be surprised to hear that I reproached her bitterly for her indifference. That is the invariable and

fatal folly of loversthey seem to imagine that a heart can be scolded into tenderness! To my reproaches she

at first answered impatiently that they were unjust; that it was not her fault if her nature was less expansive

than mine; and that it was insulting to be told she was indifferent to the man whom she had consented to

marry. Later she answered my reproaches with haughty defiance, one day intimating that if I really thought

what I said, and repented our engagement, it would be most prudent for us to separate ere it was too late. This

"And now fresh tortures were added. Korinski became quite marked in his attentions to Agalma. These she

received with evident delight; so much so, that I saw by the glances of others that they were scandalized at it;

and this, of course, increased my pain. My renewed reproaches only made her manner colder to me; to

"The stress and agitation of those days were too much for me. I fell ill, and for seven weeks lay utterly

Bourgonef here held out to me a crumpled letter, and motioned that I should open it and read. It ran thus:

"I have thought much of what you have so often said, that it would be for the happiness of both if our

unfortunate engagement were set aside. That you have a real affection for me I believe, and be assured that I

once had a real affection for you; not, perhaps, the passionate love which a nature so exacting as yours

demands, and which I earnestly hope it may one day find, but a genuine affection nevertheless, which would

have made me proud to share your lot. But it would be uncandid in me to pretend that this now exists. Your

incessant jealousy, the angry feelings excited by your reproaches, the fretful irritation in which for some time

we have lived together, has completely killed what love I had, and I no longer feel prepared to risk the

happiness of both of us by a marriage. What you said the other night convinces me that it is even your desire

our engagement should cease. It is certainly mine. Let us try to think kindly of each other and meet again as

"You see that this was written on the day I was taken ill. Whether she knew that I was helpless I know not. At

any rate, she never sent to inquire after me. She went off to Paris; Korinski followed her; andas I quickly

learned on going once more into society they were married! Did you ever, in the whole course of your

Bourgonef asked this with a ferocity which quite startled me. I did not answer him; for, in truth, I could not

see that Agalma had been very much to blame, even as he told the story, and felt sure that could I have heard

her version it would have worn a very different aspect. That she was cold, and disappointed him, might be

true enough, but there was no crime; and I perfectly understood how thoroughly odious he must have made

himself to her by his exactions and reproaches. I understood this, perhaps, all the better, because in the course

of his narrative Bourgonef had revealed to me aspects of his nature which were somewhat repulsive.

Especially was I struck with his morbid vanity, and his readiness to impute low motives to others. This

unpleasant view of his charactera character in many respects so admirable for its generosity and

refinementwas deepened as he went on, instead of awaiting my reply to his question.

"For a wrong so measureless, you will naturally ask what measureless revenge I sought."

The idea had not occurred to me; indeed I could see no wrong, and this notion of revenge was somewhat

"I debated it long," he continued. "I felt that since I was prevented from arresting any of the evil to myself, I

could at least mature my plans for an adequate discharge of just retributions on her. It reveals the impotence

resulting from the trammels of modern civilization, that while the possibilities of wrong are infinite, the

openings for vengeance are few and contemptible. Only when a man is thrown upon the necessities of this

'wild justice' does he discover how difficult vengeance really is. Had Agalma been my wife, I could have

wreaked my wrath upon her, with assurance that some of the torture she inflicted on me was to fall on her.

Not having this power what was I to do? Kill her? That would have afforded one moment of exquisite

satisfactionbut to her it would have been simply deathand I wanted to kill the heart."

He seemed working with an insane passion, so that I regarded him with disgust, mingled with some doubts as

"My plan was chosen. The only way to reach her heart was to strike through her husband. For several hours

daily I practised with the pistol, untilin spite of only having a left handI acquired fatal skill. But this was

not enough. Firing at a mark is simple work. Firing at a manespecially one holding a pistol pointed at

youis altogether different. I had too often heard of 'crack shots' missing their men, to rely confidently on

my skill in the shooting gallery. It was necessary that my eye and hand should be educated to familiarity with

the real object. Part of the cause why duelists miss their man is from the trepidation of fear. I was without

fear. At no moment in my life have I been afraid; and the chance of being shot by Korinski I counted as

nothing. The other cause is unfamiliarity with the mark. This I secured myself against by getting a lay figure

of Korinski's height, dressing it to resemble him, placing a pistol in its hand, and then practising at this mark

in the woods. After a short time I could send a bullet through the thorax without taking more than a hasty

"Thus prepared, I started for Paris. But you will feel for me when you learn that my hungry heart was baffled

of its vengeance, and baffled for ever. Agalma had been carried off by scarlet fever. Korinski had left Paris,

and I felt no strong promptings to follow him, and wreak on him a futile vengeance. It was on HER my wrath

had been concentrated, and I gnashed my teeth at the thought that she had escaped me.

"My story is ended. The months of gloomy depression which succeeded, now that I was no longer sustained

by the hope of vengeance, I need not speak of. My existence was desolate, and even now the desolation

continues over the whole region of the emotions. I carry a dead heart within me."

Bourgonef's story has been narrated with some fullness, though in less detail than he told it, in order that the

reader may understand its real bearings on MY story. Without it, the motives which impelled the strange

pertinacity of my pursuit would have been unintelligible. I have said that a very disagreeable impression

remained on my mind respecting certain aspects of his character, and I felt somewhat ashamed of my

imperfect sagacity in having up to this period been entirely blind to those aspects. The truth is, every human

being is a mystery, and remains so to the last. We fancy we know a character; we form a distinct conception

of it; for years that conception remains unmodified, and suddenly the strain of some emergency, of the

incidental stimulus of new circumstances, reveals qualities not simply unexpected, but flatly contradictory of

our previous conception. We judge of a man by the angle he subtends to our eyeonly thus CAN we judge

of him; and this angle depends on the relation his qualities and circumstances bear to our interests and

sympathies. Bourgonef had charmed me intellectually; morally I had never come closer to him than in the

sympathies of public questions and abstract theories. His story had disclosed hidden depths.

My old suspicions reappeared, and a conversation we had two days afterwards helped to strengthen them.

We had gone on a visit to Schwanthaler, the sculptor, at his tiny little castle of Schwaneck, a few miles from

Munich. The artist was out for a walk, but we were invited to come in and await his return, which would be

shortly; and meanwhile Bourgonef undertook to show me over the castle, interesting as a bit of modern

Gothic, realizing on a diminutive scale a youthful dream of the sculptor's. When our survey was

completedand it did not take longwe sat at one of the windows and enjoyed a magnificent prospect. "It

is curious," said Bourgonef, "to be shut up here in this imitation of medieval masonry, where every detail

speaks of the dead past, and to think of the events now going on in Paris which must find imitators all over

Europe, and which open to the mind such vistas of the future. What a grotesque anachronism is this Gothic

"As a Catholic," here he smiled, intimating that his orthodoxy was not very stringent, "I cannot admit that; as

a Protestant, you must admit that if there must be a pope, he must in these days be a reformer, orgive up

his temporal power. Not that I look on Pio Nono as more than a precursor; he may break ground, and point

the way, but he is not the man to lead Europe out of its present slough of despond, and under the headship of

the Church found a new and lasting republic. We want a Hildebrand, one who will be to the nineteenth

"Do you believe in such a possibility? Do you think the Roman pontiff can ever again sway the destinies of

"I can hardly say I believe it; yet I see the possibility of such an opening if the right man were to arise. But I

fear he will not arise; or if he should, the Conclave will stifle him. Yet there is but one alternative: either

Europe must once more join in a crusade with a pope at the head, or it must hoist the red flag. There is no

"Heaven preserve us from both! And I think we shall be preserved from the Pope by the rottenness of the

Church; from the drapeau rouge by the indignation and horror of all honest men. You see how the Provisional

Government has resisted the insane attempt of the fanatics to make the red flag accepted as the national

"Yes; and it is the one thing which dashes my pleasure in the new revolution. It is the one act of weakness

which the Government has exhibited; a concession which will be fatal unless it be happily set aside by the

"An act of weakness? say rather an act of strength. A concession? say rather the repudiation of anarchy, the

"Not a bit. It was concession to the fears of the timid, and to the vanity of the French people. The tricolor is a

French flag not the banner of humanity. It is because the tricolor has been identified with the victories of

France that it appeals to the vanity of the vainest of people. They forget that it is the flag of a revolution

which failed, and of an empire which was one perpetual outrage to humanity. Whereas the red is new; it is the

symbol of an energetic, thoroughgoing creed. If it carries terror with it, so much the better. The tyrants and

"I am not bloodthirsty at all; I am only logical and consistent. There is a mass of sophistry current in the

world which sickens me. People talk of Robespierre and St. Just, two of the most virtuous men that ever

livedand of Dominic and Torquemada, two of the most singlemindedas if they were cruel and

He said this with a seriousness which was irresistibly comic. I shouted with laughter; but he continued

"You think I am joking. But let me ask you why you consider the tiger more bloodthirsty than yourself? He

springs upon his food you buy yours from the butcher. He cannot live without animal food: it is a primal

necessity, and he obeys the ordained instinct. You can live on vegetables; yet you slaughter beasts of the field

and birds of the air (or buy them when slaughtered), and consider yourself a model of virtue. The tiger only

kills his food or his enemies; you not only kill both, but you kill one animal to make gravy for another! The

"I don't know how much of that tirade is meant to be serious; but to waive the question of the tiger's morality,

do you reallyI will not say sympathize,but justify Robespierre, Dominic, St. Just, and the rest of the

"But a truth. What the foolish world shrinks at as bloodthirstiness and cruelty is very often mere force and

constancy of intellect. It is not that fanatics thirst for bloodfar from it,but they thirst for the triumph of

their cause. Whatever obstacle lies on their path must be removed; if a torrent of blood is the only thing that

"No; these sentiments may give a sadness to the necessity; they make the deed a sacrifice, but they cannot

"This is detestable doctrine! It is the sophism which has destroyed families, devastated cities, and retarded the

moral progress of the world more than anything else. No single act of injustice is ever done on this earth but

it tends to perpetuate the reign of iniquity. By the feelings it calls forth it keeps up the native savagery of the

heart. It breeds injustice, partly by hardening the minds of those who assent, and partly by exciting the

"You are wrong. The great dragchain on the car of progress is the faltering inconsistency of man. Weakness

The arrival of Schwanthaler was timely, for my indignation was rising. The sculptor received us with great

cordiality, and in the pleasure of the subsequent hour I got over to some extent the irritation Bourgonef's talk

The next day I left Munich for the Tyrol. My parting with Bourgonef was many degrees less friendly than it

would have been a week before. I had no wish to see him again, and therefore gave him no address or

invitation in case he should come to England. As I rolled away in the Malleposte, my busy thoughts reviewed

all the details of our acquaintance, and the farther I was carried from his presence, the more obtrusive became

the suspicions which connected him with the murder of Lieschen Lehfeldt. How, or upon what motive, was

indeed an utter mystery. He had not mentioned the name of Lehfeldt. He had not mentioned having before

been at Nuremberg. At Heidelberg the tragedy occurredor was Heidelberg only a mask? It occurred to me

that he had first ascertained that I had never been at Heidelberg before he placed the scene of his story there.

Thoughts such as these tormented me. Imagine, then, the horror with which I heard, soon after my arrival at

Salzburg, that a murder had been committed at Grosshessloheone of the pretty environs of Munich much

resorted to by holiday folkcorresponding in all essential features with the murder at Nuremberg! In both

cases the victim was young and pretty. In both cases she was found quietly lying on the ground, stabbed to

the heart, without any other traces of violence. In both cases she was a betrothed bride, and the motive of the

Such a correspondence in the essential features inevitably suggested an appalling mystery of unity in these

crimes,either as the crimes of one man, committed under some impulse of motiveless malignity and thirst

for innocent bloodor as the equally appalling effect of IMITATION acting contagiously upon a criminal

imagination; of which contagion there have been, unfortunately, too many exampleshorrible crimes

prompting certain weak and feverish imaginations, by the very horror they inspire, first to dwell on, and

It was this latter hypothesis which found general acceptance. Indeed it was the only one which rested upon

any ground of experience. The disastrous influence of imitation, especially under the fascination of horror,

was well known. The idea of any diabolical malice moving one man to pass from city to city, and there

quietly single out his victimsboth of them, by the very hypothesis, unrelated to him, both of them at the

when the peace of the heart is assured, and the future is radiantly beckoning to them,that any man should

choose such victims for such crimes was too preposterous an idea long to be entertained. Unless the man

were mad, the idea was inconceivable; and even a monomaniac must betray himself in such a course, because

he would necessarily conceive himself to be accomplishing some supreme act of justice.

It was thus I argued; and indeed I should much have preferred to believe that one maniac were involved,

rather than the contagion of crime,since one maniac must inevitably be soon detected; whereas there were

no assignable limits to the contagion of imitation. And this it was which so profoundly agitated German

society. In every family in which there happened to be a bride, vague tremors could not be allayed; and the

absolute powerlessness which resulted from the utter uncertainty as to the quarter in which this dreaded

phantom might next appear, justified and intensified those tremors. Against such an apparition there was no

conceivable safeguard. From a city stricken with the plague, from a district so stricken, flight is possible, and

there are the resources of medical aid. But from a moral plague like this, what escape was possible?

So passionate and profound became the terror, that I began to share the opinion which I heard expressed,

regretting the widespread publicity of the modern press, since, with many undeniable benefits, it carried also

the fatal curse of distributing through households, and keeping constantly under the excitement of discussion,

images of crime and horror which would tend to perpetuate and extend the excesses of individual passion.

This and more I heard discussed as I hurried back to Munich. To Munich? Yes; thither I was posting with all

speed. Not a shadow of doubt now remained in my mind. I knew the assassin, and was resolved to track and

convict him. Do not suppose that THIS time I was led away by the vagrant activity of my constructive

imagination. I had something like positive proof. No sooner had I learned that the murder had been

committed at Grosshesslohe, than my thoughts at once carried me to a now memorable visit I had made there

in company with Bourgonef and two young Bavarians. At the hotel where we dined, we were waited on by

the niece of the landlord, a girl of remarkable beauty, who naturally excited the attention of four young men,

and furnished them with a topic of conversation. One of the Bavarians had told us that she would one day be

perhaps one of the wealthiest women in the country, for she was engaged to be married to a young farmer

who had recently found himself, by a rapid succession of deaths, sole heir to a great brewer, whose wealth

At this moment Sophie entered bringing wine, and I saw Bourgonef slowly turn his eyes upon her with a look

which then was mysterious to me, but which now spoke too plainly its dreadful meaning.

What is there in a look, you will say? Perhaps nothing; or it may be everything. To my unsuspecting,

unenlightened perception, Bourgonef's gaze was simply the melancholy and halfcurious gaze which such a

man might be supposed to cast upon a young woman who had been made the topic of an interesting

discourse. But to my mind, enlightened as to his character, and instructed as to his peculiar feelings arising

from his own story, the gaze was charged with horror. It marked a victim. The whole succession of events

rose before me in vivid distinctness; the separate details of suspicion gathered into unity.

Great as was Bourgonef's command over his features, he could not conceal uneasiness as well as surprise at

my appearance at the table d'hote in Munich. I shook hands with him, putting on as friendly a mask as I

could, and replied to his question about my sudden return by attributing it to unexpected intelligence received

"Well, I'm afraid it will prove very serious," I said. "But we shall see. Meanwhile my visit to the Tyrol must

Thus I had prepared him for any reserve or strangeness in my manner; and I had concealed from him the

course of my movements; for at whatever cost, I was resolved to follow him and bring him to justice.

But how? Evidence I had none that could satisfy any one else, however convincing it might be to my own

mind. Nor did there seem any evidence forthcoming from Grosshesslohe. Sophie's body had been found in

the afternoon lying as if asleep in one of the bypaths of the wood. No marks of a struggle; no traces of the

murderer. Her affianced lover, who was at Augsburg, on hearing of her fate, hurried to Grosshesslohe, but

could throw no light on the murder, could give no hint as to a possible motive for the deed. But this entire

absence of evidence, or even ground of suspicion, only made MY case the stronger. It was the motiveless

malignity of the deed which fastened it on Bourgonef; or rather, it was the absence of any known motive

Should I communicate my conviction to the police? It was possible that I might impress them with at least

sufficient suspicion to warrant his examinationand in that case the truth might be elicited; for among the

many barbarities and iniquities of the criminal procedure in Continental States which often press heavily on

the innocent, there is this compensating advantage, that the pressure on the guilty is tenfold heavier. If the

innocent are often unjustly punishedimprisoned and maltreated before their innocence can be

establishedthe guilty seldom escape. In England we give the criminal not only every chance of escape, but

many advantages. The love of fairplay is carried to excess. It seems at times as if the whole arrangements of

our procedure were established with a view to giving a criminal not only the benefit of every doubt, but of

every loophole through which he can slip. Instead of this, the Continental procedure goes on the principle of

closing up every loophole, and of inventing endless traps into which the accused may fall. We warn the

accused not to say anything that may be prejudicial to him. They entangle him in contradictions and

Knowing this, I thought it very likely that, however artful Bourgonef might be, a severe examination might

extort from him sufficient confirmation of my suspicion to warrant further procedure. But knowing also that

THIS resort was open to me when all others had failed, I resolved to wait and watch.

Two days passed, and nothing occurred. My watching seemed hopeless, and I resolved to try the effect of a

disguised interrogatory. It might help to confirm my already settled conviction, if it did not elicit any new

Seated in Bourgonef's room, in the old place, each with a cigar, and chatting as of old on public affairs, I

"Is it not strange," I said, "that both these crimes should have happened while we were casually staying in

"Perhaps we are the criminals," he replied, laughing. I shivered slightly at this audacity. He laughed as he

spoke, but there was a hard, metallic, and almost defiant tone in his voice which exasperated me.

"Perhaps we are," I answered, quietly. He looked full at me; but I was prepared, and my face told nothing. I

added, as in explanation, "The crime being apparently contagious, we may have brought the infection from

"I don't know what to believe. Do you believe in there being only one murderer? It seems such a preposterous

"Not necessarily. Indeed there seems to have been too much artful contrivance in both affairs, not only in the

selection of the victims, but in the execution of the schemes. Cunning as maniacs often are they are still

"If not a maniac," said I, hoping to pique him, "he must be a man of stupendous and pitiable

vanity,perhaps one of your constantminded friends, whom you refuse to call bloodthirsty."

"Why? Because only a diseased atrocity of imagination, stimulating a nature essentially base and weak in its

desire to make itself conspicuous, would or could suggest such things. The silly youth who 'fired the

Ephesian dome,' the vain idiot who set fire to York Minster, the miserable Frenchmen who have committed

murder and suicide with a view of making their exit striking from a world in which their appearance had been

contemptible, would all sink into insignificance beside the towering infamy of baseness whichfor the mere

love of producing an effect on the minds of men, and thus drawing their attention upon him, which otherwise

would never have marked him at allcould scheme and execute crimes so horrible and inexcusable. In

common charity to human nature, let us suppose the wretch is mad; because otherwise his miserable vanity

would be too loathsome." I spoke with warmth and bitterness, which increased as I perceived him wincing

"If his motive WERE vanity," he said, "no doubt it would be horrible; but may it not have been revenge?"

"Not I. But as we are conjecturing, I may as well conjecture it to have been the desire to produce a startling

"Simply enough. We have to suppose a motive; let us say it was revenge, and see whether that will furnish a

"But it can't. The two victims were wholly unconnected with each other by any intermediate acquaintances,

consequently there can have been no common wrong or common enmity in existence to furnish food for

"It is human nature. Did you ever observe a thwarted child striking in its anger the unoffending nurse,

destroying its toys to discharge its wrath? Did you ever see a schoolboy, unable to wreak his anger on the

bigger boy who has just struck him, turn against the nearest smaller boy and beat him? Did you ever know a

schoolmaster, angered by one of the boy's parents, vent his pentup spleen upon the unoffending class? Did

you ever see a subaltern punished because an officer had been reprimanded? These are familiar examples of

vicarious vengeance. When the soul is stung to fury, it must solace itself by the discharge of that furyit

must relieve its pain by the sight of pain in others. We are so constituted. We need sympathy above all things.

In joy we cannot bear to see others in distress; in distress we see the joy of others with dismal envy which

"And," I exclaimed, carried away by my indignation, "you suppose that the sight of these two happy girls,

beaming with the quiet joy of brides, was torture to some miserable wretch who had lost his bride."

I had gone too far. His eyes looked into mine. I read in his that he divined the whole drift of my

suspicionthe allusion made to himself. There often passes into a look more than words can venture to

express. In that look he read that he was discovered, and I read that he had recognized it. With perfect

calmness, but with a metallic ring in his voice which was like the clash of swords, he said:

"I did not say that I supposed this; but as we were on the wide field of conjectureutterly without evidence

one way or the other, having no clue either to the man or his motivesI drew from the general principles of

human nature a conclusion which was just as plausibleor absurd if you likeas the conclusion that the

"As you say, we are utterly without evidence, and conjecture drifts aimlessly from one thing to another. After

I said this in order to cover my previous imprudence. He was not deceivedthough for a few moments I

"I am not persuaded of that either. The whole thing is a mystery, and I shall stay here some time in the hope

of seeing it cleared up. Meanwhile, for a subject of conjecture, let me show you something on which your

He rose and passed into his bedroom. I heard him unlocking and rummaging the drawers, and was silently

reproaching myself for my want of caution in having spoken as I had done, though it was now beyond all

doubt that he was the murderer, and that his motive had been rightly guessed; but with this selfreproach

there was mingled a selfgratulation at the way I had got out of the difficulty, as I fancied.

He returned, and as he sat down I noticed that the lower part of his surtout was open. He always wore a long

frogged and braided coat reaching to the kneesas I now know, for the purpose of concealing the arm which

hung (as he said, withered) at his side. The two last fastenings were now undone.

He held in his hand a tiny chain made of very delicate wire. This he gave me, saying:

"Had it come into my hands without any remark, I should have said it was simply a very exquisite bit of

Could I be deceived? A third fastening of his surtout was undone! I had seen but two a moment ago.

"Where that iron came from? It was NOT from a mine." I looked at it again, and examined it attentively. On

raising my eyes in inquiryfortunately with an expression of surprise, since what met my eyes would have

"You look surprised," he continued, "and will be more surprised when I tell you that the iron in your hands

He went on expounding the physiological wonders of the blood,how it carried, dissolved in its currents, a

proportion of iron and earths; how this iron was extracted by chemists and exhibited as a curiosity; and how

this chain had been manufactured from such extracts. I heard every word, but my thoughts were hurrying to

and fro in the agitation of a supreme moment. That there was a dagger underneath that coatthat in a few

moments it would flash forth that a deathstruggle was at hand,I knew well. My safety depended on

presence of mind. That incalculable rapidity with which, in critical moments, the mind surveys all the

openings and resources of an emergency, had assured me that there was no weapon within reachthat before

I could give an alarm the tiger would be at my throat, and that my only chance was to keep my eyes fixed

upon him, ready to spring on him the moment the next fastening was undone, and before he could use his

At last the idea occurred to me, that as, with a wild beast, safety lies in attacking him just before he attacks

you, so with this beast my best chance was audacity. Looking steadily into his face, I said slowly:

"And you would like to have such a chain made from my blood." I rose as I spoke. He remained sitting, but

"I mean," said I, sternly, "that your coat is unfastened, and that if another fastening is loosened in my

I moved towards the door, keeping my eye fixed upon him as he sat pale and glaring at me.

At this moment, I know not by what sense, as if I had eyes at the back of my head, I was aware of some one

moving behind me, yet I dared not look aside. Suddenly two mighty folds of darkness seemed to envelop me

like arms. A powerful scent ascended my nostrils. There was a ringing in my ears, a beating at my heart.

Darkness came on, deeper and deeper, like huge waves. I seemed growing to gigantic stature. The waves

rolled on faster and faster. The ringing became a roaring. The beating became a throbbing. Lights flashed

across the darkness. Forms moved before me. On came the waves hurrying like a tide, and I sank deeper and

deeper into this mighty sea of darkness. Then all was silent. Consciousness was still.

How long I remained unconscious, I cannot tell. But it must have been some considerable time. When

consciousness once more began to dawn within me, I found myself lying on a bed surrounded by a group of

eager, watching faces, and became aware of a confused murmur of whispering going on around me. "Er

Lebt" (he lives) were the words which greeted my opening eyeswords which I recognized as coming from

I had had a very narrow escape. Another moment and I should not have lived to tell the tale. The dagger that

had already immolated two of Bourgonef's objects of vengeance would have been in my breast. As it was, at

the very moment when the terrible Ivan had thrown his arms around me and was stifling me with chloroform,

one of the servants of the hotel, alarmed or attracted by curiosity at the sound of high words within the room,

had ventured to open the door to see what was going on. The alarm had been given, and Bourgonef had been

arrested and handed over to the police. Ivan, however, had disappeared; nor were the police ever able to find

him. This mattered comparatively little. Ivan without his master was no more redoubtable than any other

noxious animal. As an accomplice, as an instrument to execute the will of a man like Bourgonef, he was a

danger to society. The directing intelligence withdrawn, he sank to the level of the brute. I was not uneasy,

therefore, at his having escaped. Sufficient for me that the real criminal, the mind that had conceived and

directed those fearful murders, was at last in the hands of justice. I felt that my task had been fully

It was with a little alarm and a good deal of pleasurable excitement that I looked forward to my first

grownup visit to Mervyn Grange. I had been there several times as a child, but never since I was twelve

years old, and now I was over eighteen. We were all of us very proud of our cousins the Mervyns: it is not

everybody that can claim kinship with a family who are in full and admitted possession of a secret, a curse,

and a mysterious cabinet, in addition to the usual surplusage of horrors supplied in such cases by popular

imagination. Some declared that a Mervyn of the days of Henry VIII had been cursed by an injured abbot

from the foot of the gallows. Others affirmed that a dissipated Mervyn of the Georgian era was still playing

cards for his soul in some remote region of the Grange. There were stories of white ladies and black imps, of

bloodstained passages and magic stones. We, proud of our more intimate acquaintance with the family,

naturally gave no credence to these wild inventions. The Mervyns, indeed, followed the accepted precedent in

such cases, and greatly disliked any reference to the reputed mystery being made in their presence; with the

inevitable result that there was no subject so pertinaciously discussed by their friends in their absence. My

father's sister had married the late Baronet, Sir Henry Mervyn, and we always felt that she ought to have been

the means of imparting to us a very complete knowledge of the family secret. But in this connection she

undoubtedly failed of her duty. We knew that there had been a terrible tragedy in the family some two or

three hundred years agothat a peculiarly wicked owner of Mervyn, who flourished in the latter part of the

sixteenth century, had been murdered by his wife who subsequently committed suicide. We knew that the

mysterious curse had some connection with this crime, but what the curse exactly was we had never been

able to discover. The history of the family since that time had indeed in one sense been full of misfortune.

Not in every sense. A coal mine had been discovered in one part of the estate, and a populous city had grown

over the corner of another part; and the Mervyns of today, in spite of the usual percentage of extravagant

heirs and political mistakes, were three times as rich as their ancestors had been. But still their story was full

of bloodshed and shame, of tales of duels and suicides, broken hearts and broken honor. Only these

calamities seemed to have little or no relation to each other, and what the precise curse was that was supposed

to connect or account for them we could not learn. When she first married, my aunt was told nothing about it.

Later on in life, when my father asked her for the story, she begged him to talk upon a pleasanter subject; and

being unluckily a man of much courtesy and little curiosity, he complied with her request. This, however, was

the only part of the ghostly traditions of her husband's home upon which she was so reticent. The haunted

chamber, for instancewhich, of course, existed at the Grangeshe treated with the greatest contempt.

Various friends and relations had slept in it at different times, and no approach to any kind of authenticated

ghoststory, even of the most trivial description, had they been able to supply. Its only claim to respect,

indeed, was that it contained the famous Mervyn cabinet, a fascinating puzzle of which I will speak later, but

My uncle's family consisted of three sons. The eldest, George, the present baronet, was now in his thirties,

married, and with children of his own. The second, Jack, was the blacksheep of the family. He had been in

the Guards, but, about five years back, had got into some very disgraceful scrape, and had been obliged to

leave the country. The sorrow and the shame of this had killed his unhappy mother, and her husband had not

long afterwards followed her to the grave. Alan, the youngest son, probably because he was the nearest to us

in age, had been our special favorite in earlier years. George was grown up before I had well left the nursery,

and his hot, quick temper had always kept us youngsters somewhat in awe of him. Jack was four years older

than Alan, and, besides, his profession had, in a way, cut his boyhood short. When my uncle and aunt were

abroad, as they frequently were for months together on account of her health, it was Alan, chiefly, who had to

spend his holidays with us, both as schoolboy and as undergraduate. And a brighter, sweetertempered

comrade, or one possessed of more diversified talents for the invention of games or the telling of stories, it

For five years together now our ancient custom of an annual visit to Mervyn had been broken. First there had

been the seclusion of mourning for my aunt, and a year later for my uncle; then George and his wife,

Lucy,she was a connection of our own on our mother's side, and very intimate with us all,had been

away for nearly two years on a voyage round the world; and since then sickness in our own family had kept

us in our turn a good deal abroad. So that I had not seen my cousins since all the calamities which had

befallen them in the interval, and as I steamed northwards I wondered a good deal as to the changes I should

find. I was to have come out that year in London, but illhealth had prevented me; and as a sort of

consolation Lucy had kindly asked me to spend a fortnight at Mervyn, and be present at a shootingparty,

I had started early, and there was still an hour of the short autumn day left when I descended at the little

wayside station, from which a sixmile drive brought me to the Grange. A dreary drive I found itthe

round, gray, treeless outline of the fells stretching around me on every side beneath the leaden, changeless

sky. The night had nearly fallen as we drove along the narrow valley in which the Grange stood: it was too

dark to see the autumn tints of the woods which clothed and brightened its sides, almost too dark to

distinguish the old tower,Dame Alice's tower as it was called,which stood some half a mile farther on at

its head. But the light shone brightly from the Grange windows, and all feeling of dreariness departed as I

drove up to the door. Leaving maid and boxes to their fate, I ran up the steps into the old, wellremembered

hall, and was informed by the dignified manservant that her ladyship and the tea were awaiting me in the

I found that there was nobody staying in the house except Alan, who was finishing the long vacation there: he

had been called to the Bar a couple of years before. The guests were not to arrive for another week, so that I

had plenty of opportunity in the interval to make up for lost time with my cousins. I began my observations

that evening as we sat down to dinner, a cozy party of four. Lucy was quite unchangedpretty, foolish, and

gentle as ever. George showed the full five years' increase of age, and seemed to have acquired a somewhat

painful control of his temper. Instead of the old petulant outbursts, there was at times an air of nervous,

irritable selfrestraint, which I found the less pleasant of the two. But it was in Alan that the most striking

alteration appeared. I felt it the moment I shook hands with him, and the impression deepened that evening

with every hour. I told myself that it was only the natural difference between boy and man, between twenty

and twentyfive, but I don't think that I believed it. Superficially the change was not great. The slightbuilt,

graceful figure; the deep gray eyes, too small for beauty; the clearcut features, the delicate, sensitive lips,

close shaven now, as they had been hairless then,all were as I remembered them. But the face was paler

and thinner than it had been, and there were lines round the eyes and at the corners of the mouth which were

no more natural to twentyfive than they would have been to twenty. The old charm indeedthe sweet

friendliness of manner, which was his own peculiar possessionwas still there. He talked and laughed

almost as much as formerly, but the talk was manufactured for our entertainment, and the laughter came from

his head and not from his heart. And it was when he was taking no part in the conversation that the change

showed most. Then the face, on which in the old time every passing emotion had expressed itself in a

constant, living current, became cold and impassivewithout interest, and without desire. It was at such

times that I knew most certainly that here was something which had been living and was dead. Was it only

Still, in spite of all, that week was one of the happiest in my life. The brothers were both men of enough

ability and cultivation to be pleasant talkers, and Lucy could perform adequately the part of conversational

accompanist, which, socially speaking, is all that is required of a woman. The meals and evenings passed

quickly and agreeably; the mornings I spent in unending gossips with Lucy, or in games with the children,

two bright boys of five and six years old. But the afternoons were the best part of the day. George was a

thorough squire in all his tastes and habits, and every afternoon his wife dutifully accompanied him round

farms and coverts, inspecting new buildings, trudging along halfmade roads, or marking unoffending trees

for destruction. Then Alan and I would ride by the hour together over moor and meadowland, often picking

our way homewards down the glenside long after the autumn evenings had closed in. During these rides I

had glimpses many a time into depths in Alan's nature of which I doubt whether in the old days he had

himself been aware. To me certainly they were as a revelation. A prevailing sadness, occasionally a painful

tone of bitterness, characterized these more serious moods of his, but I do not think that, at the end of that

week, I would, if I could, have changed the man, whom I was learning to revere and to pity, for the

The only feature of the family life which jarred on me was the attitude of the two brothers towards the

children. I did not notice this much at first, and at all times it was a thing to be felt rather than to be seen.

George himself never seemed quite at ease with them. The boys were strong and well grown, healthy in mind

and body; and one would have thought that the existence of two such representatives to carry on his name and

inherit his fortune would have been the very crown of pride and happiness to their father. But it was not so.

Lucy indeed was devoted to them, and in all practical matters no one could have been kinder to them than

was George. They were free of the whole house, and every indulgence that money could buy for them they

had. I never heard him give them a harsh word. But there was something wrong. A constraint in their

presence, a relief in their absence, an evident dislike of discussing them and their affairs, a total want of that

enjoyment of love and possession which in such a case one might have expected to find. Alan's state of mind

was even more marked. Never did I hear him willingly address his nephews, or in any way allude to their

existence. I should have said that he simply ignored it, but for the heavy gloom which always overspread his

spirits in their company, and for the glances which he would now and again cast in their directionglances

full of some hidden painful emotion, though of what nature it would have been hard to define. Indeed, Alan's

attitude towards her children I soon found to be the only source of friction between Lucy and this otherwise

muchloved member of her husband's family. I asked her one day why the boys never appeared at luncheon.

"Oh, they come when Alan is away," she answered; "but they seem to annoy him so much that George thinks

it is better to keep them out of sight when he is here. It is very tiresome. I know that it is the fashion to say

that George has got the temper of the family; but I assure you that Alan's nervous moods and fancies are

That was on the morninga Friday it wasof the last day which we were to spend alone. The guests were

to arrive soon after tea; and I think that with the knowledge of their approach Alan and I prolonged our ride

that afternoon beyond its usual limits. We were on our way home, and it was already dusk, when a turn of the

path brought us face to face with the old ruined tower, of which I have already spoken as standing at the head

of the valley. I had not been close up to it yet during this visit at Mervyn. It had been a very favorite haunt of

ours as children, and partly on that account, partly perhaps in order to defer the dreaded close of our ride to

the last possible moment, I proposed an inspection of it. The only portion of the old building left standing in

any kind of entirety was two rooms, one above the other. The tower room, level with the bottom of the moat,

was dark and damp, and it was the upper one, reached by a little outside staircase, which had been our

rendezvous of old. Alan showed no disposition to enter, and said that he would stay outside and hold my

The room seemed in no way changed. A mere stone shell, littered with fragments of wood and mortar. There

was the rough wooden block on which Alan used to sit while he first frightened us with bogeystories, and

then calmed our excited nerves by rapid sallies of wild nonsense. There was the plank from behind which,

erected as a barrier across the doorway, he would defend the castle against our united assault, pelting us with

fircones and sods of earth. This and many a bygone scene thronged on me as I stood there, and the room

filled again with the memories of childish mirth. And following close came those of childish terrors. Horrors

which had oppressed me then, wholly imagined or dimly apprehended from halfheard traditions, and never

thought of since, flitted around me in the gathering dusk. And with them it seemed to me as if there came

other memories too,memories which had never been my own, of scenes whose actors had long been with

the dead, but which, immortal as the spirit before whose eyes they had dwelt, still lingered in the spot where

their victim had first learnt to shudder at their presence. Once the ghastly notion came to me, it seized on my

imagination with irresistible force. It seemed as if from the darkened corners of the room vague, illdefined

shapes were actually peering out at me. When night came they would show themselves in that form, livid and

terrible, in which they had been burnt into the brain and heart of the long ago dead.

I turned and glanced towards where I had left Alan. I could see his figure framed in by the window, a black

shadow against the gray twilight of the sky behind. Erect and perfectly motionless he sat, so motionless as to

look almost lifeless, gazing before him down the valley into the illimitable distance beyond. There was

something in that stern immobility of look and attitude which struck me with a curious sense of congruity. It

was right that he should be thusright that he should be no longer the laughing boy who a moment before

had been in my memory. The haunting horrors of that place seemed to demand it, and for the first time I felt

that I understood the change. With an effort I shook myself free from these fancies, and turned to go. As I did

so, my eye fell upon a queershaped painted board, leaning up against the wall, which I well recollected in

old times. Many a discussion had we had about the legend inscribed upon it, which in our wisdom we had

finally pronounced to be German, chiefly because it was illegible. Though I had loudly professed my faith in

this theory at the time, I had always had uneasy doubts on the subject, and now half smiling I bent down to

verify or remove them. The language was English, not German; but the badly painted, faded Gothic letters in

which it was written made the mistake excusable. In the dim light I had difficulty even now in deciphering

the words, and felt when I had done so that neither the information conveyed nor the style of the composition

What the lines could refer to I neither had any notion nor did I pause then even in my own mind to inquire. I

only remember vaguely wondering whether they were intended for a tombstone or for a doorway. Then,

continuing my way, I rapidly descended the steps and remounted my horse, glad to find myself once again in

The train of thought into which he had sunk during my absence was apparently an absorbing one, for to my

"A board with a legend written on it? Yes, he remembered something of the kind there. It had always been

there, he thought. He knew nothing about it,"and so the subject was not continued.

The weird feelings which had haunted me in the tower still oppressed me, and I proceeded to ask Alan about

that old Dame Alice whom the traditions of my childhood represented as the last occupant of the ruined

building. Alan roused himself now, but did not seem anxious to impart information on the subject. She had

lived there, he admitted, and no one had lived there since. "Had she not," I inquired, "something to do with

the mysterious cabinet at the house? I remember hearing it spoken of as 'Dame Alice's cabinet.'

"So they say," he assented; "she and an Italian artificer who was in her service, and who, chiefly I imagine on

"She was the mother of Hugh Mervyn, the man who was murdered by his wife, was she not?" I asked.

"And had she not something to do with the curse?" I inquired after a short pause, and nervously I

remembered my father's experience on that subject, and I had never before dared to allude to it in the

presence of any member of the family. My nervousness was fully warranted. The gloom on Alan's brow

deepened, and after a very short "They say so" he turned full upon me, and inquired with some asperity why

I hesitated a moment, for I was a little ashamed of my fancies; but the darkness gave me courage, and besides

I was not afraid of telling Alanhe would understand. I told him of the strange sensations I had had while in

the towersensations which had struck me with all that force and clearness which we usually associate with

a direct experience of fact. "Of course it was a trick of imagination," I commented; "but I could not get rid of

the feeling that the person who had dwelt there last must have had terrible thoughts for the companions of her

Alan listened in silence, and the silence continued for some time after I had ceased speaking.

"It is strange," he said at last; "instincts which we do not understand form the motivepower of most of our

life's actions, and yet we refuse to admit them as evidence of any external truth. I suppose it is because we

MUST act somehow, rightly or wrongly; and there are a great many things which we need not believe unless

we choose. As for this old lady, she lived longlong enough, like most of us, to do evil; unlike most of us,

long enough to witness some of the results of that evil. To say that, is to say that the last years of her life must

"That is a depressing view of life, Alan," I said. "Does our peace of mind depend only upon death coming

early enough to hide from us the truth? And, after all, can it? Our spirits do not die. From another world they

"If they do," he answered with sudden violence, "it is absurd to doubt the existence of a purgatory. There

I was silent. The shadow that lay on his soul did not penetrate to mine, but it hung round me nevertheless, a

After a moment he went on,"Provided that they are distant enough, how little, after all, do we think of the

results of our actions! There are few men who would deliberately instill into a child a love of drink, or

wilfully deprive him of his reason; and yet a man with drunkenness or madness in his blood thinks nothing of

bringing children into the world tainted as deeply with the curse as if he had inoculated them with it directly.

There is no responsibility so completely ignored as this one of marriage and fatherhood, and yet how heavy it

"Well," I said, smiling, "let us console ourselves with the thought that we are not all lunatics and drunkards."

"No," he answered; "but there are other evils besides these, moral taints as well as physical, curses which

have their roots in worlds beyond our own,sins of the fathers which are visited upon the children."

He had lost all violence and bitterness of tone now; but the weary dejection which had taken their place

communicated itself to my spirit with more subtle power than his previous mood had owned.

"That is why," he went on, and his manner seemed to give more purpose to his speech than hitherto,"that is

why, so far as I am concerned, I mean to shirk the responsibility and remain unmarried."

I was hardly surprised at his words. I felt that I had expected them, but their utterance seemed to intensify the

gloom which rested upon us. Alan was the first to arouse himself from its influence.

"After all," he said, turning round to me and speaking lightly, "without looking so far and so deep, I think my

resolve is a prudent one. Above all things, let us take life easily, and you know what St. Paul says about

'trouble in the flesh,'a remark which I am sure is specially applicable to briefless barristers, even though

possessed of a modest competence of their own. Perhaps one of these days, when I am a fat old judge, I shall

give my cook a chance if she is satisfactory in her clear soups; but till then I shall expect you, Evie, to work

I don't quite know what I answered,my heart was heavy and aching,but I tried with true feminine

docility to follow the lead he had set me. He continued for some time in the same vein; but as we approached

the house the effort seemed to become too much for him, and we relapsed again into silence.

This time I was the first to break it. "I suppose," I said, drearily, "all those horrid people will have come by

"Horrid people," he repeated, with rather an uncertain laugh, and through the darkness I saw his figure bend

forward as he stretched out his hand to caress my horse's neck. "Why, Evie, I thought you were pining for

gayety, and that it was, in fact, for the purpose of meeting these 'horrid people' that you came here."

"Yes, I know," I said, wistfully; "but somehow the last week has been so pleasant that I cannot believe that

We had arrived at the house as I spoke, and the groom was standing at our horses' heads. Alan got off and

came round to help me to dismount; but instead of putting up his arm as usual as a support for me to spring

from, he laid his hand on mine. "Yes, Evie," he said, "it has been indeed a pleasant time. God bless you for

it." For an instant he stood there looking up at me, his face full in the light which streamed from the open

door, his gray eyes shining with a radiance which was not wholly from thence. Then he straightened his arm,

I sprang to the ground, and as if to preclude the possibility of any answer on my part, he turned sharply on his

heel, and began giving some orders to the groom. I went on alone into the house, feeling, I knew not and

cared not to know why, that the gloom had fled from my spirit, and that the last ride had not after all been

In the hall I was met by the housekeeper, who informed me that, owing to a misunderstanding about dates, a

gentleman had arrived whom Lucy had not expected at that time, and that in consequence my room had been

changed. My things had been put into the East Room, the haunted room,the room of the Closed Cabinet,

as I remembered with a certain sense of pleased importance, though without any surprise. It stood apart from

the other guestrooms, at the end of the passage from which opened George and Lucy's private apartment;

and as it was consequently disagreeable to have a stranger there, it was always used when the house was full

for a member of the family. My father and mother had often slept there: there was a little room next to it,

though not communicating with it, which served for a dressingroom. Though I had never passed the night

there myself, I knew it as well as any room in the house. I went there at once, and found Lucy superintending

She was full of apologies for the trouble she was giving me. I told her that the apologies were due to my maid

and to her own servants rather than to me; "and besides," I added, glancing round, "I am distinctly a gainer by

"You know, of course," she said, lightly, "that this is the haunted room of the house, and that you have no

"I know it is the haunted room," I answered; "but why have I no right to be here?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "There is one of those tiresome Mervyn traditions against allowing unmarried

girls to sleep in this room. I believe two girls died in it a hundred and fifty years ago, or something of that

"But I should think that people, married or unmarried, must have died in nearly every room in the house," I

"Oh, yes, of course they have," said Lucy; "but once you come across a bit of superstition in this family, it is

of no use to ask for reasons. However, this particular bit is too ridiculous even for George. Owing to Mr.

Leslie having come today, we must use every room in the house: it is intolerable having a stranger here, and

you are the only relation staying with us. I pointed all that out to George, and he agreed that, under the

"I am quite agreeable," I answered; "and, indeed, I think I am rather favored in having a room where the last

recorded death appears to have taken place a hundred and fifty years ago, particularly as I should think that

there can be scarcely anything now left in it which was here then, except, of course, the cabinet."

The room had, in fact, been entirely done up and refurnished by my uncle, and was as bright and

modernlooking an apartment as you could wish to see. It was large, and the walls were covered with one of

those white and gold papers which were fashionable thirty years ago. Opposite us, as we stood warming our

backs before the fire, was the beda large double one, hung with a pretty shade of pale blue. Material of the

same color covered the comfortable modern furniture, and hung from gilded cornices before the two windows

which pierced the side of the room on our left. Between them stood the toilettable, all muslin, blue ribbons,

and silver. The carpet was a gray and blue Brussels one. The whole effect was cheerful, though I fear

inartistic, and sadly out of keeping with the character of the house. The exception to these remarks was, as I

had observed, the famous closed cabinet, to which I have more than once alluded. It stood against the same

wall of the room as that in which the fireplace was, and on our rightthat is, on that side of the fireplace

which was farthest from the windows. As I spoke, I turned to go and look at it, and Lucy followed me. Many

an hour as a child had I passed in front of it, fingering the seven carved brass handles, or rather buttons,

which were ranged down its center. They all slid, twisted, or screwed with the greatest ease, and apparently

like many another ingeniously contrived lock; but neither I nor any one else had ever yet succeeded in

sliding, twisting, or screwing them after such a fashion as to open the closed doors of the cabinet. No one yet

had robbed them of their secret since first it was placed there three hundred years ago by the old lady and her

faithful Italian. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, was this tantalizing cabinet. Carved out of some

dark foreign wood, the doors and panels were richly inlaid with lapislazuli, ivory, and motherofpearl,

among which were twisted delicately chased threads of gold and silver. Above the doors, between them and

the cornice, lay another mystery, fully as tormenting as was the first. In a smooth strip of wood about an inch

wide, and extending along the whole breadth of the cabinet, was inlaid a fine pattern in gold wire. This at first

sight seemed to consist of a legend or motto. On looking closer, however, though the pattern still looked as if

it was formed out of characters of the alphabet curiously entwined together, you found yourself unable to fix

upon any definite word, or even letter. You looked again and again, and the longer that you looked the more

certain became your belief that you were on the verge of discovery. If you could approach the mysterious

legend from a slightly different point of view, or look at it from another distance, the clew to the puzzle

would be seized, and the words would stand forth clear and legible in your sight. But the clew never had been

For a few minutes we stood looking at the cabinet in silence, and then Lucy gave a discontented little sigh.

"There's another tiresome piece of superstition," she exclaimed; "by far the handsomest piece of furniture in

the house stuck away here in a bedroom which is hardly ever used. Again and again have I asked George to

"Was it not placed here by Dame Alice herself?" I inquired a little reproachfully, for I felt that Lucy was not

"Yes, so they say," she answered; and the tone of light contempt in which she spoke was now pierced by a

not unnatural pride in the romantic mysteries of her husband's family. "She placed it here, and it is said, you

know, that when the closed cabinet is opened, and the mysterious motto is read, the curse will depart from the

"But why don't they break it open?" I asked, impatiently. "I am sure that I would never have remained all my

life in a house with a thing like that, and not found out in some way or another what was inside it."

"Oh, but that would be quite fatal," answered she. "The curse can only be removed when the cabinet is

opened as Dame Alice intended it to be, in an orthodox fashion. If you were to force it open, that could never

"And what is the curse?" I asked, with very different feelings to those with which I had timidly approached

the same subject with Alan. Lucy was not a Mervyn, and not a person to inspire awe under any

circumstances. My instincts were right again, for she turned away with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"I have no idea," she said. "George and Alan always look portentously solemn and gloomy whenever one

mentions the subject, so I don't. If you ask me for the truth, I believe it to be a pure invention, devised by the

Mervyns for the purpose of delicately accounting for some of the disreputable actions of their ancestors. For

you know, Evie," she added, with a little laugh, "the less said about the character of the family into which

The remark made me angry, I don't know why, and I answered stiffly, that as far as I was acquainted with

"Oh, as regards the present generation, no,except for that poor, wretched Jack," acquiesced Lucy, with her

"And as regards the next?" I suggested, smiling, and already ashamed of my little temper.

"The next is perfect, of course,poor dear boys." She sighed as she spoke, and I wondered whether she was

really as unconscious as she generally appeared to be of the strange dissatisfaction with which her husband

seemed to regard his children. Anyhow the mention of them had evidently changed her mood, and almost

directly afterwards, with the remark that she must go and look after her guests, who had all arrived by now,

For some minutes I sat by the bright fire, lost in aimless, wandering thought, which began with Dame Alice

and her cabinet, and which ended somehow with Alan's face, as I had last seen it looking up at me in front of

the halldoor. When I had reached that point, I roused myself to decide that I had dreamt long enough, and

that it was quite time to go down to the guests and to tea. I accordingly donned my best teagown, arranged

my hair, and proceeded towards the drawingroom. My way there lay through the great central hall. This

apartment was approached from most of the bedrooms in the house through a large, arched doorway at one

end of it, which communicated directly with the great staircase. My bedroom, however, which, as I have said,

lay among the private apartments of the house, opened into a passage which led into a broad gallery, or upper

chamber, stretching right across the end of the hall. From this you descended by means of a small staircase in

oak, whose carved balustrade, bending round the corner of the hall, formed one of the prettiest features of the

picturesque old room. The barrier which ran along the front of the gallery was in solid oak, and of such a

height that, unless standing close up to it, you could neither see nor be seen by the occupants of the room

below. On approaching this gallery I heard voices in the hall. They were George's and Alan's, evidently in hot

discussion. As I issued from the passage, George was speaking, and his voice had that exasperated tone in

which an angry man tries to bring to a close an argument in which he has lost his temper. "For heaven's sake

leave it alone, Alan; I neither can nor will interfere. We have enough to bear from these cursed traditions as it

is, without adding one which has no foundation whatever to justify ita mere contemptible piece of

"No member of our family has a right to call any tradition contemptible which is connected with that place,

and you know it," answered Alan; and though he spoke low, his voice trembled with some strong emotion. A

first impulse of hesitation which I had had I checked, feeling that as I had heard so much it was fairer to go

on, and I advanced to the top of the staircase. Alan stood by the fireplace facing me, but far too occupied to

see me. His last speech had seemingly aroused George to fury, for the latter turned on him now with savage

"Damn it all, Alan!" he cried, "can't you be quiet? I will be master in my own house. Take care, I tell you; the

As George uttered these words, Alan lifted his eyes to him with a glance of awful horror: his face turned

ghastly white; his lips trembled for a moment; and then he answered back with one halfwhispered word of

supreme appeal"George!" There was a longdrawn, unutterable anguish in his tone, and his voice, though

scarcely audible, penetrated to every corner of the room, and seemed to hang quivering in the air around one

after the sound had ceased. Then there was a terrible stillness. Alan stood trembling in every limb, incapable

apparently of speech or action, and George faced him, as silent and motionless as he was. For an instant they

remained thus, while I looked breathlessly on. Then George, with a muttered imprecation, turned on his heel

and left the room. Alan followed him as he went with dull lifeless eyes; and as the door closed he breathed

Taking my courage in both hands, I now descended the stairs, and at the sound of my footfall he glanced up,

"Evie! you here," he said; "I did not notice you. How long have you been here?" He was still quite white, and

"Not long," I answered, timidly, and rather spasmodically; "I only heard a sentence or two. You wanted

George to do something about some tradition or other,and he was angry,and he said something about

While I spoke Alan kept his eyes fixed on mine, reading through them, as I knew, into my mind. When I had

finished he turned his gaze away satisfied, and answered very quietly, "Yes, that was it." Then he went back

to the fireplace, rested his arm against the high mantelpiece above it, and leaning his forehead on his arm,

remained silently looking into the fire. I could see by his bent brow and compressed lips that he was engaged

upon some earnest train of thought or reasoning, and I stood waitingworried, puzzled, curious, but above

all things, pitiful, and oh! longing so intensely to help him if I could. Presently he straightened himself a

little, and addressed me more in his ordinary tone of voice, though without looking round. "So I hear they

"Yes," I answered. And then, flushing rather, "Is that what you and George have been quarreling about?" I

received no reply, and taking this silence for assent, I went on deprecatingly, "Because you know, if it was, I

think you are rather foolish, Alan. As I understand, two girls are said to have died in that room more than a

hundred years ago, and for that reason there is a prejudice against putting a girl to sleep there. That is all.

"Yes," he said at length, speaking slowly, and as if replying to arguments in his own mind as much as to

those which I had uttered. "Yes, it is nothing but a tradition after all, and that of the very vaguest and most

"Is there even any proof that girls have not slept there since those two died?" I asked. I think that the

suggestion conveyed in this question was a relief to him, for after a moment's pause, as if to search his

"No," he answered, "I don't think that there is any such proof; and I have no doubt that you are right, and that

"Then," I said, with a little assumption of sisterly superiority, "I think George was right, and that you were

Alan smiled,a smiled which sat oddly on the still pale face, and in the wearied, wornlooking eyes. "Very

likely," he said; "I daresay that I am superstitious. I have had things to make me so." Then coming nearer to

me, and laying his hands on my shoulders, he went on, smiling more brightly, "We are a queertempered,

badnerved race, we Mervyns, and you must not take us too seriously, Evie. The best thing that you can do

"Oh, I don't mind," I answered, laughing, too glad to have won him back to even temporary brightness, "as

long as you and George don't come to blows over the question of where I am to sleep; which after all is

"Well, perhaps it is," he replied, in the same tone; "and now be off to the drawingroom, where Lucy is

I obeyed, and should have gone more cheerfully had I not turned at the doorway to look back at him, and

caught one glimpse of his face as he sank heavily down into the large armchair by the fireside.

However, by dinnertime he appeared to have dismissed all painful reflections from his mind, or to have

buried them too deep for discovery. The people staying in the house were, in spite of my sense of grievance

at their arrival, individually pleasant, and after dinner I discovered them to be socially well assorted. For the

first hour or two, indeed, after their arrival, each glared at the other across those triple lines of moral

fortification behind which every wellbred Briton takes refuge on appearing at a friend's countryhouse. But

flags of truce were interchanged over the soup, an armistice was agreed upon during the roast, and the terms

of a treaty of peace and amity were finally ratified under the sympathetic influence of George's best

champagne. For the achievement of this happy result Alan certainly worked hard, and received therefor many

a grateful glance from his sisterinlaw. He was more excited than I had ever seen him before, and talked

brilliantly and wellthough perhaps not as exclusively to his neighbors as they may have wished. His eyes

and his attention seemed everywhere at once: one moment he was throwing remarks across to some

despairing couple opposite, and the next he was breaking an embarrassing pause in the conversation by some

rapid sally of nonsense addressed to the table in general. He formed a great contrast to his brother, who sat

gloomy and dejected, making little or no response to the advances of the two dowagers between whom he

was placed. After dinner the younger members of the party spent the evening by Alan's initiative, and chiefly

under his direction, in a series of lively and rather riotous games such as my nursery days had delighted in,

and my schoolroom ones had disdained. It was a great and happy surprise to discover that, grown up, I might

again enjoy them. I did so, hugely, and when bedtime came all memories more serious than those of "musical

chairs" or "follow my leader" had vanished from my mind. I think, from Alan's glance as he handed me my

"I have," I answered, with happy conviction; "and really I believe that it is chiefly owing to you, Alan." He

met my smile by another; but I think that there must have been something in his look which recalled other

thoughts, for as I started up the stairs I threw a mischievous glance back at him and whispered, "Now for the

He laughed rather loudly, and saying "Goodnight, and goodluck," turned to attend to the other ladies.

His wishes were certainly fulfilled. I got to bed quickly, andas soon as my happy excitement was

sufficiently calmed to admit of it to sleep. The only thing which disturbed me was the wind, which blew

fiercely and loudly all the earlier portion of the night, half arousing me more than once. I spoke of it at

breakfast the next morning; but the rest of the world seemed to have slept too heavily to have been aware of

The men went out shooting directly after breakfast, and we women passed the day in orthodox countryhouse

fashion,working and eating; walking and riding; driving and playing croquet; and above, beyond, and

through all things, chattering. Beyond a passing sigh while I was washing my hands, or a moment of

mournful remembrance while I changed my dress, I had scarcely time even to regret the quiet happiness of

the week that was past. In the evening we danced in the great hall. I had two valses with Alan. During a pause

for breath, I found that we were standing near the fireplace, on the very spot where he and George had stood

on the previous afternoon. The recollection made me involuntarily glance up at his face. It looked sad and

worried, and the thought suddenly struck me that his extravagant spirits of the night before, and even his

quieter, careful cheerfulness of tonight, had been but artificial moods at best. He turned, and finding my

eyes fixed on him, at once plunged into conversation, discussed the peculiarities of one of the guests,

goodhumoredly enough, but with so much fun as to make me laugh in spite of myself. Then we danced

again. The plaintive music, the smooth floor, and the partner were all alike perfect, and I experienced that

entire delight of physical enjoyment which I believe nothing but a valse under such circumstances can give.

When it was over I turned to Alan, and exclaimed with impulsive appeal, "Oh, I am so happy,you must be

happy too!" He smiled rather uncertainly, and answered, "Don't bother yourself about me, Evie, I am all right.

I told you that we Mervyns had bad nerves; and I am rather tired. That's all." I was too passionately

determined just then upon happiness, and his was too necessary to mine for me not to believe that he was

We kept up the dancing till Lucy discovered with a shock that midnight had struck, and that Sunday had

begun, and we were all sent off to bed. I was not long in making my nightly preparations, and had scarcely

inserted myself between the sheets when, with a few long moans, the wind began again, more violently even

than the night before. It had been a calm, fine day, and I made wise reflections as I listened upon the

uncertainty of the northcountry climate. What a tempest it was! How it moaned, and howled, and shrieked!

Where had I heard the superstition which now came to my mind, that borne upon the wind come the spirits of

the drowned, wailing and crying for the sepulture which had been denied them? But there were other sounds

in that wind, too. Evil, murderous thoughts, perhaps, which had never taken body in deeds, but which, caught

up in the air, now hurled themselves in impotent fury through the world. How I wished the wind would stop.

It seemed full of horrible fancies, and it kept knocking them into my head, and it wouldn't leave off. Fancies,

or memorieswhich?and my mind reverted with a flash to the fearful thoughts which had haunted it the

day before in Dame Alice's tower. It was dark now. Those ghastly intangible shapes must have taken full

form and color, peopling the old ruin with their ageless hideousness. And the storm had found them there and

borne them along with it as it blew through the creviced walls. That was why the wind's sound struck so

strangely on my brain. Ah! I could hear them now, those still living memories of dead horror. Through the

window crannies they came shrieking and wailing. They filled the chimney with spirit sobs, and now they

were pressing on, crowding through the room,eager, eager to reach their prey. Nearer they came;nearer

still! They were round my bed now! Through my closed eyelids I could almost see their dreadful shapes; in

all my quivering flesh I felt their terrors as they bent over me,lower, lower. . . .

With a start I aroused myself and sat up. Was I asleep or awake? I was trembling all over still, and it required

the greatest effort of courage I had ever made to enable me to spring from my bed and strike a light. What a

state my nerves or my digestion must be in! From my childhood the wind had always affected me strangely,

and I blamed myself now for allowing my imagination to run away with me at the first. I found a novel which

I had brought up to my room with me, one of the modern, ChineseAmerican school, where human nature is

analyzed with the patient, industrious indifference of the true Celestial. I took the book to bed with me, and

soon under its soothing influences fell asleep. I dreamt a good deal, nightmares, the definite recollection of

which, as is so often the case, vanished from my mind as soon as I awoke, leaving only a vague impression of

horror. They had been connected with the wind, of that alone I was conscious, and I went down to breakfast,

To my surprise, however, I found that I had again been the only sufferer. Indeed, so impressed were most of

the party with the quiet in which their night had been passed, that they boldly declared my storm to have been

the creature of my dreams. There is nothing more annoying when you feel yourself aggrieved by fate than to

be told that your troubles have originated in your own fancy; so I dropped the subject. Though the discussion

spread for a few minutes round the whole table, Alan took no part in it. Neither did George, except for what I

thought a rather unnecessarily rough expression of his disbelief in the cause of my night's disturbance. As we

rose from breakfast I saw Alan glance towards his brother, and make a movement, evidently with the purpose

of speaking to him. Whether or not George was aware of the look or action, I cannot say; but at the same

moment he made rapidly across the room to where one of his principal guests was standing, and at once

engaged him in conversation. So earnestly and so volubly was he borne on, that they were still talking

together when we ladies appeared again some minutes later, prepared for our walk to church. That was not

the only occasion during the day on which I witnessed as I thought the same byplay going on. Again and

again Alan appeared to be making efforts to engage George in private conversation, and again and again the

The church was about a mile away from the house, and as Lucy did not like having the carriages out on a

Sunday, one service a week as a rule contented the household. In the afternoon we took the usual Sunday

walk. On returning from it, I had just taken off my outdoor things, and was issuing from my bedroom, when I

found myself face to face with Alan. He was coming out of George's study, and had succeeded apparently in

obtaining that interview for which he had been all day seeking. One glance at his face told me what its nature

had been. We paused opposite each other for a moment, and he looked at me earnestly.

"No," I answered, with some surprise. "I did not know that any one was going this evening."

"Yes, certainly; if you don't mind waiting a moment for me to put my things on."

It was a calm, cloudless night, and although the moon was not yet halffull, and already past her meridian,

she filled the clear air with gentle light. Not a word broke our silence. Alan walked hurriedly, looking straight

before him, his head upright, his lips twitching nervously, while every now and then a halfuttered moan

escaped unconsciously from between them. At last I could bear it no longer, and burst forth with the first

remark which occurred to me. We were passing a big, black, queershaped stone standing in rather a lonely

uncultivated spot at one end of the garden. It was an old acquaintance of my childhood; but my thoughts had

been turned towards it now from the fact that I could see it from my bedroom window, and had been struck

"Isn't there some story connected with that stone?" I asked. "I remember that we always called it the Dead

Alan cast a quick, sidelong glance in that direction, and his brows contracted in an irritable frown. "I don't

know," he answered shortly; "they say that there is a woman buried beneath it, I believe."

"How should I know? They know nothing whatever about it. The place is full of stupid traditions of that

"I don't know; it was just something to say," I answered plaintively. His strange mood so worked upon my

nerves, that it was all that I could do to restrain my tears. I think that my tone struck his conscience, for he

made a few feverish attempts at conversation after that. But they were so entirely abortive that he soon

abandoned the effort, and we finished our walk to church as speechlessly as we had begun it.

The service was bright, and the sermon perhaps a little commonplace, but sensible as it seemed to me in

matter, and adequate in style. The peaceful evening hymn which followed, the short solemn pause of silent

prayer at the end, soothed and refreshed my spirit. A hasty glance at my companion's face as he stood waiting

for me in the porch, with the full light from the church streaming round him, assured me that the same

influence had touched him too. Haggard and sad he still looked, it is true; but his features were composed,

Silent as we had come we started homeward through the waning moonlight, but this silence was of a very

different nature to the other, and after a minute or two I did not hesitate to break it.

"Yes," he assented, "I suppose you would call it so; but I confess that I should have found the text more

"But don't you often find it so?" he asked. "Do you not often wish, to take this evening's instance, that

clergymen would infuse themselves with something of St. Paul's own spirit? Then perhaps they would not

"Is it?" he questioned. "I don't ask them to be inspired saints. I don't expect St. Paul's breadth and depth of

thought. But could they not have something of his vigorous completeness, something of the intensity of his

feeling and belief? Look at the text of tonight. Did not the preacher's examples and applications take

"Awful!" I exclaimed, in surprise; "that is hardly the expression I should have used in connection with those

"Oh, I don't know. The text is very beautiful, of course, and at times, when people are tiresome and one ought

"But you think that 'awful' is rather a big adjective to use for so small a duty," interposed Alan, and the

moonlight showed the flicker of a smile upon his face. Then he continued, gravely, "I doubt whether you

yourself realize the full import of the words. The precept of charity is not merely a code of rules by which to

order our conduct to our neighbors; it is the picture of a spiritual condition, and such, where it exists in us,

must by its very nature be roused into activity by anything that affects us. So with this particular injunction,

every circumstance in our lives is a challenge to it, and in presence of all alike it admits of one attitude only:

'Beareth all things, endureth all things.' I hope it will be long before that 'all' sticks in your gizzard, Evie,

before you come face to face with things which nature cannot bear, and yet which must be borne."

He stopped, his voice quivering; and then after a pause went on again more calmly, "And throughout it is the

same. Moral precepts everywhere, which will admit of no compromise, no limitation, and yet which are at

war with our strongest passions. If one could only interpose some 'unless,' some 'except,' even an 'until,'

which should be short of the grave. But we cannot. The law is infinite, universal, eternal; there is no escape,

no repose. Resist, strive, endure, that is the recurring cry; that is existence."

"And peace," I exclaimed, appealingly. "Where is there room for peace, if that be true?"

He sighed for answer, and then in a changed and lower tone added, "However thickly the clouds mass,

however vainly we search for a coming glimmer in their midst, we never doubt that the sky IS still

He raised his eyes as he spoke, and mine followed his. We had entered the wooded glen. Through the scanty

autumn foliage we could see the stars shining faintly in the dim moonlight, and beyond them the deep

illimitable blue. A dark world it looked, distant and mysterious, and my young spirit rebelled at the

"Oh, but I am worse and weaker than you are. If life is to be all warfare, I must be beaten. I cannot always be

"Cannot you? Evie, what I have been saying is true of every moral law worth having, of every ideal of life

worth striving after, that men have yet conceived. But it is only half the truth of Christianity. You know that.

We must strive, for the promise is to him that overcometh; but though our aim be even higher than is that of

others, we cannot in the end fail to reach it. The victory of the Cross is ours. You know that? You believe

"Yes" I answered, softly, too surprised to say more. In speaking of religion he, as a rule, showed to the full

the reserve which is characteristic of his class and country, and this sudden outburst was in itself astonishing;

but the eager anxiety with which he emphasized the last words of appeal impressed and bewildered me still

further. We walked on for some minutes in silence. Then suddenly Alan stopped, and turning, took my hand

in his. In what direction his mind had been working in the interval I could not divine; but the moment he

began to speak I felt that he was now for the first time giving utterance to what had been really at the bottom

of his thoughts the whole evening. Even in that dim light I could see the anxious look upon his face, and his

"Evie," he said, "have you ever thought of the world in which our spirits dwell, as our bodies do in this one of

matter and sense, and of how it may be peopled? I know," he went on hurriedly, "that it is the fashion

nowadays to laugh at such ideas. I envy those who have never had cause to be convinced of their reality, and

I hope that you may long remain among the number. But should that not be so, should those unseen

influences ever touch your life, I want you to remember then, that, as one of the race for whom Christ died,

you have as high a citizenship in that spirit land as any creature there: that you are your own soul's warden,

and that neither principalities nor powers can rob you of that your birthright."

I think my face must have shown my bewilderment, for he dropped my hand, and walked on with an

"You don't understand me. Why should you? I daresay that I am talking nonsenseonlyonly"

"I think that I do understand you a little, Alan. You mean that even from unearthly enemies there is nothing

that we need really fearat least, that is, I suppose, nothing worse than death. But that is surely enough!"

"What is life after all but one long death?" he went on, with sudden violence. "Our pleasures, our hopes, our

youth are all dying; ambition dies, and even desire at last; our passions and tastes will die, or will live only to

mourn their dead opportunity. The happiness of love dies with the loss of the loved, and, worst of all, love

itself grows old in our hearts and dies. Why should we shrink only from the one death which can free us from

"It is not true, Alan!" I cried, hotly. "What you say is not true. There are many things even here which are

living and shall live; and if it were otherwise, in everything, life that ends in death is better than no life at all."

"You say that," he answered, "because for you these things are yet living. To leave life now, therefore, while

it is full and sweet, untainted by death, surely that is not a fate to fear. Better, a thousand times better, to see

the cord cut with one blow while it is still whole and strong, and to launch out straight into the great ocean,

than to sit watching through the slow years, while strand after strand, thread by thread, loosens and unwinds

itself, each with its own separate pang breaking, bringing the bitterness of death without its release.

His manner, the despairing ring in his voice, alarmed me even more than his words. Clinging to his arm with

"Alan," I cried, "don't say such things,don't talk like that. You are making me miserable."

He stopped short at my words, with bent head, his features hidden in the shadow thus cast upon

them,nothing in his motionless form to show what was passing within him. Then he looked up, and turned

"Don't be afraid," he said; "it is all right, my little David. You have driven the evil spirit away." And lifting

my hand, he pressed it gently to his lips. Then drawing it within his arm, he went on, as he walked forward,

"And even when it was on me at its worst, I was not meditating suicide, as I think you imagine. I am a very

average specimen of humanity,neither brave enough to defy the possibilities of eternity nor cowardly

enough to shirk those of time. No, I was only trying idiotically to persuade a girl of eighteen that life was not

worth living; and more futilely still, myself, that I did not wish her to live. I am afraid, that in my mind

philosophy and fact have but small connection with each other; and though my theorizing for your welfare

may be true enough, yet, I cannot help it, Evie,it would go terribly hard with me if anything were to

His voice trembled as he finished. My fear had gone with his return to his natural manner, but my

"That is just it," he answered, after a pause, looking straight in front of him and drawing his hand wearily

over his brow. "I know of no reason why there should." Then giving a sigh, as if finally to dismiss from his

mind a worrying subject"I have acted for the best," he said, "and may God forgive me if I have done

There was a little silence after that, and then he began to talk again, steadily and quietly. The subject was

deep enough still, as deep as any that we had touched upon, but both voice and sentiment were calm, bringing

peace to my spirit, and soon making me forget the wonder and fear of a few moments before. Very openly

did he talk as we passed on across the long trunk shadows and through the glades of silver light; and I saw

farther then into the most sacred recesses of his soul than I have ever done before or since.

When we reached home the moon had already set; but some of her beams seemed to have been left behind

The same feeling continued with me all through that evening. After dinner some of the party played and sang.

As it was Sunday, and Lucy was rigid in her views, the music was of a sacred character. I sat in a low

armchair in a dark corner of the room, my mind too dreamy to think, and too passive to dream. I hardly

interchanged three words with Alan, who remained in a still darker spot, invisible and silent the whole time.

Only as we left the room to go to bed, I heard Lucy ask him if he had a headache. I did not hear his answer,

It was early, and when first I got to my room I felt little inclined for sleep. I wandered to the window, and

drawing aside the curtains, looked out upon the still, starlit sky. At least I should rest quiet tonight. The air

was very clear, and the sky seemed full of stars. As I stood there scraps of schoolroom learning came back to

my mind. That the stars were all suns, surrounded perhaps in their turn by worlds as large or larger than our

own. Worlds beyond worlds, and others farther still, which no man might number or even descry. And about

the distance of those wonderful suns too,that one, for instance, at which I was looking,what was it that I

had been told? That our world was not yet peopled, perhaps not yet formed, when the actual spot of light

which now struck my sight first started from the star's surface! While it flashed along, itself the very symbol

My gaze dropped, and fell upon the dim, halfseen outline of the Dead Stone. That woman too. While that

one ray speeded towards me her life had been lived and ended, and her body had rotted away into the ground.

How close together we all were! Her life and mine; our joys, sufferings, deathsall crowded together into

the space of one flash of light! And yet there was nothing there but a horrible skeleton of dead bones, while

I stopped with a shudder, and turned back into the room. I wished that Alan had not told me what lay under

the stone; I wished that I had never asked him. It was a ghastly thing to think about, and spoilt all the beauty

I got quickly into bed, and soon dropped asleep. I do not know how long I slept; but when I woke it was with

It was worse than ever. The world seemed filled with its din. Hurling itself passionately against the house, it

gathered strength with every gust, till it seemed as if the old walls must soon crash in ruins round me. Gust

upon gust; blow upon blow; swelling, lessening, never ceasing. The noise surrounded me; it penetrated my

inmost being, as allpervading as silence itself, and wrapping me in a solitude even more complete. There

was nothing left in the world but the wind and I, and then a weird intangible doubt as to my own identity

seized me. The wind was real, the wind with its echoes of passion and misery from the eternal abyss; but was

there anything else? What was, and what had been, the world of sense and of knowledge, my own

consciousness, my very self,all seemed gathered up and swept away in that one soleexistent fury of

I pulled myself together, and getting out of bed, groped my way to the table which stood between the bed and

the fireplace. The matches were there, and my halfburnt candle, which I lit. The wind penetrating the

rattling casement circled round the room, and the flame of my candle bent and flared and shrank before it,

throwing strange moving lights and shadows in every corner. I stood there shivering in my thin nightdress,

half stunned by the cataract of noise beating on the walls outside, and peered anxiously around me. The room

was not the same. Something was changed. What was it? How the shadows leaped and fell, dancing in time

to the wind's music. Everything seemed alive. I turned my head slowly to the left, and then to the right, and

I looked away, and back, and again. There was no room for doubt. The doors were thrown back, and were

waving gently in the draught. One of the lower drawers was pulled out, and in a sudden flare of the

candlelight I could see something glistening at its bottom. Then the light dwindled again, the candle was

almost out, and the cabinet showed a dim black mass in the darkness. Up and down went the flame, and each

returning brightness flashed back at me from the thing inside the drawer. I stood fascinated, my eyes fixed

upon the spot, waiting for the fitful glitter as it came and went. What was there there? I knew that I must go

and see, but I did not want to. If only the cabinet would close again before I looked, before I knew what was

inside it. But it stood open, and the glittering thing lay there, dragging me towards itself.

Slowly at last, and with infinite reluctance, I went. The drawer was lined with soft white satin, and upon the

satin lay a long, slender knife, hilted and sheathed in antique silver, richly set with jewels. I took it up and

turned back to the table to examine it. It was Italian in workmanship, and I knew that the carving and chasing

of the silver were more precious even than the jewels which studded it, and whose rough setting gave so firm

a grasp to my hand. Was the blade as fair as the covering, I wondered? A little resistance at first, and then the

long thin steel slid easily out. Sharp, and bright, and finely tempered it looked with its deadly, tapering point.

Stains, dull and irregular, crossed the fine engraving on its surface and dimmed its polish. I bent to examine

them more closely, and as I did so a sudden stronger gust of wind blew out the candle. I shuddered a little at

the darkness and looked up. But it did not matter: the curtain was still drawn away from the window opposite

my bedside, and through it a flood of moonlight was pouring in upon floor and bed.

Putting the sheath down upon the table, I walked to the window to examine the knife more closely by that

pale light. How gloriously brilliant it was! darkened now and again by the quickly passing shadows of

winddriven clouds. At least so I thought, and I glanced up and out of the window to see them. A black world

met my gaze. Neither moon was there nor moonlight: the broad silver beam in which I stood stretched no

farther than the window. I caught my breath, and my limbs stiffened as I looked. No moon, no cloud, no

movement in the clear, calm, starlit sky; while still the ghastly light stretched round me, and the spectral

But it was not all dark outside: one spot caught my eye, bright with a livid unearthly brightnessthe Dead

Stone shining out into the night like an ember from hell's furnace! There was a horrid semblance of life in the

light,a palpitating, breathing glow, and my pulses beat in time to it, till I seemed to be drawing it into

my veins. It had no warmth, and as it entered my blood my heart grew colder, and my muscles more rigid.

My fingers clutched the daggerhilt till its jeweled roughness pressed painfully into my palm. All the

strength of my strained powers seemed gathered in that grasp, and the more tightly I held the more vividly

did the rock gleam and quiver with infernal life. The dead woman! The dead woman! What had I to do with

her? Let her bones rest in the filth of their own decay,out there under the accursed stone.

And now the noise of the wind lessens in my ears. Let it go on, yes, louder and wilder, drowning my

senses in its tumult. What is there with me in the roomthe great empty room behind me? Nothing; only the

cabinet with its waving doors. They are waving to and fro, to and froI know it. But there is no other life in

Oh! don't let the wind stop. I can't hear anything while it goes on;but if it stops! Ah! the gusts grow

God! it isit is the breath of a living creature! A living creature! hereclose to mealone with me!

The numbness of terror conquers me. I can neither stir nor speak. Only my whole soul strains at my ears to

I try to shriek, but the sound gurgles unuttered in my throat. I clutch the stone mullions of the window, and

press myself against the panes. If I could but throw myself out!anywhere, anywhere away from that

dreadful soundfrom that thing close behind me in the bed! But I can do nothing. The wind has broken forth

again now; the storm crashes round me. And still through it all I hear the ghastly breathingeven, low,

But to stand here, with that creature behind me, listening, waiting for the warm horror of its breath to touch

my neck! Ah! I cannot. I will look. I will see it face to face. Better any agony than this one.

Slowly, with held breath, and eyes aching in their stretched fixity, I turn. There it is! Clear in the moonlight I

see the monstrous form within the bed,the dark coverlet rises and falls with its heaving breath. . . . Ah!

heaven have mercy! Is there none to help, none to save me from this awful presence? . . .

And the knifehilt draws my fingers round it, while my flesh quivers, and my soul grows sick with loathing.

The wind howls, the shadows chase through the room, hunting with fearful darkness more fearful light; and I

I must not stand here for ever; I must be up and doing. What a noise the wind makes, and the rattling of the

windows and the doors. If he sleeps through this he will sleep through all. Noiselessly my bare feet tread the

carpet as I approach the bed; noiselessly my left arm raises the heavy curtain. What does it hide? Do I not

know? The bestial features, halfhidden in coarse, black growth; the muddy, blotched skin, oozing foulness

at every pore. Oh, I know them too well! What a monster it is! How the rank breath gurgles through his throat

in his drunken sleep. The eyes are closed now, but I know them too; their odious leer, and the venomous

hatred with which they can glare at me from their bloodshot setting. But the time has come at last. Never

again shall their passion insult me, or their fury degrade me in slavish terror. There he lies; there at my mercy,

the man who for fifteen years has made God's light a shame to me, and His darkness a terror. The end has

come at last,the only end possible, the only end left me. On his head be the blood and the crime! God

Where have I heard those words? They are in the Bible; the precept of charity. What has that to do with me?

Nothing. I heard the words in my dreams somewhere. A whitefaced man said them, a whitefaced man with

pure eyes. To me?no, no, not to me; to a girl it wasan ignorant, innocent girl, and she accepted them as

an eternal, unqualified law. Let her bear but half that I have borne, let her endure but onetenth of what I

Softly now; I must draw the heavy coverings away, and bare his breast to the stroke,the stroke that shall

free me. I know well where to plant it; I have learned that from the old lady's Italian. Did he guess why I

questioned him so closely of the surest, straightest road to a man's heart? No matter, he cannot hinder me

now. Gently! Ah! I have disturbed him. He moves, mutters in his sleep, throws out his arm. Down; down;

crouching behind the curtain. Heavens! if he wakes and sees me, he will kill me. No! alas! if only he would. I

would kiss the hand that he struck me with; but he is too cruel for that. He will imagine some new and more

hellish torture to punish me with. But the knife! I have got that; he shall never touch me living again. . . . He

is quieter now. I hear his breath, hoarse and heavy as a wild beast's panting. He draws it more evenly, more

God! What have I to do with Him? A God of Judgment. Ha, ha! Hell cannot frighten me; it will not be worse

than earth. Only he will be there too. Not with him, not with him,send me to the lowest circle of torment,

but not with him. There, his breast is bare now. Is the knife sharp? Yes; and the blade is strong enough. Now

let me strikemyself afterwards if need be, but him first. Is it the devil that prompts me? Then the devil is

my friend, and the friend of the world. No. God is a God of love. He cannot wish such a man to live. He made

him, but the devil spoilt him; and let the devil have his handiwork back again. It has served him long enough

How the moonlight gleams from the blade as my arm swings up and back: with how close a grasp the rough

Hand and dagger droop again. His life has dragged its slime over my soul; shall his death poison it with a

Easy words. What do they mean for me? To creep back now to bed by his side, and to begin living again

tomorrow the life which I have lived today? No, no; I cannot do it. Heaven cannot ask it of me. And there

is no other way. That or this; this or that. Which shall it be? Ah! I have striven, God knows. I have endured so

long that I hoped even to do so to the end. But today! Oh! the torment and the outrage: body and soul still

bear the stain of it. I thought that my heart and my pride were dead together, but he has stung them again into

aching, shameful life. Yesterday I might have spared him, to save my own cold soul from sin; but now it is

Ay, I will kill him, and have done with it. Why should I pause any longer? The knife drags my hand back for

the stroke. Only the dream surrounds me; the pure man's face is there, white, beseeching, and God's voice

But I cannot overcome. Evil has governed my life, and evil is stronger than I am. What shall I do? what shall

Yes, I know it. It is true, it is true. But the knife? I cannot loose the knife if I would. How to wrench it from

I seize the blade with my left hand; the twoedged steel slides through my grasp; a sharp pain in fingers and

When I again became conscious, I found myself half kneeling, half lying across the bed, my arms stretched

out in front of me, my face buried in the clothes. Body and mind were alike numbed. A smarting pain in my

left hand, a dreadful terror in my heart, were at first the only sensations of which I was aware. Slowly, very

slowly, sense and memory returned to me, and with them a more vivid intensity of mental anguish, as detail

by detail I recalled the weird horror of the night. Had it really happened,was the thing still there,or was

it all a ghastly nightmare? It was some minutes before I dared either to move or look up, and then fearfully I

raised my head. Before me stretched the smooth white coverlet, faintly bright with yellow sunshine. Weak

and giddy, I struggled to my feet, and, steadying myself against the foot of the bed, with clenched teeth and

bursting heart, forced my gaze round to the other end. The pillow lay there, bare and unmarked save for what

might well have been the pressure of my own head. My breath came more freely, and I turned to the window.

The sun had just risen, the golden treetops were touched with light, faint threads of mist hung here and there

across the sky, and the twittering of birds sounded clearly through the crisp autumn air.

It was nothing but a bad dream then, after all, this horror which still hung round me, leaving me incapable of

effort, almost of thought. I remembered the cabinet, and looked swiftly in that direction. There it stood,

closed as usual, closed as it had been the evening before, as it had been for the last three hundred years,

Yes, that was it; nothing but a dream,a gruesome, haunting dream. With an instinct of wiping out the

dreadful memory, I raised my hand wearily to my forehead. As I did so, I became conscious again of how it

hurt me. I looked at it. It was covered with halfdried blood, and two straight clean cuts appeared, one across

the palm and one across the inside of the fingers just below the knuckles. I looked again towards the bed, and,

in the place where my hand had rested during my faint, a small patch of red blood was to be seen.

Then it was true! Then it had all happened! With a low shuddering sob I threw myself down upon the couch

at the foot of the bed, and lay there for some minutes, my limbs trembling, and my soul shrinking within me.

A mist of evil, fearful and loathsome, had descended upon my girlhood's life, sullying its ignorant innocence,

saddening its brightness, as I felt, for ever. I lay there till my teeth began to chatter, and I realized that I was

bitterly cold. To return to that accursed bed was impossible, so I pulled a rug which hung at one end of the

I was roused by the entrance of my maid. I stopped her exclamations and questions by shortly stating that I

had had a bad night, had been unable to rest in bed, and had had an accident with my hand,without further

"I didn't know that you had been feeling unwell when you went to bed last night, miss," she said.

"Only Mr. Alan has just asked me to let him know how you find yourself this morning," she answered.

Then he expected something, dreaded something. Ah! why had he yielded and allowed me to sleep here, I

asked myself bitterly, as the incidents of the day before flashed through my mind.

"Tell him," I said, "what I have told you; and say that I wish to speak to him directly after breakfast." I could

not confide my story to any one else, but speak of it I must to some one or go mad.

Every moment passed in that place was an added misery. Much to my maid's surprise I said that I would

dress in her roomthe little one which, as I have said, was close to my own. I felt better there; but my utter

fatigue and my wounded hand combined to make my toilet slow, and I found that most of the party had

finished breakfast when I reached the diningroom. I was glad of this, for even as it was I found it difficult

enough to give coherent answers to the questions which my white face and bandaged hand called forth. Alan

helped me by giving a resolute turn to the conversation. Once only our eyes met across the table. He looked

as haggard and worn as I did: I learned afterwards that he had passed most of that fearful night pacing the

passage outside my door, though he listened in vain for any indication of what was going on within the room.

The moment I had finished breakfast he was by my side. "You wish to speak to me? now?" he asked in a low

"Yes; now," I answered, breathlessly, and without raising my eyes from the ground.

"Where shall we go? Outside? It is a bright day, and we shall be freer there from interruption."

I assented; and then looking up at him appealingly, "Will you fetch my things for me? I CANNOT go up to

He seemed to understand me, nodded, and was gone. A few minutes later we left the house, and made our

way in silence towards a grassy spot on the side of the ravine where we had already indulged in more than

As we went, the Dead Stone came for a moment into view. I seized Alan's arm in an almost convulsive grip.

"Tell me," I whispered, "you refused to tell me yesterday, but you must now,who is buried beneath that

There was now neither timidity nor embarrassment in my tone. The horrors of that house had become part of

my life for ever, and their secrets were mine by right. Alan, after a moment's pause, a questioning glance at

"I told you the truth," he replied, "when I said that I did not know; but I can tell you the popular tradition on

the subject, if you like. They say that Margaret Mervyn, the woman who murdered her husband, is buried

there, and that Dame Alice had the rock placed over her grave,whether to save it from insult or to mark it

out for opprobrium, I never heard. The poor people about here do not care to go near the place after dark, and

among the older ones there are still some, I believe, who spit at the suicide's grave as they pass."

"Why should you pity her?" demanded he with sudden sternness; "she WAS a suicide and a murderess too. It

would be better for the public conscience, I believe, if such were still hung in chains, or buried at the

"Hush, Alan, hush!" I cried hysterically, as I clung to him; "don't speak harshly of her: you do not know, you

He looked down at me in bewildered surprise. "How can I?" he repeated. "You speak as if YOU could. What

"Don't ask me," I answered, turning towards him my face,white, quivering, tearstained. "Don't ask me.

Not now. You must answer my questions first, and after that I will tell you. But I cannot talk of it now. Not

We had reached the place we were in search of as I spoke. There, where the spreading roots of a great

beechtree formed a natural resting place upon the steep side of the ravine, I took my seat, and Alan stretched

himself upon the grass beside me. Then looking up at me"I do not know what questions you would ask,"

But I did not ask them yet. I sat instead with my hands clasping my knee, looking opposite at the glory of

harmonious color, or down the glen at the vista of faroff, dreamlike loveliness, on which it opened out.

The yellow autumn sunshine made everything golden, the fresh autumn breezes filled the air with life; but to

me a loathsome shadow seemed to rest upon all, and to stretch itself out far beyond where my eyes could

reach, befouling the beauty of the whole wide world. At last I spoke. "You have known of it all, I suppose; of

"But have you known them as they are known to some,agonized, hopeless suffering, and sin that is all but

inevitable? Some time in your life probably you have realized that such things are: it has come home to you,

and to every one else, no doubt, except a few ignorant girls such as I was yesterday. But there are

some,yes, thousands and thousands,who even now, at this moment, are feeling sorrow like that, are

sinking deep, deeper into the bottomless pit of their soul's degradation. And yet men who know this, who

have seen it, laugh, talk, are happy, amuse themselveshow can they, how can they?" I stopped with a catch

in my voice, and then stretching out my arms in front of me"And it is not only men. Look how beautiful

the earth is, and God has made it, and lets the sun crown it every day with a new glory, while this horror of

My arms drooped again as I finished, and my eyes sought Alan's. His were full of tears, but there was almost

a smile quivering at the corners of his lips as he replied: "When you have found an answer to that question,

Evie, come and tell me and mankind at large: it will be news to us all." Then he continued"But, after all,

the earth is beautiful, and the sun does shine: we have our own happiness to rejoice in, our own sorrows to

bear, the suffering that is near to us to grapple with. For the rest, for this blackness of evil which surrounds

us, and which we can do nothing to lighten, it will soon, thank God, become vague and far off to you as it is

to others: your feeling of it will be dulled, and, except at moments, you too will forget."

"But that is horrible," I exclaimed, passionately; "the evil will be there all the same, whether I feel it or not.

Men and women will be struggling in their misery and sin, only I shall be too selfish to care."

"We cannot go outside the limits of our own nature," he replied; "our knowledge is shallow and our spiritual

insight dark, and God in His mercy has made our hearts shallow too, and our imagination dull. If, knowing

and trusting only as men do, we were to feel as angels feel, earth would be hell indeed."

It was cold comfort, but at that moment anything warmer or brighter would have been unreal and utterly

repellent to me. I hardly took in the meaning of his words, but it was as if a hand had been stretched out to

me, struggling in the deep mire, by one who himself felt solid ground beneath him. Where he stood I also

It was he who first broke the silence which followed. "You were saying that you had questions to ask me. I

It had been a relief to me to turn even to generalizations of despair from the actual horror which had inspired

them, and to which my mind was thus recalled. With an effort I replied, "Yes, I want to ask you about that

roomthe room in which I slept, and and the murder which was committed there." In spite of all that I

could do, my voice sank almost to a whisper as I concluded, and I was trembling from head to foot.

"Who told you that a murder was committed there?" Something in my face as he asked the question made

him add quickly, "Never mind. You are right. That is the room in which Hugh Mervyn was murdered by his

wife. I was surprised at your question, for I did not know that anyone but my brothers and myself were aware

of the fact. The subject is never mentioned: it is closely connected with one intensely painful to our family,

and besides, if spoken of, there would be inconveniences arising from the superstitious terrors of servants,

and the natural dislike of guests to sleep in a room where such a thing had happened. Indeed it was largely

with the view of wiping out the last memory of the crime's locality, that my father renewed the interior of the

room some twenty years ago. The only tradition which has been adhered to in connection with it is the one

which has now been violated in your personthe one which precludes any unmarried woman from sleeping

there. Except for that, the room has, as you know, lost all sinister reputation, and its title of 'haunted' has

become purely conventional. Nevertheless, as I said, you are rightthat is undoubtedly the room in which

"Go on; tell me about it, and what followed." My lips formed the words; my heart beat too faintly for my

"About the murder itself there is not much to tell. The man, I believe, was an inhuman scoundrel, and the

woman first killed him in desperation, and afterwards herself in despair. The only detail connected with the

actual crime of which I have ever heard, was the gale that was blowing that nightthe fiercest known to this

countryside in that generation; and it has always been said since that any misfortune to the

Mervynsespecially any misfortune connected with the cursecomes with a storm of wind. That was why

I so disliked your story of the imaginary tempests which have disturbed your nights since you slept there. As

to what followed,"he gave a sigh,"that story is long enough and full of incident. On the morning after

the murder, so runs the tale, Dame Alice came down to the Grange from the tower to which she had retired

when her son's wickednesses had driven her from his house, and there in the presence of the two corpses she

foretold the curse which should rest upon their descendants for generations to come. A clergyman who was

present, horrified, it is said at her words, adjured her by the mercy of Heaven to place some term to the doom

which she had pronounced. She replied that no mortal might reckon the fruit of a plant which drew its life

from hell; that a term there should be, but as it passed the wisdom of man to fix it, so it should pass the wit of

man to discover it. She then placed in the room this cabinet, constructed by herself and her Italian follower,

and said that the curse should not depart from the family until the day when its doors were unlocked and its

"Such is the story. I tell it to you as it was told to me. One thing only is certain, that the doom thus

Alan hesitated a little, and when he spoke his voice was almost awful in its passionless sternness, in its

despairing finality; it seemed to echo the irrevocable judgment which his words pronounced: "That the crimes

against God and each other which had destroyed the parents' life should enter into the children's blood, and

that never thereafter should there fail a Mervyn to bring shame or death upon one generation of his father's

"There were two sons of that illfated marriage," he went on after a pause, "boys at the time of their parents'

death. When they grew up they both fell in love with the same woman, and one killed the other in a duel. The

story of the next generation was a peculiarly sad one. Two brothers took opposite sides during the civil

troubles; but so fearful were they of the curse which lay upon the family, that they chiefly made use of their

mutual position in order to protect and guard each other. After the wars were over, the younger brother, while

traveling upon some parliamentary commission, stopped a night at the Grange. There, through a mistake, he

exchanged the report which he was bringing to London for a packet of papers implicating his brother and

several besides in a royalist plot. He only discovered his error as he handed the papers to his superior, and

was but just able to warn his brother in time for him to save his life by flight. The other men involved were

taken and executed, and as it was known by what means information had reached the Government, the elder

Mervyn was universally charged with the vilest treachery. It is said that when after the Restoration his return

home was rumored the neighboring gentry assembled, armed with riding whips, to flog him out of the

country if he should dare to show his face there. He died abroad, shamestricken and brokenhearted. It was

his son, brought up by his uncle in the sternest tenets of Puritanism, who, coming home after a lengthened

journey, found that during his absence his sister had been shamefully seduced. He turned her out of doors,

then and there, in the midst of a bitter January night, and the next morning her dead body and that of her

newborn infant were found half buried in the freshfallen snow on the top of the wolds. The 'white lady' is

still supposed by the villagers to haunt that side of the glen. And so it went on. A beautiful, heartless Mervyn

in Queen Anne's time enticed away the affections of her sister's betrothed, and on the day of her own wedding

with him, her forsaken sister was found drowned by her own act in the pond at the bottom of the garden. Two

brothers were soldiers together in some Continental war, and one was involuntarily the means of discovering

and exposing the treason of the other. A girl was betrayed into a false marriage, and her life ruined by a man

who came into the house as her brother's friend, and whose infamous designs were forwarded and finally

accomplished by that same brother's active though unsuspecting assistance. Generation after generation, men

or women, guilty or innocent, through the action of their own will or in spite of it, the curse has never yet

"Never yet? But surely in our own timeyour father?" I did not dare to put the question which was burning

"Have you never heard of the tragic end of my poor young uncles?" he replied. "They were several years

older than my father. When boys of fourteen and fifteen they were sent out with the keeper for their first

shooting lesson, and the elder shot his brother through the heart. He himself was delicate, and they say that he

never entirely recovered from the shock. He died before he was twenty, and my father, then a child of seven

years old, became the heir. It was partly, no doubt, owing to this calamity having thus occurred before he was

old enough to feel it, that his comparative skepticism on the whole subject was due. To that I suppose, and to

"Well, rather, he thought nothing about it. Until, that is, the time came when it took effect, to break his heart

There was silence for a little. Alan had turned away his head, so that I could not see his face. Then

"I suppose you have never been told the true story of why Jack left the country?"

"He is one victim of the curse in this generation, and I, God help me, am the other, and perhaps more

His voice trembled and broke, and for the first time that day I almost forgot the mysterious horror of the night

before, in my pity for the actual, tangible suffering before me. I stretched out my hand to his, and his fingers

"I will tell you the story," he said, "though since that miserable time I have spoken of it to no one."

There was a pause before he began. He lay there by my side, his gaze turned across me up the sunbright,

autumntinted glen, but his eyes shadowed by the memories which he was striving to recall and arrange in

due order in his mind. And when he did speak it was not directly to begin the promised recital.

"There could not be two opinions as to that," he answered. "And a man who could have done anything he

liked with life, had things gone differently. His abilities were fine, but his strength lay above all in his

character: he was strong,strong in his likes and in his dislikes, resolute, fearless, incapable of half

measuresa man, every inch of him. He was not generally popularstiff, hard, unsympathetic, people

called him. From one point of view, and one only, he perhaps deserved the epithets. If a woman lost his

respect she seemed to lose his pity too. Like a mediaeval monk, he looked upon such rather as the cause than

the result of male depravity, and his contempt for them mingled with anger, almost, as I sometimes thought,

with hatred. And this attitude was, I have no doubt, resented by the men of his own class and set, who shared

neither his faults nor his virtues. But in other ways he was not hard. He could love; I, at least, have cause to

know it. If you would hear his story rightly from my lips, Evie, you must try and see him with my eyes. The

friend who loved me, and whom I loved with the passion which, if not the strongest, is certainly, I believe,

the most enduring of which men are capable,that perfect brother's love, which so grows into our being that

when it is at peace we are scarcely conscious of its existence, and when it is wounded our very lifeblood

seems to flow at the stroke. Brothers do not always love like that: I can only wish that we had not done so.

"Well, about five years ago, before I had taken my degree, I became acquainted with a woman whom I will

call 'Delia,'it is near enough to the name by which she went. She was a few years older than myself, very

beautiful, and I believed her to be what she described herselfthe innocent victim of circumstance and false

appearance, a helpless prey to the vile calumnies of worldlings. In sober fact, I am afraid that, whatever her

life may have been actually at the time that I knew hera subject which I have never cared to

investigateher past had been not only bad enough irretrievably to fix her position in society, but bad

enough to leave her without an ideal in the world, though still retaining within her heart the possibilities of a

passion which, from the moment that it came to life, was strong enough to turn her whole existence into one

desperate reckless straining after an object hopelessly beyond her reach. That was the woman with whom, at

the age of twenty, I fancied myself in love. She wanted to get a husband, and she thought merightlyass

enough to accept the post. I was very young then even for my years,a student, an idealist, with an

imagination highly developed, and no knowledge whatever of the world as it actually is. Anyhow, before I

had known her a month, I had determined to make her my wife. My parents were abroad at the time, George

and Lucy here, so that it was to Jack that I imparted the news of my resolve. As you may imagine, he did all

that he could to shake it. But I was immovable. I disbelieved his facts, and despised his contempt from the

standpoint of my own superior morality. This state of things continued for several weeks, during the greater

part of which time I was at Oxford. I only knew that while I was there, Jack had made Delia's acquaintance,

"One day, during the Easter vacation, I got a note from her asking me to supper at her house. Jack was invited

"There is no need to dwell upon that supper. There were two or three women there of her own sort, or worse,

and a dozen men from among the most profligate in London. The conversation was, I should think, bad even

for that class; and she, the goddess of my idolatry, outstripped them all by the foul, coarse shamelessness of

her language and behavior. Before the entertainment was half over, I rose and took my leave, accompanied

by Jack and another man, Legard was his name,who I presume was bored. Just as we had passed

through into the anteroom, which lay beyond the one in which we had been eating, Delia followed us, and

laying her hand on Jack's arm, said that she must speak with him. Legard and I went into the outer hall, and

we had not been there more than a minute when the door from the anteroom opened, and we heard Delia's

voice. I remember the words well,that was not the only occasion on which I was to hear them. 'I will keep

the ring as a record of my love,' she said, 'and understand, that though you may forget, I never shall.' Jack

came through, the door closed, and as we went out I glanced towards his left hand, and saw, as I expected to

see, the absence of the ring which he usually wore there. It contained a gem which my mother had picked up

in the East, and I knew that he valued it quite peculiarly. We always called it Jack's talisman.

"A miserable time followed, a time for me of agonizing wonder and doubt, during which regret for my dead

illusion was entirely swallowed up in the terrible dread of my brother's degradation. Then came the

announcement of his engagement to Lady Sylvia Grey; and a week later, the very day after I had finally

returned to London from Oxford, I received a summons from Delia to come and see her. Curiosity, and the

haunting fear about Jack, which still hung round me, induced me to consent to what otherwise would have

been intolerably repellent to me, and I went. I found her in a mad passion of fury. Jack had refused to see her

or to answer her letters, and she had sent for me, that I might give him her message,tell him that he

belonged to her and her only, and that he never should marry another woman. Angry at my interference, Jack

disdained even to repudiate her claims, only sending back a threat of appealing to the police if she ventured

upon any further annoyance. I wrote as she told me, and she emphasized my silence on the subject by writing

back to me a more definite and explicit assertion of her rights. Beyond that for some weeks she made no sign.

I have no doubt that she had means of keeping watch upon both his movements and mine; and during that

time, as she relinquished gradually all hopes of inducing him to abandon his purpose, she was being driven to

"Later, when all was over, Jack told me the story of that spring and summer. He told me how, when he found

me immovable on the subject, he had resolved to stop the marriage somehow through Delia herself. He had

made her acquaintance, and sought her society frequently. She had taken a fancy to him, and he admitted that

he had availed himself of this fact to increase his intimacy with her, and, as he hoped ultimately, his power

over her. But he was not conscious of ever having varied in his manner towards her of contemptuous

indifference. This contradictory behavior,his being constantly near her, yet always beyond her

reach,was probably the very thing which excited her fancy into passion, the one strong passion of the poor

woman's life. Then came his deliberate demand that she should by her own act unmask herself in my sight.

The unfortunate woman tried to bargain for some proof of affection in return, and on this occasion had first

openly declared her feelings towards him. He did not believe her; he refused her terms; but when as her

payment she asked for the ring which was so especially associated with himself, he agreed to give it to her.

Otherwise hoping, no doubt against hope, dreading above all things a quarrel and final separation, she

submitted unconditionally. And from the time of that evening, when Legard and I had overheard her parting

"It was in July. My parents had returned to England, but had come straight on here. Jack and I were dining

together with Lady Sylvia at her father's househer brother, young Grey, making the fourth at dinner. I had

arranged to go to a party with your mother, and I told the servants that a lady would call for me early in the

evening. The house stood in Park Lane, and after dinner we all went out on to the broad balcony which

opened from the drawingroom. There was a strong wind blowing that night, and I remember well the vague,

disquieted feeling of unreality that possessed me, sweeping through me, as it were, with each gust of wind.

Then, suddenly, a servant stood behind me, saying that the lady had come for me, and was in the

drawingroom. Shocked that my aunt should have troubled herself to come so far, I turned quickly, stepped

back into the room, and found myself face to face with Delia. She was fully dressed for the evening, with a

long silk operacloak over her shoulders, her face as white as her gown, her splendid eyes strangely wide

open and shining. I don't know what I said or did; I tried to get her away, but it was too late. The others had

heard us, and appeared at the open window. Jack came forward at once, speaking rapidly, fiercely; telling her

to leave the house at once; promising desperately that he would see her in his own rooms on the morrow.

"At the same instant she drew something swiftly from under her cloak, there was the sound of a pistol shot

and she lay dead at our feet, her blood splashing upon Jack's shirt and hands as she fell."

Alan paused in his recital. He was trembling from head to foot; but he kept his eyes turned steadily

"Of course there was an inquest," he resumed, "which, as usual, exercised its very illdefined powers in

inquiring into all possible motives for the suicide. Young Grey, who had stepped into the room just before the

shot had been fired, swore to the last words Delia had uttered; Legard to those he had overheard the night of

that dreadful supper: there were scores of men to bear witness to the intimate relations which had existed

between her and Jack during the whole of the previous spring. I had to give evidence. A skillful lawyer had

been retained by one of her sisters, and had been instructed by her on points which no doubt she had

originally learnt from Delia herself. In his hands, I had not only to corroborate Grey and Legard, and to give

full details of that last interview, but also to swear to the peculiar value which Jack attached to the talisman

ring which he had given Delia; to the language she had held when I saw her after my return from Oxford; to

her subsequent letter, and Jack's fatal silence on the occasion. The story by which Jack and I strove to account

for the facts was laughed at as a clumsy invention, and my undisguised reluctance in giving evidence added

"The jury returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, the result of desertion by her lover. You may

imagine how that verdict was commented upon by every Radical newspaper in the kingdom, and for once

society more than corroborated the opinions of the press. The larger public regarded the story as an extreme

case of the innocent victim and the cowardly society villain. It was only among a comparatively small set that

Delia's reputation was known, and there, in view of Jack's notorious and peculiar intimacy, his repudiation of

all relations with her was received with contemptuous incredulity. That he should have first entered upon

such relations at the very time when he was already courting Lady Sylvia was regarded even in those circles

as a 'strong order,' and they looked upon his present attitude with great indignation, as a cowardly attempt to

save his own character by casting upon the dead woman's memory all the odium of a false accusation. With

an entire absence of logic, too, he was made responsible for the suicide having taken place in Lady Sylvia's

presence. She had broken off the engagement the day after the catastrophe, and her family, a clan powerful in

the London world, furious at the mud through which her name had been dragged, did all that they could to

"Not a voice was raised in his defense. He was advised to leave the army; he was requested to withdraw from

some of his clubs, turned out of others, avoided by his fast acquaintances, cut by his respectable ones. It was

"He showed no resentment at the measure thus dealt out to him. Indeed, at the first, except for Sylvia's

desertion of him, he seemed dully indifferent to it all. It was as if his soul had been stunned, from the moment

that that wretched woman's blood had splashed upon his fingers, and her dead eyes had looked up into his

"But it was not long before he realized the full extent of the social damnation which had been inflicted upon

him, and he then resolved to leave the country and go to America. The night before he started he came down

here to take leave. I was here looking after my parentsGeorge, whose mind was almost unhinged by the

family disgrace, having gone abroad with his wife. My mother at the first news of what had happened had

taken to her bed, never to leave it again; and thus it was in my presence alone, up there in my father's little

study, that Jack gave him that night the whole story. He told it quietly enough; but when he had finished, with

a sudden outburst of feeling he turned upon me. It was I who had been the cause of it all. My insensate folly

had induced him to make the unhappy woman's acquaintance, to allow and even encourage her fatal love, to

commit all the blunders and sins which had brought about her miserable ending and his final overthrow. It

was by means of me that she had obtained access to him on that dreadful night; my evidence which most

utterly damned him in public opinion; through me he had lost his reputation, his friends, his career, his

country, the woman he loved, his hopes for the future; through me, above all, that the burden of that horrible

death would lie for ever on his soul. He was lashing himself to fury with his own words as he spoke; and I

stood leaning against the wall opposite to him, cold, dumb, unresisting, when suddenly my father interrupted.

I think that both Jack and I had forgotten his presence; but at the sound of his voice, changed from what we

had ever heard it, we turned to him, and I then for the first time saw in his face the deathlook which never

"'Stop, Jack,' he said; 'Alan is not to blame; and if it had not been in this way, it would have been in some

other. I only am guilty, who brought you both into existence with my own hellstained blood in your veins. If

you wish to curse anyone, curse your family, your name, me if you will, and may God forgive me that you

Alan stopped with a shudder, and then continued, dully, "It was when I heard those words, the most terrible

that a father could have uttered, that I first understood all that that old sixteenthcentury tale might mean to me

and mine,I have realized it vividly enough since. Early the next morning, when the dawn was just

breaking, Jack came to the door of my room to bid me goodby. All his passion was gone. His looks and

tones seemed part and parcel of the dim gray morning light. He freely withdrew all the charges he had made

against me the night before; forgave me all the share that I had had in his misfortunes; and then begged that I

would never come near him, or let him hear from me again. 'The curse is heavy upon us both,' he said, 'and it

Alan raised himself to a sitting posture. "The last that I heard," he said, with a catch in his voice, "was that in

his misery and hopelessness he was taking to drink. George writes to him, and does what he can; but II

dare not say a word, for fear it should turn to poison on my lips,I dare not lift a hand to help him, for fear it

should have power to strike him to the ground. The worst may be yet to come; I am still living, still living:

there are depths of shame to which he has not sunk. And oh, Evie, Evie, he is my own, my bestloved

All his composure was gone now. His voice rose to a kind of wail with the last words, and folding his arms

on his raised knee, he let his head fall upon them, while his figure quivered with scarcely restrained emotion.

There was a silence for some moments while he sat thus, I looking on in wretched helplessness beside him.

Then he raised his head, and, without looking round at me, went on in a low tone: "And what is in the future?

I pray that death instead of shame may be the portion of the next generation, and I look at George's boys only

to wonder which of them is the happy one who shall some day lie dead at his brother's feet. Are you surprised

at my resolution never to marry? The fatal prophecy is rich in its fulfillment; none of our name and blood are

safe; and the day might come when I too should have to call upon my children to curse me for their

birth,should have to watch while the burden which I could no longer bear alone pressed the life from their

Through the tragedy of this speech I was conscious of a faint suggestion of comfort, a faroff glimmer, as of

unseen homelights on a midnight sky. I was in no mood then to understand, or to seek to understand, what it

was; but I know now that his words had removed the weight of helpless banishment from my spiritthat his

heart, speaking through them to my own, had made me for life the sharer of his grief.

Presently he drew his shoulders together with a slight determined jerk, threw himself back upon the grass,

and turning to me, with that tremulous, haggard smile upon his lips which I knew so well, but which had

never before struck me with such infinite pathos, "Luckily," he said, "there are other things to do in life

besides being happy. Only perhaps you understand now what I meant last night when I spoke of things which

Suddenly and sharply his words roused again into activity the loathsome memory which my interest in his

story had partially deadened. He noticed the quick involuntary contraction of my muscles, and read it aright.

"That reminds me," he went on; "I must claim your promise. I have told you my story. Now, tell me yours."

I told him; not as I have set it down here, though perhaps even in greater detail, but incoherently, bit by bit,

while he helped me out with gentle questions, quickly comprehending gestures, and patient waiting during

the pauses of exhaustion which perforce interposed themselves. As my story approached its climax, his

agitation grew almost equal to my own, and he listened to the close, his teeth clenched, his brows bent, as if

passing again with me through that awful conflict. When I had finished, it was some moments before either

of us could speak; and then he burst forth into bitter selfreproach for having so far yielded to his brother's

"It was cowardice," he said, "sheer cowardice! After all that has happened, I dared not have a quarrel with

one of my own blood. And yet if I had not hardened my heart, I had reason to know what I was risking."

"Those other two girls who slept there," he said, breathlessly; "it was in each case after the third night there

that they were found deaddead, Evie, so runs the story, with a mark upon their necks similar in shape and

"And I knew the story,I knew it!" he cried. "As boys we were not allowed to hear much of our family

traditions, but this one I knew. When my father redid the interior of the east room, he removed at the same

time a board from above the doorway outside, on which had been writtenit is said by Dame Alice

herselfa warning upon this very subject. I happened to be present when our old housekeeper, who had been

his nurse, remonstrated with him warmly upon this act; and I asked her afterwards what the board was, and

why she cared about it so much. In her excitement she told me the story of those unhappy girls, repeating

"And she was right," I said, dully. "Oh, if only your father had left it there!"

"I suppose," he answered, speaking more quietly, "that he was impatient of traditions which, as I told you, he

at that time more than half despised. Indeed he altered the shape of the doorway, raising it, and making it flat

and square, so that the old inscription could not have been replaced, even had it been wished. I remember it

My mind, too worn with many emotions for deliberate thought, wandered on languidly, and as it were

mechanically, upon these last trivial words. The doorway presented itself to my view as it had originally

stood, with the discarded warning above it; and then, by a spontaneous comparison of mental vision, I

recalled the painted board which I had noticed three days before in Dame Alice's tower. I suggested to Alan

that it might have been the identical oneits shape was as he described. "Very likely," he answered,

"Yes, I think so," I replied. "Let me see." And I repeated them slowly, dragging them out as it were one by

"You see," I said, turning towards him slowly, "the last line is a warning such as you spoke of."

But to my surprise Alan had sprung to his feet, and was looking down at me, his whole body quivering with

excitement. "Yes, Evie," he cried, "and the first line is a prophecy;where the woman sinned the maid HAS

won." He seized the hand which I instinctively reached out to him. "We have not seen the end of this yet," he

went on, speaking rapidly, and as if articulation had become difficult to him. "Come, Evie, we must go back

I had risen to my feet by this time, but I shrank away at those words. "To that room? Oh, Alanno, I

He had hold of my hand still, and he tightened his grasp upon it. "I shall be with you; you will not be afraid

with me," he said. "Come." His eyes were burning, his face flushed and paled in rapid alternation, and his

I turned with him, and we walked back to the Grange, Alan quickening his pace as he went, till I almost had

to run by his side. As we approached the dreaded room my sense of repulsion became almost unbearable; but

I was now infected by his excitement, though I but dimly comprehended its cause. We met no one on our

way, and in a moment he had hurried me into the house, up the stairs, and along the narrow passage, and I

was once more in the east room, and in the presence of all the memories of that accursed night. For an instant

I stood strengthless, helpless, on the threshold, my gaze fixed panicstricken on the spot where I had taken

such awful part in that phantom tragedy of evil; then Alan threw his arm round me, and drew me hastily on in

front of the cabinet. Without a pause, giving himself time neither to speak nor think, he stretched out his left

hand and moved the buttons one after another. How or in what direction he moved them I know not; but as

the last turned with a click, the doors, which no mortal hand had unclosed for three hundred years, flew back,

and the cabinet stood open. I gave a little gasp of fear. Alan pressed his lips closely together, and turned to

me with eager questioning in his eyes. I pointed in answer tremblingly at the drawer which I had seen open

the night before. He drew it out, and there on its satin bed lay the dagger in its silver sheath. Still without a

word he took it up, and reaching his right hand round me, for I could not now have stood had he withdrawn

his support, with a swift strong jerk he unsheathed the blade. There in the clear autumn sunshine I could see

the same dull stains I had marked in the flickering candlelight, and over them, still ruddy and moist, were

the drops of my own halfdried blood. I grasped the lapel of his coat with both my hands, and clung to him

like a child in terror, while the eyes of both of us remained fixed as if fascinated upon the knifeblade. Then,

with a sudden start of memory, Alan raised his to the cornice of the cabinet, and mine followed. No change

that I could detect had taken place in that twisted goldwork; but there, clear in the sight of us both, stood forth

In low steady tones Alan read out the lines, and then there was silenceon my part of stunned bewilderment,

the bewilderment of a spirit overwhelmed beyond the power of comprehension by rushing, conflicting

emotions. Alan pressed me closer to him, while the silence seemed to throb with the beating of his heart and

the panting of his breath. But except for that he remained motionless, gazing at the golden message before

him. At length I felt a movement, and looking up saw his face turned down towards mine, the lips quivering,

the cheeks flushed, the eyes soft with passionate feeling. "We are saved, my darling," he whispered; "saved,

and through you." Then he bent his head lower, and there in that room of horror, I received the first long

My husband, yes; but not till some time after that. Alan's first act, when he had once fully realized that the

curse was indeed removed, wasthrowing his budding practice to the windsto set sail for America. There

he sought out Jack, and labored hard to impart to him some of his own newfound hope. It was slow work, but

he succeeded at last; and only left him when, two years later, he had handed him over to the charge of a

brighteyed Western girl, to whom the whole story had been told, and who showed herself ready and anxious

to help in building up again the broken life of her English lover. To judge from the letters that we have since

received, she has shown herself well fitted for the task. Among other things she has money, and Jack's

worldly affairs have so prospered that George declares that he can well afford now to waste some of his

superfluous cash upon farming a few of his elder brother's acres. The idea seems to smile upon Jack, and I

have every hope this winter of being able to institute an actual comparison between our small boy, his

namesake, and his own threeyear old Alan. The comparison, by the way, will have to be conditional, for

Jacketthe name by which my son and heir is familiarly knownis but a little more than two.

I turn my eyes for a moment, and they fall upon the northern corner of the East Room, which shows round the

edge of the house. Then the skeleton leaps from the cupboard of my memory; the icy hand which lies ever

near my soul grips it suddenly with a chill shudder. Not for nothing was that wretched woman's life

interwoven with my own, if only for an hour; not for nothing did my spirit harbor a conflict and an agony,

which, thank God, are far from its own story. Though Margaret Mervyn's dagger failed to pierce my flesh, the

wound in my soul may never wholly be healed. I know that that is so; and yet as I turn to start through the

sunshine to the cedar shade and its laughing occupants, I whisper to myself with fervent conviction, "It was