I.

One day the breeze was talking of grand and simple things in the pines

that look across the lower bay at Sandy Hook. The great water spaces

were a delicious blue, dotted with the white tops of crushed waves; to

the left, Coney Island lay mapped out in bleached surfaces, while

beyond and seaward, from the purple sleeve formed by the hills of the

Navesink, the Hook ran a brown finger eastward. A hawk which nests

among the steep inclines of Todt Hill shot out from a neighboring

ravine and hung motionless, but never quiet, in the middle distance.

Birds and beasts will make closer approach to a person clothed in

dun-colored garments; therefore it was not odd that the hawk should

not notice my presence on the pine needles near the crest of the

hill. After steering without visible rustle of a feather through the

lake of air before me, he stooped all at once, grasped a hedge-sparrow

that had been shaking the top of a bush far down the slope, and,

rising, bore it to the low branch of a pine not far from my

resting-place.

The sun had fallen in a Titanic tragedy of color beyond Prince's Bay.

The fierce bird, leisurely occupied in tearing to pieces the little

twitterer, was a suitable accompaniment to the bloody drama in the

clouds. Watching keenly, I gradually began to picture to myself the

sensation of walking unseen to the murderous fowl and suddenly

clasping his smooth back with both hands. How startled he would be!

But in truth the thought was only a continuation of another that

had been floating through my mind while the hawk was wheeling.

Unconsciously I had been mumbling to myself from the Nibelungen,--

"About the tameless dwarf-kin I have heard it said,

They dwell in hollow mountains; for safety are arrayed

In what is termed a tarn-kap, of wondrous quality;

Who hath it on his body preserved is said to be

From cuttings and from thrustings; of him is none aware

When he therein is clothed. Both see can he, and hear

According as he wishes, yet no one him perceives."

The magic cloak, the tarn-kap, I reasoned, with my eyes on the

cruel bird, was only a symbol after all, something physical to

make real that invisibility which we cannot readily conceive. But

suddenly--could my wish have been felt?--the hawk gave a hoarse croak

of fright, dropped his prey, and, springing heavily into the air, was

gone.

He had not looked at me, he had not seen or heard me, nor could I see,

far or near, the slightest cause for his terror. But--I heard!

Sh-sh-sh--I was aware of a light step in the needles under the tree he

had left. Straining my eyes to watch the ground, surely, surely, in a

line passing close to my couch, the needles and thin grass were

pressed down, as if by a weight applied at even distances! I had

remained motionless as a figure of stone, but when a tuft of hepatica,

blooming late where the shade was deepest, fell crushed near my hand,

I reached out. As luck would have it I was too conscious, too much

ashamed at my own folly to act decisively. I did not grasp, I reached

out--and touched a living thing.

On such occasions there comes at first the exuberance of joy; then

doubt. I had long debated the possibility of invisibles. As far back

as I can remember, elfin tales produced an awful wonderment upon my

imagination. On long May nights have I not often stolen from the house

to watch for elves? A moon after a rain was to my thinking the best

for such mysterious beings, when everything was hazy with an

imperceptible mist, when the dogwoods had flooded the landscape with

sheets of reflected white, and somebody was drawing one veil after

another slowly past a golden shield in the sky. On such nights, more

than once, a boy might have been seen creeping on tiptoe through the

open woods, over the great clearing, to the hill-top, where, if

anywhere, brownies must play. But none did he espy, nor did the

chance-flung cap ever fall upon his eager, outstretched hands. And if

in later years the subject still fascinated me, it made me feel what

the grown man realizes always more clearly, that fables and fairy

tales rest on a solid groundwork of fact. Why, when so many other

legends have been verified, should this universal tradition of

vanishers and invisibles prove entirely false?

It occurs to one very soon that animal life does exist of so

transparent a texture that to all intents and purposes it is

invisible. The spawn of frogs, the larvae of certain fresh-water

insects, many marine animals, are of so clear a tissue that they are

seen with difficulty. In the tropics a particular inhabitant of smooth

seas is as invisible as a piece of glass, and can be detected only in

the love season by the color which then mingles in its eyes. On

reflection a thousand instances arise of assimilation of animal life

to their surroundings, of mimicry of nature with a view to safety.

Why, then, by survival of the most transparent, should not some

invisible life of a high grade hold a secure position on the earth?

Pondering thus, I had been startled not a little by coming now and

again on facts that seemed to bear this out. Strange tracks through

untrodden grass suggested footsteps of the unseen. Flattened spaces

of peculiar shape in the standing rye, where human beings could not

have intruded, looked marvellously like human visitation. Or I lay

concealed and watched the crows in a road-side field. What was it

caused them to look up suddenly and flap away on sooty-fringed wings?

No bird, beast, or man came. Then the rats, scampering about under a

dock like so many gaunt Virginia swine: all at once came a flurry of

whisking tails, and they were off! Yet I had not stirred, nor did

anything move on the dock above. Nevertheless all seemed to realize a

common danger, a noise of some kind,--perhaps a step? Again, you sit

like a block while a snake basks unconscious in the sun, and may watch

many hours without event; but sometimes it happens that he raises his

head, quivers for an instant his double tongue, and slides off the

stump into a bush. At such times put your ear to the earth. Do you not

distinguish--or is it all imagination--a sound, a brushing?

It availed me little, then, that I should have considered the subject,

or have even gone the length of debating how a man might attain

invisibility. Now that I had a tangible proof of the existence of such

beings, I was crushed by misgivings. Like many a man before the

supposed impossible, I questioned my own sanity. As to the impression,

however, the object I had touched or fancied I had touched was at once

hard and soft, smooth and rough; I recalled it as each of these in

turn, for it was moving, and at the moment of contact bounded away as

if at the shock of a galvanic current. To my excited mind the dusky

woods were becoming oppressive, and so, like the hawk, but slowly and

pondering, I betook myself home.

Who that has walked or run through autumn woods at night has not

sometimes looked curiously over his shoulder at the sound of following

steps? It always proves to be dry leaves whirled after you in your

rapid course; but this evening my gait was slow, and the leaves of

last year were hard to find; nor could I account, except on the ground

of nervous illusion, for the pattering that followed in my rear. Yet

there it was, albeit so gentle that had I not stretched every sense to

the utmost I am confident no sound would have penetrated to my

consciousness. And it was evident that I was thoroughly imposed upon

by it, for when the small, irregular pond was reached, which, with a

cypress-scattered hillock, occupies the highest point of the main hill

to the westward, I halted a moment and considered. How, thought I,

will this unseen attendant cross a piece of water? Throwing off my

shoes I waded over a shallow arm of the pond, and sat down to watch.

Presently in the twilight two wedges of ruffled water were discerned

advancing swiftly across the surface,--just such tracks as serpents

make in swimming,--a light touch was heard on the bank, and all was

still. But then a sudden disgust, unreasoning and childish, mastered

me completely; a wave of doubt greater than before filled me with

disdain of my own imbecility, and I hastened through the orchard to my

home, and flung myself into an arm-chair near the window.

The place I had selected long ago as a quiet refuge was a low veranda

farm-house, hidden away from north winds under the crest of a hill,

and crept over by many rods of honey-suckle. Events had so affected me

that I considered nothing left in life but an alternation of hard work

and of utter retreat from humanity, and had disposed me favorably

toward the ancient apple orchard, and the meagre vegetable and flower

garden, which alone remained of a former farm. The barns, the plowed

lands, and the fences had disappeared. Only a heavy stone wall with

flagged top, which protected the garden from the road, reminded one of

a former powerful owner. From the veranda no house was visible; the

eye had to travel many miles across the flat lower country to the bay

before the distant ships recalled a busy world.

Here, beside myself, lived no one save Rachel, a woman whose Indian

origin made it impossible to guess her age. Although she claimed for

herself the purest descent from an Indian tribe of a headland a

hundred miles to the eastward, and although her features were not

without strong marks of her claim, yet in strict truth she was so much

mixed with African blood that with most persons she would pass for a

negress. Rachel had a talent for cooking breakfasts and suppers from

little apparent supply; she was taciturn to speechlessness, hence our

intercourse was never marred by discord; and while her box was kept

supplied with strong tobacco, a slender meal of some kind was never

wanting; and it was served in silence.

For two years Rachel and I had lived in this silent, limited

partnership. My home was cool and soundless as the grave, a place in

which the mind could stretch its shriveled wings, where everything

could be done mechanically and without fear of a sudden jar into

disagreeable reality. When of an afternoon I stepped from the hurrying

world into the first quiet woods on the way to my home, a great door

swung to behind me and another life began, in which Rachel's figure

and swarthy, heavy-featured face had long ceased to interfere with my

meditation.

This night, however, before the meal was served, the kitchen door

opened and my housekeeper's inscrutable dull eyes rolled around the

walls of the room; then it closed. What had happened? Why on this

night had Rachel noticed my arrival? At supper I broke our unspoken

compact and addressed her.

"Rachel, what made you look in just now? Has anything happened?"

The woman made no reply, yet there was evidence in her manner that she

was groping for an answer. Presently to a second demand she made a

reply that startled me:--

"Heard two of you."

So, another ear had detected the steps as well as my own! Then the

being, whatever it was, must be in the room, possibly at my elbow;

or, seated perchance on that chair before me, was regarding me

steadfastly! Except for the excitement bred of a new sensation, it was

not a pleasant thought; nevertheless, I pulled a second chair to the

table and filled a second plate with food; then, with my eyes fixed on

the plate, continued the meal. It was all in vain. Nothing further was

seen or heard.

This was my first definite encounter with that unseen which I would

have called a spirit had I been a spiritualist. But I could not force

myself to the gross materialism of calling this invisible existence a

spirit, for tangibility was a quality I could not associate with pure

spirit, and I had touched it.

Having once followed me, it seemed thenceforth to take up quarters in

my house, at least for the evening and morning hours of the day, and

strange as it was, I soon learned to regard the presence of a third

person as an established fact; indeed, I came to believe that in some

instances a faint breathing might be detected. Nevertheless I would

not leave anything to the possibilities of imagination, but was always

experimenting, with a view to prove still more clearly that there was

no illusion possible. To this end a brass and steel rod, fitted

between the floor and a projection from the wall, was connected with

an indicator which moved in a large arc when the slightest touch shook

the floor. By this means my ears were reinforced by sight.

I also began systematically to conceal from the unknown guest the

fact that I suspected its presence; but at last the point was reached

where, to protect my own reason, it must be settled whether it was all

a series of illusions or a sober truth.

For by dint of thought a scheme had been perfected, and on a Sunday

morning, when as usual Rachel had disappeared, no man has ever known

whither; when, according to its custom, the strange visitant had also,

to all appearance, withdrawn,--on a Sunday morning I hastened to put

my plan in action. On the main floor in the rear of the house was a

chamber, into which the sounds had sometimes intruded, which was

small, bare, and lighted by one deep window looking directly out on

the orchard. This window I had grated strongly with heavy wire on the

outside, where the orchard hill rose steeply from the house; and over

against the window, in the wall between chamber and dining-room, was a

high closet, in which I had stored a strong net, such as fishermen use

for their seines. Fastening stout wires to the ceiling from one end of

the room to the other, to be used for slides, and rigging several

small blocks above the window and near the floor, I stretched the

necessary ropes from closet to blocks and back again, laid everything

ready for instant use, cleared the room of furniture, and awaited

events.

There was no fear of interruption from Rachel, for during the years we

had lived together I had never seen her on a Sabbath. Every Monday she

was at her post, although laboring under some excitement, which

showed itself in mutterings and a certain wild gesture that I had

learned to attach no importance to. There was no fear that I should

not have the invisible to myself.

Evening came to close a sultry day with growls of distant thunder and

sudden flares of light behind Navesink Hills; the bushes drooped

languidly; only the tree-toads were clamorous, and their jubilee was a

mournful one on every side. I was sitting by the west window with my

head on my breast, and, now that the crisis had come, almost apathetic

to the presence itself, when its approach took place. It seemed to

stop near my chair, as if it regarded me closely. I had been before

in singular predicaments, but it seemed to me this was the most

trying. I felt that I must look very pale, but with an affectation

of indifference I arose, walked across the room and entered the

bed-chamber. In a moment I understood that the unseen had likewise

passed the sill and had entered the room; then I slammed the door,

locked it, and put the key in my pocket.

Everything had been made ready to cope with a material and not a

supernatural being; still it was purely a venture, and at no previous

time had there seemed so little hope of success. Nevertheless not a

moment was lost in hauling out the net and placing it in position

across the room so that it hung straight, filling the space between

wall and wall, and ceiling and floor. Then I began to draw it down the

room by means of the ropes, and on the axis of the chamber, so that

its edges passed smoothly along ceiling, walls, and floor. The

anxious moment was at hand.

All the running gear had to be worked evenly; at the same time every

nerve was strained in order to detect the slightest bulge in the

upright net, should it come in contact with a tangible body.

Until three quarters of the room had been sifted nothing occurred.

Then I saw the edge against the left-hand wall carefully drawn aside;

to spring forward and close the opening was the instinctive work

of a second. Terror combining with a fierce delight lent me an

extraordinary force; I drew with convulsive power on the ropes. Every

moment an invisible hand seemed to lift the net at some point, but

each attempt was luckily frustrated. At last the movements ceased, and

I drew the net flat against the farther wall. With feverish haste my

hand travelled over its entire surface; the net was scanned in profile

for the impression of a body, but there was none. The game had either

escaped or withdrawn into the deep window-seat.

Now came a moment for breath, and for reflection. Again the cynical

cloud of doubt folded me in. Dupe of my own morbid imagination, I

should stand convicted of monomania in the eyes of any reasonable

being who should see my actions. Then it was best, was it not? to tear

the net away; or should I deliberately pursue to the utmost a plan

begun? Never before had I so clearly felt a dual existence urging to

opposite courses of action, as if the body's instinct commanded an

advance, while the mind, assailing the whole proceeding with

ridicule, was for giving up the game. But for all that it was a good

sign that I began to feel a slight awe at the near possibility of a

discovery. For I retreated to the door, unlocked it, and stood

irresolute; then returned again to the window, without strength to

come to a decision.

But while I pondered, a low, chuckling noise startled me, and Rachel

stood by my side, erect and with features full of energy, her dull

eyes blazing, and her short straight hair tossed about; in her hand

she brandished with exultation a carved rod hung with bright claws and

shells, with lappets of fur and hair; and at her and it I gazed with

speechless amazement. Had she too gone mad? She took a few steps, as

if in a rude dance, and shook the stick, and while her eyes glared

into mine she nodded her head to the time.

"Bad spirit!" she muttered. "I have known, I have heard. But this is

strong Wabeno."

As she shook the talisman, which clinked and rattled like the toy of a

devil, I snatched the medicine stick from her hand and motioned her to

the door. Thither she retreated, muttering words of an unknown tongue,

and when it closed upon her I flung the stick angrily on the floor.

But hope had come, and decision as well, although from a despised

quarter; I was resolved to finish the undertaking at all hazards.

The wild flames of the distant storm still lighted everything at

intervals with an intensity now greater and now less. When the sheet

lightning flashed strong, the square cage formed by the wire outside

the window-seat and the fish-net within stood out clear against the

northern sky. With dilated pupils I began to examine the inclosed cube

of air. During one particularly long and vivid flash,--there, in that

corner, was there not a heap, a translucent shape, indistinguishable

in quality or form? It was enough. Swiftly as wild beasts when they

spring, I raised the net, leaped into the window, and grasped toward

the corner where I thought I saw the mass.