I had seen the sign of the Hand against which Melvill Arnold had warned
me with final effort before he expired.
I could not close my eyes again. Thoroughly awakened, I lay trying to
convince myself that it was but a bad dream. Yet so distinct had been
that touch, that I still felt the repulsive contact that had thrilled me
and left upon me such a lasting impression.
In the uncertain light of early morning one's brain is often full of
weird fancies, and as I lay there wondering, a thousand curious unreal
conjectures floated through my mind.
I was not old, yet in my life I had probably travelled more, and seen
more, than most men of my age. Of little love affairs I had had, of
course, one or two. None of them had been serious--none, until the
present.
Yes, I may as well here confess it. I loved Asta Seymour.
From the first moment that she had met me in that lonely country road,
and I had sat by her side in the car, she had exercised over me a
strange and fatal fascination. I found myself beneath the spell of her
bewitching beauty.
I was drawn towards her by some strange, irresistible, unknown power--
drawn to her as the moth is drawn towards the candle.
Fascinated alike by the mystery surrounding her foster-father and by her
sweet pensive face, I had been constantly in her company. My thoughts
were ever of her, to the oblivion of all else in the world. She was all
in all to me, and I was now involuntarily her slave, so entangled had I
become in the net of her sweet and wondrous charm. Ah yes! I loved
her--loved her with all the strength of my being, with all the passion
of my soul.
But I had not spoken. My secret was as yet my own.
Nevertheless, it was in order to be near her that I, like Nicholson, had
accepted Shaw's invitation; in order also to protect her, for, knowing
what I did of the man's peril of arrest, I had been seized by a strange
presage of evil that might befall her.
I lay awake, listening to the clanging of the old bells of a monastery
near by, and thinking it all over. Yes, in those few weeks I had grown
to love her, even though she undoubtedly was in possession of some
strange if not guilty secret.
Yet how could I reveal my heart to her while recollections of poor Guy
still, filled her mind? No, I must wait and watch in patience, my heart
tortured constantly by the burning fires of unspoken love.
Thinking, reflecting, pondering, resolving, I still lay there, when
suddenly I became conscious that my friend in the adjoining room was no
longer snoring.
I heard a curious sound. He gave a quick, loud gasp, as though of
alarm, followed by a murmured growl. Was he speaking in his sleep? I
listened attentively until my ears caught another sound. He had risen
and was moving about his room.
I was rather pleased than otherwise, for it relieved the tension, and I
breathed more freely. The apparition of that claw-like hand before my
face had, I believe, somewhat upset my nerves.
"Is that you, Shaw?" I called out, but there was no response.
All was quiet. The movement in the adjoining room had ceased.
Already I had satisfied myself that nobody could enter my room, both
doors being bolted on the inside, but I slipped again out of bed, and,
going to the communicating door, rapped upon it, crying--
"Shaw! Shaw! Are you asleep?"
"Hulloa?" growled a sleepy voice. "Why, what's up, eh?"
"Nothing," I laughed. "Are you still in bed?"
"Of course I am, why? What's the matter? Anything wrong?"
"No, nothing," I replied. "Only I heard you groaning, that's all.
Talking in your sleep, I expect."
"I--I didn't know," he said. "Sorry, Kemball, if I disturbed you."
"All right," I laughed, and then returned to bed again.
I pondered over the fact that while he certainly had been upon, his
feet--for I distinctly heard the creaking of the beeswaxed boards--a
moment before I called, yet he made pretence of being asleep. The only
explanation was that, while asleep, he had got out of bed, a not unusual
circumstance with some people, and with that surmise I had to be
content.
Truly, that night had been fraught with a strange inexplicable terror.
Though dawn spread slowly, and from where I lay I could see the first
flush of crimson in the sky heralding the sun's coming, yet I could not
rid myself of that phantom hand, those thin skeleton fingers that had
touched my cheek and left a chilly impression upon it.
I rose and looked into the tiny oval toilet-glass, startled when I saw
evidence that my experience was an actual tangible one.
Upon my left cheek was a faint red mark, almost like a scratch, where
the chilly hand had touched me!
Carefully I examined it, but there seemed no abrasion of the skin. By
the deadly contact it had been irritated, inflamed--seared, it seemed,
by the chill finger of the dreaded Unknown.
Moving without a sound, so as not to attract Shaw's attention, I made a
minute survey of the apartment, examining the walls to assure myself of
no hidden doorway such as are common in old houses of that description.
But there was none. The only modes of ingress were both securely locked
and bolted.
Soon after six o'clock I dressed and went out. I could remain in that
chamber no longer. I wandered through the quaint old village, already
agog, for Arnay-le-Duc retires early and is astir with the rising of the
sun. Ascending the hill, I had a look at the round frowning towers of
the ancient stronghold of the Counts d'Arnay, now, alas! grey,
weather-beaten, and ruined. In them a last stand was made by a party of
the 79th Regiment of Infantry against the Prussians in 1870, when the
latter brought some field-pieces to bear upon the place and completed
the ruin which time had long ago begun. Part of the village had
afterwards been burned by the enemy, who had already devastated the
whole of the smiling countryside of the Cote d'Or, and laid bare the
valley of the Yonne with fire and sword.
As I stood beneath the battered walls where great ugly holes showed as
mute evidence of the destruction wrought by the German guns, a beautiful
panorama of sloping wine-lands, of river and rich pastures spread before
me, while behind lay the long open road to Lyons, fringed on each side
by high poplars planted at regular intervals and running straight as an
arrow across the blue distant plain to old-world Macon.
Over that road we sped two hours later at a speed which would never be
allowed in England, and raising a perfect wall of dust behind us. Asta,
seated between Shaw and myself, seemed unusually bright and happy, for
she laughed merrily, and declared herself delighted with the novelty and
change of the journey.
"What was the matter with you early this morning, Kemball?" inquired my
host presently with a laugh.
"You woke me up suddenly, and I believed that you were unwell!"
"No," I said. "On the contrary, I was awake, and I heard you sigh and
groan, therefore I believed you were ill."
"You were awake?" he echoed, regarding me sharply through his dark
spectacles. "Then--then I must have had the nightmare or something,
eh?"
"Probably you had," I said. Then I added, "I didn't pass a very
good-night myself."
"I hate sleeping in strange beds," Asta declared.
"One has to get used to them on a motor-tour," remarked Shaw, leaning
back again, his face set straight before him.
I was half inclined to relate my weird experience, yet I felt that if I
did Asta might only regard me as a frightened fool.
Therefore the subject dropped when next moment, as the road ran over the
hillside, we burst forth into admiration of the wide and magnificent
panorama with a splendid old chateau with numberless round-slated
turrets, perched upon a huge rock rising from the valley in the
foreground--a huge, mediaeval fortress, yet still inhabited. Below
clustered the sloping roofs of a small village within the ponderous
walls of the chateau, entrance to which was by two ancient gates, with
guard-houses built above them--a place which long ago had been the
stronghold of one of the robber-barons of the Yonne.
Truly the Lyons road is full of variety and picturesqueness, running, as
it does, through those rich vinelands and mountains of the Cote d'Or,
before descending to the valley where the broad Saone flows south to
join the mighty Rhone.
Passing through the beautiful Saussey forest, where the thick trees met
in many places overhead, we shot through Ivry village, and, fifty
kilometres after leaving Arnay-le-Duc, were compelled to slow down on
entering the busy agricultural town of Chalons-sur-Saone. There we came
to the river-bank, following it through a number of villages well-known
in the wine-country, St Loup, Beaumont, Tournus, and Fleurville, until
at last we found ourselves passing slowly over the uneven cobbles and
among the curious high-gabled houses of old-world Macon.
There, at the Hotel Terminus, we lunched, and afterwards, while Shaw sat
smoking, I went forth with Asta to an antiquarian, to whom we were
recommended, in order to buy antique crosses.
In the musty old shop, down in the older part of the town, kept by a
short, bald-headed, but urbane Frenchman, we found several treasures,
beautiful old crucifixes of carved ivory and mother-of-pearl which Asta
at once purchased in great delight and at moderate prices.
I bought an old thumb-ring and a couple of other trifles, and having
plenty of time at our disposal we strolled into the old cathedral and
had a look round the market-place.
Ah! how delightful it was to be her escort; how sweet to have her even
for one single hour alone!
As we retraced our way to the hotel with halting steps, I resolved to
tell her of my weird experience of the previous night.
"A curious thing happened to me last night--or rather very early this
morning," I said, turning to her as we walked.
She looked quickly into my face and her lips were pressed together. But
only for a second.
"What was that? Tell me," she said.
"Well. Do you see upon my left cheek a long red mark? It's going away
now, but it was very plain this morning," I said.
"Yes," she replied. "I noticed it when we started. It hardly shows at
all now."
"Well, its cause is quite inexplicable--a mystery," I said. "I am in no
way superstitious, and I am no believer in the supernatural, but in that
inn at Arnay-le-Duc there is a Something--something uncanny. I was
sound asleep when, just before night gave place to day, a cold hand
touched my cheek--a phantom hand that left the mark which you see?"
"A hand?" she gasped, staring at me, her lips pale and cheeks suddenly
blanched. "Explain it. I--I can't understand."
"I awoke quickly at the chill death-like contact, and saw the hand a few
inches from my face--thin, claw-like, and yet a dark shadowy phantom
which disappeared in an instant, even before I, so suddenly awakened,
could realise what it actually was. But it was a hand--of that I am
absolutely positive."
"Yes," she said slowly, in a low, hoarse voice, nodding her head and
pausing as though reflecting deeply. "Yes, Mr Kemball, you were not
mistaken. I--I, too, strangely enough, had a very similar experience
about six weeks ago, while staying up at Scarborough with Louise Oliver,
an old schoolfellow of mine. I, too, saw the terrible Thing--the Hand!"
"You!" I gasped, staring at her. "You have seen it!"
In response she nodded, her eyes set straight before her, but no word
escaped her white, pent-up lips.