“This is Mrs. Newberry,” she said. “My husband is dreadfully ill, and
asked me to tell you that he cannot come to sit up with you tonight.”
I thanked the lady, offered my condolences, and tendered my sincere
wishes for her husband’s speedy recovery. This done, I wrote a note of
sympathy to Mr. Glitch, and dispatched Joe with it.
Here, indeed, was a pretty situation. Glitch’s wife dead, Newberry
seriously ill, and the whole countryside frightened by this impossible
vampire story! I knew it would be useless to ask any of the other
neighbors to keep watch with me. Obviously, I was destined to face the
terrors of the coming night alone. Was I equal to the task? Could my
nerves, already unstrung by the previous night’s experience, withstand
the ordeal?
I must confess, and not without a feeling of shame, that at this
juncture I felt impelled to flee, anywhere, and leave my deceased
uncle’s affairs to shape themselves as they would.
With this idea in mind, I repaired to my room and started to pack my
grip. Something fell to the floor. It was my uncle’s last letter,
received only the day before the telegram arrived announcing his death.
I hesitated--then picked it up and opened it. The last paragraph held
my attention:
“And, Billy, my boy, don’t worry any more about the money I advanced
you. It was, as you say, a considerable drain on my resources, but I
gave it willingly, gladly, for the education of my sister’s son. My
only regret is that I could not have done more.
Affectionately,
Uncle Jim.”
A flush of guilt came over me. The reproach of my conscience was keen
and painful. I had been about to commit a cowardly, dishonorable deed.
“Thank God, for the accidental intervention of that letter,” I said
fervently.
My resolution was firmly made now. I would see the thing through at all
costs. The noble love, the generous self-sacrifice of my uncle, should
not go unrequited.
I quickly unpacked my bag and walked downstairs. The rest of the day
was uneventful, but the night--how I dreaded the coming of the night!
As I stood on the porch and watched the last faint glow of sunset
slowly fading, I wished that I, like Joshua, might cause the sun and
moon to stand still.
Twilight came on all too quickly, accelerated by a bank of heavy clouds
which appeared on the western horizon; and darkness succeeded twilight
with unwonted rapidity.
I entered the house and trod the hallway leading to the living-room,
with much the same feeling, no doubt, that a convict experiences when
entering the death cell.
The housekeeper was just placing the lamp, freshly cleaned and filled,
in the room. Joe Severs’ younger brother, Sam, had placed logs in
the fireplace, with kindling and paper beneath them, ready for
lighting. Mrs. Rhodes bade me a kindly “Good-night, sir,” and departed
noiselessly.
At last the dreaded moment had arrived. I was alone with the nameless
powers of darkness.
I shuddered involuntarily. A damp chill pervaded the air, and I ignited
the kindling beneath the logs in the fireplace. Then, drawing the
shades to shut out the pitchy blackness of the night, I lighted my pipe
and stood in the warm glow.
Under the genial influence of pipe and warmth, my feeling of fear was
temporarily dissipated. Taking a book from the library table, I settled
down to read. It was called “The Reality of Materialization Phenomena,”
and had been written by my uncle. The publishers were Bulwer & Sons,
New York and London.
It was apparently a record of the observations made by my uncle at
materialization seances in this country and Europe. Contrary to my
usual custom on starting a book, I read the author’s introduction. He
began by expressing the wish that those who might read the work should
first lay aside all prejudice and all preconceived ideas regarding the
subject, which were not based on positive knowledge; then weigh the
facts as he had found them before drawing a definite conclusion.
The following passage, in particular, held my attention:
“While it is to be admitted, with regret, that there are many people
calling themselves mediums, who deceive their sitters nightly and
whose productions are consequently mere optical illusions, produced
by chicanery and legerdemain, the writer has nevertheless gathered,
at the sittings recorded in this book, where all possibility of fraud
was excluded by rigorous examination and control, undeniable evidence
that genuine materializations are, and can be, produced.
“The source and physical composition--if indeed it be physical--of a
phantasm materialized by a true medium, remains, up to the present
time, inexplicable. That such manifestations are not hallucinations,
has been proved time and again by taking photographs. One would indeed
be compelled to strain his credulity to the utmost, were he to believe
that a mere hallucination could be photographed.
“As I have stated, the exact nature and source of the phenomena
are apparently inscrutable; however, it is a notable fact that the
strongest manifestations take place when the medium is in a state
of catalepsy, or suspended animation. Her hands are cold--her body
becomes rigid--her eyes, if open, appear to be fixed on space--”
A roll of thunder, quickly followed by a rush of wind, rudely
interrupted my reading. The housekeeper appeared in the doorway, lamp
in hand.
“Would you mind helping me close the windows, sir?” she asked. “There
is a big rainstorm coming, and they must be closed quickly, or the
furnishings and wall paper will be soaked.”
Together we ascended the stairs. I rushed from window to window, while
she lighted the way with the dim lamp. This duty attended to, she again
bade me “Good-night,” and I returned to the living-room.
As I entered, I glanced at the casket; then looked again while a
feeling of horror crept over me. Either I was dreaming, or it had been
completely draped with a white sheet during my absence.
I rubbed my eyes, pinched myself, and advanced to confirm the evidence
of my eyesight by the sense of touch. As I extended my hand, the center
of the sheet rose in a sharp peak, as if lifted by some invisible
presence, and the entire fabric traveled upward toward the ceiling.
I drew back with a cry of dread, watching it with perhaps the same
fascination that is experienced by a doomed bird or animal looking into
the eyes of a serpent that is about to devour it.
The point touched the ceiling. There was a crash of thunder,
accompanied by a blinding flash of lightning which illuminated the room
through the sides of the ill-fitting window shades, and I found myself
staring at the bare ceiling.
Walking dazedly to the fireplace, I poked the logs until they blazed,
and then sat down to collect my thoughts. Torrents of rain were
beating against the window panes. Thunder roared and lightning flashed
incessantly.
I took up my pipe and was about to light it when a strange sight
interrupted me. Something round and flat, about six inches in diameter,
and of a grayish color, was moving along the floor from the casket
toward the center of the room. I watched it, fascinated, while the
blood seemed to congeal in my veins. It did not roll or slide along the
floor, but seemed rather to _flow_ forward.
It reminded me, more than anything else, of an amœba, one of those
microscopic, unicellular animalcule which I had examined in the study
of zoology: an amœba magnified, perhaps, several million diameters. I
could plainly see it put forth projections, resembling pseudopods, from
time to time, and again withdraw them quickly into the body mass.
The lighted match burned my fingers, and I dropped it on the hearth.
In the meantime the creature had reached the center of the room and
stopped. A metamorphosis was now taking place before my eyes. To
my surprise, I beheld, in place of a magnified amœba, a gigantic
trilobite, larger, it is true, than any specimen which has ever been
found, but, nevertheless, true to form in every detail.
The trilobite, in turn, changed to a brilliantly-hued star-fish with
active, wriggling tentacles. The star-fish became a crab, and the crab,
a porpoise swimming about in the air as if it had been water. The
porpoise then became a huge green lizard that crawled about the floor.
Soon the lizard grew large webbed wings, its tail shortened, its
jaws lengthened out with a pelicanlike pouch beneath them, and its
body seemed partially covered with scales of a rusty black color.
I afterward learned that this was a phantasmic representation of a
pterodactyl, or prehistoric flying reptile. To me, in my terrified
condition, it looked like a creature from hell.
The thing stood erect, stretched its wings and beat the air as if to
try them; then rose and circled twice about the room, flapping lazily
like a heron, and once more alighted in the middle of the floor.
It folded its wings carefully, and I noticed many new changes taking
place. The scales were becoming feathers--the legs lengthened out and
were encased in a thick, scaly skin. The claws thickened into two-toed
feet, like those of an ostrich. The head also looked ostrich-like,
while the wings were shortened and feathered, but not plumed. The bird
was much larger than any ostrich or emu I have ever seen, and stalked
about majestically, its head nearly touching the ceiling.
Soon it, too, stopped in the center of the room--the neck grew shorter
and shorter--the feathers became fur--the wings lengthened into arms
which reached below the knees, and I was face to face with a huge,
gorilla-like creature. It roared horribly, casting quick glances about
the room, its deep-set eyes glowing like coals of fire.
I felt that my end had come, but could make no move to escape. I wanted
to get up and leap through the window, but my nerveless limbs would
not function. As I looked, the fur on the creature turned to a thin
covering of hair, and it began to assume a manlike form. I closed my
eyes and shuddered.
When I opened them a moment later, I beheld what might have been the
“missing link,” half man, half beast. The face, with its receding
forehead and beetling brows, was apelike and yet manlike. Wrapped about
its loins was a large tiger skin. In its right hand it brandished a
huge, knotted club.
Gradually it became more manlike and less apelike. The club changed
to a spear, the spear to a sword, and I beheld a Roman soldier, fully
accoutered for battle, with helmet, armor, target and sandals.
The Roman soldier became a knight, and the knight a musketeer. The
musketeer became a colonial soldier.
At that instant there was a crash of glass, and the branch of a tree
projected through the window on the right of the fireplace. The shade
flew up with a snap, and the soldier disappeared, as a brilliant flash
of lightning illuminated the room.
I rushed to the window, and saw that the overhanging limb of an elm had
been broken off by the wind and hurled through the glass. The rain was
coming in in torrents.
The housekeeper, who had heard the noise, appeared in the doorway.
Seeing the rain blowing in at the window, she left and returned a
moment later with a hammer, tacks and a folded sheet. I tacked the
sheet to the window frame with difficulty, on account of the strong
wind, and again pulled down the shade.
Mrs. Rhodes retired.