arrived at the neighbouring winter resort of St. Luigi, and proposing
that I should come over for a morning’s skating and lunch afterwards.
The place was not more than a couple of miles off, if one took the path
over the low, pine-clad foot-hills above which lay the steep woods
below the first rocky slopes of the Ungeheuerhorn; and accordingly,
with a knapsack containing skates on my back, I went on skis over the
wooded slopes and down by an easy descent again on to St. Luigi. The
day was overcast, clouds entirely obscured the higher peaks though the
sun was visible, pale and unluminous, through the mists. But as the
morning went on, it gained the upper hand, and I slid down into St.
Luigi beneath a sparkling firmament. We skated and lunched, and then,
since it looked as if thick weather was coming up again, I set out
early about three o’clock for my return journey.
Hardly had I got into the woods when the clouds gathered thick above,
and streamers and skeins of them began to descend among the pines
through which my path threaded its way. In ten minutes more their
opacity had so increased that I could hardly see a couple of yards in
front of me. Very soon I became aware that I must have got off the
path, for snow-cowled shrubs lay directly in my way, and, casting
back to find it again, I got altogether confused as to direction.
But, though progress was difficult, I knew I had only to keep on
the ascent, and presently I should come to the brow of these low
foot-hills, and descend into the open valley where Alhubel stood. So
on I went, stumbling and sliding over obstacles, and unable, owing to
the thickness of the snow, to take off my skis, for I should have sunk
over the knees at each step. Still the ascent continued, and looking at
my watch I saw that I had already been near an hour on my way from St.
Luigi, a period more than sufficient to complete my whole journey. But
still I stuck to my idea that though I had certainly strayed far from
my proper route a few minutes more must surely see me over the top of
the upward way, and I should find the ground declining into the next
valley. About now, too, I noticed that the mists were growing suffused
with rose-colour, and, though the inference was that it must be close
on sunset, there was consolation in the fact that they were there and
might lift at any moment and disclose to me my whereabouts. But the
fact that night would soon be on me made it needful to bar my mind
against that despair of loneliness which so eats out the heart of a man
who is lost in woods or on mountain-side, that, though still there is
plenty of vigour in his limbs, his nervous force is sapped, and he can
do no more than lie down and abandon himself to whatever fate may await
him.... And then I heard that which made the thought of loneliness seem
bliss indeed, for there was a worse fate than loneliness. What I heard
resembled the howl of a wolf, and it came from not far in front of me
where the ridge--was it a ridge?--still rose higher in vestment of
pines.
From behind me came a sudden puff of wind, which shook the frozen snow
from the drooping pine-branches, and swept away the mists as a broom
sweeps the dust from the floor. Radiant above me were the unclouded
skies, already charged with the red of the sunset, and in front I
saw that I had come to the very edge of the wood through which I had
wandered so long. But it was no valley into which I had penetrated,
for there right ahead of me rose the steep slope of boulders and rocks
soaring upwards to the foot of the Ungeheuerhorn. What, then, was that
cry of a wolf which had made my heart stand still? I saw.
Not twenty yards from me was a fallen tree, and leaning against the
trunk of it was one of the denizens of the Horror-Horn, and it was a
woman. She was enveloped in a thick growth of hair grey and tufted,
and from her head it streamed down over her shoulders and her bosom,
from which hung withered and pendulous breasts. And looking on her
face I comprehended not with my mind alone, but with a shudder of my
spirit, what Ingram had felt. Never had nightmare fashioned so terrible
a countenance; the beauty of sun and stars and of the beasts of the
field and the kindly race of men could not atone for so hellish an
incarnation of the spirit of life. A fathomless bestiality modelled the
slavering mouth and the narrow eyes; I looked into the abyss itself
and knew that out of that abyss on the edge of which I leaned the
generations of men had climbed. What if that ledge crumbled in front of
me and pitched me headlong into its nethermost depths?...
In one hand she held by the horns a chamois that kicked and struggled.
A blow from its hindleg caught her withered thigh, and with a grunt
of anger she seized the leg in her other hand, and, as a man may pull
from its sheath a stem of meadow-grass, she plucked it off the body,
leaving the torn skin hanging round the gaping wound. Then putting the
red, bleeding member to her mouth she sucked at it as a child sucks a
stick of sweetmeat. Through flesh and gristle her short, brown teeth
penetrated, and she licked her lips with a sound of purring. Then
dropping the leg by her side, she looked again at the body of the prey
now quivering in its death-convulsion, and with finger and thumb gouged
out one of its eyes. She snapped her teeth on it, and it cracked like a
soft-shelled nut.
It must have been but a few seconds that I stood watching her, in
some indescribable catalepsy of terror, while through my brain there
pealed the panic-command of my mind to my stricken limbs “Begone,
begone, while there is time.” Then, recovering the power of my joints
and muscles, I tried to slip behind a tree and hide myself from this
apparition. But the woman--shall I say?--must have caught my stir of
movement, for she raised her eyes from her living feast and saw me. She
craned forward her neck, she dropped her prey, and half rising began to
move towards me. As she did this, she opened her mouth, and gave forth
a howl such as I had heard a moment before. It was answered by another,
but faintly and distantly.
Sliding and slipping, with the toes of my skis tripping in the
obstacles below the snow, I plunged forward down the hill between
the pine-trunks. The low sun already sinking behind some rampart of
mountain in the west reddened the snow and the pines with its ultimate
rays. My knapsack with the skates in it swung to and fro on my back,
one ski-stick had already been twitched out of my hand by a fallen
branch of pine, but not a second’s pause could I allow myself to
recover it. I gave no glance behind, and I knew not at what pace my
pursuer was on my track, or indeed whether any pursued at all, for my
whole mind and energy, now working at full power again under the stress
of my panic, was devoted to getting away down the hill and out of the
wood as swiftly as my limbs could bear me. For a little while I heard
nothing but the hissing snow of my headlong passage, and the rustle of
the covered undergrowth beneath my feet, and then, from close at hand
behind me, once more the wolf-howl sounded and I heard the plunging of
footsteps other than my own.
The strap of my knapsack had shifted, and as my skates swung to and fro
on my back it chafed and pressed on my throat, hindering free passage
of air, of which, God knew, my labouring lungs were in dire need, and
without pausing I slipped it free from my neck, and held it in the hand
from which my ski-stick had been jerked. I seemed to go a little more
easily for this adjustment, and now, not so far distant, I could see
below me the path from which I had strayed. If only I could reach that,
the smoother going would surely enable me to out-distance my pursuer,
who even on the rougher ground was but slowly overhauling me, and at
the sight of that riband stretching unimpeded downhill, a ray of hope
pierced the black panic of my soul. With that came the desire, keen
and insistent, to see who or what it was that was on my tracks, and
I spared a backward glance. It was she, the hag whom I had seen at
her gruesome meal; her long grey hair flew out behind her, her mouth
chattered and gibbered, her fingers made grabbing movements, as if
already they closed on me.
But the path was now at hand, and the nearness of it I suppose made me
incautious. A hump of snow-covered bush lay in my path, and, thinking
I could jump over it, I tripped and fell, smothering myself in snow. I
heard a maniac noise, half scream, half laugh, from close behind, and
before I could recover myself the grabbing fingers were at my neck, as
if a steel vice had closed there. But my right hand in which I held my
knapsack of skates was free, and with a blind back-handed movement I
whirled it behind me at the full length of its strap, and knew that my
desperate blow had found its billet somewhere. Even before I could look
round I felt the grip on my neck relax, and something subsided into the
very bush which had entangled me. I recovered my feet and turned.
There she lay, twitching and quivering. The heel of one of my skates
piercing the thin alpaca of the knapsack had hit her full on the
temple, from which the blood was pouring, but a hundred yards away I
could see another such figure coming downwards on my tracks, leaping
and bounding. At that panic rose again within me, and I sped off down
the white smooth path that led to the lights of the village already
beckoning. Never once did I pause in my headlong going: there was no
safety until I was back among the haunts of men. I flung myself against
the door of the hotel, and screamed for admittance, though I had but to
turn the handle and enter; and once more as when Ingram had told his
tale, there was the sound of the band, and the chatter of voices, and
there, too, was he himself, who looked up and then rose swiftly to his
feet as I made my clattering entrance.
“I have seen them too,” I cried. “Look at my knapsack. Is there not
blood on it? It is the blood of one of them, a woman, a hag, who tore
off the leg of a chamois as I looked, and pursued me through the
accursed wood. I----”
Whether it was I who spun round, or the room which seemed to spin
round me, I knew not, but I heard myself falling, collapsed on the
floor, and the next time that I was conscious at all I was in bed.
There was Ingram there, who told me that I was quite safe, and another
man, a stranger, who pricked my arm with the nozzle of a syringe, and
reassured me....
A day or two later I gave a coherent account of my adventure, and three
or four men, armed with guns, went over my traces. They found the bush
in which I had stumbled, with a pool of blood which had soaked into
the snow, and, still following my ski-tracks, they came on the body
of a chamois, from which had been torn one of its hindlegs and one
eye-socket was empty. That is all the corroboration of my story that I
can give the reader, and for myself I imagine that the creature which
pursued me was either not killed by my blow or that her fellows removed
her body.... Anyhow, it is open to the incredulous to prowl about
the caves of the Ungeheuerhorn, and see if anything occurs that may
convince them.
Machaon
Machaon
I was returning at the close of the short winter day from my visit to
St. James’s Hospital, where my old servant Parkes, who had been in my
service for twenty years, was lying. I had sent him there three days
before, not for treatment, but for observation, and this afternoon I
had gone up to London, to hear the doctor’s report on the case. He told
me that Parkes was suffering from an internal tumour, the nature of
which could not be diagnosed for certain, but all the symptoms pointed
directly to its being cancerous. That, however, must not be regarded
as proved; it could only be proved by an exploratory operation to
reveal the nature and the extent of the growth, which must then, if
possible, be excised. It might involve, so my old friend Godfrey Symes
told me, certain tissues and would be found to be inoperable, but he
hoped this would not be the case, and that it would be possible to
remove it: removal gave the only chance of recovery. It was fortunate
that the patient had been sent for examination in an early stage, for
thus the chances of success were much greater than if the growth had
been one of long standing. Parkes was not, however, in a fit state to
stand the operation at once; a recuperative week or ten days in bed was
advisable. In these circumstances Symes recommended that he should not
be told at once what lay in front of him.
“I can see that he is a nervous fellow,” he said, “and to lie in bed
thinking of what he has got to face will probably undo all the good
that lying in bed will bring to him. You don’t get used to the idea of
being cut open; the more you think about it, the more intolerable it
becomes. If that sort of adventure faced me, I should infinitely prefer
not to be told about it until they came to give me the anæsthetic.
Naturally, he will have to consent to the operation, but I shouldn’t
tell him anything about it till the day before. He’s not married, I
think, is he?”
“No: he’s alone in the world,” said I. “He’s been with me twenty years.”
“Yes, I remember Parkes almost as long as I remember you. But that’s
all I can recommend. Of course, if the pain became severe, it might be
better to operate sooner, but at present he suffers hardly at all, and
he sleeps well, so the nurse tells me.”
“And there’s nothing else that you can try for it?” I asked.
“I’ll try anything you like, but it will be perfectly useless. I’ll
let him have any quack nostrum you and he wish, as long as it doesn’t
injure his health, or make you put off the operation. There are X-rays
and ultra-violet rays, and violet leaves and radium; there are fresh
cures for cancer discovered every day, and what’s the result? They
only make people put off the operation till it’s no longer possible to
operate. Naturally, I will welcome any further opinion you want.”
Now Godfrey Symes is easily the first authority on this subject, and
has a far higher percentage of cures to his credit than anyone else.
“No, I don’t want any fresh opinion,” said I.
“Very well, I’ll have him carefully watched. By the way, can’t you stop
in town and dine with me? There are one or two people coming, and among
them a perfectly mad spiritualist who has more messages from the other
world than I ever get on my telephone. Trunk-calls, eh? I wonder where
the exchange is. Do come! You like cranks, I know!”
“I can’t, I’m afraid,” said I. “I’ve a couple of guests coming to stay
with me to-day down in the country. They are both cranks: one’s a
medium.”
He laughed.
“Well, I can only offer you one crank, and you’ve got two,” he said. “I
must get back to the wards. I’ll write to you in about a week’s time
or so, unless there’s any urgency which I don’t foresee, and I should
suggest your coming up to tell Parkes. Good-bye.”
I caught my train at Charing Cross with about three seconds to spare,
and we slid clanking out over the bridge through the cold, dense air.
Snow had been falling intermittently since morning, and when we got
out of the grime and fog of London, it was lying thickly on field
and hedgerow, retarding by its reflection of such light as lingered
the oncoming of darkness, and giving to the landscape an aloof and
lonely austerity. All day I had felt that drowsiness which accompanies
snowfall, and sometimes, half losing myself in a doze, my mind crept,
like a thing crawling about in the dark, over what Godfrey Symes had
told me. For all these years Parkes, as much friend as servant, had
given me his faithfulness and devotion, and now, in return for that,
all that apparently I could do was to tell him of his plight. It was
clear, from what the surgeon had said, that he expected a serious
disclosure, and I knew from the experience of two friends of mine who
had been in his condition what might be expected of this “exploratory
operation.” Exactly similar had been these cases; there was clear
evidence of an internal growth possibly not malignant, and in each case
the same dismal sequence had followed. The growth had been removed, and
within a couple of months there had been a recrudescence of it. Indeed,
surgery had proved no more than a pruning-knife, which had stimulated
that which the surgeon had hoped to extirpate into swifter activity.
And that apparently was the best chance that Symes held out: the rest
of the treatments were but rubbish or quackery....
My mind crawled away towards another subject: probably the two visitors
whom I expected, Charles Hope and the medium whom he was bringing with
him, were in the same train as I, and I ran over in my mind all that
he had told me of Mrs. Forrest. It was certainly an odd story he had
brought me two days before. Mrs. Forrest was a medium of considerable
reputation in psychical circles, and had produced some very
extraordinary book-tests which, by all accounts, seemed inexplicable,
except on a spiritualistic hypothesis, and no imputation of trickery
had, at any rate as yet, come near her. When in trance, she spoke and
wrote, as is invariably the case with mediums, under the direction
of a certain “control”--that is to say, a spiritual and discarnate
intelligence which for the time was in possession of her. But lately
there had been signs that a fresh control had inspired her, the nature
of whom, his name, and his identity was at present unknown. And then
came the following queer incident.
Last week only when in trance, and apparently under the direction
of this new control, she began describing in considerable detail a
certain house where the control said that he had work to do. At first
the description aroused no association in Charles Hope’s mind, but as
it went on, it suddenly struck him that Mrs. Forrest was speaking of
my house in Tilling. She gave its general features, its position in a
small town on a hill, its walled-in garden, and then went on to speak
with great minuteness of a rather peculiar feature in the house. She
described a big room built out in the garden a few yards away from
the house itself at right-angles to its front, and approached by half
a dozen stone steps. There was a railing, so she said, on each side
of them, and into the railing were twisted, like snake coils, the
stems of a tree which bore pale mauve flowers. This was all a correct
description of my garden room and the wistaria which writhes in and out
of the railings which line the steps. She then went on to speak of the
interior of the room. At one end was a fireplace, at the other a big
bow-window looking out on to the street and the front of the house, and
there were two other windows opposite each other, in one of which was a
table, while the other, looking out on to the garden, was shadowed by
the tree that twisted itself about the railings. Book-cases lined the
walls, and there was a big sofa at right-angles to the fire....
Now all this, though it was a perfectly accurate description of a place
that, as far as could be ascertained, Mrs. Forrest had never seen,
might conceivably have been derived from Charles Hope’s mind, since he
knew the room well, having often stayed with me. But the medium added a
detail which could not conceivably have been thus derived, for Charles
believed it to be incorrect. She said that there was a big piano near
the bow-window, while he was sure that there was not. But oddly enough
I had hired a piano only a week or so ago, and it stood in the place
that she mentioned. The “control” then repeated that there was work
for him to do in that house. There was some situation or complication
there in which he could help, and he could “get through” better (that
is, make a clearer communication) if the medium could hold a séance
there. Charles Hope then told the control that he believed he knew
the house that he had been speaking of, and promised to do his best.
Shortly afterwards Mrs. Forrest came out of trance, and, as usual, had
no recollection of what had passed.
So Charles came to me with the story exactly as I have given it here,
and though I could not think of any situation or complication in which
an unknown control of a medium I had never seen could be of assistance,
the whole thing (and in especial that detail about the piano) was so
odd that I asked him to bring the medium down for a sitting or a series
of sittings. The day of their arrival was arranged, but when three days
ago Parkes had to go into hospital, I was inclined to put them off. But
a neighbour away for a week obligingly lent me a parlour-maid, and I
let the engagement stand. With regard to the situation in which the
control would be of assistance, I can but assure the reader that as far
as I thought about it at all, I only wondered whether it was concerned
with a book on which I was engaged, which dealt (if I could ever
succeed in writing it) with psychical affairs. But at present I could
not get on with it at all. I had made half a dozen beginnings which had
all gone into the waste-paper basket.
My guests proved not to have come by the same train as I, but arrived
shortly before dinner-time, and after Mrs. Forrest had gone to her
room, I had a few words with Charles, who told me exactly how the
situation now stood.
“I know your caution and your captiousness in these affairs,” he said,
“so I have told Mrs. Forrest nothing about the description she gave
of this house, or of the reason why I asked her to come here. I said
only, as we settled, that you were a great friend of mine and immensely
interested in psychical affairs, but a country-mouse whom it was
difficult to get up to town. But you would be delighted if she would
come down for a few days and give some sittings here.”
“And does she recognise the house, do you think?” I asked.
“No sign of it. As I told you, when she comes out of trance she never
seems to have the faintest recollection of what she has said or
written. We shall have a séance, I hope, to-night after dinner.”
“Certainly, if she will,” said I. “I thought we had better hold it in
the garden-room, for that was the place that was so minutely described.
It’s quite warm there, central-heating and a fire, and it’s only half a
dozen yards from the house. I’ve had the snow swept from the steps.”
Mrs. Forrest turned out to be a very intelligent woman, well spiced
with humour, gifted with a sane appreciation of the comforts of life,
and most agreeably furnished with the small change of talk. She
was inclined to be stout, but carried herself with briskness, and
neither in body nor mind did she suggest that she was one who held
communication with the unseen: there was nothing wan or occult about
her. Her general outlook on life appeared to be rather materialistic
than otherwise, and she was very interesting on the topic when, about
half-way through dinner, the subject of her mediumship came on the
conversational board.
“My gifts, such as they are,” she said, “have nothing to do with this
person who sits eating and drinking and talking to you. She, as Mr.
Hope may have told you, is quite expunged before the subconscious part
of me--that is the latest notion, is it not?--gets into touch with
discarnate intelligences. Until that happens, the door is shut, and
when it is over, the door is shut again, and I have no recollection of
what I have said or written. The control uses my hand and my voice, but
that is all. I know no more about it than a piano on which a tune has
been played.”
“And there is a new control who has lately been using you?” I asked.
She laughed.
“You must ask Mr. Hope about that,” she said. “I know nothing
whatever of it. He tells me it is so, and he tells me--don’t you, Mr.
Hope?--that he hasn’t any idea who or what the new control is. I look
forward to its development; my idea is that the control has to get used
to me, as in learning a new instrument. I assure you I am as eager as
anyone that he should gain facility in communication through me. I
hope, indeed, that we are to have a séance to-night.”
The talk veered again, and I learned that Mrs. Forrest had never been
in Tilling before, and was enchanted with the snowy moonlit glance she
had had of its narrow streets and ancient residences. She liked, too,
the atmosphere of the house: it seemed tranquil and kindly; especially
so was the little drawing-room where we had assembled before dinner.
I glanced at Charles.
“I had thought of proposing that we should sit in the garden-room,” I
said, “if you don’t mind half a dozen steps in the open. It adjoins the
house.”
“Just as you wish,” she said, “though I think we have excellent
conditions in here without going there.”