so remote a date as to be utterly beyond the period to which the
reminiscences of our middle-aged readers extend, it happened that two
English gentlemen sat at table on a summer's evening, after dinner,
quietly sipping their wine and engaged in desultory conversation. They
were both men known to fame. One of them was a sculptor whose statues
adorned the palaces of princes, and whose chiselled busts were the pride
of half the nobility of his nation; the other was no less renowned as an
anatomist and surgeon. The age of the anatomist might have been guessed
at fifty, but the guess would have erred on the side of youth by at
least ten years. That of the sculptor could scarcely be more than
five-and-thirty. A bust of the anatomist, so admirably executed as to
present, although in stone, the perfect similitude of life and flesh,
stood upon a pedestal opposite to the table at which sat the pair, and
at once explained at least one connecting-link of companionship between
them. The anatomist was exhibiting for the criticism of his friend a
rare gem which he had just drawn from his cabinet: it was a crucifix
magnificently carved in ivory, and incased in a setting of pure gold.
"The carving, my dear sir," observed Mr. Fiddyes, the sculptor, "is
indeed, as you say, exquisite. The muscles are admirably made out, the
flesh well modelled, wonderfully so for the size and material; and
yet--by the bye, on this point you must know more than I--the more I
think upon the matter, the more I regard the artistic conception as
utterly false and wrong."
"You speak in a riddle," replied Dr. Carnell; "but pray go on, and
explain."
"It is a fancy I first had in my student-days," replied Fiddyes.
"Conventionality, not to say a most proper and becoming reverence,
prevents people by no means ignorant from considering the point. But
once think upon it, and you at least, of all men, must at once perceive
how utterly impossible it would be for a victim nailed upon a cross by
hands and feet to preserve the position invariably displayed in figures
of the Crucifixion. Those who so portray it fail in what should be their
most awful and agonizing effect. Think for one moment, and imagine, if
you can, what would be the attitude of a man, living or dead, under this
frightful torture."
"You startle me," returned the great surgeon, "not only by the truth of
your remarks, but by their obviousness. It is strange indeed that such a
matter should have so long been overlooked. The more I think upon it the
more the bare idea of actual crucifixion seems to horrify me, though
heaven knows I am accustomed enough to scenes of suffering. How would
you represent such a terrible agony?"
"Indeed I cannot tell," replied the sculptor; "to guess would be almost
vain. The fearful strain upon the muscles, their utter helplessness and
inactivity, the frightful swellings, the effect of weight upon the
racked and tortured sinews, appal me too much even for speculation."
"But this," replied the surgeon, "one might think a matter of
importance, not only to art, but, higher still, to religion itself."
"Maybe so," returned the sculptor. "But perhaps the appeal to the senses
through a true representation might be too horrible for either the one
or the other."
"Still," persisted the surgeon, "I should like--say for
curiosity--though I am weak enough to believe even in my own motive as a
higher one--to ascertain the effect from actual observation."
"So should I, could it be done, and of course without pain to the
object, which, as a condition, seems to present at the outset an
impossibility."
"Perhaps not," mused the anatomist; "I think I have a notion. Stay--we
may contrive this matter. I will tell you my plan, and it will be
strange indeed if we two cannot manage to carry it out."
The discourse here, owing to the rapt attention of both speakers,
assumed a low and earnest tone, but had perhaps better be narrated by a
relation of the events to which it gave rise. Suffice it to say that the
Sovereign was more than once mentioned during its progress, and in a
manner which plainly told that the two speakers each possessed
sufficient influence to obtain the assistance of royalty, and that such
assistance would be required in their scheme.
The shades of evening deepened while the two were still conversing. And
leaving this scene, let us cast one hurried glimpse at another taking
place contemporaneously.
Between Pimlico and Chelsea, and across a canal of which the bed has
since been used for the railway terminating at Victoria Station, there
was at the time of which we speak a rude timber footway, long since
replaced by a more substantial and convenient erection, but then known
as the Wooden Bridge. It was named shortly afterward Cutthroat Bridge,
and for this reason.
While Mr. Fiddyes and Dr. Carnell were discoursing over their wine, as
we have already seen, one Peter Starke, a drunken Chelsea pensioner, was
murdering his wife upon the spot we have last indicated. The coincidence
was curious.
* * * * *
In those days the punishment of criminals followed closely upon their
conviction. The Chelsea pensioner whom we have mentioned was found
guilty one Friday and sentenced to die on the following Monday. He was a
sad scoundrel, impenitent to the last, glorying in the deeds of
slaughter which he had witnessed and acted during the series of
campaigns which had ended just previously at Waterloo. He was a tall,
well-built fellow enough, of middle age, for his class was not then, as
now, composed chiefly of veterans, but comprised many young men, just
sufficiently disabled to be unfit for service. Peter Starke, although
but slightly wounded, had nearly completed his term of service, and had
obtained his pension and presentment to Chelsea Hospital. With his life
we have but little to do, save as regards its close, which we shall
shortly endeavor to describe far more veraciously, and at some greater
length than set forth in the brief account which satisfied the public of
his own day, and which, as embodied in the columns of the few journals
then appearing, ran thus:
"On Monday last Peter Starke was executed at Newgate for the
murder at the Wooden Bridge, Chelsea, with four others for
various offences. After he had been hanging only for a few
minutes a respite arrived, but although he was promptly cut
down, life was pronounced to be extinct. His body was buried
within the prison walls."
Thus far history. But the conciseness of history far more frequently
embodies falsehood than truth. Perhaps the following narration may
approach more nearly to the facts.
A room within the prison had been, upon that special occasion and by
high authority, allotted to the use of Dr. Carnell and Mr. Fiddyes, the
famous sculptor, for the purpose of certain investigations connected
with art and science. In that room Mr. Fiddyes, while wretched Peter
Starke was yet swinging between heaven and earth, was busily engaged in
arranging a variety of implements and materials, consisting of a large
quantity of plaster-of-Paris, two large pails of water, some tubs, and
other necessaries of the moulder's art. The room contained a large deal
table, and a wooden cross, not neatly planed and squared at the angles,
but of thick, narrow, rudely-sawn oaken plank, fixed by strong, heavy
nails. And while Mr. Fiddyes was thus occupied, the executioner
entered, bearing upon his shoulders the body of the wretched Peter,
which he flung heavily upon the table.
"You are sure he is dead?" asked Mr. Fiddyes.
"Dead as a herring," replied the other. "And yet just as warm and limp
as if he had only fainted."
"Then go to work at once," replied the sculptor, as turning his back
upon the hangman, he resumed his occupation.
The "work" was soon done. Peter was stripped and nailed upon the timber,
which was instantly propped against the wall.
"As fine a one as ever I see," exclaimed the executioner, as he regarded
the defunct murderer with an expression of admiration, as if at his own
handiwork, in having abruptly demolished such a magnificent animal.
"Drops a good bit for'ard, though. Shall I tie him up round the waist,
sir?"
"Certainly not," returned the sculptor. "Just rub him well over with
this oil, especially his head, and then you can go. Dr. Carnell will
settle with you."
"All right, sir."
The fellow did as ordered, and retired without another word; leaving
this strange couple, the living and the dead, in that dismal chamber.
Mr. Fiddyes was a man of strong nerve in such matters. He had been too
much accustomed to taking posthumous casts to trouble himself with any
sentiment of repugnance at his approaching task of taking what is called
a "piece-mould" from a body. He emptied a number of bags of the white
powdery plaster-of-Paris into one of the larger vessels, poured into it
a pail of water, and was carefully stirring up the mass, when a sound of
dropping arrested his ear.
_Drip, drip._
"There's something leaking," he muttered, as he took a second pail, and
emptying it, again stirred the composition.
_Drip, drip, drip._
"It's strange," he soliloquized, half aloud. "There is no more water,
and yet----"
The sound was heard again.
He gazed at the ceiling; there was no sign of damp. He turned his eyes
to the body, and something suddenly caused him a violent start. The
murderer was bleeding.
The sculptor, spite of his command over himself, turned pale. At that
moment the head of Starke moved--clearly moved. It raised itself
convulsively for a single moment; its eyes rolled, and it gave vent to a
subdued moan of intense agony. Mr. Fiddyes fell fainting on the floor as
Dr. Carnell entered. It needed but a glance to tell the doctor what had
happened, even had not Peter just then given vent to another low cry.
The surgeon's measures were soon taken. Locking the door, he bore a
chair to the wall which supported the body of the malefactor. He drew
from his pocket a case of glittering instruments, and with one of these,
so small and delicate that it scarcely seemed larger than a needle, he
rapidly, but dexterously and firmly, touched Peter just at the back of
the neck. There was no wound larger than the head of a small pin, and
yet the head fell instantly as though the heart had been pierced. The
doctor had divided the spinal cord, and Peter Starke was dead indeed.
A few minutes sufficed to recall the sculptor to his senses. He at first
gazed wildly upon the still suspended body, so painfully recalled to
life by the rough venesection of the hangman and the subsequent friction
of anointing his body to prevent the adhesion of the plaster.
"You need not fear now," said Dr. Carnell; "I assure you he is dead."
"But he _was_ alive, surely!"
"Only for a moment, and even that scarcely to be called life--mere
muscular contraction, my dear sir, mere muscular contraction."
The sculptor resumed his labor. The body was girt at various
circumferences with fine twine, to be afterward withdrawn through a
thick coating of plaster, so as to separate the various pieces of the
mould, which was at last completed; and after this Dr. Carnell skilfully
flayed the body, to enable a second mould to be taken of the entire
figure, showing every muscle of the outer layer.
The two moulds were thus taken. It is difficult to conceive more ghastly
appearances than they presented. For sculptor's work they were utterly
useless; for no artist except the most daring of realists would have
ventured to indicate the horrors which they presented. Fiddyes refused
to receive them. Dr. Carnell, hard and cruel as he was, for kindness'
sake, in his profession, was a gentle, genial father of a family of
daughters. He received the casts, and at once consigned them to a
garret, to which he forbade access. His youngest daughter, one
unfortunate day, during her father's absence, was impelled by feminine
curiosity--perhaps a little increased by the prohibition--to enter the
mysterious chamber.
Whether she imagined in the pallid figure upon the cross a celestial
rebuke for her disobedience, or whether she was overcome by the mere
mortal horror of one or both of those dreadful casts, can now never be
known. But this is true: she became a maniac.
The writer of this has more than once seen (as, no doubt, have many
others) the plaster effigies of Peter Starke, after their removal from
Dr. Carnell's to a famous studio near the Regent's Park. It was there
that he heard whispered the strange story of their origin. Sculptor and
surgeon are now both long since dead, and it is no longer necessary to
keep _the secret of the two plaster casts_.
WHAT WAS IT?
It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approached the
strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared
to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple
and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed
under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the
annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.
I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
reputation of being haunted. The house is very spacious. A hall of noble
size leads to a large spiral staircase winding through its centre, while
the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some
fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A----, the well-known New York
merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions
by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A----, as every one knows, escaped to
Europe, and died not long after, of a broken heart. Almost immediately
after the news of his decease reached this country and was verified,
the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal
measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was
inhabited merely by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the
house-agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or
sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural
noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of
furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night,
piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and
down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen
silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive
balusters. The care-taker and his wife declared they would live there no
longer. The house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their
place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The
neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for
three years. Several persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always
before the bargain was closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and
declined to treat any further.
It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up
town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.
Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons--a
sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that
they would leave--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would
accompany her in her incursion into the abode of spirits.
Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with
our new residence.
Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. -- than we began
to expect the ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness.
Our dinner conversation was supernatural. I found myself a person of
immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well
versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story
the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or wainscot panel
happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there
was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate
clanking of chains and a spectral form.
After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost
dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the
remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself.
Things were in this state when an incident took place so awful and
inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare
memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was
over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my
evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed
between the doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We
both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret and respected it. We
enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous
intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of
existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole
universe--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would not
surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will never--never
taste.
On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the doctor and myself
drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large
meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which
burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy
tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;
we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the
currents of our thoughts. They would not flow through the sun-lit
channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable
reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a
continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we
flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay
bazaars, of the splendors of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden
palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,
and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper
vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.
Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged
in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the
human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,
when Hammond suddenly said to me, "What do you consider to be the
greatest element of terror?"
The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew. But it
now struck me, for the first time, that there must be one great and
ruling embodiment of fear--a King of Terrors, to which all others must
succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe
its existence?
"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the
subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any
other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague
definition."
"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to
experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human
mind--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation hitherto
supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in Brockden
Brown's novel of 'Wieland' is awful; so is the picture of the Dweller on
the Threshold, in Bulwer's 'Zanoni;' but," he added, shaking his head
gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than these."
"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for
Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it."
"I don't know what's the matter with me to-night," he replied, "but my
brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as
if I could write a story like Hoffman, to-night, if I were only master
of a literary style."
"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed.
Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it
is! Good-night, Hammond."
"Good-night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."
"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."
We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly
and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book
over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon
as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the
other side of the room. It was Goudon's "History of Monsters,"--a
curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,
in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable
companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas
until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of
the tube, I composed myself to rest.
The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained
alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I
desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the
darkness and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded
themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on
my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be
blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.
While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical
inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A
Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,
and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,
endeavoring to choke me.
I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The
suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to
its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had
time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two
muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the
strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands
that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to
breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity.
Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature
of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp
slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire
nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder,
neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair
of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not confine--these
were a combination of circumstances to combat which required all the
strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.
At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant
under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with
my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I
rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting
in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was
apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I
remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed,
a large yellow silk pocket-handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was
there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the
creature's arms.
I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to
turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was
like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a
certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the
capture alone and unaided.
Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the
floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to
reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding
the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of
the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.
Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full
flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.