Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,
twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he
beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a
vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.
Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which
I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and
one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was
not daunted.
The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were
witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,--who
beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld
me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was
over,--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,
when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled
from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and
could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still
incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to
satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged
of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the
existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were
incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a
solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was
this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful
repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,
manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of
a boy of fourteen.
"Now my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature
suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is
a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good
enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."
I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so
calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of
scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.
The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given
signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was a dull sound of a
heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A
deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed
itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from the
room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.
We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular
breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the
bedclothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.
Then Hammond spoke.
"Harry, this is awful."
"Ay, awful."
"But not unaccountable."
"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred
since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God
grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"
"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but
which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with
terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a
piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical
coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to
be totally invisible. It is not _theoretically impossible_, mind you, to
make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light,--a glass so
pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass
through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We
do not see the air, and yet we feel it."
"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.
Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. _This_ thing has a heart
that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire
and respire."
"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"
answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'
invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round
the table,--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal
life."
"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"
"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I
will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."
We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside
of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently
wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it
slept.
The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on
the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had
to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary
prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could
be induced to set foot in the apartment.
The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
which the bedclothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty
which themselves were invisible.
Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace
the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of
Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes.
But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the
setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mold. Another thought.
Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs,--that was evident
by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do
with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after the worthy
physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded
to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled
to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a modeler was busily
engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In five
minutes more we had a mold, and before evening a rough facsimile of the
Mystery. It was shaped like a man--distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but
still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height,
and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its
face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustav Doré, or
Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible. There
is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to _Un Voyage où il vous
plaira_, which somewhat approaches the countenance of this creature, but
does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I should fancy a ghoul
might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding on human flesh.
Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to
secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It
was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was
equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the
world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's
destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would
undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day
after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left
the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself
with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our
answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature
with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On
you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.
Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even
approach the Mystery.
The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant
of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of
nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never
touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes
toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.
Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations
of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly
ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of
sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt
miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was
pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.
At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in
the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened
to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that
viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to
Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.
As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have
drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come
to my knowledge.