Twenty-Five Ghost Stories.
COMPILED AND EDITED
BY
W. BOB HOLLAND.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
--_Hamlet._
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface 5
The Black Cat 7
The Flayed Hand 28
The Vengeance of a Tree 37
The Parlor-Car Ghost 44
Ghost of Buckstown Inn 51
The Burglar’s Ghost 59
A Phantom Toe 76
Mrs. Davenport’s Ghost 81
The Phantom Woman 90
The Phantom Hag 100
From the Tomb 105
Sandy’s Ghost 114
The Ghosts of Red Creek 123
The Spectre Bride 128
How He Caught the Ghost 134
Grand-Dame’s Ghost Story 144
A Fight with a Ghost 153
Colonel Halifax’s Ghost Story 168
The Ghost of the Count 190
The Old Mansion 202
A Misfit Ghost 210
An Unbidden Guest 215
The Dead Woman’s Photograph 220
The Ghost of a Live Man 228
The Ghost of Washington 236
PREFACE
This collection of ghost stories owes its publication to an interest
that I have long felt in the supernatural and in works of the
imagination. As a child I was deeply concerned in tales of spooks,
haunted houses, wraiths and specters and stories of weird experiences,
clanking chains, ghostly sights and gruesome sounds always held me
spellbound and breathless.
Experiences in editorial offices taught me that I was not alone in
liking stories of mystery. The desire to know something of that
existence that is veiled by Death is equally potent in old age and in
youth, and men, women and children like to be thrilled and to have a
“creepy” feeling along the spinal column as the result of reading of a
visitor from beyond the grave.
This volume contains the most famous of the weird stories of Edgar Allan
Poe, that master of this form of literature. “The Black Cat” contains
all the needed element of mystery and supernatural, and yet the feline
acts in a natural manner all of the time, and the story is quite
possibly true. It is only in the manner of its telling that the tale
becomes one that fittingly finds its place in this collection.
Guy de Maupassant, the clever Frenchman, is also represented by two
effective bits of work, and other less widely known writers have also
contributed stories that are worth reading, and when once read will be
remembered. There is not a story among the twenty-five that is not
worthy of close reading.
There has recently been a revival in interest in ghost stories. Many of
the high-class magazines have within a few months printed stories with
supernatural incidents, and writers whose names are known to all who
read have turned their attention to this form of literature.
Whether or not the reader believe in ghosts, he cannot fail to be
interested in this little book. Without venturing to express a positive
opinion either way, I will only say with Hamlet: “There are more things
in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
W. BOB HOLLAND.
Twenty-Five Ghost Stories
THE BLACK CAT.
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.
For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I
neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it,
in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I
not--and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I
would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the
world, plainly, succinctly and without comment a series of mere
household events. In their consequences, these events have
terrified--have tortured--have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to
expound them. To me they have presented little but horror, to many they
will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some
intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the
commonplace--some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less
excitable than my own, which will perceive in the circumstances I detail
with awe nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes
and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make
me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was
indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent
most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing
them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my
manhood I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To
those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog,
I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the
intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the
unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to
the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry
friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not
uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets she
lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We
had birds, goldfish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey and a cat.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black,
and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence,
my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made
frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all
black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon
this point--and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than
that it happens, just now, to be remembered.
Pluto--this was the cat’s name--was my favorite pet and playmate. I
alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It
was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me
through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which
my general temperament and character--through the instrumentality of the
fiend Intemperance--had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical
alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more
irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself
to use intemperate language to my wife. At length I even offered her
personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in
my disposition. I not only neglected them, but ill-used them. For Pluto,
however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from
maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the
monkey or even the dog, when by accident or through affection they came
in my way. But my disease grew upon me--for what disease is like
alcohol! And at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and
consequently somewhat peevish--even Pluto began to experience the
effects of my ill-temper.
One night, returning home much intoxicated from one of my haunts about
town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when, in
his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with
his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no
longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my
body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every
fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat pocket a penknife, opened
it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of
its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder while I pen the
damnable atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning--when I had slept off the fumes of
the night’s debauch--I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of
remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best,
a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again
plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered.
[Illustration: “_One night, returning home much intoxicated._”]
The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful
appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about
the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at
my approach. I had so much of my old heart left as to be at first
grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once
so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then
came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of
perverseness. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not
more sure that my soul lives than I am that perverseness is one of the
primitive impulses of the human heart--one of the indivisible primary
faculties or sentiments which give direction to the character of man.
Who has not, hundreds of times, found himself committing a vile or silly
action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we
not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to
violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?
This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was
this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself--to offer violence
to its own nature--to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only--that urged me
to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon
the unoffending brute. One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose
about its neck, and hung it to the limb of a tree; hung it with the
tears streaming from my eyes and the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung
it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given
me no offense; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing
a sin--a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to
place it, if such a thing were possible--even beyond the reach of the
infinite mercy of the most merciful and most terrible God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused
from sleep by the cry of “fire!” The curtains of my bed were in flames.
The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife,
a servant and myself made our escape from the conflagration. The
destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and
I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and
effect between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain
of facts, and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the
day succeeding the fire I visited the ruins. The walls, with one
exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment
wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and
against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in
great measure, resisted the action of the fire--a fact which I
attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense
crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a
particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words
“strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions excited my
curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas-relief upon the
white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given
with an accuracy truly marvelous. There was a rope about the animal’s
neck.
When I first beheld this apparition--for I could scarcely regard it as
less--my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection
came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden
adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire this garden had been
immediately filled by the crowd--by some one of whom the animal must
have been cut from the tree and thrown through an open window into my
chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from
sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my
cruelty into the substance of the freshly spread plaster, the lime of
which with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then
accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my
conscience, for the
[Illustration: “_Because I knew that it had loved me._”]
startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep
impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the
phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my
spirit a half sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far
as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the
vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the
same species and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply
its place.
One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my
attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the
head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now
caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the
object thereupon. I approached it and touched it with my hand. It was a
black cat--a very large one--fully as large as Pluto, and closely
resembling him in every respect, but only Pluto had not a white hair
upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although
indefinite, splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the
breast.
Upon my touching him he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against
my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the
very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it
of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it--knew nothing of
it--had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and when I prepared to go home the animal
evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so,
occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the
house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great
favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This
was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but--I know not how or
why it was--its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed
me. By slow degrees these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into
the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of
shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me
from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or
otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually--very gradually--I came to
look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its
odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on
the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been
deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared
it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree,
that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait,
and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed
to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would
be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat it would
crouch beneath my chair or spring upon my knees, covering me with its
loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet, and
thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my
dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I
longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing,
partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly--let me confess it at
once--by absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil--and yet I should be
at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own--yes,
even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own--that the terror
and horror with which the animal inspired me had been heightened by one
of the merest chimeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had
called my attention more than once, to the character of the mark of
white hair, of which I have spoken, and which
[Illustration: “_The figure of a gigantic cat._”]
constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and
the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark,
although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow
degrees--degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my
reason struggled to reject as fanciful--it had, at length, assumed a
rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an
object that I shudder to name--and for this, above all, I loathed and
dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared--it was
now I say the image of a hideous, of a ghastly thing--of the gallows!
Oh, mournful and terrible engine of horror and of crime--of agony and of
death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere humanity.
And a brute beast, whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed--a brute
beast to work out for me--for me, a man, fashioned in the image of the
High God--so much of insufferable woe. Alas! neither by day nor night
knew I the blessing of rest any more. During the former the creature
left me no moment alone, and in the latter I started hourly from dreams
of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face,
and its vast weight--an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake
off--incumbent eternally upon my heart.
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnants of
the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole
intimates--the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my
usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind;
while, from the sudden, frequent and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to
which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was
the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me upon some household errand into the cellar of
the old building, which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat
followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong,
exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my
wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a
blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal
had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of
my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal,
I withdrew my arm from her grasp, and buried the ax in her brain. She
fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with
entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I
could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without
the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my
mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute
fragments and destroying them by fire. At another I resolved to dig a
grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about
casting it into the well in the yard--about packing it in a box, as if
merchandise, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to
take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far
better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the
cellar--as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up
their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were
loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a
rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from
hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a
false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to
resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily
displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole
up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.
And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crowbar I
easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body
against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with
little trouble, I relaid the whole structure as it originally stood.
Having
[Illustration: “_An extraordinary cat._”]
procured mortar, sand and hair with every possible precaution, I
prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and
with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had
finished I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present
the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the
floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly
and said to myself, “Here, at least, then, my labor has not been in
vain.”
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so
much wretchedness, for I had at length firmly resolved to put it to
death. Had I been able to meet with it at the moment there could have
been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had
been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger and forebore to
present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe or to
imagine the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the
detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance
during the night--and thus, for one night at least since its
introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept--aye, slept,
even with the burden of murder upon my soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not.
Once again I breathed as a free man. The monster, in terror, had fled
the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was
supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few
inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a
search had been instituted--but, of course, nothing was to be
discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination a party of the police came very
unexpectedly into the house and proceeded again to make a rigorous
investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of
my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers
bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner
unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into
the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat as calmly as that
of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I
folded my arms upon my bosom and roamed easily to and fro. The police
were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart
was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say but one word, by way of
triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight
to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health and a little
more courtesy. By the by, gentlemen, this--this is a very well
constructed house.” (In the rabid desire to say something easily I
scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) “I may say an excellently well
constructed house. These walls--are you going, gentlemen?--these walls
are solidly put together;” and here, through the mere frenzy of bravado,
I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very
portion of the brickwork behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my
bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch Fiend! No
sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was
answered by a voice from within the tomb!--by a cry, at first muffled
and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into
one long, loud and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman--a
howl!--a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as
might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the
damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the
opposite wall. For an instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next a dozen
stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already
getting decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of
the spectators. Upon its head, with red, extended mouth and solitary eye
of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder,
and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled
the monster up within the tomb!
THE FLAYED HAND.
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT.
One evening about eight months ago I met with some college comrades at
the lodgings of our friend Louis R. We drank punch and smoked, talked of
literature and art, and made jokes like any other company of young men.
Suddenly the door flew open, and one who had been my friend since
boyhood burst in like a hurricane.
“Guess where I come from?” he cried.
“I bet on the Mabille,” responded one. “No,” said another, “you are too
gay; you come from borrowing money, from burying a rich uncle, or from
pawning your watch.” “You are getting sober,” cried a third, “and, as
you scented the punch in Louis’ room, you came up here to get drunk
again.”
“You are all wrong,” he replied. “I come from P., in Normandy, where I
have spent eight days, and whence I have brought one of my friends, a
great criminal, whom I ask permission to present to you.”
With these words he drew from his pocket a long, black hand, from which
the skin had been stripped. It had been severed at the wrist. Its dry
and shriveled shape, and the narrow, yellowed nails still clinging to
the fingers, made it frightful to look upon. The muscles, which showed
that its first owner had been possessed of great strength, were bound in
place by a strip of parchment-like skin.
“Just fancy,” said my friend, “the other day they sold the effects of an
old sorcerer, recently deceased, well known in all the country. Every
Saturday night he used to go to witch gatherings on a broomstick; he
practised the white magic and the black, gave blue milk to the cows, and
made them wear tails like that of the companion of Saint Anthony. The
old scoundrel always had a deep affection for this hand, which, he said,
was that of a celebrated criminal, executed in 1736 for having thrown
his lawful wife head first into a well--for which I do not blame
him--and then hanging in the belfry the priest who had married him.
After this double exploit he went away, and, during his subsequent
career, which was brief but exciting, he robbed twelve travelers, smoked
a score of monks in their monastery, and made a seraglio of a convent.”
“But what are you going to do with this horror?” we cried.
“Eh! parbleu! I will make it the handle to my door-bell and frighten my
creditors.”
“My friend,” said Henry Smith, a big, phlegmatic Englishman, “I believe
that this hand is only a kind of Indian meat, preserved by a new
process; I advise you to make bouillon of it.”
“Rail not, messieurs,” said, with the utmost sang froid, a medical
student who was three-quarters drunk, “but if you follow my advice,
Pierre, you will give this piece of human debris Christian burial, for
fear lest its owner should come to demand it. Then, too, this hand has
acquired some bad habits, for you know the proverb, ‘Who has killed will
kill.’”
“And who has drank will drink,” replied the host as he poured out a big
glass of punch for the student, who emptied it at a draught and slid
dead drunk under the table. His sudden dropping out of the company was
greeted with a burst of laughter, and Pierre, raising his glass and
saluting the hand, cried:
“I drink to the next visit of thy master.”
Then the conversation turned upon other subjects, and shortly afterward
each returned to his lodgings.
* * * * *
About two o’clock the next day, as I was passing Pierre’s door, I
entered and found him reading and smoking.
“Well, how goes it?” said I. “Very well,” he responded. “And your hand?”
“My hand? Did you not see it on the bell-pull? I put it there when I
returned home last night. But, apropos of this, what do you think? Some
idiot, doubtless to play a stupid joke on me, came ringing at my door
towards midnight. I demanded who was there, but as no one replied, I
went back to bed again, and to sleep.”
At this moment the door opened and the landlord, a fat and extremely
impertinent person, entered without saluting us.
“Sir,” said he, “I pray you to take away immediately that carrion which
you have hung to your bell-pull. Unless you do this I shall be compelled
to ask you to leave.”
“Sir,” responded Pierre, with much gravity, “you insult a hand which
does not merit it. Know you that it belonged to a man of high breeding?”
The landlord turned on his heel and made his exit, without speaking.
Pierre followed him, detached the hand and affixed it to the bell-cord
hanging in his alcove.
“That is better,” he said. “This hand, like the ‘Brother, all must die,’
of the Trappists, will give my thoughts a serious turn every night
before I sleep.”
At the end of an hour I left him and returned to my own apartment.
I slept badly the following night, was nervous and agitated, and several
times awoke with a start. Once I imagined, even, that a man had broken
into my room, and I sprang up and searched the closets and under the
bed. Towards six o’clock in the morning I was commencing to doze at
last, when a loud knocking at my door made me jump from my couch. It was
my friend Pierre’s servant, half dressed, pale and trembling.
“Ah, sir!” cried he, sobbing, “my poor master. Someone has murdered
him.”
I dressed myself hastily and ran to Pierre’s lodgings. The house was
full of people disputing together, and everything was in a commotion.
Everyone was talking at the same time, recounting and commenting on the
occurrence in all sorts of ways. With great difficulty I reached the
bedroom, made myself known to those guarding the door and was permitted
to enter. Four agents of police were standing in the middle of the
apartment, pencils in hand, examining every detail, conferring in low
voices and writing from time to time in their note-books. Two doctors
were in consultation by the bed on which lay the unconscious form of
Pierre. He was not dead, but his face was fixed in an expression of the
most awful terror. His eyes were open their widest, and the dilated
pupils seemed to regard fixedly, with unspeakable horror, something
unknown and frightful. His hands were clinched. I raised the quilt,
which covered his body from the chin downward, and saw on his neck,
deeply sunk in the flesh, the marks of fingers. Some drops of blood
spotted his shirt. At that moment one thing struck me. I chanced to
notice that the shriveled hand was no longer attached to the bell-cord.
The doctors had doubtless removed it to avoid the comments of those
entering the chamber where the wounded man lay, because the appearance
of this hand was indeed frightful. I did not inquire what had become of
it.
I now clip from a newspaper of the next day the story of the crime with
all the details that the police were able to procure:
“A frightful attempt was made yesterday on the life of young M. Pierre
B., student, who belongs to one of the best families in Normandy. He
returned home about ten o’clock in the evening, and excused his valet,
Bouvin, from further attendance upon him, saying that he felt fatigued
and was going to bed. Towards midnight Bouvin was suddenly awakened by
the furious ringing of his master’s bell. He was afraid, and lighted a
lamp and waited. The bell was silent about a minute, then rang again
with such vehemence that the domestic, mad with fright, flew from his
room to awaken the concierge, who ran to summon the police, and, at the
end of about fifteen minutes, two policemen forced open the door. A
horrible sight met their eyes. The furniture was overturned, giving
evidence of a fearful struggle between the victim and his assailant. In
the middle of the room, upon his back, his body rigid, with livid face
and frightfully dilated eyes, lay, motionless, young Pierre B., bearing
upon his neck the deep imprints of five fingers. Dr. Bourdean was called
immediately, and his report says that the aggressor must have been
possessed of prodigious strength and have had an extraordinarily thin
and sinewy hand, because the fingers left in the flesh of the victim
five holes like those from a pistol ball, and had penetrated until they
almost met. There is no clue to the motive of the crime or to its
perpetrator. The police are making a thorough investigation.”
The following appeared in the same newspaper next day:
“M. Pierre B., the victim of the frightful assault of which we published
an account yesterday, has regained consciousness after two hours of the
most assiduous care by Dr. Bourdean. His life is not in danger, but it
is strongly feared that he has lost his reason. No trace has been found
of his assailant.”
My poor friend was indeed insane. For seven months I visited him daily
at the hospital where we had placed him, but he did not recover the
light of reason. In his delirium strange words escaped him, and, like
all madmen, he had one fixed idea: he believed himself continually
pursued by a specter. One day they came for me in haste, saying he was
worse, and when I arrived I found him dying. For two hours he remained
very calm, then, suddenly, rising from his bed in spite of our efforts,
he cried, waving his arms as if a prey to the most awful terror: “Take
it away! Take it away! It strangles me! Help! Help!” Twice he made the
circuit of the room, uttering horrible screams, then fell face downward,
dead.
* * * * *
As he was an orphan I was charged to take his body to the little village
of P., in Normandy, where his parents were buried. It was the place from
which he had arrived the evening he found us drinking punch in Louis
R.’s room, when he had presented to us the flayed hand. His body was
inclosed in a leaden coffin, and four days afterwards I walked sadly
beside the old cure, who had given him his first lessons, to the little
cemetery where they dug his grave. It was a beautiful day, and sunshine
from a cloudless sky flooded the earth. Birds sang from the blackberry
bushes where many a time when we were children we had stolen to eat the
fruit. Again I saw Pierre and myself creeping along behind the hedge and
slipping through the gap that we knew so well, down at the end of the
little plot where they bury the poor. Again we would return to the house
with cheeks and lips black with the juice of the berries we had eaten. I
looked at the bushes; they were covered with fruit; mechanically I
picked some and bore it to my mouth. The cure had opened his breviary,
and was muttering his prayers in a low voice. I heard at the end of the
walk the spades of the grave-diggers who were opening the tomb. Suddenly
they called out, the cure closed his book, and we went to see what they
wished of us. They had found a coffin; in digging a stroke of the
pickaxe had started the cover, and we perceived within a skeleton of
unusual stature, lying on its back, its hollow eyes seeming yet to
menace and defy us. I was troubled, I know not why, and almost afraid.
“Hold!” cried one of the men, “look there! One of the rascal’s hands has
been severed at the wrist. Ah, here it is!” and he picked up from beside
the body a huge withered hand, and held it out to us.
“See,” cried the other, laughing, “see how he glares at you, as if he
would spring at your throat to make you give him back his hand.”
“Go,” said the cure, “leave the dead in peace, and close the coffin. We
will make poor Pierre’s grave elsewhere.”
The next day all was finished, and I returned to Paris, after having
left fifty francs with the old cure for masses to be said for the repose
of the soul of him whose sepulchre we had troubled.
THE VENGEANCE OF A TREE.
BY ELEANOR F. LEWIS.
Through the windows of Jim Daly’s saloon, in the little town of C----,
the setting sun streamed in yellow patches, lighting up the glasses
scattered on the tables and the faces of several men who were gathered
near the bar. Farmers mostly they were, with a sprinkling of
shopkeepers, while prominent among them was the village editor, and all
were discussing a startling piece of news that had spread through the
town and its surroundings. The tidings that Walter Stedman, a laborer on
Albert Kelsey’s ranch, had assaulted and murdered his employer’s
daughter, had reached them, and had spread universal horror among the
people.
A farmer declared that he had seen the deed committed as he walked
through a neighboring lane, and, having always been noted for his
cowardice, instead of running to the girl’s aid, had hailed a party of
miners who were returning from their mid-day meal through a field near
by. When they reached the spot, however, where Stedman (as they
supposed) had done his black deed, only the girl lay there, in the
stillness of death. Her murderer had taken the opportunity to fly. The
party had searched the woods of the Kelsey estate, and just as they were
nearing the house itself the appearance of Walter Stedman, walking in a
strangely unsteady manner toward it, made them quicken their pace.
He was soon in custody, although he had protested his innocence of the
crime. He said that he had just seen the body himself on his way to the
station, and that when they had found him he was going to the house for
help. But they had laughed at his story and had flung him into the tiny,
stifling calaboose of the town.
What were their proofs? Walter Stedman, a young fellow of about
twenty-six, had come from the city to their quiet town, just when times
were at their hardest, in search of work. The most of the men living in
the town were honest fellows, doing their work faithfully, when they
could get it, and when they had socially asked Stedman to have a drink
with them, he had refused in rather a scornful manner. “That infernal
city chap,” he was called, and their hate and envy increased in strength
when Albert Kelsey had employed him in preference to any of themselves.
As time went on, the story of Stedman’s admiration for Margaret Kelsey
had gone afloat, with the added information that his employer’s
daughter had repulsed him, saying that she would not marry a common
laborer. So Stedman, when this news reached his employer’s ears, was
discharged, and this, then, was his revenge! For them, these proofs were
sufficient to pronounce him guilty.
Yet that afternoon, as Stedman, crouched on the floor of the calaboose,
grew hopeless in the knowledge that no one would believe his story, and
that his undeserved punishment would be swift and sure, a tramp,
boarding a freight car several miles from the town, sped away from the
spot where his crime had been committed, and knew that forever its
shadow would follow him.
From the tiny window of his prison Walter Stedman could see the red glow
of the heavens that betokened the setting of the sun. So the red sun of
his life was soon to set, a life that had been innocent of all crime,
and that now was to be ended for a deed that he had never committed.
Most prominent of all the visions that swept through his mind was that
of Margaret Kelsey, lying as he had first found her, fresh from the
hands of her murderer. But there was another of a more tender nature.
How long he and Margaret had tried to keep their secret, until Walter
could be promoted to a higher position, so that he could ask for her
hand with no fear of the father’s antagonism! Then came the remembrance
of an afternoon meeting between the two in the woods of the Kelsey
estate--how, just as they were parting, Walter had heard footsteps near
them, and, glancing sharply around, saw an evil, scowling, murderous
face peering through the brush. He had started toward it, but the owner
of the countenance had taken himself hurriedly off.
The gossiping townspeople had misconstrued this romance, and when Albert
Kelsey had heard of this clandestine meeting from the man who was later
on to appear as a leader of the mob, and that he had discharged Stedman,
they had believed that the young man had formally proposed and had been
rejected. But justice had gone wrong, as it had done innumerable times
before, and will again. An innocent man was to be hanged, even without
the comfort of a trial, while the man who was guilty was free to wander
where he would.
That autumn night the darkness came quickly, and only the stars did
their best to light the scene. A body of men, all masked, and having as
a leader one who had ever since Stedman’s arrival in town, cherished a
secret hatred of the young man, dragged Stedman from the calaboose and
tramped through the town, defying all, defying even God himself. Along
the highway, and into Farmer Brown’s “cross cut,” they went, vigilantly
guarding their prisoner, who, with the lanterns lighting up his haggard
face, walked among them with the lagging step of utter hopelessness.
“That’s a good tree,” their leader said, presently, stopping and
pointing out a spreading oak; when the slipknot was adjusted and Stedman
had stepped on the box, he added: “If you’ve got anything to say, you’d
better say it now.”
“I am innocent, I swear before God,” the doomed man answered; “I never
took the life of Margaret Kelsey.”
“Give us your proof,” jeered the leader, and when Stedman kept a
despairing silence, he laughed shortly.
“Ready, men!” he gave the order. The box was kicked aside, and
then--only a writhing body swung to and fro in the gloom.
In front of the men stood their leader, watching the contortions of the
body with silent glee. “I’ll tell you a secret, boys,” he said suddenly.
“I was after that poor murdered girl myself. A d---- little chance I
had; but, by ----, he had just as little!”
A pause--then: “He’s shunted this earth. Cut him down, you fellows!”
* * * * *
“It’s no use, son. I’ll give up the blasted thing as a bad job. There’s
something queer about that there tree. Do you see how its branches
balance it? We have cut the trunk nearly in two, but it won’t come down.
There’s plenty of others around; we’ll take one of them. If I’d a long
rope with me I’d get that tree down, and yet the way the thing stands it
would be risking a fellow’s life to climb it. It’s got the devil in it,
sure.”
So old Farmer Brown shouldered his axe and made for another tree, his
son following. They had sawed and chopped and chopped and sawed, and yet
the tall white oak, with its branches jutting out almost as regularly as
if done by the work of a machine, stood straight and firm.
Farmer Brown, well known for his weak, cowardly spirit, who in beholding
the murder of Albert Kelsey’s daughter, had in his fright mistaken the
criminal, now in his superstition let the oak stand, because its
well-balanced position saved it from falling, when other trees would
have been down. And so this tree, the same one to which an innocent man
had been hanged, was left--for other work.
It was a bleak, rainy night--such a night as can be found only in
central California. The wind howled like a thousand demons, and lashed
the trees together in wild embraces. Now and then the weird “hoot,
hoot!” of an owl came softly from the distance in the lulls of the
storm, while the barking of coyotes woke the echoes of the hills into
sounds like fiendish laughter.
In the wind and rain a man fought his path through the bush and into
Farmer Brown’s “cross cut,” as the shortest way home. Suddenly he
stopped, trembling, as if held by some unseen impulse. Before him rose
the white oak, wavering and swaying in the storm.
“Good God! it’s the tree I swung Stedman from!” he cried, and a strange
fear thrilled him.
His eyes were fixed on it, held by some undefinable fascination. Yes,
there on one of the longest branches a small piece of rope still
dangled. And then, to the murderer’s excited vision, this rope seemed to
lengthen, to form at the end into a slipknot, a knot that encircled a
purple neck, while below it writhed and swayed the body of a man!
“Damn him!” he muttered, starting toward the hanging form, as if about
to help the rope in its work of strangulation; “will he forever follow
me? And yet he deserved it, the black-hearted villain! He took her
life----”
He never finished the sentence. The white oak, towering above him in its
strength, seemed to grow like a frenzied, living creature. There was a
sudden splitting sound, then came a crash, and under the fallen tree lay
Stedman’s murderer, crushed and mangled.
From between the broken trunk and the stump that was left, a gray, dim
shape sprang out, and sped past the man’s still form, away into the wild
blackness of the night.
THE PARLOR-CAR GHOST.
All draped with blue denim--the seaside cottage of my friend, Sara Pyne.
She asked me to go there with her when she opened it to have it set in
order for the summer. She confessed that she felt a trifle nervous at
the idea of entering it alone. And I am always ready for an excursion.
So much blue denim rather surprised me, because blue is not
complimentary to Sara’s complexion--she always wears some shade of red,
by preference. She perceived my wonder; she is very near-sighted, and
therefore sees everything by some sort of sixth sense.
“You do not like my portieres and curtains and table-covers,” said she.
“Neither do I. But I did it to accommodate. And now he rests well in his
grave, I hope.”
“Whose grave, for pity’s sake?”
“Mr. J. Billington Price’s.”
“And who is he? He doesn’t sound interesting.”
“Then I will tell you about him,” said Sara, taking a seat directly in
front of one of those curtains. “Last autumn I was leaving this place
for New York, traveling on the fast express train known as the Flying
Yankee. Of course, I thought of the Flying Dutchman and Wagner’s musical
setting of the uncanny legend, and how different things are in these
days of steam, etc. Then I looked out of the window at the landscape,
the horizon that seemed to wheel in a great curve as the train sped on.
Every now and then I had an impression at the ‘tail of the eye’ that a
man was sitting in a chair three or four numbers in front of me on the
opposite side of the car. Each time that I saw this shape I looked at
the chair and ascertained that it was unoccupied. But it was an odd
trick of vision. I raised my lorgnette, and the chair showed emptier
than before. There was nobody in it, certainly. But the more I knew that
it was vacant the more plainly I saw the man. Always with the corner of
my eye. It made me nervous. When passengers entered the car I dreaded
lest they might take that seat. What would happen if they should? A bag
was put in the chair--that made me uncomfortable. The bag was removed at
the next station. Then a baby was placed in the seat. It began to laugh
as though someone had gently tickled it. There was something odd about
that chair--thirteen was its number. When I looked away from it the
impression was strong upon me that some person sitting there was
watching me.
“Really, it would not do to humor such fancies. So I touched the
electric button, asked the porter to bring me a table, and taking from
my bag a pack of cards, proceeded to divert myself with a game of
patience. I was puzzling where to put a seven of spades. ‘Where can it
go?’ I murmured to myself. A voice behind me prompted: ‘Play the four of
diamonds on the five, and you can do it.’ I started. The only occupants
of the car, besides me, were a bridal couple, a mother with three little
children, and a typical preacher of one of the straitest sects. Who had
spoken? ‘Play up the four, madam,’ repeated this voice.