THE STAGE OF HAUNTINGS
Much to the relief of the trio, the end of stage three was at length
reached--and, thanks to Hamar, reached without further mishap. To keep
Curtis and Kelson up to the mark, Hamar had worked indefatigably. He
had never relaxed his efforts in the strict watch he kept over them,
and he had unceasingly impressed upon them, the vital importance of
obeying, to the very letter, the instructions they had received from
the Unknown.
The part he had thus taken upon himself, the difficulties he had to
encounter in this unceasing vigilance, had produced a new Hamar--a
Hamar that was a personality; a personality so utterly unlike the
old Hamar--the meek and servile clerk--as to make one wonder if
there could possibly be two Hamars--outwardly and physically the
same--inwardly and psychologically diametrically opposed. A year ago,
Curtis and Kelson would have ridiculed the idea of being afraid of
Hamar--such an idea would have struck them as simply absurd; but they
were afraid of him now, they dreaded his anger more than anything,
more even than the prospect of infringing their compact with the
Unknown.
"We have made pots of money," Curtis remarked one day. "Why can't we
give up work and enjoy it?"
"Because I say no!" Hamar hissed. "No! We can't give up--not, at
least, until the last stage has been safely gone through. To give up
now would be to break the compact!"
"Well, why not?" Curtis mumbled.
"Why not!" Hamar cried. "Heavens, man, can't you understand! Can you
form no conception of what failure to keep the compact means? Has the
memory of that night--of that tree and all the foul things it
suggested, passed completely out of your mind? It hasn't out of
mine--it is as clear now as it was then. And often--mark this, both of
you--often when I am alone in the night, I see queer luminous
shapes--shapes of repulsive vegetable growths--of polyps--and of
disgusting tongues that come towards me through the gloom and circle
slowly round the bed, whilst the whole room vibrates with soft,
mocking laughter! You know how mirrors shine in the moonlight. Well,
the other night, when I looked at mine, I saw in it the reflection,
not of a face, but of two light evil eyes that looked at me
and--smiled! Smiled with a smile that said more plainly than words, 'I
am waiting!' and that is what the shapes, and the very atmosphere of
the place at night always seem to say--'We are waiting! You are
enjoying the joke now--we shall enjoy it later on!' If we knew exactly
what was in store for us it wouldn't be so bad, but it is the
vagueness of it, the vagueness of the horrors that the Unknown has
hinted at, that makes it so appalling! We may die awful deaths--or we
may not die AT ALL--the shapes, indefinite and misty no longer, but
materialized--wholly and entirely materialized--may come for us and
take us away with them! And it is to prevent this, that I am urging
you, compelling you, to stick to the compact, and give the Unknown no
loophole! Think of the tremendous rewards, if we succeed in passing
through the last stage! As I have said before, Curtis need do nothing
else but eat, whilst you, Matt, can become a Mormon and marry all the
pretty girls in London!"
This speech had the desired effect, and nothing more--for the time at
least--was said about retiring.
"Do you think Leon is quite--er--like--er--like us?" Kelson said, when
Hamar left them, after administering his admonition. "At times he
hardly looks human. His face is such a funny colour, such a lurid
yellow, and his eyes, so piercing! He gives me the jumps! I can't bear
to think of him at night!"
"Rubbish," Curtis growled. "You imagine it. There's nothing of the
spook about Leon! He's of this world and nothing but this world."
It was odd, however, that from that time he, too, began to have the
same feeling--the feeling that Hamar was perpetually watching
them--watching them awake and watching them asleep! Curtis awoke one
night to see, standing on his hearth, a shadowy figure with a lurid
yellow face and two gleaming dark eyes, which were fixed on him. He
called out, and it vanished!
"Of course it's the nut steak!" And thus he tried to assure himself.
But he was badly scared all the same.
Another night, he saw some one, he took to be Hamar, peeping at him
from behind the window curtains. He threw a slipper at the figure, and
the slipper went right through it. If Hamar's phantom had been the
only thing he saw, he would not have minded much; but both he and
Kelson soon began to see and hear other things. Curtis frequently saw
half-materialized forms, forms of men with cone-shaped heads and
peculiarly formed limbs, stealing up the staircase in front of him,
and, turning into his bedroom, vanish there. He heard them moving
about, long after he had got into bed. Sometimes they would glide up
to the bed and bend over him, and though he could never see their
eyes, he could feel they were fixed mockingly on him. Once he saw the
door of his wardrobe slowly open, and a white something with a
dreadful face--half human and half animal--steal slyly out and
disappear in the wall opposite. And once when he put out his hand to
feel for the matches, they were gently thrust into his palm, whilst
the walls of the room shook with laughter.
Kelson was equally tormented, though the phenomena took rather a
different form. Alone in his bedroom at night, the shape of the room
would frequently change; either the walls and ceiling would recede,
and recede, until they assumed the proportions of some vast chamber,
full of gloom and strange shadows; or they would slowly, very slowly,
close in upon him, as if it were their intention to crush him to
death. A feeling of suffocation would come over him, and he would
gasp, choke, beat the air with his arms, be at the verge of losing
consciousness, when there would be a loud, mocking laugh--and the
walls and ceiling would be in their proper places again. At other
times he would see strange figures on the wall--numbers of circles,
that would keep on revolving in the most bewildering fashion. Then,
suddenly, they would leave the wall and slowly approach him,
increasing in circumference; and the same thing would happen, as
happened with the wall and ceiling; he would undergo the whole
sensation of asphyxiation, and be on the brink of swooning, when there
would be a loud peal of evil, satirical laughter, and the circles
would instantly disappear.
Sometimes the bedclothes would assume extraordinary shapes; sometimes
the articles on his dressing-table; sometimes his clothes; and once,
when he was about to put on his bedroom slippers, he found them
already occupied--occupied by icy cold feet. Another time, when he put
out his hand to take hold of a tumbler, he put it on the back of
another hand--smooth, cold and pulpy!
Hardly a night passed without some sort of manifestation happening to
one or other of the trio, and even Curtis--fat and stolid
Curtis--began to lose flesh and look harassed.
On the eve of the initiation into stage four, the three, separating
for the night, retired to their respective quarters in a far from
pleasant state of expectation.
Hamar was undressing, when there came a loud ring at the telephone,
outside his door.
"Holloa!" he called out, "who are you?"
"Are you Mr. Hamar?" a voice asked, breathlessly.
Hamar replied in the affirmative, and the voice continued--
"I'm Mrs. Anderson-Waite, of 30 Queen's Mansions, Queen's Gate. I have
been holding a séance here, with some of my friends, and most
extraordinary things have happened, and are still happening. There are
violent knockings on the wall and ceiling, and the table has become
positively dangerous. It has repeatedly sprung into the air, and
savagely assaulted several of the sitters. It has thrown one lady on
to the floor, and despite our efforts to prevent it, has rampled on
her so viciously that she is badly hurt, and the doctor who has just
arrived thinks very seriously of it. We wanted to stop, but some
strange power seems to be forcing us to go on. The table has rapped
out your name and address, and says it has something important to
communicate with you, and that unless you come here at once, it won't
answer for the consequences."
"All right!" Hamar said. "I'll come. I'll be with you in less than
half an hour."
When Hamar arrived at Queen's Mansions, he found a terrified party of
ladies awaiting him in the entrance to the flat.
"Thank goodness, you've come!" they exclaimed, all together. "We've
been having an awful time. The table has driven us out of the
drawing-room--it is obsessed by a devil."
"Let me have a look at it," Hamar said, "and I'll soon tell you."
The leader of the party, Mrs. Anderson-Waite, very cautiously opened
the drawing-room door, and Hamar peered in. In the centre of the room
was a large, round, ebony table, that commenced to rock, in the most
sinister fashion, the moment Hamar looked at it.
"It evidently wants to speak with me," Hamar said; "you had better
leave me here with it for a few minutes."
"Do take care," Mrs. Anderson-Waite said, as she shut the door. "It
may want to murder you. If it does, ring this bell, and we will all
come to your assistance."
Hamar gave her an assuring smile, but he was by no means as much at
ease as he pretended to be. He stood staring at the table, too
fascinated to take his eyes off it, and too afraid to move.
At length, however, pulling himself together, and convinced the table
was the medium, through which the Unknown wished to give him fresh
instructions, he stealthily approached it. He addressed it, and it
rapped out to him that he must at once obtain pen and ink and take
down what it wished to say.
Obtaining the requisite materials from Mrs. Anderson-Waite, he sat
down and was preparing to write on his knee, when the table told him
to rub its surface briskly with his left hand, to trace on it the
three Atlantean symbols, _i.e._ a club foot, a hand with the fingers
clenched and the long pointed thumb standing upright, and a bat--and
then--to place his paper on it, and transcribe what it had to say.
Hamar obeyed, and after sitting for exactly three minutes with his
pencil between his fingers, he felt a cold, pulpy hand laid over his,
impelling him to write with lightning-like rapidity. The script read
as follows:--
"To Hamar, Curtis and Kelson--to the three of you in common--is given
the knowledge of inflicting all manner of torments and diseases, of
imparting all kinds of injurious properties, and of causing plagues.
"In the first place, you must understand that the essence of life,
comprising the psychical, psychological and physical, permeates every
part of the living corporeal body--and that any limb, or fragment of
skin or flesh, cut off from the living corporeal body, retains the
essence of life, comprising the psychical and physical in its full
vigour and entirety. Consequently, if a person have grafted on to them
a piece of skin or flesh, or be inoculated with the blood or veins of
a tiger--then that person not merely becomes liable to all the
physical infirmities of the tiger, but may--if the counteracting
influences are not sufficiently strong--partake of all the tiger's
psychological characteristics.
"Thus, if you give a person, in whom there is a latent tendency to
drink, a drop of a drunkard's blood--in a glass of wine, or sweet, or
pill, no matter what--that person will at once take to drink.
Thus--mark you--people can be metamorphosed into libertines, suicides,
idiots and murderers. This metamorphosis can also be produced by means
of a magnet called the 'magnes microcosmi,' which is prepared from
substances that have had a long association with the human body, and
are penetrated by its vitality. Such substances are the hair and
blood. Take either one of them, and dry it in a shady and moderately
warm place, until it has lost its humidity and odour. By this process
it will have lost, too, all its mumia--that is to say, its essence of
life--and is hungry to regain it. It is now a magnes microcosmi, or a
magnet for attracting diseases and properties, and if it be placed in
close contact with a criminal or lunatic, it will be filled with his
essence of life, and may then be used as a means of infecting other
people with his pernicious qualities. Bury it under the doorstep of
the person you wish infected, or hide it in his house, or mix it well
with earth, and plant a shrub in the earth, and the vitality the
magnet took from the criminal or lunatic will pass into the plant; and
if the plant, or even flower of the plant, be given to any one, that
person--unless she or he be a person absolutely free from the germs of
vice--will be attracted to it, and greatly affected by it.
"Or again, the earth over the grave of a lunatic or criminal will
contain his essence of life, _i.e._ his vitality, which impregnates
everything around it, and if that earth be placed somewhere in the
immediate presence of a person, in whom there are latent tendencies to
vice--then that person will be affected by it.
"And through these methods of using the essence of life, that is
impregnated with the disease you wish to inflict--you may infect
people with all kinds of incurable ailments.
"But a quicker, and equally sure method of smiting people with
disease, such as cancer, fever, epilepsy, apoplexy, etc.; of smiting
them blind, deaf, dumb, lame, etc.; or bringing upon them all kinds of
accidents, is to make an image of the person you wish to torment, and,
setting it in front of you, preferably, at times when the moon is new,
or in conjunction with Venus, Mars or Saturn, concentrate with all
your will on whatever injury you wish to inflict. If, for example, you
desire the person to become blind, stick a pin, or thorn, or nail in
the eyes of the image; if deaf, in its ears; if maimed, cut a limb off
the image; if to have a certain disease, will very earnestly that he
or she shall have that disease. You may thus, too, torment the object
of your aversion with plagues of insects and vermin.
"If you desire to bewitch your neighbour's milk, wine, or any food he
or she has, you may do it by placing the mumia, _i.e._ the vehicle
containing the essence of life of some criminal or lunatic, in the
immediate vicinity of the food, etc.; or in the case of milk, by
giving it to the cow to eat; or you may accomplish your design simply
by means of concentration and an image.
"Always, however, whatever methods you employ, prelude them with this
prayer: 'I conjure thee, Great Unknown Power that is Antagonistic to
man, that was at the Beginning, that is now, that always will be; by
the winds and rain, and thunder and lightning; by the swirling rivers;
by the Moon; by the sinister influence of the Moon with Venus, Mars
and Saturn; help me obtain the perfect issue of all my desires, which
I seek to perform solely for the furtherment of what is detrimental to
humanity. Amen.' And conclude them with the signs of the foot, the
hand and the bat. If you desire to know anything further it will be
unfolded to you in your dreams."
The hand that had been laid on Hamar's was now removed. The writing
ceased. The table rose several inches from the floor, and struck the
latter three times in quick, violent succession. Then it remained
quiet, and Hamar knew, by a subtle change in the atmosphere, that all
occult manifestations--for that night at least--were at an end. The
ladies were, of course, dying to know what had happened; and like most
ladies, who dabble in spiritualism, were ready to believe anything
they were told. Hamar, who had no intention whatever of telling them
what had actually occurred, satisfied them admirably.
He went home delighted--far too delighted to sleep--for he had in his
possession now the greatest of all weapons--the weapon to torment. And
with it what could he not do! What could he not get! He could
get--Gladys!