Genre Horror. Page - 5

Rome. What his name or his rank, I do not know. I do not care. He might have been a faithful unknown warrior of mine, he might have been an outlaw. I only know that he was mine; the first scents he knew were the scents of the heather; the first light he saw was the sunrise on the Pictish hills. He belonged to me, not to Rome. If punishment was just, then none but me should have dealt it. If he were to be tried, none but me should have been his judge. The same blood flowed in our veins; the same fire maddened our brains; in infancy we listened to the same old tales, and in youth we sang the same old songs. He was bound to my heartstrings, as every man and every woman and every child of Pictland is bound. It was mine to protect him; now it is mine to avenge him."

"But in the name of the gods, Bran," expostulated the wizard, "take your vengeance in another way! Return to the heather--mass your warriors--join with Cormac and his Gaels, and spread a sea of blood and flame the length of the great Wall!"

but howsomever they say he was very jealous, and behaved very ill to the poor lady, and locked her up, and there she was brought to bed, and the child was taken from her, and so she died, and 'twas said the child died, and so every body believes 'tis their ghosts that make such dismal noises in the castle, for soon after my Lord the Count went away, Joseph who worked under the gardener, was ordered to take care of the house; and I lived then under the cook, so we married: all the other servants were discharged, and so we have lived here ever since. My Lord came here once or twice, but the ghosts made such a noise he could not stay. Several gentry have slept here at times, but no body would stay a second night, and so we have all to ourselves by day, and the ghosts, or what they be, have got all the rooms by night and then they be quiet enough.' 'Pray,' interrogated the lady, 'can I walk through the rooms and examine the opposite wing?' 'To be sure, madam, you can, if you be so bold, but neither I nor Joseph e

sum invalue five times the fortune which she has a right to expect from herhusband. This shall lie in your hands, together with her dowry, and youmay apply the united sum as suits her interest best; it shall be allexclusively hers while she lives: is that liberal?"

Douw assented, and inwardly acknowledged that fortune had beenextraordinarily kind to his niece; the stranger, he thought, must beboth wealthy and generous, and such an offer was not to be despised,though made by a humourist, and one of no very prepossessing presence.Rose had no very high pretensions for she had but a modest dowry, whichshe owed entirely to the generosity of her uncle; neither had she anyright to raise exceptions on the score of birth, for her own origin wasfar from splendid, and as the other objections, Gerald resolved, andindeed, by the usages of the time, was warranted in resolving, not tolisten to them for a moment.

"Sir" said he, addressing the stranger, "your offer is liberal, andwhatever hesitation I may

at my appearance did no discredit to Sullivan and the great lady, his wife.

At eight o'clock, when the conductor appeared at his desk to an accompaniment of applauding taps from the musicians, the house was nearly full. The four tiers sent forth a sparkle of diamonds, of silk, and of white arms and shoulders which rivalled the glitter of the vast crystal chandelier. The wide floor of serried stalls (those stalls of which one pair at least had gone for six pound ten) added their more sombre brilliance to the show, while far above, stretching away indefinitely to the very furthest roof, was the gallery (where but for Sullivan I should have been), a mass of black spotted with white faces.

Excitement was in the air: the expectation of seeing once again Rosetta Rosa, the girl with the golden throat, the mere girl who, two years ago, had in one brief month captured London, and who now, after a period of petulance, had decided to recapture London. On ordinary nights, for the inhabitants of boxes, the O

ttwelve paces distant; when, abruptly, the silent figure made three quickstrides to the port rail, and climbed over it into the sea.

I rushed to the side, and stared over; but nothing met my gaze, exceptthe shadow of the ship, sweeping over the moonlit sea.

How long I stared down blankly into the water, it would be impossible tosay; certainly for a good minute. I felt blank--just horribly blank. Itwas such a beastly confirmation of the unnaturalness of the thing Ihad concluded to be only a sort of brain fancy. I seemed, for thatlittle time, deprived, you know, of the power of coherent thought. Isuppose I was dazed--mentally stunned, in a way.

As I have said, a minute or so must have gone, while I had been staringinto the dark of the water under the ship's side. Then, I came suddenlyto my ordinary self. The Second Mate was singing out: "Lee fore brace."

I went to the braces, like a chap in a dream.

II

What Tammy the 'Prentice Saw

The next morning, in my w

from a sturdy infant had become a sickly, spindling lad. In this year the servant Mehitabel died, and the other servant, Preserved Smith, left without coherent explanation--or at least, with only some wild tales and a complaint that he disliked the smell of the place. For a time Mercy could secure no more help, since the seven deaths and case of madness, all occurring within five years' space, had begun to set in motion the body of fireside rumor which later became so bizarre. Ultimately, however, she obtained new servants from out of town; Ann White, a morose woman from that part of North Kingstown now set off as the township of Exeter, and a capable Boston man named Zenas Low.

* * * * *

It was Ann White who first gave definite shape to the sinister idle talk. Mercy should have known better than to hire anyone from the Nooseneck Hill country, for that remote bit of backwoods was then, as now, a seat of the most uncomfortable superstitions. As lately as 1892 an Exeter community exhumed a dead bo

easiness, I could not close my eyes. That hateful, hideous Coppelius stood before me with his glittering eyes, smiling maliciously down upon me; in vain did I strive to banish the image. Somewhere about midnight there was a terrific crack, as if a cannon were being fired off. The whole house shook; something went rustling and clattering past my door; the house door was pulled to with a bang. "That is Coppelius," I cried, terror-struck, and leapt out of bed. Then I heard a wild heartrending scream; I rushed into my father's room; the door stood open, and clouds of suffocating smoke came rolling towards me. The servant-maid shouted, "Oh! my master! my master! On the floor in front of the smoking hearth lay my father, dead, his face burned black and fearfully distorted, my sisters weeping and moaning around him, and my mother lying near them in a swoon. "Coppelius, you atrocious fiend, you've killed my father," I shouted. My senses left me. Two days later, when my father was placed in his coffin; his features we

plied incoherently and evasively; it was as if he knew something terrible, something dreadful, but did not wish to speak of it. Eventually he retired to his own apartments, but it was not until several hours had passed that he returned to his normal condition of mind.

The same doctor who had been summoned on the occasion of Wilhelm's former encounter with the White Lady was in attendance on him, and he looked extremely grave when informed that the Emperor had again experienced a mysterious shock. He shut himself up alone with his royal patient, forbidding any one else access to the private apartments. However, in spite of all precautions, the story of what had really occurred in the picture gallery eventually leaked out--it is said through a maid of honour, who heard it from the Empress.

The third appearance of the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns to the Kaiser did not take place at either of the palaces, but strangely enough, in a forest, though exactly where situated has not been satisfactorily

"That is Mt. Togonda," he answered, pointing to the hills before them, "and this," swinging his hand around the plateau on which the camp's tents were pitched, "is La Plaza del Carabaos."

The captain's eyes met those of Lieutenant Smith.

"La Plaza del Carabaos" means "The Square of the Water Buffalos."

As if with one thought the two men turned and looked out to sea. The sun had set. Against the glowing western sky a huge rock at the plateau's farthest limit was outlined. Rough-carved as the rock had been by the chisel of nature, the likeness to a water buffalo's head was striking. Beyond the rock three islands lay in a line upon the sunset-lighted water. Far out from the foot of the cliff the two men could hear the waves beating upon the sand.

"This is an excellent place for a camp," the captain said when he turned to his men again. "I think we shall find it best to stay here for some time."

Perhaps a month of respite from attack had made the sentries careless; perhap

windows, andI bought that something might be wrong. I am very glad I did so, sinceit has given me the chance of making the general's acquaintance."

Whilst I was talking, I was conscious that the new tenant of CloomberHall was peering at me very closely through the darkness. As Iconcluded, he stretched out a long, tremulous arm, and turned thegig-lamp in such a way as to throw a flood of light upon my face.

"Good Heavens, McNeil!" he cried, in the same quivering voice as before,"the fellow's as brown as chocolate. He's not an Englishman. You'renot an Englishman--you, sir?"

"I'm a Scotchman, born and bred," said I, with an inclination to laugh,which was only checked by my new acquaintance's obvious terror.

"A Scotchman, eh?" said he, with a sigh of relief. "It's all onenowadays. You must excuse me, Mr.--Mr. West. I'm nervous, infernallynervous. Come along, McNeil, we must be back in Wigtown in less than anhour. Good-night, gentlemen, good-night!"

The two clambered into their pl