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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Spirits and White, by Ralph Adams Cram
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Spirits and White
+       A Book of Ghost Stories
+
+Author: Ralph Adams Cram
+
+Release Date: September 22, 2008 [EBook #26687]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE
+
+
+
+
+     CARNATION SERIES
+
+   Black Spirits & White
+
+ _A Book of Ghost Stories_
+
+
+            BY
+     RALPH ADAMS CRAM
+
+
+         [Device]
+
+
+          CHICAGO
+      STONE & KIMBALL
+
+         MDCCCXCV
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
+  STONE AND KIMBALL
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. The oe
+    ligature is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+    "BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,
+      RED SPIRITS AND GRAY,
+    MINGLE, MINGLE, MINGLE,
+      YE THAT MINGLE MAY."
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+                               PAGE
+ NO. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE         3
+ IN KROPFSBERG KEEP              33
+ THE WHITE VILLA                 55
+ SISTER MADDELENA                83
+ NOTRE DAME DES EAUX            115
+ THE DEAD VALLEY                133
+ POSTSCRIPT                     151
+
+
+
+
+No. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE.
+
+
+
+
+No. 252 Rue M. le Prince.
+
+
+When in May, 1886, I found myself at last in Paris, I naturally
+determined to throw myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene
+Marie d'Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving
+word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she
+possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the
+relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging
+from Eugene's remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or
+less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic,
+at least such was the common report.
+
+Why she should leave all her property to d'Ardeche, no one could tell,
+unless it was that she felt his rather hobbledehoy tendencies towards
+Buddhism and occultism might some day lead him to her own unhallowed
+height of questionable illumination. To be sure d'Ardeche reviled her as
+a bad old woman, being himself in that state of enthusiastic exaltation
+which sometimes accompanies a boyish fancy for occultism; but in spite
+of his distant and repellent attitude, Mlle. Blaye de Tartas made him
+her sole heir, to the violent wrath of a questionable old party known to
+infamy as the Sar Torrevieja, the "King of the Sorcerers." This
+malevolent old portent, whose gray and crafty face was often seen in the
+Rue M. le Prince during the life of Mlle. de Tartas had, it seems, fully
+expected to enjoy her small wealth after her death; and when it appeared
+that she had left him only the contents of the gloomy old house in the
+Quartier Latin, giving the house itself and all else of which she died
+possessed to her nephew in America, the Sar proceeded to remove
+everything from the place, and then to curse it elaborately and
+comprehensively, together with all those who should ever dwell therein.
+
+Whereupon he disappeared.
+
+This final episode was the last word I received from Eugene, but I knew
+the number of the house, 252 Rue M. le Prince. So, after a day or two
+given to a first cursory survey of Paris, I started across the Seine to
+find Eugene and compel him to do the honors of the city.
+
+Every one who knows the Latin Quarter knows the Rue M. le Prince,
+running up the hill towards the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is full of
+queer houses and odd corners,--or was in '86,--and certainly No. 252
+was, when I found it, quite as queer as any. It was nothing but a
+doorway, a black arch of old stone between and under two new houses
+painted yellow. The effect of this bit of seventeenth-century masonry,
+with its dirty old doors, and rusty broken lantern sticking gaunt and
+grim out over the narrow sidewalk, was, in its frame of fresh plaster,
+sinister in the extreme.
+
+I wondered if I had made a mistake in the number; it was quite evident
+that no one lived behind those cobwebs. I went into the doorway of one
+of the new hôtels and interviewed the concierge.
+
+No, M. d'Ardeche did not live there, though to be sure he owned the
+mansion; he himself resided in Meudon, in the country house of the late
+Mlle. de Tartas. Would Monsieur like the number and the street?
+
+Monsieur would like them extremely, so I took the card that the
+concierge wrote for me, and forthwith started for the river, in order
+that I might take a steamboat for Meudon. By one of those coincidences
+which happen so often, being quite inexplicable, I had not gone twenty
+paces down the street before I ran directly into the arms of Eugene
+d'Ardeche. In three minutes we were sitting in the queer little garden
+of the Chien Bleu, drinking vermouth and absinthe, and talking it all
+over.
+
+"You do not live in your aunt's house?" I said at last, interrogatively.
+
+"No, but if this sort of thing keeps on I shall have to. I like Meudon
+much better, and the house is perfect, all furnished, and nothing in it
+newer than the last century. You must come out with me to-night and see
+it. I have got a jolly room fixed up for my Buddha. But there is
+something wrong with this house opposite. I can't keep a tenant in
+it,--not four days. I have had three, all within six months, but the
+stories have gone around and a man would as soon think of hiring the
+Cour des Comptes to live in as No. 252. It is notorious. The fact is,
+it is haunted the worst way."
+
+I laughed and ordered more vermouth.
+
+"That is all right. It is haunted all the same, or enough to keep it
+empty, and the funny part is that no one knows _how_ it is haunted.
+Nothing is ever seen, nothing heard. As far as I can find out, people
+just have the horrors there, and have them so bad they have to go to the
+hospital afterwards. I have one ex-tenant in the Bicêtre now. So the
+house stands empty, and as it covers considerable ground and is taxed
+for a lot, I don't know what to do about it. I think I'll either give it
+to that child of sin, Torrevieja, or else go and live in it myself. I
+shouldn't mind the ghosts, I am sure."
+
+"Did you ever stay there?"
+
+"No, but I have always intended to, and in fact I came up here to-day to
+see a couple of rake-hell fellows I know, Fargeau and Duchesne, doctors
+in the Clinical Hospital beyond here, up by the Parc Mont Souris. They
+promised that they would spend the night with me some time in my aunt's
+house,--which is called around here, you must know, 'la Bouche
+d'Enfer,'--and I thought perhaps they would make it this week, if they
+can get off duty. Come up with me while I see them, and then we can go
+across the river to Véfour's and have some luncheon, you can get your
+things at the Chatham, and we will go out to Meudon, where of course you
+will spend the night with me."
+
+The plan suited me perfectly, so we went up to the hospital, found
+Fargeau, who declared that he and Duchesne were ready for anything, the
+nearer the real "bouche d'enfer" the better; that the following Thursday
+they would both be off duty for the night, and that on that day they
+would join in an attempt to outwit the devil and clear up the mystery of
+No. 252.
+
+"Does M. l'Américain go with us?" asked Fargeau.
+
+"Why of course," I replied, "I intend to go, and you must not refuse me,
+d'Ardeche; I decline to be put off. Here is a chance for you to do the
+honors of your city in a manner which is faultless. Show me a real live
+ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having lost the Jardin Mabille."
+
+So it was settled.
+
+Later we went down to Meudon and ate dinner in the terrace room of the
+villa, which was all that d'Ardeche had said, and more, so utterly was
+its atmosphere that of the seventeenth century. At dinner Eugene told me
+more about his late aunt, and the queer goings on in the old house.
+
+Mlle. Blaye lived, it seems, all alone, except for one female servant of
+her own age; a severe, taciturn creature, with massive Breton features
+and a Breton tongue, whenever she vouchsafed to use it. No one ever was
+seen to enter the door of No. 252 except Jeanne the servant and the Sar
+Torrevieja, the latter coming constantly from none knew whither, and
+always entering, _never leaving_. Indeed, the neighbors, who for eleven
+years had watched the old sorcerer sidle crab-wise up to the bell almost
+every day, declared vociferously that _never_ had he been seen to leave
+the house. Once, when they decided to keep absolute guard, the watcher,
+none other than Maître Garceau of the Chien Bleu, after keeping his eyes
+fixed on the door from ten o'clock one morning when the Sar arrived
+until four in the afternoon, during which time the door was unopened (he
+knew this, for had he not gummed a ten-centime stamp over the joint and
+was not the stamp unbroken) nearly fell down when the sinister figure
+of Torrevieja slid wickedly by him with a dry "Pardon, Monsieur!" and
+disappeared again through the black doorway.
+
+This was curious, for No. 252 was entirely surrounded by houses, its
+only windows opening on a courtyard into which no eye could look from
+the hôtels of the Rue M. le Prince and the Rue de l'Ecole, and the
+mystery was one of the choice possessions of the Latin Quarter.
+
+Once a year the austerity of the place was broken, and the denizens of
+the whole quarter stood open-mouthed watching many carriages drive up to
+No. 252, many of them private, not a few with crests on the door panels,
+from all of them descending veiled female figures and men with coat
+collars turned up. Then followed curious sounds of music from within,
+and those whose houses joined the blank walls of No. 252 became for the
+moment popular, for by placing the ear against the wall strange music
+could distinctly be heard, and the sound of monotonous chanting voices
+now and then. By dawn the last guest would have departed, and for
+another year the hôtel of Mlle. de Tartas was ominously silent.
+
+Eugene declared that he believed it was a celebration of
+"Walpurgisnacht," and certainly appearances favored such a fancy.
+
+"A queer thing about the whole affair is," he said, "the fact that every
+one in the street swears that about a month ago, while I was out in
+Concarneau for a visit, the music and voices were heard again, just as
+when my revered aunt was in the flesh. The house was perfectly empty, as
+I tell you, so it is quite possible that the good people were enjoying
+an hallucination."
+
+I must acknowledge that these stories did not reassure me; in fact, as
+Thursday came near, I began to regret a little my determination to spend
+the night in the house. I was too vain to back down, however, and the
+perfect coolness of the two doctors, who ran down Tuesday to Meudon to
+make a few arrangements, caused me to swear that I would die of fright
+before I would flinch. I suppose I believed more or less in ghosts, I am
+sure now that I am older I believe in them, there are in fact few things
+I can _not_ believe. Two or three inexplicable things had happened to
+me, and, although this was before my adventure with Rendel in Pæstum, I
+had a strong predisposition to believe some things that I could not
+explain, wherein I was out of sympathy with the age.
+
+Well, to come to the memorable night of the twelfth of June, we had made
+our preparations, and after depositing a big bag inside the doors of No.
+252, went across to the Chien Bleu, where Fargeau and Duchesne turned up
+promptly, and we sat down to the best dinner Père Garceau could create.
+
+I remember I hardly felt that the conversation was in good taste. It
+began with various stories of Indian fakirs and Oriental jugglery,
+matters in which Eugene was curiously well read, swerved to the horrors
+of the great Sepoy mutiny, and thus to reminiscences of the
+dissecting-room. By this time we had drunk more or less, and Duchesne
+launched into a photographic and Zolaesque account of the only time (as
+he said) when he was possessed of the panic of fear; namely, one night
+many years ago, when he was locked by accident into the dissecting-room
+of the Loucine, together with several cadavers of a rather unpleasant
+nature. I ventured to protest mildly against the choice of subjects,
+the result being a perfect carnival of horrors, so that when we finally
+drank our last _crème de cacao_ and started for "la Bouche d'Enfer," my
+nerves were in a somewhat rocky condition.
+
+It was just ten o'clock when we came into the street. A hot dead wind
+drifted in great puffs through the city, and ragged masses of vapor
+swept the purple sky; an unsavory night altogether, one of those nights
+of hopeless lassitude when one feels, if one is at home, like doing
+nothing but drink mint juleps and smoke cigarettes.
+
+Eugene opened the creaking door, and tried to light one of the lanterns;
+but the gusty wind blew out every match, and we finally had to close the
+outer doors before we could get a light. At last we had all the lanterns
+going, and I began to look around curiously. We were in a long, vaulted
+passage, partly carriageway, partly footpath, perfectly bare but for the
+street refuse which had drifted in with eddying winds. Beyond lay the
+courtyard, a curious place rendered more curious still by the fitful
+moonlight and the flashing of four dark lanterns. The place had
+evidently been once a most noble palace. Opposite rose the oldest
+portion, a three-story wall of the time of Francis I., with a great
+wisteria vine covering half. The wings on either side were more modern,
+seventeenth century, and ugly, while towards the street was nothing but
+a flat unbroken wall.
+
+The great bare court, littered with bits of paper blown in by the wind,
+fragments of packing cases, and straw, mysterious with flashing lights
+and flaunting shadows, while low masses of torn vapor drifted overhead,
+hiding, then revealing the stars, and all in absolute silence, not even
+the sounds of the streets entering this prison-like place, was weird and
+uncanny in the extreme. I must confess that already I began to feel a
+slight disposition towards the horrors, but with that curious
+inconsequence which so often happens in the case of those who are
+deliberately growing scared, I could think of nothing more reassuring
+than those delicious verses of Lewis Carroll's:--
+
+    "Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice,
+      That alone should encourage the crew.
+    Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice,
+      What I tell you three times is true,"--
+
+which kept repeating themselves over and over in my brain with feverish
+insistence.
+
+Even the medical students had stopped their chaffing, and were studying
+the surroundings gravely.
+
+"There is one thing certain," said Fargeau, "_anything_ might have
+happened here without the slightest chance of discovery. Did ever you
+see such a perfect place for lawlessness?"
+
+"And _anything_ might happen here now, with the same certainty of
+impunity," continued Duchesne, lighting his pipe, the snap of the match
+making us all start. "D'Ardeche, your lamented relative was certainly
+well fixed; she had full scope here for her traditional experiments in
+demonology."
+
+"Curse me if I don't believe that those same traditions were more or
+less founded on fact," said Eugene. "I never saw this court under these
+conditions before, but I could believe anything now. What's that!"
+
+"Nothing but a door slamming," said Duchesne, loudly.
+
+"Well, I wish doors wouldn't slam in houses that have been empty eleven
+months."
+
+"It is irritating," and Duchesne slipped his arm through mine; "but we
+must take things as they come. Remember we have to deal not only with
+the spectral lumber left here by your scarlet aunt, but as well with the
+supererogatory curse of that hell-cat Torrevieja. Come on! let's get
+inside before the hour arrives for the sheeted dead to squeak and gibber
+in these lonely halls. Light your pipes, your tobacco is a sure
+protection against 'your whoreson dead bodies'; light up and move on."
+
+We opened the hall door and entered a vaulted stone vestibule, full of
+dust, and cobwebby.
+
+"There is nothing on this floor," said Eugene, "except servants' rooms
+and offices, and I don't believe there is anything wrong with them. I
+never heard that there was, any way. Let's go up stairs."
+
+So far as we could see, the house was apparently perfectly uninteresting
+inside, all eighteenth-century work, the façade of the main building
+being, with the vestibule, the only portion of the Francis I. work.
+
+"The place was burned during the Terror," said Eugene, "for my
+great-uncle, from whom Mlle. de Tartas inherited it, was a good and true
+Royalist; he went to Spain after the Revolution, and did not come back
+until the accession of Charles X., when he restored the house, and then
+died, enormously old. This explains why it is all so new."
+
+The old Spanish sorcerer to whom Mlle. de Tartas had left her personal
+property had done his work thoroughly. The house was absolutely empty,
+even the wardrobes and bookcases built in had been carried away; we went
+through room after room, finding all absolutely dismantled, only the
+windows and doors with their casings, the parquet floors, and the florid
+Renaissance mantels remaining.
+
+"I feel better," remarked Fargeau. "The house may be haunted, but it
+don't look it, certainly; it is the most respectable place imaginable."
+
+"Just you wait," replied Eugene. "These are only the state apartments,
+which my aunt seldom used, except, perhaps, on her annual
+'Walpurgisnacht.' Come up stairs and I will show you a better _mise en
+scène_."
+
+On this floor, the rooms fronting the court, the sleeping-rooms, were
+quite small,--("They are the bad rooms all the same," said
+Eugene,)--four of them, all just as ordinary in appearance as those
+below. A corridor ran behind them connecting with the wing corridor,
+and from this opened a door, unlike any of the other doors in that it
+was covered with green baize, somewhat moth-eaten. Eugene selected a key
+from the bunch he carried, unlocked the door, and with some difficulty
+forced it to swing inward; it was as heavy as the door of a safe.
+
+"We are now," he said, "on the very threshold of hell itself; these
+rooms in here were my scarlet aunt's unholy of unholies. I never let
+them with the rest of the house, but keep them as a curiosity. I only
+wish Torrevieja had kept out; as it was, he looted them, as he did the
+rest of the house, and nothing is left but the walls and ceiling and
+floor. They are something, however, and may suggest what the former
+condition must have been. Tremble and enter."
+
+The first apartment was a kind of anteroom, a cube of perhaps twenty
+feet each way, without windows, and with no doors except that by which
+we entered and another to the right. Walls, floor, and ceiling were
+covered with a black lacquer, brilliantly polished, that flashed the
+light of our lanterns in a thousand intricate reflections. It was like
+the inside of an enormous Japanese box, and about as empty. From this
+we passed to another room, and here we nearly dropped our lanterns. The
+room was circular, thirty feet or so in diameter, covered by a
+hemispherical dome; walls and ceiling were dark blue, spotted with gold
+stars; and reaching from floor to floor across the dome stretched a
+colossal figure in red lacquer of a nude woman kneeling, her legs
+reaching out along the floor on either side, her head touching the
+lintel of the door through which we had entered, her arms forming its
+sides, with the fore arms extended and stretching along the walls until
+they met the long feet. The most astounding, misshapen, absolutely
+terrifying thing, I think, I ever saw. From the navel hung a great white
+object, like the traditional roe's egg of the Arabian Nights. The floor
+was of red lacquer, and in it was inlaid a pentagram the size of the
+room, made of wide strips of brass. In the centre of this pentagram was
+a circular disk of black stone, slightly saucer-shaped, with a small
+outlet in the middle.
+
+The effect of the room was simply crushing, with this gigantic red
+figure crouched over it all, the staring eyes fixed on one, no matter
+what his position. None of us spoke, so oppressive was the whole thing.
+
+The third room was like the first in dimensions, but instead of being
+black it was entirely sheathed with plates of brass, walls, ceiling, and
+floor,--tarnished now, and turning green, but still brilliant under the
+lantern light. In the middle stood an oblong altar of porphyry, its
+longer dimensions on the axis of the suite of rooms, and at one end,
+opposite the range of doors, a pedestal of black basalt.
+
+This was all. Three rooms, stranger than these, even in their emptiness,
+it would be hard to imagine. In Egypt, in India, they would not be
+entirely out of place, but here in Paris, in a commonplace _hôtel_, in
+the Rue M. le Prince, they were incredible.
+
+We retraced our steps, Eugene closed the iron door with its baize
+covering, and we went into one of the front chambers and sat down,
+looking at each other.
+
+"Nice party, your aunt," said Fargeau. "Nice old party, with amiable
+tastes; I am glad we are not to spend the night in _those_ rooms."
+
+"What do you suppose she did there?" inquired Duchesne. "I know more or
+less about black art, but that series of rooms is too much for me."
+
+"My impression is," said d'Ardeche, "that the brazen room was a kind of
+sanctuary containing some image or other on the basalt base, while the
+stone in front was really an altar,--what the nature of the sacrifice
+might be I don't even guess. The round room may have been used for
+invocations and incantations. The pentagram looks like it. Any way it is
+all just about as queer and _fin de siècle_ as I can well imagine. Look
+here, it is nearly twelve, let's dispose of ourselves, if we are going
+to hunt this thing down."
+
+The four chambers on this floor of the old house were those said to be
+haunted, the wings being quite innocent, and, so far as we knew, the
+floors below. It was arranged that we should each occupy a room, leaving
+the doors open with the lights burning, and at the slightest cry or
+knock we were all to rush at once to the room from which the warning
+sound might come. There was no communication between the rooms to be
+sure, but, as the doors all opened into the corridor, every sound was
+plainly audible.
+
+The last room fell to me, and I looked it over carefully.
+
+It seemed innocent enough, a commonplace, square, rather lofty Parisian
+sleeping-room, finished in wood painted white, with a small marble
+mantel, a dusty floor of inlaid maple and cherry, walls hung with an
+ordinary French paper, apparently quite new, and two deeply embrasured
+windows looking out on the court.
+
+I opened the swinging sash with some trouble, and sat down in the window
+seat with my lantern beside me trained on the only door, which gave on
+the corridor.
+
+The wind had gone down, and it was very still without,--still and hot.
+The masses of luminous vapor were gathering thickly overhead, no longer
+urged by the gusty wind. The great masses of rank wisteria leaves, with
+here and there a second blossoming of purple flowers, hung dead over the
+window in the sluggish air. Across the roofs I could hear the sound of a
+belated _fiacre_ in the streets below. I filled my pipe again and
+waited.
+
+For a time the voices of the men in the other rooms were a
+companionship, and at first I shouted to them now and then, but my
+voice echoed rather unpleasantly through the long corridors, and had a
+suggestive way of reverberating around the left wing beside me, and
+coming out at a broken window at its extremity like the voice of another
+man. I soon gave up my attempts at conversation, and devoted myself to
+the task of keeping awake.
+
+It was not easy; why did I eat that lettuce salad at Père Garceau's? I
+should have known better. It was making me irresistibly sleepy, and
+wakefulness was absolutely necessary. It was certainly gratifying to
+know that I could sleep, that my courage was by me to that extent, but
+in the interests of science I must keep awake. But almost never, it
+seemed, had sleep looked so desirable. Half a hundred times, nearly, I
+would doze for an instant, only to awake with a start, and find my pipe
+gone out. Nor did the exertion of relighting it pull me together. I
+struck my match mechanically, and with the first puff dropped off again.
+It was most vexing. I got up and walked around the room. It was most
+annoying. My cramped position had almost put both my legs to sleep. I
+could hardly stand. I felt numb, as though with cold. There was no
+longer any sound from the other rooms, nor from without. I sank down in
+my window seat. How dark it was growing! I turned up the lantern. That
+pipe again, how obstinately it kept going out! and my last match was
+gone. The lantern, too, was _that_ going out? I lifted my hand to turn
+it up again. It felt like lead, and fell beside me.
+
+_Then_ I awoke,--absolutely. I remembered the story of "The Haunters and
+the Haunted." _This_ was the Horror. I tried to rise, to cry out. My
+body was like lead, my tongue was paralyzed. I could hardly move my
+eyes. And the light was going out. There was no question about that.
+Darker and darker yet; little by little the pattern of the paper was
+swallowed up in the advancing night. A prickling numbness gathered in
+every nerve, my right arm slipped without feeling from my lap to my
+side, and I could not raise it,--it swung helpless. A thin, keen humming
+began in my head, like the cicadas on a hillside in September. The
+darkness was coming fast.
+
+Yes, this was it. Something was subjecting me, body and mind, to slow
+paralysis. Physically I was already dead. If I could only hold my mind,
+my consciousness, I might still be safe, but could I? Could I resist
+the mad horror of this silence, the deepening dark, the creeping
+numbness? I knew that, like the man in the ghost story, my only safety
+lay here.
+
+It had come at last. My body was dead, I could no longer move my eyes.
+They were fixed in that last look on the place where the door had been,
+now only a deepening of the dark.
+
+Utter night: the last flicker of the lantern was gone. I sat and waited;
+my mind was still keen, but how long would it last? There was a limit
+even to the endurance of the utter panic of fear.
+
+Then the end began. In the velvet blackness came two white eyes, milky,
+opalescent, small, far away,--awful eyes, like a dead dream. More
+beautiful than I can describe, the flakes of white flame moving from the
+perimeter inward, disappearing in the centre, like a never ending flow
+of opal water into a circular tunnel. I could not have moved my eyes had
+I possessed the power: they devoured the fearful, beautiful things that
+grew slowly, slowly larger, fixed on me, advancing, growing more
+beautiful, the white flakes of light sweeping more swiftly into the
+blazing vortices, the awful fascination deepening in its insane
+intensity as the white, vibrating eyes grew nearer, larger.
+
+Like a hideous and implacable engine of death the eyes of the unknown
+Horror swelled and expanded until they were close before me, enormous,
+terrible, and I felt a slow, cold, wet breath propelled with mechanical
+regularity against my face, enveloping me in its fetid mist, in its
+charnel-house deadliness.
+
+With ordinary fear goes always a physical terror, but with me in the
+presence of this unspeakable Thing was only the utter and awful terror
+of the mind, the mad fear of a prolonged and ghostly nightmare. Again
+and again I tried to shriek, to make some noise, but physically I was
+utterly dead. I could only feel myself go mad with the terror of hideous
+death. The eyes were close on me,--their movement so swift that they
+seemed to be but palpitating flames, the dead breath was around me like
+the depths of the deepest sea.
+
+Suddenly a wet, icy mouth, like that of a dead cuttle-fish, shapeless,
+jelly-like, fell over mine. The horror began slowly to draw my life from
+me, but, as enormous and shuddering folds of palpitating jelly swept
+sinuously around me, my will came back, my body awoke with the reaction
+of final fear, and I closed with the nameless death that enfolded me.
+
+What was it that I was fighting? My arms sunk through the unresisting
+mass that was turning me to ice. Moment by moment new folds of cold
+jelly swept round me, crushing me with the force of Titans. I fought to
+wrest my mouth from this awful Thing that sealed it, but, if ever I
+succeeded and caught a single breath, the wet, sucking mass closed over
+my face again before I could cry out. I think I fought for hours,
+desperately, insanely, in a silence that was more hideous than any
+sound,--fought until I felt final death at hand, until the memory of all
+my life rushed over me like a flood, until I no longer had strength to
+wrench my face from that hellish succubus, until with a last mechanical
+struggle I fell and yielded to death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then I heard a voice say, "If he is dead, I can never forgive myself; I
+was to blame."
+
+Another replied, "He is not dead, I know we can save him if only we
+reach the hospital in time. Drive like hell, _cocher_! twenty francs for
+you, if you get there in three minutes."
+
+Then there was night again, and nothingness, until I suddenly awoke and
+stared around. I lay in a hospital ward, very white and sunny, some
+yellow _fleurs-de-lis_ stood beside the head of the pallet, and a tall
+sister of mercy sat by my side.
+
+To tell the story in a few words, I was in the Hôtel Dieu, where the men
+had taken me that fearful night of the twelfth of June. I asked for
+Fargeau or Duchesne, and by and by the latter came, and sitting beside
+the bed told me all that I did not know.
+
+It seems that they had sat, each in his room, hour after hour, hearing
+nothing, very much bored, and disappointed. Soon after two o'clock
+Fargeau, who was in the next room, called to me to ask if I was awake. I
+gave no reply, and, after shouting once or twice, he took his lantern
+and came to investigate. The door was locked on the inside! He instantly
+called d'Ardeche and Duchesne, and together they hurled themselves
+against the door. It resisted. Within they could hear irregular
+footsteps dashing here and there, with heavy breathing. Although frozen
+with terror, they fought to destroy the door and finally succeeded by
+using a great slab of marble that formed the shelf of the mantel in
+Fargeau's room. As the door crashed in, they were suddenly hurled back
+against the walls of the corridor, as though by an explosion, the
+lanterns were extinguished, and they found themselves in utter silence
+and darkness.
+
+As soon as they recovered from the shock, they leaped into the room and
+fell over my body in the middle of the floor. They lighted one of the
+lanterns, and saw the strangest sight that can be imagined. The floor
+and walls to the height of about six feet were running with something
+that seemed like stagnant water, thick, glutinous, sickening. As for me,
+I was drenched with the same cursed liquid. The odor of musk was
+nauseating. They dragged me away, stripped off my clothing, wrapped me
+in their coats, and hurried to the hospital, thinking me perhaps dead.
+Soon after sunrise d'Ardeche left the hospital, being assured that I was
+in a fair way to recovery, with time, and with Fargeau went up to
+examine by daylight the traces of the adventure that was so nearly
+fatal. They were too late. Fire engines were coming down the street as
+they passed the Académie. A neighbor rushed up to d'Ardeche: "O
+Monsieur! what misfortune, yet what fortune! It is true _la Bouche
+d'Enfer_--I beg pardon, the residence of the lamented Mlle. de
+Tartas,--was burned, but not wholly, only the ancient building. The
+wings were saved, and for that great credit is due the brave firemen.
+Monsieur will remember them, no doubt."
+
+It was quite true. Whether a forgotten lantern, overturned in the
+excitement, had done the work, or whether the origin of the fire was
+more supernatural, it was certain that "the Mouth of Hell" was no more.
+A last engine was pumping slowly as d'Ardeche came up; half a dozen
+limp, and one distended, hose stretched through the _porte cochère_, and
+within only the façade of Francis I. remained, draped still with the
+black stems of the wisteria. Beyond lay a great vacancy, where thin
+smoke was rising slowly. Every floor was gone, and the strange halls of
+Mlle. Blaye de Tartas were only a memory.
+
+With d'Ardeche I visited the place last year, but in the stead of the
+ancient walls was then only a new and ordinary building, fresh and
+respectable; yet the wonderful stories of the old _Bouche d'Enfer_ still
+lingered in the quarter, and will hold there, I do not doubt, until the
+Day of Judgment.
+
+
+
+
+IN KROPFSBERG KEEP.
+
+
+
+
+In Kropfsberg Keep.
+
+
+To the traveller from Innsbrück to Munich, up the lovely valley of the
+silver Inn, many castles appear, one after another, each on its beetling
+cliff or gentle hill,--appear and disappear, melting into the dark fir
+trees that grow so thickly on every side,--Laneck, Lichtwer, Ratholtz,
+Tratzberg, Matzen, Kropfsberg, gathering close around the entrance to
+the dark and wonderful Zillerthal.
+
+But to us--Tom Rendel and myself--there are two castles only: not the
+gorgeous and princely Ambras, nor the noble old Tratzberg, with its
+crowded treasures of solemn and splendid mediævalism; but little Matzen,
+where eager hospitality forms the new life of a never-dead chivalry, and
+Kropfsberg, ruined, tottering, blasted by fire and smitten with
+grievous years,--a dead thing, and haunted,--full of strange legends,
+and eloquent of mystery and tragedy.
+
+We were visiting the von C----s at Matzen, and gaining our first
+wondering knowledge of the courtly, cordial castle life in the
+Tyrol,--of the gentle and delicate hospitality of noble Austrians.
+Brixleg had ceased to be but a mark on a map, and had become a place of
+rest and delight, a home for homeless wanderers on the face of Europe,
+while Schloss Matzen was a synonym for all that was gracious and kindly
+and beautiful in life. The days moved on in a golden round of riding and
+driving and shooting: down to Landl and Thiersee for chamois, across the
+river to the magic Achensee, up the Zillerthal, across the Schmerner
+Joch, even to the railway station at Steinach. And in the evenings after
+the late dinners in the upper hall where the sleepy hounds leaned
+against our chairs looking at us with suppliant eyes, in the evenings
+when the fire was dying away in the hooded fireplace in the library,
+stories. Stories, and legends, and fairy tales, while the stiff old
+portraits changed countenance constantly under the flickering firelight,
+and the sound of the drifting Inn came softly across the meadows far
+below.
+
+If ever I tell the Story of Schloss Matzen, then will be the time to
+paint the too inadequate picture of this fair oasis in the desert of
+travel and tourists and hotels; but just now it is Kropfsberg the Silent
+that is of greater importance, for it was only in Matzen that the story
+was told by Fräulein E----, the gold-haired niece of Frau von C----, one
+hot evening in July, when we were sitting in the great west window of
+the drawing-room after a long ride up the Stallenthal. All the windows
+were open to catch the faint wind, and we had sat for a long time
+watching the Otzethaler Alps turn rose-color over distant Innsbrück,
+then deepen to violet as the sun went down and the white mists rose
+slowly until Lichtwer and Laneck and Kropfsberg rose like craggy islands
+in a silver sea.
+
+And this is the story as Fräulein E---- told it to us,--the Story of
+Kropfsberg Keep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great many years ago, soon after my grandfather died, and Matzen came
+to us, when I was a little girl, and so young that I remember nothing
+of the affair except as something dreadful that frightened me very much,
+two young men who had studied painting with my grandfather came down to
+Brixleg from Munich, partly to paint, and partly to amuse
+themselves,--"ghost-hunting" as they said, for they were very sensible
+young men and prided themselves on it, laughing at all kinds of
+"superstition," and particularly at that form which believed in ghosts
+and feared them. They had never seen a real ghost, you know, and they
+belonged to a certain set of people who believed nothing they had not
+seen themselves,--which always seemed to me _very_ conceited. Well, they
+knew that we had lots of beautiful castles here in the "lower valley,"
+and they assumed, and rightly, that every castle has at least _one_
+ghost story connected with it, so they chose this as their hunting
+ground, only the game they sought was ghosts, not chamois. Their plan
+was to visit every place that was supposed to be haunted, and to meet
+every reputed ghost, and prove that it really was no ghost at all.
+
+There was a little inn down in the village then, kept by an old man
+named Peter Rosskopf, and the two young men made this their
+headquarters. The very first night they began to draw from the old
+innkeeper all that he knew of legends and ghost stories connected with
+Brixleg and its castles, and as he was a most garrulous old gentleman he
+filled them with the wildest delight by his stories of the ghosts of the
+castles about the mouth of the Zillerthal. Of course the old man
+believed every word he said, and you can imagine his horror and
+amazement when, after telling his guests the particularly blood-curdling
+story of Kropfsberg and its haunted keep, the elder of the two boys,
+whose surname I have forgotten, but whose Christian name was Rupert,
+calmly said, "Your story is most satisfactory: we will sleep in
+Kropfsberg Keep to-morrow night, and you must provide us with all that
+we may need to make ourselves comfortable."
+
+The old man nearly fell into the fire. "What for a blockhead are you?"
+he cried, with big eyes. "The keep is haunted by Count Albert's ghost, I
+tell you!"
+
+"That is why we are going there to-morrow night; we wish to make the
+acquaintance of Count Albert."
+
+"But there was a man stayed there once, and in the morning he was
+dead."
+
+"Very silly of him; there are two of us, and we carry revolvers."
+
+"But it's a _ghost_, I tell you," almost screamed the innkeeper; "are
+ghosts afraid of firearms?"
+
+"Whether they are or not, we are _not_ afraid of _them_."
+
+Here the younger boy broke in,--he was named Otto von Kleist. I remember
+the name, for I had a music teacher once by that name. He abused the
+poor old man shamefully; told him that they were going to spend the
+night in Kropfsberg in spite of Count Albert and Peter Rosskopf, and
+that he might as well make the most of it and earn his money with
+cheerfulness.
+
+In a word, they finally bullied the old fellow into submission, and when
+the morning came he set about preparing for the suicide, as he
+considered it, with sighs and mutterings and ominous shakings of the
+head.
+
+You know the condition of the castle now,--nothing but scorched walls
+and crumbling piles of fallen masonry. Well, at the time I tell you of,
+the keep was still partially preserved. It was finally burned out only a
+few years ago by some wicked boys who came over from Jenbach to have a
+good time. But when the ghost hunters came, though the two lower floors
+had fallen into the crypt, the third floor remained. The peasants said
+it _could_ not fall, but that it would stay until the Day of Judgment,
+because it was in the room above that the wicked Count Albert sat
+watching the flames destroy the great castle and his imprisoned guests,
+and where he finally hung himself in a suit of armor that had belonged
+to his mediæval ancestor, the first Count Kropfsberg.
+
+No one dared touch him, and so he hung there for twelve years, and all
+the time venturesome boys and daring men used to creep up the turret
+steps and stare awfully through the chinks in the door at that ghostly
+mass of steel that held within itself the body of a murderer and
+suicide, slowly returning to the dust from which it was made. Finally it
+disappeared, none knew whither, and for another dozen years the room
+stood empty but for the old furniture and the rotting hangings.
+
+So, when the two men climbed the stairway to the haunted room, they
+found a very different state of things from what exists now. The room
+was absolutely as it was left the night Count Albert burned the castle,
+except that all trace of the suspended suit of armor and its ghastly
+contents had vanished.
+
+No one had dared to cross the threshold, and I suppose that for forty
+years no living thing had entered that dreadful room.
+
+On one side stood a vast canopied bed of black wood, the damask hangings
+of which were covered with mould and mildew. All the clothing of the bed
+was in perfect order, and on it lay a book, open, and face downward. The
+only other furniture in the room consisted of several old chairs, a
+carved oak chest, and a big inlaid table covered with books and papers,
+and on one corner two or three bottles with dark solid sediment at the
+bottom, and a glass, also dark with the dregs of wine that had been
+poured out almost half a century before. The tapestry on the walls was
+green with mould, but hardly torn or otherwise defaced, for although the
+heavy dust of forty years lay on everything the room had been preserved
+from further harm. No spider web was to be seen, no trace of nibbling
+mice, not even a dead moth or fly on the sills of the diamond-paned
+windows; life seemed to have shunned the room utterly and finally.
+
+The men looked at the room curiously, and, I am sure, not without some
+feelings of awe and unacknowledged fear; but, whatever they may have
+felt of instinctive shrinking, they said nothing, and quickly set to
+work to make the room passably inhabitable. They decided to touch
+nothing that had not absolutely to be changed, and therefore they made
+for themselves a bed in one corner with the mattress and linen from the
+inn. In the great fireplace they piled a lot of wood on the caked ashes
+of a fire dead for forty years, turned the old chest into a table, and
+laid out on it all their arrangements for the evening's amusement: food,
+two or three bottles of wine, pipes and tobacco, and the chess-board
+that was their inseparable travelling companion.
+
+All this they did themselves: the innkeeper would not even come within
+the walls of the outer court; he insisted that he had washed his hands
+of the whole affair, the silly dunderheads might go to their death their
+own way. _He_ would not aid and abet them. One of the stable boys
+brought the basket of food and the wood and the bed up the winding stone
+stairs, to be sure, but neither money nor prayers nor threats would
+bring him within the walls of the accursed place, and he stared
+fearfully at the hare-brained boys as they worked around the dead old
+room preparing for the night that was coming so fast.
+
+At length everything was in readiness, and after a final visit to the
+inn for dinner Rupert and Otto started at sunset for the Keep. Half the
+village went with them, for Peter Rosskopf had babbled the whole story
+to an open-mouthed crowd of wondering men and women, and as to an
+execution the awe-struck crowd followed the two boys dumbly, curious to
+see if they surely would put their plan into execution. But none went
+farther than the outer doorway of the stairs, for it was already growing
+twilight. In absolute silence they watched the two foolhardy youths with
+their lives in their hands enter the terrible Keep, standing like a
+tower in the midst of the piles of stones that had once formed walls
+joining it with the mass of the castle beyond. When a moment later a
+light showed itself in the high windows above, they sighed resignedly
+and went their ways, to wait stolidly until morning should come and
+prove the truth of their fears and warnings.
+
+In the mean time the ghost hunters built a huge fire, lighted their
+many candles, and sat down to await developments. Rupert afterwards told
+my uncle that they really felt no fear whatever, only a contemptuous
+curiosity, and they ate their supper with good appetite and an unusual
+relish. It was a long evening. They played many games of chess, waiting
+for midnight. Hour passed after hour, and nothing occurred to interrupt
+the monotony of the evening. Ten, eleven, came and went,--it was almost
+midnight. They piled more wood in the fireplace, lighted new candles,
+looked to their pistols--and waited. The clocks in the village struck
+twelve; the sound coming muffled through the high, deep-embrasured
+windows. Nothing happened, nothing to break the heavy silence; and with
+a feeling of disappointed relief they looked at each other and
+acknowledged that they had met another rebuff.
+
+Finally they decided that there was no use in sitting up and boring
+themselves any longer, they had much better rest; so Otto threw himself
+down on the mattress, falling almost immediately asleep. Rupert sat a
+little longer, smoking, and watching the stars creep along behind the
+shattered glass and the bent leads of the lofty windows; watching the
+fire fall together, and the strange shadows move mysteriously on the
+mouldering walls. The iron hook in the oak beam, that crossed the
+ceiling midway, fascinated him, not with fear, but morbidly. So, it was
+from that hook that for twelve years, twelve long years of changing
+summer and winter, the body of Count Albert, murderer and suicide, hung
+in its strange casing of mediæval steel; moving a little at first, and
+turning gently while the fire died out on the hearth, while the ruins of
+the castle grew cold, and horrified peasants sought for the bodies of
+the score of gay, reckless, wicked guests whom Count Albert had gathered
+in Kropfsberg for a last debauch, gathered to their terrible and
+untimely death. What a strange and fiendish idea it was, the young,
+handsome noble who had ruined himself and his family in the society of
+the splendid debauchees, gathering them all together, men and women who
+had known only love and pleasure, for a glorious and awful riot of
+luxury, and then, when they were all dancing in the great ballroom,
+locking the doors and burning the whole castle about them, the while he
+sat in the great keep listening to their screams of agonized fear,
+watching the fire sweep from wing to wing until the whole mighty mass
+was one enormous and awful pyre, and then, clothing himself in his
+great-great-grandfather's armor, hanging himself in the midst of the
+ruins of what had been a proud and noble castle. So ended a great
+family, a great house.
+
+But that was forty years ago.
+
+He was growing drowsy; the light flickered and flared in the fireplace;
+one by one the candles went out; the shadows grew thick in the room. Why
+did that great iron hook stand out so plainly? why did that dark shadow
+dance and quiver so mockingly behind it?--why-- But he ceased to wonder
+at anything. He was asleep.
+
+It seemed to him that he woke almost immediately; the fire still burned,
+though low and fitfully on the hearth. Otto was sleeping, breathing
+quietly and regularly; the shadows had gathered close around him, thick
+and murky; with every passing moment the light died in the fireplace; he
+felt stiff with cold. In the utter silence he heard the clock in the
+village strike two. He shivered with a sudden and irresistible feeling
+of fear, and abruptly turned and looked towards the hook in the ceiling.
+
+Yes, It was there. He knew that It would be. It seemed quite natural, he
+would have been disappointed had he seen nothing; but now he knew that
+the story was true, knew that he was wrong, and that the dead _do_
+sometimes return to earth, for there, in the fast-deepening shadow, hung
+the black mass of wrought steel, turning a little now and then, with the
+light flickering on the tarnished and rusty metal. He watched it
+quietly; he hardly felt afraid; it was rather a sentiment of sadness and
+fatality that filled him, of gloomy forebodings of something unknown,
+unimaginable. He sat and watched the thing disappear in the gathering
+dark, his hand on his pistol as it lay by him on the great chest. There
+was no sound but the regular breathing of the sleeping boy on the
+mattress.
+
+It had grown absolutely dark; a bat fluttered against the broken glass
+of the window. He wondered if he was growing mad, for--he hesitated to
+acknowledge it to himself--he heard music; far, curious music, a strange
+and luxurious dance, very faint, very vague, but unmistakable.
+
+Like a flash of lightning came a jagged line of fire down the blank wall
+opposite him, a line that remained, that grew wider, that let a pale
+cold light into the room, showing him now all its details,--the empty
+fireplace, where a thin smoke rose in a spiral from a bit of charred
+wood, the mass of the great bed, and, in the very middle, black against
+the curious brightness, the armored man, or ghost, or devil, standing,
+not suspended, beneath the rusty hook. And with the rending of the wall
+the music grew more distinct, though sounding still very, very far away.
+
+Count Albert raised his mailed hand and beckoned to him; then turned,
+and stood in the riven wall.
+
+Without a word, Rupert rose and followed him, his pistol in hand. Count
+Albert passed through the mighty wall and disappeared in the unearthly
+light. Rupert followed mechanically. He felt the crushing of the mortar
+beneath his feet, the roughness of the jagged wall where he rested his
+hand to steady himself.
+
+The keep rose absolutely isolated among the ruins, yet on passing
+through the wall Rupert found himself in a long, uneven corridor, the
+floor of which was warped and sagging, while the walls were covered on
+one side with big faded portraits of an inferior quality, like those in
+the corridor that connects the Pitti and Uffizzi in Florence. Before him
+moved the figure of Count Albert,--a black silhouette in the
+ever-increasing light. And always the music grew stronger and stranger,
+a mad, evil, seductive dance that bewitched even while it disgusted.
+
+In a final blaze of vivid, intolerable light, in a burst of hellish
+music that might have come from Bedlam, Rupert stepped from the corridor
+into a vast and curious room where at first he saw nothing,
+distinguished nothing but a mad, seething whirl of sweeping figures,
+white, in a white room, under white light, Count Albert standing before
+him, the only dark object to be seen. As his eyes grew accustomed to the
+fearful brightness, he knew that he was looking on a dance such as the
+damned might see in hell, but such as no living man had ever seen
+before.
+
+Around the long, narrow hall, under the fearful light that came from
+nowhere, but was omnipresent, swept a rushing stream of unspeakable
+horrors, dancing insanely, laughing, gibbering hideously; the dead of
+forty years. White, polished skeletons, bare of flesh and vesture,
+skeletons clothed in the dreadful rags of dried and rattling sinews, the
+tags of tattering grave-clothes flaunting behind them. These were the
+dead of many years ago. Then the dead of more recent times, with yellow
+bones showing only here and there, the long and insecure hair of their
+hideous heads writhing in the beating air. Then green and gray horrors,
+bloated and shapeless, stained with earth or dripping with spattering
+water; and here and there white, beautiful things, like chiselled ivory,
+the dead of yesterday, locked it may be, in the mummy arms of rattling
+skeletons.
+
+Round and round the cursed room, a swaying, swirling maelstrom of death,
+while the air grew thick with miasma, the floor foul with shreds of
+shrouds, and yellow parchment, clattering bones, and wisps of tangled
+hair.
+
+And in the very midst of this ring of death, a sight not for words nor
+for thought, a sight to blast forever the mind of the man who looked
+upon it: a leaping, writhing dance of Count Albert's victims, the score
+of beautiful women and reckless men who danced to their awful death
+while the castle burned around them, charred and shapeless now, a living
+charnel-house of nameless horror.
+
+Count Albert, who had stood silent and gloomy, watching the dance of the
+damned, turned to Rupert, and for the first time spoke.
+
+"We are ready for you now; dance!"
+
+A prancing horror, dead some dozen years, perhaps, flaunted from the
+rushing river of the dead, and leered at Rupert with eyeless skull.
+
+"Dance!"
+
+Rupert stood frozen, motionless.
+
+"Dance!"
+
+His hard lips moved. "Not if the devil came from hell to make me."
+
+Count Albert swept his vast two-handed sword into the f[oe]tid air while
+the tide of corruption paused in its swirling, and swept down on Rupert
+with gibbering grins.
+
+The room, and the howling dead, and the black portent before him circled
+dizzily around, as with a last effort of departing consciousness he
+drew his pistol and fired full in the face of Count Albert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perfect silence, perfect darkness; not a breath, not a sound: the dead
+stillness of a long-sealed tomb. Rupert lay on his back, stunned,
+helpless, his pistol clenched in his frozen hand, a smell of powder in
+the black air. Where was he? Dead? In hell? He reached his hand out
+cautiously; it fell on dusty boards. Outside, far away, a clock struck
+three. Had he dreamed? Of course; but how ghastly a dream! With
+chattering teeth he called softly,--
+
+"Otto!"
+
+There was no reply, and none when he called again and again. He
+staggered weakly to his feet, groping for matches and candles. A panic
+of abject terror came on him; the matches were gone! He turned towards
+the fireplace: a single coal glowed in the white ashes. He swept a mass
+of papers and dusty books from the table, and with trembling hands
+cowered over the embers, until he succeeded in lighting the dry tinder.
+Then he piled the old books on the blaze, and looked fearfully around.
+
+No: It was gone,--thank God for that; the hook was empty.
+
+But why did Otto sleep so soundly; why did he not awake?
+
+He stepped unsteadily across the room in the flaring light of the
+burning books, and knelt by the mattress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So they found him in the morning, when no one came to the inn from
+Kropfsberg Keep, and the quaking Peter Rosskopf arranged a relief
+party;--found him kneeling beside the mattress where Otto lay, shot in
+the throat and quite dead.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE VILLA.
+
+
+
+
+The White Villa.
+
+
+When we left Naples on the 8.10 train for Pæstum, Tom and I, we fully
+intended returning by the 2.46. Not because two hours time seemed enough
+wherein to exhaust the interests of those deathless ruins of a dead
+civilization, but simply for the reason that, as our _Indicatore_
+informed us, there was but one other train, and that at 6.11, which
+would land us in Naples too late for the dinner at the Turners and the
+San Carlo afterwards. Not that I cared in the least for the dinner or
+the theatre; but then, I was not so obviously in Miss Turner's good
+graces as Tom Rendel was, which made a difference.
+
+However, we had promised, so that was an end of it.
+
+This was in the spring of '88, and at that time the railroad, which was
+being pushed onward to Reggio, whereby travellers to Sicily might be
+spared the agonies of a night on the fickle Mediterranean, reached no
+farther than Agropoli, some twenty miles beyond Pæstum; but although the
+trains were as yet few and slow, we accepted the half-finished road with
+gratitude, for it penetrated the very centre of Campanian brigandage,
+and made it possible for us to see the matchless temples in safety,
+while a few years before it was necessary for intending visitors to
+obtain a military escort from the Government; and military escorts are
+not for young architects.
+
+So we set off contentedly, that white May morning, determined to make
+the best of our few hours, little thinking that before we saw Naples
+again we were to witness things that perhaps no American had ever seen
+before.
+
+For a moment, when we left the train at "Pesto," and started to walk up
+the flowery lane leading to the temples, we were almost inclined to
+curse this same railroad. We had thought, in our innocence, that we
+should be alone, that no one else would think of enduring the long four
+hours' ride from Naples just to spend two hours in the ruins of these
+temples; but the event proved our unwisdom. We were _not_ alone. It was
+a compact little party of conventional sight-seers that accompanied us.
+The inevitable English family with the three daughters, prominent of
+teeth, flowing of hair, aggressive of scarlet Murrays and Baedekers; the
+two blond and untidy Germans; a French couple from the pages of _La Vie
+Parisienne_; and our "old man of the sea," the white-bearded
+Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania who had made our life miserable
+in Rome at the time of the Pope's Jubilee. Fortunately for us, this
+terrible old man had fastened himself upon a party of American
+school-teachers travelling _en Cook_, and for the time we were safe; but
+our vision of two hours of dreamy solitude faded lamentably away.
+
+Yet how beautiful it was! this golden meadow walled with far, violet
+mountains, breathless under a May sun; and in the midst, rising from
+tangles of asphodel and acanthus, vast in the vacant plain, three
+temples, one silver gray, one golden gray, and one flushed with
+intangible rose. And all around nothing but velvet meadows stretching
+from the dim mountains behind, away to the sea, that showed only as a
+thin line of silver just over the edge of the still grass.
+
+The tide of tourists swept noisily through the Basilica and the temple
+of Poseidon across the meadow to the distant temple of Ceres, and Tom
+and I were left alone to drink in all the fine wine of dreams that was
+possible in the time left us. We gave but little space to examining the
+temples the tourists had left, but in a few moments found ourselves
+lying in the grass to the east of Poseidon, looking dimly out towards
+the sea, heard now, but not seen,--a vague and pulsating murmur that
+blended with the humming of bees all about us.
+
+A small shepherd boy, with a woolly dog, made shy advances of
+friendship, and in a little time we had set him to gathering flowers for
+us: asphodels and bee-orchids, anemones, and the little thin green iris
+so fairylike and frail. The murmur of the tourist crowd had merged
+itself in the moan of the sea, and it was very still; suddenly I heard
+the words I had been waiting for,--the suggestion I had refrained from
+making myself, for I knew Thomas.
+
+"I say, old man, shall we let the 2.46 go to thunder?"
+
+I chuckled to myself. "But the Turners?"
+
+"They be blowed, we can tell them we missed the train."
+
+"That is just exactly what we shall do," I said, pulling out my watch,
+"unless we start for the station right now."
+
+But Tom drew an acanthus leaf across his face and showed no signs of
+moving; so I filled my pipe again, and we missed the train.
+
+As the sun dropped lower towards the sea, changing its silver line to
+gold, we pulled ourselves together, and for an hour or more sketched
+vigorously; but the mood was not on us. It was "too jolly fine to waste
+time working," as Tom said; so we started off to explore the single
+street of the squalid town of Pesto that was lost within the walls of
+dead Poseidonia. It was not a pretty village,--if you can call a
+rut-riven lane and a dozen houses a village,--nor were the inhabitants
+thereof reassuring in appearance. There was no sign of a
+church,--nothing but dirty huts, and in the midst, one of two stories,
+rejoicing in the name of _Albergo del Sole_, the first story of which
+was a black and cavernous smithy, where certain swarthy knaves, looking
+like banditti out of a job, sat smoking sulkily.
+
+"We might stay here all night," said Tom, grinning askance at this
+choice company; but his suggestion was not received with enthusiasm.
+
+Down where the lane from the station joined the main road stood the only
+sign of modern civilization,--a great square structure, half villa, half
+fortress, with round turrets on its four corners, and a ten-foot wall
+surrounding it. There were no windows in its first story, so far as we
+could see, and it had evidently been at one time the fortified villa of
+some Campanian noble. Now, however, whether because brigandage had been
+stamped out, or because the villa was empty and deserted, it was no
+longer formidable; the gates of the great wall hung sagging on their
+hinges, brambles growing all over them, and many of the windows in the
+upper story were broken and black. It was a strange place, weird and
+mysterious, and we looked at it curiously. "There is a story about that
+place," said Tom, with conviction.
+
+It was growing late: the sun was near the edge of the sea as we walked
+down the ivy-grown walls of the vanished city for the last time, and as
+we turned back, a red flush poured from the west, and painted the Doric
+temples in pallid rose against the evanescent purple of the Apennines.
+Already a thin mist was rising from the meadows, and the temples hung
+pink in the misty grayness.
+
+It was a sorrow to leave the beautiful things, but we could run no risk
+of missing this last train, so we walked slowly back towards the
+temples.
+
+"What is that Johnny waving his arm at us for?" asked Tom, suddenly.
+
+"How should I know? We are not on his land, and the walls don't matter."
+
+We pulled out our watches simultaneously.
+
+"What time are you?" I said.
+
+"Six minutes before six."
+
+"And I am seven minutes. It can't take us all that time to walk to the
+station."
+
+"Are you sure the train goes at 6.11?"
+
+"Dead sure," I answered; and showed him the _Indicatore_.
+
+By this time a woman and two children were shrieking at us hysterically;
+but what they said I had no idea, their Italian being of a strange and
+awful nature.
+
+"Look here," I said, "let's run; perhaps our watches are both slow."
+
+"Or--perhaps the time-table is changed."
+
+Then we ran, and the populace cheered and shouted with enthusiasm; our
+dignified run became a panic-stricken rout, for as we turned into the
+lane, smoke was rising from beyond the bank that hid the railroad; a
+bell rang; we were so near that we could hear the interrogative
+_Pronte?_ the impatient _Partenza!_ and the definitive _Andiamo!_ But
+the train was five hundred yards away, steaming towards Naples, when we
+plunged into the station as the clock struck six, and yelled for the
+station-master.
+
+He came, and we indulged in crimination and recrimination.
+
+When we could regard the situation calmly, it became apparent that the
+time-table _had_ been changed two days before, the 6.11 now leaving at
+5.58. A _facchino_ came in, and we four sat down and regarded the
+situation judicially.
+
+"Was there any other train?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Could we stay at the Albergo del Sole?"
+
+A forefinger drawn across the throat by the Capo Stazione with a
+significant "cluck" closed that question.
+
+"Then we must stay with you here at the station."
+
+"But, Signori, I am not married. I live here only with the _facchini_. I
+have only one room to sleep in. It is impossible!"
+
+"But we must sleep somewhere, likewise eat. What can we do?" and we
+shifted the responsibility deftly on the shoulders of the poor old man,
+who was growing excited again.
+
+He trotted nervously up and down the station for a minute, then he
+called the _facchino_. "Giuseppe, go up to the villa and ask if two
+_forestieri_ who have missed the last train can stay there all night!"
+
+Protests were useless. The _facchino_ was gone, and we waited anxiously
+for his return. It seemed as though he would never come. Darkness had
+fallen, and the moon was rising over the mountains. At last he appeared.
+
+"The Signori may stay all night, and welcome; but they cannot come to
+dinner, for there is nothing in the house to eat!"
+
+This was not reassuring, and again the old station-master lost himself
+in meditation. The results were admirable, for in a little time the
+table in the waiting-room had been transformed into a dining-table, and
+Tom and I were ravenously devouring a big omelette, and bread and
+cheese, and drinking a most shocking sour wine as though it were Château
+Yquem. A _facchino_ served us, with clumsy good-will; and when we had
+induced our nervous old host to sit down with us and partake of his own
+hospitality, we succeeded in forming a passably jolly dinner-party,
+forgetting over our sour wine and cigarettes the coming hours from ten
+until sunrise, which lay before us in a dubious mist.
+
+It was with crowding apprehensions which we strove in vain to joke away
+that we set out at last to retrace our steps to the mysterious villa,
+the _facchino_ Giuseppe leading the way. By this time the moon was well
+overhead, and just behind us as we tramped up the dewy lane, white in
+the moonlight between the ink-black hedgerows on either side. How still
+it was! Not a breath of air, not a sound of life; only the awful silence
+that had lain almost unbroken for two thousand years over this vast
+graveyard of a dead world.
+
+As we passed between the shattered gates and wound our way in the
+moonlight through the maze of gnarled fruit-trees, decaying farm
+implements and piles of lumber, towards the small door that formed the
+only opening in the first story of this deserted fortress, the cold
+silence was shattered by the harsh baying of dogs somewhere in the
+distance to the right, beyond the barns that formed one side of the
+court. From the villa came neither light nor sound. Giuseppe knocked at
+the weather-worn door, and the sound echoed cavernously within; but
+there was no other reply. He knocked again and again, and at length we
+heard the rasping jar of sliding bolts, and the door opened a little,
+showing an old, old man, bent with age and gaunt with malaria. Over his
+head he held a big Roman lamp, with three wicks, that cast strange
+shadows on his face,--a face that was harmless in its senility, but
+intolerably sad. He made no reply to our timid salutations, but motioned
+tremblingly to us to enter; and with a last "good-night" to Giuseppe we
+obeyed, and stood half-way up the stone stairs that led directly from
+the door, while the old man tediously shot every bolt and adjusted the
+heavy bar.
+
+Then we followed him in the semi-darkness up the steps into what had
+been the great hall of the villa. A fire was burning in a great
+fireplace so beautiful in design that Tom and I looked at each other
+with interest. By its fitful light we could see that we were in a huge
+circular room covered by a flat, saucer-shaped dome,--a room that must
+once have been superb and splendid, but that now was a lamentable wreck.
+The frescoes on the dome were stained and mildewed, and here and there
+the plaster was gone altogether; the carved doorways that led out on all
+sides had lost half the gold with which they had once been covered, and
+the floor was of brick, sunken into treacherous valleys. Rough chests,
+piles of old newspapers, fragments of harnesses, farm implements, a heap
+of rusty carbines and cutlasses, nameless litter of every possible kind,
+made the room into a wilderness which under the firelight seemed even
+more picturesque than it really was. And on this inexpressible confusion
+of lumber the pale shapes of the seventeenth-century nymphs, startling
+in their weather-stained nudity, looked down with vacant smiles.
+
+For a few moments we warmed ourselves before the fire; and then, in the
+same dejected silence, the old man led the way to one of the many doors,
+handed us a brass lamp, and with a stiff bow turned his back on us.
+
+Once in our room alone, Tom and I looked at each other with faces that
+expressed the most complex emotions.
+
+"Well, of all the rum goes," said Tom, "this is the rummiest go I ever
+experienced!"
+
+"Right, my boy; as you very justly remark, we are in for it. Help me
+shut this door, and then we will reconnoitre, take account of stock, and
+size up our chances."
+
+But the door showed no sign of closing; it grated on the brick floor and
+stuck in the warped casing, and it took our united efforts to jam the
+two inches of oak into its place, and turn the enormous old key in its
+rusty lock.
+
+"Better now, much better now," said Tom; "now let us see where we are."
+
+The room was easily twenty-five feet square, and high in proportion;
+evidently it had been a state apartment, for the walls were covered with
+carved panelling that had once been white and gold, with mirrors in the
+panels, the wood now stained every imaginable color, the mirrors
+cracked and broken, and dull with mildew. A big fire had just been
+lighted in the fireplace, the shutters were closed, and although the
+only furniture consisted of two massive bedsteads, and a chair with one
+leg shorter than the others, the room seemed almost comfortable.
+
+I opened one of the shutters, that closed the great windows that ran
+from the floor almost to the ceiling, and nearly fell through the
+cracked glass into the floorless balcony. "Tom, come here, quick," I
+cried; and for a few minutes neither of us thought about our dubious
+surroundings, for we were looking at Pæstum by moonlight.
+
+A flat, white mist, like water, lay over the entire meadow; from the
+midst rose against the blue-black sky the three ghostly temples, black
+and silver in the vivid moonlight, floating, it seemed, in the fog; and
+behind them, seen in broken glints between the pallid shafts, stretched
+the line of the silver sea.
+
+Perfect silence,--the silence of implacable death.
+
+We watched the white tide of mist rise around the temples, until we were
+chilled through, and so presently went to bed. There was but one door
+in the room, and that was securely locked; the great windows were twenty
+feet from the ground, so we felt reasonably safe from all possible
+attack.
+
+In a few minutes Tom was asleep and breathing audibly; but my
+constitution is more nervous than his, and I lay awake for some little
+time, thinking of our curious adventure and of its possible outcome.
+Finally, I fell asleep,--for how long I do not know: but I woke with the
+feeling that some one had tried the handle of the door. The fire had
+fallen into a heap of coals which cast a red glow in the room, whereby I
+could see dimly the outline of Tom's bed, the broken-legged chair in
+front of the fireplace, and the door in its deep casing by the chimney,
+directly in front of my bed. I sat up, nervous from my sudden awakening
+under these strange circumstances, and stared at the door. The latch
+rattled, and the door swung smoothly open. I began to shiver coldly.
+That door was locked; Tom and I had all we could do to jam it together
+and lock it. But we _did_ lock it; and now it was opening silently. In a
+minute more it as silently closed.
+
+Then I heard a footstep,--I swear I heard a footstep _in the room_, and
+with it the _frou-frou_ of trailing skirts; my breath stopped and my
+teeth grated against each other as I heard the soft footfalls and the
+feminine rustle pass along the room towards the fireplace. My eyes saw
+nothing; yet there was enough light in the room for me to distinguish
+the pattern on the carved panels of the door. The steps stopped by the
+fire, and I saw the broken-legged chair lean to the left, with a little
+jar as its short leg touched the floor.
+
+I sat still, frozen, motionless, staring at the vacancy that was filled
+with such terror for me; and as I looked, the seat of the chair creaked,
+and it came back to its upright position again.
+
+And then the footsteps came down the room lightly, towards the window;
+there was a pause, and then the great shutters swung back, and the white
+moonlight poured in. Its brilliancy was unbroken by any shadow, by any
+sign of material substance.
+
+I tried to cry out, to make some sound, to awaken Tom; this sense of
+utter loneliness in the presence of the Inexplicable was maddening. I
+don't know whether my lips obeyed my will or no; at all events, Tom lay
+motionless, with his deaf ear up, and gave no sign.
+
+The shutters closed as silently as they had opened; the moonlight was
+gone, the firelight also, and in utter darkness I waited. If I could
+only _see_! If something were visible, I should not mind it so much; but
+this ghastly hearing of every little sound, every rustle of a gown,
+every breath, yet seeing nothing, was soul-destroying. I think in my
+abject terror I prayed that I might see, only see; but the darkness was
+unbroken.
+
+Then the footsteps began to waver fitfully, and I heard the rustle of
+garments sliding to the floor, the clatter of little shoes flung down,
+the rattle of buttons, and of metal against wood.
+
+Rigors shot over me, and my whole body shivered with collapse as I sank
+back on the pillow, waiting with every nerve tense, listening with all
+my life.
+
+The coverlid was turned back beside me, and in another moment the great
+bed sank a little as something slipped between the sheets with an
+audible sigh.
+
+I called to my aid every atom of remaining strength, and, with a cry
+that shivered between my clattering teeth, I hurled myself headlong from
+the bed on to the floor.
+
+I must have lain for some time stunned and unconscious, for when I
+finally came to myself it was cold in the room, there was no last glow
+of lingering coals in the fireplace, and I was stiff with chill.
+
+It all flashed over me like the haunting of a heavy dream. I laughed a
+little at the dim memory, with the thought, "I must try to recollect all
+the details; they will do to tell Tom," and rose stiffly to return to
+bed, when--there it was again, and my heart stopped,--the hand on the
+door.
+
+I paused and listened. The door opened with a muffled creak, closed
+again, and I heard the lock turn rustily. I would have died now before
+getting into that bed again; but there was terror equally without; so I
+stood trembling and listened,--listened to heavy, stealthy steps
+creeping along on the other side of the bed. I clutched the coverlid,
+staring across into the dark.
+
+There was a rush in the air by my face, the sound of a blow, and
+simultaneously a shriek, so awful, so despairing, so blood-curdling that
+I felt my senses leaving me again as I sank crouching on the floor by
+the bed.
+
+And then began the awful duel, the duel of invisible, audible shapes;
+of things that shrieked and raved, mingling thin, feminine cries with
+low, stifled curses and indistinguishable words. Round and round the
+room, footsteps chasing footsteps in the ghastly night, now away by
+Tom's bed, now rushing swiftly down the great room until I felt the
+flash of swirling drapery on my hard lips. Round and round, turning and
+twisting till my brain whirled with the mad cries.
+
+They were coming nearer. I felt the jar of their feet on the floor
+beside me. Came one long, gurgling moan close over my head, and then,
+crushing down upon me, the weight of a collapsing body; there was long
+hair over my face, and in my staring eyes; and as awful silence
+succeeded the less awful tumult, life went out, and I fell unfathomable
+miles into nothingness.
+
+The gray dawn was sifting through the chinks in the shutters when I
+opened my eyes again. I lay stunned and faint, staring up at the mouldy
+frescoes on the ceiling, struggling to gather together my wandering
+senses and knit them into something like consciousness. But now as I
+pulled myself little by little together there was no thought of dreams
+before me. One after another the awful incidents of that unspeakable
+night came back, and I lay incapable of movement, of action, trying to
+piece together the whirling fragments of memory that circled dizzily
+around me.
+
+Little by little it grew lighter in the room. I could see the pallid
+lines struggling through the shutters behind me, grow stronger along the
+broken and dusty floor. The tarnished mirrors reflected dirtily the
+growing daylight; a door closed, far away, and I heard the crowing of a
+cock; then by and by the whistle of a passing train.
+
+Years seemed to have passed since I first came into this terrible room.
+I had lost the use of my tongue, my voice refused to obey my
+panic-stricken desire to cry out; once or twice I tried in vain to force
+an articulate sound through my rigid lips; and when at last a broken
+whisper rewarded my feverish struggles, I felt a strange sense of great
+victory. How soundly he slept! Ordinarily, rousing him was no easy task,
+and now he revolted steadily against being awakened at this untimely
+hour. It seemed to me that I had called him for ages almost, before I
+heard him grunt sleepily and turn in bed.
+
+"Tom," I cried weakly, "Tom, come and help me!"
+
+"What do you want? what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Don't ask, come and help me!"
+
+"Fallen out of bed I guess;" and he laughed drowsily.
+
+My abject terror lest he should go to sleep again gave me new strength.
+Was it the actual physical paralysis born of killing fear that held me
+down? I could not have raised my head from the floor on my life; I could
+only cry out in deadly fear for Tom to come and help me.
+
+"Why don't you get up and get into bed?" he answered, when I implored
+him to come to me. "You have got a bad nightmare; wake up!"
+
+But something in my voice roused him at last, and he came chuckling
+across the room, stopping to throw open two of the great shutters and
+let a burst of white light into the room. He climbed up on the bed and
+peered over jeeringly. With the first glance the laugh died, and he
+leaped the bed and bent over me.
+
+"My God, man, what is the matter with you? You are hurt!"
+
+"I don't know what is the matter; lift me up, get me away from here, and
+I'll tell you all I know."
+
+"But, old chap, you must be hurt awfully; the floor is covered with
+blood!"
+
+He lifted my head and held me in his powerful arms. I looked down: a
+great red stain blotted the floor beside me.
+
+But, apart from the black bruise on my head, there was no sign of a
+wound on my body, nor stain of blood on my lips. In as few words as
+possible I told him the whole story.
+
+"Let's get out of this," he said when I had finished; "this is no place
+for us. Brigands I can stand, but--"
+
+He helped me to dress, and as soon as possible we forced open the heavy
+door, the door I had seen turn so softly on its hinges only a few hours
+before, and came out into the great circular hall, no less strange and
+mysterious now in the half light of dawn than it had been by firelight.
+The room was empty, for it must have been very early, although a fire
+already blazed in the fireplace. We sat by the fire some time, seeing no
+one. Presently slow footsteps sounded in the stairway, and the old man
+entered, silent as the night before, nodding to us civilly, but showing
+by no sign any surprise which he may have felt at our early rising. In
+absolute silence he moved around, preparing coffee for us; and when at
+last the frugal breakfast was ready, and we sat around the rough table
+munching coarse bread and sipping the black coffee, he would reply to
+our overtures only by monosyllables.
+
+Any attempt at drawing from him some facts as to the history of the
+villa was received with a grave and frigid repellence that baffled us;
+and we were forced to say _addio_ with our hunger for some explanation
+of the events of the night still unsatisfied.
+
+But we saw the temples by sunrise, when the mistlike lambent opals
+bathed the bases of the tall columns salmon in the morning light! It was
+a rhapsody in the pale and unearthly colors of Puvis de Chavannes
+vitalized and made glorious with splendid sunlight; the apotheosis of
+mist; a vision never before seen, never to be forgotten. It was so
+beautiful that the memory of my ghastly night paled and faded, and it
+was Tom who assailed the station-master with questions while we waited
+for the train from Agropoli.
+
+Luckily he was more than loquacious, he was voluble under the
+ameliorating influence of the money we forced upon him; and this, in few
+words, was the story he told us while we sat on the platform smoking,
+marvelling at the mists that rose to the east, now veiling, now
+revealing the lavender Apennines.
+
+"Is there a story of _La Villa Bianca_?"
+
+"Ah, Signori, certainly; and a story very strange and very terrible. It
+was much time ago, a hundred,--two hundred years; I do not know. Well,
+the Duca di San Damiano married a lady so fair, so most beautiful that
+she was called _La Luna di Pesto_; but she was of the people,--more, she
+was of the banditti: her father was of Calabria, and a terror of the
+Campagna. But the Duke was young, and he married her, and for her built
+the white villa; and it was a wonder throughout Campania,--you have
+seen? It is splendid now, even if a ruin. Well, it was less than a year
+after they came to the villa before the Duke grew jealous,--jealous of
+the new captain of the banditti who took the place of the father of _La
+Luna_, himself killed in a great battle up there in the mountains. Was
+there cause? Who shall know? But there were stories among the people of
+terrible things in the villa, and how _La Luna_ was seen almost never
+outside the walls. Then the Duke would go for many days to Napoli,
+coming home only now and then to the villa that was become a fortress,
+so many men guarded its never-opening gates. And once--it was in the
+spring--the Duke came silently down from Napoli, and there, by the three
+poplars you see away towards the north, his carriage was set upon by
+armed men, and he was almost killed; but he had with him many guards,
+and after a terrible fight the brigands were beaten off; but before him,
+wounded, lay the captain,--the man whom he feared and hated. He looked
+at him, lying there under the torchlight, and in his hand saw _his own
+sword_. Then he became a devil: with the same sword he ran the brigand
+through, leaped in the carriage, and, entering the villa, crept to the
+chamber of _La Luna_, and killed her with the sword she had given to her
+lover.
+
+"This is all the story of the White Villa, except that the Duke came
+never again to Pesto. He went back to the king at Napoli, and for many
+years he was the scourge of the banditti of Campania; for the King made
+him a general, and San Damiano was a name feared by the lawless and
+loved by the peaceful, until he was killed in a battle down by Mormanno.
+
+"And _La Luna_? Some say she comes back to the villa, once a year, when
+the moon is full, in the month when she was slain; for the Duke buried
+her, they say, with his own hands, in the garden that was once under the
+window of her chamber; and as she died unshriven, so was she buried
+without the pale of the Church. Therefore she cannot sleep in
+peace,--_non è vero_? I do not know if the story is true, but this is
+the story, Signori, and there is the train for Napoli. _Ah, grazie!
+Signori, grazie tanto! A rivederci! Signori, a rivederci!_"
+
+
+
+
+SISTER MADDELENA.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Maddelena.
+
+
+Across the valley of the Oreto from Monreale, on the slopes of the
+mountains just above the little village of Parco, lies the old convent
+of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister terrace at Monreale you can see its
+pale walls and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from the crowded
+citron and mulberry orchards that flourish, rank and wild, no longer
+cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the
+mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged
+olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from
+Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun,
+indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or
+pauper village.
+
+Partly because of this seclusion, partly by reason of its extreme
+beauty, partly, it may be, because the present owners are more than
+charming and gracious in their pressing hospitality, Sta. Catarina seems
+to preserve an element of the poetic, almost magical; and as I drove
+with the Cavaliere Valguanera one evening in March out of Palermo, along
+the garden valley of the Oreto, then up the mountain side where the warm
+light of the spring sunset swept across from Monreale, lying golden and
+mellow on the luxuriant growth of figs, and olives, and orange-trees,
+and fantastic cacti, and so up to where the path of the convent swung
+off to the right round a dizzy point of cliff that reached out gaunt and
+gray from the olives below,--as I drove thus in the balmy air, and saw
+of a sudden a vision of creamy walls and orange roofs, draped in
+fantastic festoons of roses, with a single curving palm-tree stuck black
+and feathery against the gold sunset, it is hardly to be wondered at
+that I should slip into a mood of visionary enjoyment, looking for a
+time on the whole thing as the misty phantasm of a summer dream.
+
+The Cavaliere had introduced himself to us,--Tom Rendel and me,--one
+morning soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment
+of architects in this paradise of art and color, we were working nobly
+at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was
+himself an amateur archæologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to
+his island; so he felt impelled to speak to any one whom he saw
+appreciating the almost--and in a way fortunately--unknown beauties of
+Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted, and talking like the
+oldest friends. Of course he knew acquaintances of Rendel's,--some one
+always does: this time they were officers on the tubby U. S. S.
+"Quinebaug," that, during the summer of 1888, was trying to uphold the
+maritime honor of the United States in European waters. Luckily for us,
+one of the officers was a kind of cousin of Rendel's, and came from
+Baltimore as well, so, as he had visited at the Cavaliere's place, we
+were soon invited to do the same. It was in this way that, with the luck
+that attends Rendel wherever he goes, we came to see something of
+domestic life in Italy, and that I found myself involved in another of
+those adventures for which I naturally sought so little.
+
+I wonder if there is any other place in Sicily so faultless as Sta.
+Catarina? Taormina is a paradise, an epitome of all that is beautiful in
+Italy,--Venice excepted. Girgenti is a solemn epic, with its golden
+temples between the sea and hills. Cefalù is wild and strange, and
+Monreale a vision out of a fairy tale; but Sta. Catarina!--
+
+Fancy a convent of creamy stone and rose-red brick perched on a ledge of
+rock midway between earth and heaven, the cliff falling almost sheer to
+the valley two hundred feet and more, the mountain rising behind
+straight towards the sky; all the rocks covered with cactus and dwarf
+fig-trees, the convent draped in smothering roses, and in front a
+terrace with a fountain in the midst; and then--nothing--between you and
+the sapphire sea, six miles away. Below stretches the Eden valley, the
+Concha d'Oro, gold-green fig orchards alternating with smoke-blue
+olives, the mountains rising on either hand and sinking undulously away
+towards the bay where, like a magic city of ivory and nacre, Palermo
+lies guarded by the twin mountains, Monte Pellegrino and Capo Zafferano,
+arid rocks like dull amethysts, rose in sunlight, violet in shadow:
+lions couchant, guarding the sleeping town.
+
+Seen as we saw it for the first time that hot evening in March, with the
+golden lambent light pouring down through the valley, making it in
+verity a "shell of gold," sitting in Indian chairs on the terrace, with
+the perfume of roses and jasmines all around us, the valley of the
+Oreto, Palermo, Sta. Catarina, Monreale,--all were but parts of a dreamy
+vision, like the heavenly city of Sir Percivale, to attain which he
+passed across the golden bridge that burned after him as he vanished in
+the intolerable light of the Beatific Vision.
+
+It was all so unreal, so phantasmal, that I was not surprised in the
+least when, late in the evening after the ladies had gone to their
+rooms, and the Cavaliere, Tom, and I were stretched out in chairs on the
+terrace, smoking lazily under the multitudinous stars, the Cavaliere
+said, "There is something I really must tell you both before you go to
+bed, so that you may be spared any unnecessary alarm."
+
+"You are going to say that the place is haunted," said Rendel, feeling
+vaguely on the floor beside him for his glass of Amaro: "thank you; it
+is all it needs."
+
+The Cavaliere smiled a little: "Yes, that is just it. Sta. Catarina is
+really haunted; and much as my reason revolts against the idea as
+superstitious and savoring of priestcraft, yet I must acknowledge I see
+no way of avoiding the admission. I do not presume to offer any
+explanations, I only state the fact; and the fact is that to-night one
+or other of you will, in all human--or unhuman--probability, receive a
+visit from Sister Maddelena. You need not be in the least afraid, the
+apparition is perfectly gentle and harmless; and, moreover, having seen
+it once, you will never see it again. No one sees the ghost, or whatever
+it is, but once, and that usually the first night he spends in the
+house. I myself saw the thing eight--nine years ago, when I first bought
+the place from the Marchese di Muxaro; all my people have seen it,
+nearly all my guests, so I think you may as well be prepared."
+
+"Then tell us what to expect," I said; "what kind of a ghost is this
+nocturnal visitor?"
+
+"It is simple enough. Some time to-night you will suddenly awake and see
+before you a Carmelite nun who will look fixedly at you, say distinctly
+and very sadly, 'I cannot sleep,' and then vanish. That is all, it is
+hardly worth speaking of, only some people are terribly frightened if
+they are visited unwarned by strange apparitions; so I tell you this
+that you may be prepared."
+
+"This was a Carmelite convent, then?" I said.
+
+"Yes; it was suppressed after the unification of Italy, and given to the
+House of Muxaro; but the family died out, and I bought it. There is a
+story about the ghostly nun, who was only a novice, and even that
+unwillingly, which gives an interest to an otherwise very commonplace
+and uninteresting ghost."
+
+"I beg that you will tell it us," cried Rendel.
+
+"There is a storm coming," I added. "See, the lightning is flashing
+already up among the mountains at the head of the valley; if the story
+is tragic, as it must be, now is just the time for it. You will tell it,
+will you not?"
+
+The Cavaliere smiled that slow, cryptic smile of his that was so
+unfathomable.
+
+"As you say, there is a shower coming, and as we have fierce tempests
+here, we might not sleep; so perhaps we may as well sit up a little
+longer, and I will tell you the story."
+
+The air was utterly still, hot and oppressive; the rich, sick odor of
+the oranges just bursting into bloom came up from the valley in a gently
+rising tide. The sky, thick with stars, seemed mirrored in the rich
+foliage below, so numerous were the glow-worms under the still trees,
+and the fireflies that gleamed in the hot air. Lightning flashed
+fitfully from the darkening west; but as yet no thunder broke the heavy
+silence.
+
+The Cavaliere lighted another cigar, and pulled a cushion under his head
+so that he could look down to the distant lights of the city. "This is
+the story," he said.
+
+"Once upon a time, late in the last century, the Duca di Castiglione was
+attached to the court of Charles III., King of the Two Sicilies, down at
+Palermo. They tell me he was very ambitious, and, not content with
+marrying his son to one of the ladies of the House of Tuscany, had
+betrothed his only daughter, Rosalia, to Prince Antonio, a cousin of the
+king. His whole life was wrapped up in the fame of his family, and he
+quite forgot all domestic affection in his madness for dynastic glory.
+His son was a worthy scion, cold and proud; but Rosalia was, according
+to legend, utterly the reverse,--a passionate, beautiful girl, wilful
+and headstrong, and careless of her family and the world.
+
+"The time had nearly come for her to marry Prince Antonio, a typical
+_roué_ of the Spanish court, when, through the treachery of a servant,
+the Duke discovered that his daughter was in love with a young military
+officer whose name I don't remember, and that an elopement had been
+planned to take place the next night. The fury and dismay of the old
+autocrat passed belief; he saw in a flash the downfall of all his hopes
+of family aggrandizement through union with the royal house, and,
+knowing well the spirit of his daughter, despaired of ever bringing her
+to subjection. Nevertheless, he attacked her unmercifully, and, by
+bullying and threats, by imprisonment, and even bodily chastisement, he
+tried to break her spirit and bend her to his indomitable will. Through
+his power at court he had the lover sent away to the mainland, and for
+more than a year he held his daughter closely imprisoned in his palace
+on the Toledo,--that one, you may remember, on the right, just beyond
+the Via del Collegio dei Gesuiti, with the beautiful iron-work grilles
+at all the windows, and the painted frieze. But nothing could move her,
+nothing bend her stubborn will; and at last, furious at the girl he
+could not govern, Castiglione sent her to this convent, then one of the
+few houses of barefoot Carmelite nuns in Italy. He stipulated that she
+should take the name of Maddelena, that he should never hear of her
+again, and that she should be held an absolute prisoner in this
+conventual castle.
+
+"Rosalia--or Sister Maddelena, as she was now--believed her lover dead,
+for her father had given her good proofs of this, and she believed him;
+nevertheless she refused to marry another, and seized upon the convent
+life as a blessed relief from the tyranny of her maniacal father.
+
+"She lived here for four or five years; her name was forgotten at court
+and in her father's palace. Rosalia di Castiglione was dead, and only
+Sister Maddelena lived, a Carmelite nun, in her place.
+
+"In 1798 Ferdinand IV. found himself driven from his throne on the
+mainland, his kingdom divided, and he himself forced to flee to Sicily.
+With him came the lover of the dead Rosalia, now high in military honor.
+He on his part had thought Rosalia dead, and it was only by accident
+that he found that she still lived, a Carmelite nun. Then began the
+second act of the romance that until then had been only sadly
+commonplace, but now became dark and tragic. Michele--Michele
+Biscari,--that was his name; I remember now--haunted the region of the
+convent, striving to communicate with Sister Maddelena; and at last,
+from the cliffs over us, up there among the citrons--you will see by the
+next flash of lightning--he saw her in the great cloister, recognized
+her in her white habit, found her the same dark and splendid beauty of
+six years before, only made more beautiful by her white habit and her
+rigid life. By and by he found a day when she was alone, and tossed a
+ring to her as she stood in the midst of the cloister. She looked up,
+saw him, and from that moment lived only to love him in life as she had
+loved his memory in the death she had thought had overtaken him.
+
+"With the utmost craft they arranged their plans together. They could
+not speak, for a word would have aroused the other inmates of the
+convent. They could make signs only when Sister Maddelena was alone.
+Michele could throw notes to her from the cliff,--a feat demanding a
+strong arm, as you will see, if you measure the distance with your
+eye,--and she could drop replies from the window over the cliff, which
+he picked up at the bottom. Finally he succeeded in casting into the
+cloister a coil of light rope. The girl fastened it to the bars of one
+of the windows, and--so great is the madness of love--Biscari actually
+climbed the rope from the valley to the window of the cell, a distance
+of almost two hundred feet, with but three little craggy resting-places
+in all that height. For nearly a month these nocturnal visits were
+undiscovered, and Michele had almost completed his arrangements for
+carrying the girl from Sta. Catarina and away to Spain, when
+unfortunately one of the sisters, suspecting some mystery, from the
+changed face of Sister Maddelena, began investigating, and at length
+discovered the rope neatly coiled up by the nun's window, and hidden
+under some clinging vines. She instantly told the Mother Superior; and
+together they watched from a window in the crypt of the chapel,--the
+only place, as you will see to-morrow, from which one could see the
+window of Sister Maddelena's cell. They saw the figure of Michele
+daringly ascending the slim rope; watched hour after hour, the Sister
+remaining while the Superior went to say the hours in the chapel, at
+each of which Sister Maddelena was present; and at last, at prime, just
+as the sun was rising, they saw the figure slip down the rope, watched
+the rope drawn up and concealed, and knew that Sister Maddelena was in
+their hands for vengeance and punishment,--a criminal.
+
+"The next day, by the order of the Mother Superior, Sister Maddelena was
+imprisoned in one of the cells under the chapel, charged with her guilt,
+and commanded to make full and complete confession. But not a word would
+she say, although they offered her forgiveness if she would tell the
+name of her lover. At last the Superior told her that after this fashion
+would they act the coming night: she herself would be placed in the
+crypt, tied in front of the window, her mouth gagged; that the rope
+would be lowered, and the lover allowed to approach even to the sill of
+her window, and at that moment the rope would be cut, and before her
+eyes her lover would be dashed to death on the ragged cliffs. The plan
+was feasible, and Sister Maddelena knew that the Mother was perfectly
+capable of carrying it out. Her stubborn spirit was broken, and in the
+only way possible; she begged for mercy, for the sparing of her lover.
+The Mother Superior was deaf at first; at last she said, 'It is your
+life or his. I will spare him on condition that you sacrifice your own
+life.' Sister Maddelena accepted the terms joyfully, wrote a last
+farewell to Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and with her own
+hands cut the rope and saw it fall coiling down to the valley bed far
+below.
+
+"Then she silently prepared for death; and at midnight, while her lover
+was wandering, mad with the horror of impotent fear, around the white
+walls of the convent, Sister Maddelena, for love of Michele, gave up her
+life. How, was never known. That she was indeed dead was only a
+suspicion, for when Biscari finally compelled the civil authorities to
+enter the convent, claiming that murder had been done there, they found
+no sign. Sister Maddelena had been sent to the parent house of the
+barefoot Carmelites at Avila in Spain, so the Superior stated, because
+of her incorrigible contumacy. The old Duke of Castiglione refused to
+stir hand or foot in the matter, and Michele, after fruitless attempts
+to prove that the Superior of Sta. Catarina had caused the death, was
+forced to leave Sicily. He sought in Spain for very long; but no sign of
+the girl was to be found, and at last he died, exhausted with suffering
+and sorrow.
+
+"Even the name of Sister Maddelena was forgotten, and it was not until
+the convents were suppressed, and this house came into the hands of the
+Muxaros, that her story was remembered. It was then that the ghost began
+to appear; and, an explanation being necessary, the story, or legend,
+was obtained from one of the nuns who still lived after the suppression.
+I think the fact--for it is a fact--of the ghost rather goes to prove
+that Michele was right, and that poor Rosalia gave her life a sacrifice
+for love,--whether in accordance with the terms of the legend or not, I
+cannot say. One or the other of you will probably see her to-night. You
+might ask her for the facts. Well, that is all the story of Sister
+Maddelena, known in the world as Rosalia di Castiglione. Do you like
+it?"
+
+"It is admirable," said Rendel, enthusiastically. "But I fancy I should
+rather look on it simply as a story, and not as a warning of what is
+going to happen. I don't much fancy real ghosts myself."
+
+"But the poor Sister is quite harmless;" and Valguanera rose, stretching
+himself. "My servants say she wants a mass said over her, or something
+of that kind; but I haven't much love for such priestly hocus-pocus,--I
+beg your pardon" (turning to me), "I had forgotten that you were a
+Catholic: forgive my rudeness."
+
+"My dear Cavaliere, I beg you not to apologize. I am sorry you cannot
+see things as I do; but don't for a moment think I am hypersensitive."
+
+"I have an excuse,--perhaps you will say only an explanation; but I live
+where I see all the absurdities and corruptions of the Church."
+
+"Perhaps you let the accidents blind you to the essentials; but do not
+let us quarrel to-night,--see, the storm is close on us. Shall we go
+in?"
+
+The stars were blotted out through nearly all the sky; low, thunderous
+clouds, massed at the head of the valley, were sweeping over so close
+that they seemed to brush the black pines on the mountain above us. To
+the south and east the storm-clouds had shut down almost to the sea,
+leaving a space of black sky where the moon in its last quarter was
+rising just to the left of Monte Pellegrino,--a black silhouette against
+the pallid moonlight. The rosy lightning flashed almost incessantly, and
+through the fitful darkness came the sound of bells across the valley,
+the rushing torrent below, and the dull roar of the approaching rain,
+with a deep organ point of solemn thunder through it all.
+
+We fled indoors from the coming tempest, and taking our candles, said
+"good-night," and sought each his respective room.
+
+My own was in the southern part of the old convent, giving on the
+terrace we had just quitted, and about over the main doorway. The
+rushing storm, as it swept down the valley with the swelling torrent
+beneath, was very fascinating, and after wrapping myself in a
+dressing-gown I stood for some time by the deeply embrasured window,
+watching the blazing lightning and the beating rain whirled by fitful
+gusts of wind around the spurs of the mountains. Gradually the violence
+of the shower seemed to decrease, and I threw myself down on my bed in
+the hot air, wondering if I really was to experience the ghostly visit
+the Cavaliere so confidently predicted.
+
+I had thought out the whole matter to my own satisfaction, and fancied I
+knew exactly what I should do, in case Sister Maddelena came to visit
+me. The story touched me: the thought of the poor faithful girl who
+sacrificed herself for her lover,--himself, very likely, quite
+unworthy,--and who now could never sleep for reason of her unquiet soul,
+sent out into the storm of eternity without spiritual aid or counsel. I
+could not sleep; for the still vivid lightning, the crowding thoughts of
+the dead nun, and the shivering anticipation of my possible visitation,
+made slumber quite out of the question. No suspicion of sleepiness had
+visited me, when, perhaps an hour after midnight, came a sudden vivid
+flash of lightning, and, as my dazzled eyes began to regain the power of
+sight, I saw her as plainly as in life,--a tall figure, shrouded in the
+white habit of the Carmelites, her head bent, her hands clasped before
+her. In another flash of lightning she slowly raised her head and looked
+at me long and earnestly. She was very beautiful, like the Virgin of
+Beltraffio in the National Gallery,--more beautiful than I had supposed
+possible, her deep, passionate eyes very tender and pitiful in their
+pleading, beseeching glance. I hardly think I was frightened, or even
+startled, but lay looking steadily at her as she stood in the beating
+lightning.
+
+Then she breathed, rather than articulated, with a voice that almost
+brought tears, so infinitely sad and sorrowful was it, "I cannot sleep!"
+and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful and questioning as bright tears
+fell from them down the pale dark face.
+
+The figure began to move slowly towards the door, its eyes fixed on mine
+with a look that was weary and almost agonized. I leaped from the bed
+and stood waiting. A look of utter gratitude swept over the face, and,
+turning, the figure passed through the doorway.
+
+Out into the shadow of the corridor it moved, like a drift of pallid
+storm-cloud, and I followed, all natural and instinctive fear or
+nervousness quite blotted out by the part I felt I was to play in giving
+rest to a tortured soul. The corridors were velvet black; but the pale
+figure floated before me always, an unerring guide, now but a thin mist
+on the utter night, now white and clear in the bluish lightning through
+some window or doorway.
+
+Down the stairway into the lower hall, across the refectory, where the
+great frescoed Crucifixion flared into sudden clearness under the fitful
+lightning, out into the silent cloister.
+
+It was very dark. I stumbled along the heaving bricks, now guiding
+myself by a hand on the whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column wet
+with the storm. From all the eaves the rain was dripping on to the
+pebbles at the foot of the arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital
+where it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister close. Still the
+white thing drifted before me to the farther side of the court, then
+along the cloister at right angles, and paused before one of the many
+doorways that led to the cells.
+
+A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last now of the fleeting trail
+of storm, leaped around us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face
+turned again with the look of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos,
+that had choked my throat with an involuntary sob when first I saw
+Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval that ensued after the flash, and
+before the roaring thunder burst like the crash of battle over the
+trembling convent, I heard again the sorrowful words, "I cannot sleep,"
+come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again,
+the white figure was gone.
+
+I wandered around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena,
+even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of
+the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was
+locked; but I had found what I sought, and, carefully noting its
+location, went back to my room, but not to sleep.
+
+In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen
+the ghost, and I told him my story; then I asked him to grant me
+permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the
+whole matter into my charge, promising that he would consent to
+anything.
+
+I could hardly wait to finish breakfast; but no sooner was this done
+than, forgetting my morning pipe, I started with Rendel and the
+Cavaliere to investigate.
+
+"I am sure there is nothing in that cell," said Valguanera, when we came
+in front of the door I had marked. "It is curious that you should have
+chosen the door of the very cell that tradition assigns to Sister
+Maddelena; but I have often examined that room myself, and I am sure
+that there is no chance for anything to be concealed. In fact, I had the
+floor taken up once, soon after I came here, knowing the room was that
+of the mysterious Sister, and thinking that there, if anywhere, the
+monastic crime would have taken place; still, we will go in, if you
+like."
+
+He unlocked the door, and we entered, one of us, at all events, with a
+beating heart. The cell was very small, hardly eight feet square. There
+certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing a body in the tiny place;
+and although I sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid, heavy
+answer,--the unmistakable sound of masonry.
+
+For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere answered. He had, he said,
+had it all removed, even to the curving surfaces of the vault below; yet
+somewhere in this room the body of the murdered girl was concealed,--of
+this I was certain. But where? There seemed no answer; and I was
+compelled to give up the search for the moment, somewhat to the
+amusement of Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see if I could
+solve the mystery.
+
+But I could not forget the subject, and towards noon started on another
+tour of investigation. I procured the keys from the Cavaliere, and
+examined the cells adjoining; they were apparently the same, each with
+its window opposite the door, and nothing-- Stay, were they the same? I
+hastened into the suspected cell; it was as I thought: this cell, being
+on the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and
+that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination?
+As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should
+be, I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was
+becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing
+open the little window, thrust my head out.
+
+It was found at last! In the smooth surface of the yellow wall was a
+rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell
+windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes
+of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp
+of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep
+enough; what a wall it was!--four feet at least, and the opening of the
+window reached to the floor, though the window itself was hardly three
+feet square. I felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved, and
+called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too excited to give them an explanation
+of my theories.
+
+They must have thought me mad when I suddenly began scraping away at the
+solid wall in front of the door; but in a few minutes they understood
+what I was about, for under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared
+the original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me
+rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint
+between firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand, and rough amateurish work
+on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without order or science.
+
+Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail the rude wall, when I
+stopped him.
+
+"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows what we may find?" So we set to
+work digging out the mortar around a brick at about the level of our
+eyes.
+
+How hard the mortar had become! But a brick yielded at last, and with
+trembling fingers I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond question
+there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we
+removed another brick. Still the hole was too small to admit enough
+light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the
+sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks in size. It
+moved, and we softly slid it from its bed.
+
+Valguanera, who was standing watching us as we lowered the bricks to the
+floor, gave a sudden cry, a cry like that of a frightened
+woman,--terrible, coming from him. Yet there was cause.
+
+Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim
+light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust,
+but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half
+open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below,
+slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of
+the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense
+muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.
+
+We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated,
+bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
+ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful
+creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
+hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things
+in romance; but to find the verity here, before my eyes--
+
+Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous thought we sprang
+to the door and closed it behind us. The room was sacred; that awful
+sight was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some
+trivial question of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go
+down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked
+him with a glance.) "Stay!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
+o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+Valguanera thought a moment, then he said, "Bring two horses; the Signor
+Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me,
+"You will go, will you not? I think you can explain matters to Padre
+Stefano better than I."
+
+"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a
+hasty luncheon I wound down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano,
+explained my errand to him, found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
+and by five o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was
+necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.
+
+In the warm twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the
+little cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had
+for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to
+speed her tortured soul on its journey, so long delayed. Nothing was
+omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre
+Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering
+flames of the candles carried by two of the acolytes from San Francesco
+threw fitful flashes of pallid light into the dark recess where the
+white face had prayed to Heaven for a hundred years.
+
+Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the hands of one of the
+acolytes, and with a sign of the cross in benediction while he chanted
+the _Asperges_, gently sprinkled the holy water on the upturned face.
+Instantly the whole vision crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and
+where once the candlelight had flickered on the perfect semblance of the
+girl dead so very long, it now fell only on the rough bricks which
+closed the window, bricks laid with frozen hearts by pitiless hands.
+
+But our task was not done yet. It had been arranged that Padre Stefano
+should remain at the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight
+made it possible he should say the first mass for the repose of the
+girl's soul. We sat on the terrace talking over the strange events of
+the last crowded hours, and I noted with satisfaction that the Cavaliere
+no longer spoke of the Church with that hardness, which had hurt me so
+often. It is true that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but
+not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I
+wondered if it might not prove that more than one soul benefited by the
+untoward events of the day.
+
+With the aid of the astonished and delighted servants, and no little
+help as well from Signora Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in
+the chapel, and by midnight we had the gloomy sanctuary beautiful with
+flowers and candles. It was a curiously solemn service, in the first
+hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing candles and the thick
+incense, the odor of the opening orange-blooms drifting up in the fresh
+morning air, and mingling with the incense smoke and the perfume of
+flowers within. Many prayers were said that night for the soul of the
+dead girl, and I think many afterwards; for after the benediction I
+remained for a little time in my place, and when I rose from my knees
+and went towards the chapel door, I saw a figure kneeling still, and,
+with a start, recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled with quiet
+satisfaction and gratitude, and went away softly, content with the chain
+of events that now seemed finished.
+
+The next day the alcove was again walled up, for the precious dust could
+not be gathered together for transportation to consecrated ground; so I
+went down to the little cemetery at Parco for a basket of earth, which
+we cast in over the ashes of Sister Maddelena.
+
+By and by, when Rendel and I went away, with great regret, Valguanera
+came down to Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed in
+Sicily was assisting him to order a tablet of marble, whereon was
+carved this simple inscription:--
+
+      HERE LIES THE BODY OF
+     ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,
+             CALLED
+       SISTER MADDELENA.
+            HER SOUL
+    IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.
+
+To this I added in thought:--
+
+"Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone."
+
+
+
+
+NOTRE DAME DES EAUX.
+
+
+
+
+Notre Dame des Eaux.
+
+
+West of St. Pol de Leon, on the sea-cliffs of Finisterre, stands the
+ancient church of Notre Dame des Eaux. Five centuries of beating winds
+and sweeping rains have moulded its angles, and worn its carvings and
+sculpture down to the very semblance of the ragged cliffs themselves,
+until even the Breton fisherman, looking lovingly from his boat as he
+makes for the harbor of Morlaix, hardly can say where the crags end, and
+where the church begins. The teeth of the winds of the sea have
+devoured, bit by bit, the fine sculpture of the doorway and the thin
+cusps of the window tracery; gray moss creeps caressingly over the worn
+walls in ineffectual protection; gentle vines, turned crabbed by the
+harsh beating of the fierce winds, clutch the crumbling buttresses,
+climb up over the sinking roof, reach in even at the louvres of the
+belfry, holding the little sanctuary safe in desperate arms against the
+savage warfare of the sea and sky.
+
+Many a time you may follow the rocky highway from St. Pol even around
+the last land of France, and so to Brest, yet never see sign of Notre
+Dame des Eaux; for it clings to a cliff somewhat lower than the road,
+and between grows a stunted thicket of harsh and ragged trees, their
+skeleton white branches, tortured and contorted, thrusting sorrowfully
+out of the hard, dark foliage that still grows below, where the rise of
+land below the highway gives some protection. You must leave the wood by
+the two cottages of yellow stone, about twenty miles beyond St. Pol, and
+go down to the right, around the old stone quarry; then, bearing to the
+left by the little cliff path, you will, in a moment, see the pointed
+roof of the tower of Notre Dame, and, later, come down to the side porch
+among the crosses of the arid little graveyard.
+
+It is worth the walk, for though the church has outwardly little but its
+sad picturesqueness to repay the artist, within it is a dream and a
+delight. A Norman nave of round, red stone piers and arches, a delicate
+choir of the richest flamboyant, a High Altar of the time of Francis I.,
+form only the mellow background and frame for carven tombs and dark old
+pictures, hanging lamps of iron and brass, and black, heavily carved
+choir-stalls of the Renaissance.
+
+So has the little church lain unnoticed for many centuries; for the
+horrors and follies of the Revolution have never come near, and the
+hardy and faithful people of Finisterre have feared God and loved Our
+Lady too well to harm her church. For many years it was the church of
+the Comtes de Jarleuc; and these are their tombs that mellow year by
+year under the warm light of the painted windows, given long ago by
+Comte Robert de Jarleuc, when the heir of Poullaouen came safely to
+shore in the harbor of Morlaix, having escaped from the Isle of Wight,
+where he had lain captive after the awful defeat of the fleet of Charles
+of Valois at Sluys. And now the heir of Poullaouen lies in a carven
+tomb, forgetful of the world where he fought so nobly: the dynasty he
+fought to establish, only a memory; the family he made glorious, a name;
+the Château Poullaouen a single crag of riven masonry in the fields of
+M. du Bois, mayor of Morlaix.
+
+It was Julien, Comte de Bergerac, who rediscovered Notre Dame des Eaux,
+and by his picture of its dreamy interior in the Salon of '86 brought
+once more into notice this forgotten corner of the world. The next year
+a party of painters settled themselves near by, roughing it as best they
+could, and in the year following, Mme. de Bergerac and her daughter
+Héloïse came with Julien, and, buying the old farm of Pontivy, on the
+highway over Notre Dame, turned it into a summer house that almost made
+amends for their lost château on the Dordogne, stolen from them as
+virulent Royalists by the triumphant Republic in 1794.
+
+Little by little a summer colony of painters gathered around Pontivy,
+and it was not until the spring of 1890 that the peace of the colony was
+broken. It was a sorrowful tragedy. Jean d'Yriex, the youngest and
+merriest devil of all the jolly crew, became suddenly moody and morose.
+At first this was attributed to his undisguised admiration for Mlle.
+Héloïse, and was looked on as one of the vagaries of boyish passion; but
+one day, while riding with M. de Bergerac, he suddenly seized the
+bridle of Julien's horse, wrenched it from his hand, and, turning his
+own horse's head towards the cliffs, lashed the terrified animals into a
+gallop straight towards the brink. He was only thwarted in his mad
+object by Julien, who with a quick blow sent him headlong in the dry
+grass, and reined in the terrified animals hardly a yard from the
+cliffs. When this happened, and no word of explanation was granted, only
+a sullen silence that lasted for days, it became clear that poor Jean's
+brain was wrong in some way. Héloïse devoted herself to him with
+infinite patience,--though she felt no special affection for him, only
+pity,--and while he was with her he seemed sane and quiet. But at night
+some strange mania took possession of him. If he had worked on his Prix
+de Rome picture in the daytime, while Héloïse sat by him, reading aloud
+or singing a little, no matter how good the work, it would have vanished
+in the morning, and he would again begin, only to erase his labor during
+the night.
+
+At last his growing insanity reached its climax; and one day in Notre
+Dame, when he had painted better than usual, he suddenly stopped,
+seized a palette knife, and slashed the great canvas in strips. Héloïse
+sprang forward to stop him, and in crazy fury he turned on her, striking
+at her throat with the palette knife. The thin steel snapped, and the
+white throat showed only a scarlet scratch. Héloïse, without that
+ordinary terror that would crush most women, grasped the thin wrists of
+the madman, and, though he could easily have wrenched his hands away,
+d'Yriex sank on his knees in a passion of tears. He shut himself in his
+room at Pontivy, refusing to see any one, walking for hours up and down,
+fighting against growing madness. Soon Dr. Charpentier came from Paris,
+summoned by Mme. de Bergerac; and after one short, forced interview,
+left at once for Paris, taking M. d'Yriex with him.
+
+A few days later came a letter for Mme. de Bergerac, in which Dr.
+Charpentier confessed that Jean had disappeared, that he had allowed him
+too much liberty, owing to his apparent calmness, and that when the
+train stopped at Le Mans he had slipped from him and utterly vanished.
+
+During the summer, word came occasionally that no trace had been found
+of the unhappy man, and at last the Pontivy colony realized that the
+merry boy was dead. Had he lived he _must_ have been found, for the
+exertions of the police were perfect; yet not the slightest trace was
+discovered, and his lamentable death was acknowledged, not only by Mme.
+de Bergerac and Jean's family,--sorrowing for the death of their
+first-born, away in the warm hills of Lozère,--but by Dr. Charpentier as
+well.
+
+So the summer passed, and the autumn came, and at last the cold rains of
+November--the skirmish line of the advancing army of winter--drove the
+colony back to Paris.
+
+It was the last day at Pontivy, and Mlle. Héloïse had come down to Notre
+Dame for a last look at the beautiful shrine, a last prayer for the
+repose of the tortured soul of poor Jean d'Yriex. The rains had ceased
+for a time, and a warm stillness lay over the cliffs and on the creeping
+sea, swaying and lapping around the ragged shore. Héloïse knelt very
+long before the Altar of Our Lady of the Waters; and when she finally
+rose, could not bring herself to leave as yet that place of sorrowful
+beauty, all warm and golden with the last light of the declining sun.
+She watched the old verger, Pierre Polou, stumping softly around the
+darkening building, and spoke to him once, asking the hour; but he was
+very deaf, as well as nearly blind, and he did not answer.
+
+So she sat in the corner of the aisle by the Altar of Our Lady of the
+Waters, watching the checkered light fade in the advancing shadows,
+dreaming sad day-dreams of the dead summer, until the day-dreams merged
+in night-dreams, and she fell asleep.
+
+Then the last light of the early sunset died in the gleaming quarries of
+the west window; Pierre Polou stumbled uncertainly through the dusky
+shadow, locked the sagging doors of the mouldering south porch, and took
+his way among the leaning crosses up to the highway and his little
+cottage, a good mile away,--the nearest house to the lonely Church of
+Notre Dame des Eaux.
+
+With the setting of the sun great clouds rose swiftly from the sea; the
+wind freshened, and the gaunt branches of the weather-worn trees in the
+churchyard lashed themselves beseechingly before the coming storm. The
+tide turned, and the waters at the foot of the rocks swept uneasily up
+the narrow beach and caught at the weary cliffs, their sobbing growing
+and deepening to a threatening, solemn roar. Whirls of dead leaves rose
+in the churchyard, and threw themselves against the blank windows. The
+winter and the night came down together.
+
+Héloïse awoke, bewildered and wondering; in a moment she realized the
+situation, and without fear or uneasiness. There was nothing to dread in
+Notre Dame by night; the ghosts, if there were ghosts, would not trouble
+her, and the doors were securely locked. It was foolish of her to fall
+asleep, and her mother would be most uneasy at Pontivy if she realized
+before dawn that Héloïse had not returned. On the other hand, she was in
+the habit of wandering off to walk after dinner, often not coming home
+until late, so it was quite possible that she might return before Madame
+knew of her absence, for Polou came always to unlock the church for the
+low mass at six o'clock; so she arose from her cramped position in the
+aisle, and walked slowly up to the choir-rail, entered the chancel, and
+felt her way to one of the stalls, on the south side, where there were
+cushions and an easy back.
+
+It was really very beautiful in Notre Dame by night; she had never
+suspected how strange and solemn the little church could be when the
+moon shone fitfully through the south windows, now bright and clear, now
+blotted out by sweeping clouds. The nave was barred with the long
+shadows of the heavy pillars, and when the moon came out she could see
+far down almost to the west end. How still it was! Only a soft low
+murmur without of the restless limbs of the trees, and of the creeping
+sea.
+
+It was very soothing, almost like a song; and Héloïse felt sleep coming
+back to her as the clouds shut out the moon, and all the church grew
+black.
+
+She was drifting off into the last delicious moment of vanishing
+consciousness, when she suddenly came fully awake, with a shock that
+made every nerve tingle. In the midst of the far faint sounds of the
+tempestuous night she had heard a footstep! Yet the church was utterly
+empty, she was sure. And again! A footstep dragging and uncertain,
+stealthy and cautious, but an unmistakable step, away in the blackest
+shadow at the end of the church.
+
+She sat up, frozen with the fear that comes at night and that is
+overwhelming, her hands clutching the coarse carving of the arms of the
+stall, staring down into the dark.
+
+Again the footstep, and again,--slow, measured, one after another at
+intervals of perhaps half a minute, growing a little louder each time, a
+little nearer.
+
+Would the darkness never be broken? Would the cloud never pass? Minute
+after minute went like weary hours, and still the moon was hid, still
+the dead branches rattled clatteringly on the high windows.
+Unconsciously she moved, as under a magician's spell, down to the
+choir-rail, straining her eyes to pierce the thick night. And the step,
+it was very near! Ah, the moon at last! A white ray fell through the
+westernmost window, painting a bar of light on the floor of sagging
+stone. Then a second bar, then a third, and a fourth, and for a moment
+Héloïse could have cried out with relief, for nothing broke the lines of
+light,--no figure, no shadow. In another moment came a step, and from
+the shadow of the last column appeared in the pallid moonlight the
+figure of a man. The girl stared breathless, the moonlight falling on
+her as she stood rigid against the low parapet. Another step and
+another, and she saw before her--was it ghost or living man?--a white
+mad face staring from matted hair and beard, a tall thin figure half
+clothed in rags, limping as it stepped towards her with wounded feet.
+From the dead face stared mad eyes that gleamed like the eyes of a cat,
+fixed on hers with insane persistence, holding her, fascinating her as a
+cat fascinates a bird.
+
+One more step,--it was close before her now! those awful, luminous eyes
+dilating and contracting in awful palpitations. And the moon was going
+out; the shadows swept one by one over the windows; she stared at the
+moonlit face for a last fascinated glance--Mother of God! it was---- The
+shadow swept over them, and now only remained the blazing eyes and the
+dim outline of a form that crouched waveringly before her as a cat
+crouches, drawing its vibrating body together for the spring that blots
+out the life of the victim.
+
+In another instant the mad thing would leap; but just as the quiver
+swept over the crouching body, Héloïse gathered all her strength into
+one action of desperate terror.
+
+"Jean, stop!"
+
+The thing crouched before her paused, chattering softly to itself; then
+it articulated dryly, and with all the trouble of a learning child, the
+one word, "_Chantez!_"
+
+Without a thought, Héloïse sang; it was the first thing that she
+remembered, an old Provençal song that d'Yriex had always loved. While
+she sang, the poor mad creature lay huddled at her feet, separated from
+her only by the choir parapet, its dilating, contracting eyes never
+moving for an instant. As the song died away, came again that awful
+tremor, indicative of the coming death-spring, and again she sang,--this
+time the old _Pange lingua_, its sonorous Latin sounding in the deserted
+church like the voice of dead centuries.
+
+And so she sang, on and on, hour after hour,--hymns and _chansons_,
+folk-songs and bits from comic operas, songs of the boulevards
+alternating with the _Tantum ergo_ and the _O Filii et Filiæ_. It
+mattered little what she sang. At last it seemed to her that it mattered
+little whether she sang or no; for her brain whirled round and round
+like a dizzy maelstrom, her icy hands, griping the hard rail, alone
+supported her dying body. She could hear no sound of her song; her body
+was numb, her mouth parched, her lips cracked and bleeding; she felt
+the drops of blood fall from her chin. And still she sang, with the
+yellow palpitating eyes holding her as in a vice. If only she could
+continue until dawn! It must be dawn so soon! The windows were growing
+gray, the rain lashed outside, she could distinguish the features of the
+horror before her; but the night of death was growing with the coming
+day, blackness swept down upon her; she could sing no more, her tortured
+lips made one last effort to form the words, "Mother of God, save me!"
+and night and death came down like a crushing wave.
+
+But her prayer was heard; the dawn had come, and Polou unlocked the
+porch-door for Father Augustin just in time to hear the last agonized
+cry. The maniac turned in the very act of leaping on his victim, and
+sprang for the two men, who stopped in dumb amazement. Poor old Pierre
+Polou went down at a blow; but Father Augustin was young and fearless,
+and he grappled the mad animal with all his strength and will. It would
+have gone ill even with him,--for no one can stand against the bestial
+fury of a man in whom reason is dead,--had not some sudden impulse
+seized the maniac, who pitched the priest aside with a single movement,
+and, leaping through the door, vanished forever.
+
+Did he hurl himself from the cliffs in the cold wet morning, or was he
+doomed to wander, a wild beast, until, captured, he beat himself in vain
+against the walls of some asylum, an unknown pauper lunatic? None ever
+knew.
+
+The colony at Pontivy was blotted out by the dreary tragedy, and Notre
+Dame des Eaux sank once more into silence and solitude. Once a year
+Father Augustin said mass for the repose of the soul of Jean d'Yriex;
+but no other memory remained of the horror that blighted the lives of an
+innocent girl and of a gray-haired mother mourning for her dead boy in
+far Lozère.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD VALLEY.
+
+
+
+
+The Dead Valley.
+
+
+I have a friend, Olof Ehrensvärd, a Swede by birth, who yet, by reason
+of a strange and melancholy mischance of his early boyhood, has thrown
+his lot with that of the New World. It is a curious story of a
+headstrong boy and a proud and relentless family: the details do not
+matter here, but they are sufficient to weave a web of romance around
+the tall yellow-bearded man with the sad eyes and the voice that gives
+itself perfectly to plaintive little Swedish songs remembered out of
+childhood. In the winter evenings we play chess together, he and I, and
+after some close, fierce battle has been fought to a finish--usually
+with my own defeat--we fill our pipes again, and Ehrensvärd tells me
+stories of the far, half-remembered days in the fatherland, before he
+went to sea: stories that grow very strange and incredible as the night
+deepens and the fire falls together, but stories that, nevertheless, I
+fully believe.
+
+One of them made a strong impression on me, so I set it down here, only
+regretting that I cannot reproduce the curiously perfect English and the
+delicate accent which to me increased the fascination of the tale. Yet,
+as best I can remember it, here it is.
+
+"I never told you how Nils and I went over the hills to Hallsberg, and
+how we found the Dead Valley, did I? Well, this is the way it happened.
+I must have been about twelve years old, and Nils Sjöberg, whose
+father's estate joined ours, was a few months younger. We were
+inseparable just at that time, and whatever we did, we did together.
+
+"Once a week it was market day in Engelholm, and Nils and I went always
+there to see the strange sights that the market gathered from all the
+surrounding country. One day we quite lost our hearts, for an old man
+from across the Elfborg had brought a little dog to sell, that seemed to
+us the most beautiful dog in all the world. He was a round, woolly
+puppy, so funny that Nils and I sat down on the ground and laughed at
+him, until he came and played with us in so jolly a way that we felt
+that there was only one really desirable thing in life, and that was the
+little dog of the old man from across the hills. But alas! we had not
+half money enough wherewith to buy him, so we were forced to beg the old
+man not to sell him before the next market day, promising that we would
+bring the money for him then. He gave us his word, and we ran home very
+fast and implored our mothers to give us money for the little dog.
+
+"We got the money, but we could not wait for the next market day.
+Suppose the puppy should be sold! The thought frightened us so that we
+begged and implored that we might be allowed to go over the hills to
+Hallsberg where the old man lived, and get the little dog ourselves, and
+at last they told us we might go. By starting early in the morning we
+should reach Hallsberg by three o'clock, and it was arranged that we
+should stay there that night with Nils's aunt, and, leaving by noon the
+next day, be home again by sunset.
+
+"Soon after sunrise we were on our way, after having received minute
+instructions as to just what we should do in all possible and
+impossible circumstances, and finally a repeated injunction that we
+should start for home at the same hour the next day, so that we might
+get safely back before nightfall.
+
+"For us, it was magnificent sport, and we started off with our rifles,
+full of the sense of our very great importance: yet the journey was
+simple enough, along a good road, across the big hills we knew so well,
+for Nils and I had shot over half the territory this side of the
+dividing ridge of the Elfborg. Back of Engelholm lay a long valley, from
+which rose the low mountains, and we had to cross this, and then follow
+the road along the side of the hills for three or four miles, before a
+narrow path branched off to the left, leading up through the pass.
+
+"Nothing occurred of interest on the way over, and we reached Hallsberg
+in due season, found to our inexpressible joy that the little dog was
+not sold, secured him, and so went to the house of Nils's aunt to spend
+the night.
+
+"Why we did not leave early on the following day, I can't quite
+remember; at all events, I know we stopped at a shooting range just
+outside of the town, where most attractive pasteboard pigs were sliding
+slowly through painted foliage, serving so as beautiful marks. The
+result was that we did not get fairly started for home until afternoon,
+and as we found ourselves at last pushing up the side of the mountain
+with the sun dangerously near their summits, I think we were a little
+scared at the prospect of the examination and possible punishment that
+awaited us when we got home at midnight.
+
+"Therefore we hurried as fast as possible up the mountain side, while
+the blue dusk closed in about us, and the light died in the purple sky.
+At first we had talked hilariously, and the little dog had leaped ahead
+of us with the utmost joy. Latterly, however, a curious oppression came
+on us; we did not speak or even whistle, while the dog fell behind,
+following us with hesitation in every muscle.
+
+"We had passed through the foothills and the low spurs of the mountains,
+and were almost at the top of the main range, when life seemed to go out
+of everything, leaving the world dead, so suddenly silent the forest
+became, so stagnant the air. Instinctively we halted to listen.
+
+"Perfect silence,--the crushing silence of deep forests at night; and
+more, for always, even in the most impenetrable fastnesses of the wooded
+mountains, is the multitudinous murmur of little lives, awakened by the
+darkness, exaggerated and intensified by the stillness of the air and
+the great dark: but here and now the silence seemed unbroken even by the
+turn of a leaf, the movement of a twig, the note of night bird or
+insect. I could hear the blood beat through my veins; and the crushing
+of the grass under our feet as we advanced with hesitating steps sounded
+like the falling of trees.
+
+"And the air was stagnant,--dead. The atmosphere seemed to lie upon the
+body like the weight of sea on a diver who has ventured too far into its
+awful depths. What we usually call silence seems so only in relation to
+the din of ordinary experience. This was silence in the absolute, and it
+crushed the mind while it intensified the senses, bringing down the
+awful weight of inextinguishable fear.
+
+"I know that Nils and I stared towards each other in abject terror,
+listening to our quick, heavy breathing, that sounded to our acute
+senses like the fitful rush of waters. And the poor little dog we were
+leading justified our terror. The black oppression seemed to crush him
+even as it did us. He lay close on the ground, moaning feebly, and
+dragging himself painfully and slowly closer to Nils's feet. I think
+this exhibition of utter animal fear was the last touch, and must
+inevitably have blasted our reason--mine anyway; but just then, as we
+stood quaking on the bounds of madness, came a sound, so awful, so
+ghastly, so horrible, that it seemed to rouse us from the dead spell
+that was on us.
+
+"In the depth of the silence came a cry, beginning as a low, sorrowful
+moan, rising to a tremulous shriek, culminating in a yell that seemed to
+tear the night in sunder and rend the world as by a cataclysm. So
+fearful was it that I could not believe it had actual existence: it
+passed previous experience, the powers of belief, and for a moment I
+thought it the result of my own animal terror, an hallucination born of
+tottering reason.
+
+"A glance at Nils dispelled this thought in a flash. In the pale light
+of the high stars he was the embodiment of all possible human fear,
+quaking with an ague, his jaw fallen, his tongue out, his eyes
+protruding like those of a hanged man. Without a word we fled, the
+panic of fear giving us strength, and together, the little dog caught
+close in Nils's arms, we sped down the side of the cursed
+mountains,--anywhere, goal was of no account: we had but one impulse--to
+get away from that place.
+
+"So under the black trees and the far white stars that flashed through
+the still leaves overhead, we leaped down the mountain side, regardless
+of path or landmark, straight through the tangled underbrush, across
+mountain streams, through fens and copses, anywhere, so only that our
+course was downward.
+
+"How long we ran thus, I have no idea, but by and by the forest fell
+behind, and we found ourselves among the foothills, and fell exhausted
+on the dry short grass, panting like tired dogs.
+
+"It was lighter here in the open, and presently we looked around to see
+where we were, and how we were to strike out in order to find the path
+that would lead us home. We looked in vain for a familiar sign. Behind
+us rose the great wall of black forest on the flank of the mountain:
+before us lay the undulating mounds of low foothills, unbroken by trees
+or rocks, and beyond, only the fall of black sky bright with
+multitudinous stars that turned its velvet depth to a luminous gray.
+
+"As I remember, we did not speak to each other once: the terror was too
+heavy on us for that, but by and by we rose simultaneously and started
+out across the hills.
+
+"Still the same silence, the same dead, motionless air--air that was at
+once sultry and chilling: a heavy heat struck through with an icy chill
+that felt almost like the burning of frozen steel. Still carrying the
+helpless dog, Nils pressed on through the hills, and I followed close
+behind. At last, in front of us, rose a slope of moor touching the white
+stars. We climbed it wearily, reached the top, and found ourselves
+gazing down into a great, smooth valley, filled half way to the brim
+with--what?
+
+"As far as the eye could see stretched a level plain of ashy white,
+faintly phosphorescent, a sea of velvet fog that lay like motionless
+water, or rather like a floor of alabaster, so dense did it appear, so
+seemingly capable of sustaining weight. If it were possible, I think
+that sea of dead white mist struck even greater terror into my soul
+than the heavy silence or the deadly cry--so ominous was it, so utterly
+unreal, so phantasmal, so impossible, as it lay there like a dead ocean
+under the steady stars. Yet through that mist _we must go_! there seemed
+no other way home, and, shattered with abject fear, mad with the one
+desire to get back, we started down the slope to where the sea of milky
+mist ceased, sharp and distinct around the stems of the rough grass.
+
+"I put one foot into the ghostly fog. A chill as of death struck through
+me, stopping my heart, and I threw myself backward on the slope. At that
+instant came again the shriek, close, close, right in our ears, in
+ourselves, and far out across that damnable sea I saw the cold fog lift
+like a water-spout and toss itself high in writhing convolutions towards
+the sky. The stars began to grow dim as thick vapor swept across them,
+and in the growing dark I saw a great, watery moon lift itself slowly
+above the palpitating sea, vast and vague in the gathering mist.
+
+"This was enough: we turned and fled along the margin of the white sea
+that throbbed now with fitful motion below us, rising, rising, slowly
+and steadily, driving us higher and higher up the side of the foothills.
+
+"It was a race for life; that we knew. How we kept it up I cannot
+understand, but we did, and at last we saw the white sea fall behind us
+as we staggered up the end of the valley, and then down into a region
+that we knew, and so into the old path. The last thing I remember was
+hearing a strange voice, that of Nils, but horribly changed, stammer
+brokenly, 'The dog is dead!' and then the whole world turned around
+twice, slowly and resistlessly, and consciousness went out with a crash.
+
+"It was some three weeks later, as I remember, that I awoke in my own
+room, and found my mother sitting beside the bed. I could not think very
+well at first, but as I slowly grew strong again, vague flashes of
+recollection began to come to me, and little by little the whole
+sequence of events of that awful night in the Dead Valley came back. All
+that I could gain from what was told me was that three weeks before I
+had been found in my own bed, raging sick, and that my illness grew fast
+into brain fever. I tried to speak of the dread things that had happened
+to me, but I saw at once that no one looked on them save as the
+hauntings of a dying frenzy, and so I closed my mouth and kept my own
+counsel.
+
+"I must see Nils, however, and so I asked for him. My mother told me
+that he also had been ill with a strange fever, but that he was now
+quite well again. Presently they brought him in, and when we were alone
+I began to speak to him of the night on the mountain. I shall never
+forget the shock that struck me down on my pillow when the boy denied
+everything: denied having gone with me, ever having heard the cry,
+having seen the valley, or feeling the deadly chill of the ghostly fog.
+Nothing would shake his determined ignorance, and in spite of myself I
+was forced to admit that his denials came from no policy of concealment,
+but from blank oblivion.
+
+"My weakened brain was in a turmoil. Was it all but the floating
+phantasm of delirium? Or had the horror of the real thing blotted Nils's
+mind into blankness so far as the events of the night in the Dead Valley
+were concerned? The latter explanation seemed the only one, else how
+explain the sudden illness which in a night had struck us both down? I
+said nothing more, either to Nils or to my own people, but waited, with
+a growing determination that, once well again, I would find that valley
+if it really existed.
+
+"It was some weeks before I was really well enough to go, but finally,
+late in September, I chose a bright, warm, still day, the last smile of
+the dying summer, and started early in the morning along the path that
+led to Hallsberg. I was sure I knew where the trail struck off to the
+right, down which we had come from the valley of dead water, for a great
+tree grew by the Hallsberg path at the point where, with a sense of
+salvation, we had found the home road. Presently I saw it to the right,
+a little distance ahead.
+
+"I think the bright sunlight and the clear air had worked as a tonic to
+me, for by the time I came to the foot of the great pine, I had quite
+lost faith in the verity of the vision that haunted me, believing at
+last that it was indeed but the nightmare of madness. Nevertheless, I
+turned sharply to the right, at the base of the tree, into a narrow path
+that led through a dense thicket. As I did so I tripped over something.
+A swarm of flies sung into the air around me, and looking down I saw
+the matted fleece, with the poor little bones thrusting through, of the
+dog we had bought in Hallsberg.
+
+"Then my courage went out with a puff, and I knew that it all was true,
+and that now I was frightened. Pride and the desire for adventure urged
+me on, however, and I pressed into the close thicket that barred my way.
+The path was hardly visible: merely the worn road of some small beasts,
+for, though it showed in the crisp grass, the bushes above grew thick
+and hardly penetrable. The land rose slowly, and rising grew clearer,
+until at last I came out on a great slope of hill, unbroken by trees or
+shrubs, very like my memory of that rise of land we had topped in order
+that we might find the dead valley and the icy fog. I looked at the sun;
+it was bright and clear, and all around insects were humming in the
+autumn air, and birds were darting to and fro. Surely there was no
+danger, not until nightfall at least; so I began to whistle, and with a
+rush mounted the last crest of brown hill.
+
+"There lay the Dead Valley! A great oval basin, almost as smooth and
+regular as though made by man. On all sides the grass crept over the
+brink of the encircling hills, dusty green on the crests, then fading
+into ashy brown, and so to a deadly white, this last color forming a
+thin ring, running in a long line around the slope. And then? Nothing.
+Bare, brown, hard earth, glittering with grains of alkali, but otherwise
+dead and barren. Not a tuft of grass, not a stick of brushwood, not even
+a stone, but only the vast expanse of beaten clay.
+
+"In the midst of the basin, perhaps a mile and a half away, the level
+expanse was broken by a great dead tree, rising leafless and gaunt into
+the air. Without a moment's hesitation I started down into the valley
+and made for this goal. Every particle of fear seemed to have left me,
+and even the valley itself did not look so very terrifying. At all
+events, I was driven by an overwhelming curiosity, and there seemed to
+be but one thing in the world to do,--to get to that Tree! As I trudged
+along over the hard earth, I noticed that the multitudinous voices of
+birds and insects had died away. No bee or butterfly hovered through the
+air, no insects leaped or crept over the dull earth. The very air itself
+was stagnant.
+
+"As I drew near the skeleton tree, I noticed the glint of sunlight on a
+kind of white mound around its roots, and I wondered curiously. It was
+not until I had come close that I saw its nature.
+
+"All around the roots and barkless trunk was heaped a wilderness of
+little bones. Tiny skulls of rodents and of birds, thousands of them,
+rising about the dead tree and streaming off for several yards in all
+directions, until the dreadful pile ended in isolated skulls and
+scattered skeletons. Here and there a larger bone appeared,--the thigh
+of a sheep, the hoofs of a horse, and to one side, grinning slowly, a
+human skull.
+
+"I stood quite still, staring with all my eyes, when suddenly the dense
+silence was broken by a faint, forlorn cry high over my head. I looked
+up and saw a great falcon turning and sailing downward just over the
+tree. In a moment more she fell motionless on the bleaching bones.
+
+"Horror struck me, and I rushed for home, my brain whirling, a strange
+numbness growing in me. I ran steadily, on and on. At last I glanced up.
+Where was the rise of hill? I looked around wildly. Close before me was
+the dead tree with its pile of bones. I had circled it round and round,
+and the valley wall was still a mile and a half away.
+
+"I stood dazed and frozen. The sun was sinking, red and dull, towards
+the line of hills. In the east the dark was growing fast. Was there
+still time? _Time!_ It was not _that_ I wanted, it was _will_! My feet
+seemed clogged as in a nightmare. I could hardly drag them over the
+barren earth. And then I felt the slow chill creeping through me. I
+looked down. Out of the earth a thin mist was rising, collecting in
+little pools that grew ever larger until they joined here and there,
+their currents swirling slowly like thin blue smoke. The western hills
+halved the copper sun. When it was dark I should hear that shriek again,
+and then I should die. I knew that, and with every remaining atom of
+will I staggered towards the red west through the writhing mist that
+crept clammily around my ankles, retarding my steps.
+
+"And as I fought my way off from the Tree, the horror grew, until at
+last I thought I was going to die. The silence pursued me like dumb
+ghosts, the still air held my breath, the hellish fog caught at my feet
+like cold hands.
+
+"But I won! though not a moment too soon. As I crawled on my hands and
+knees up the brown slope, I heard, far away and high in the air, the cry
+that already had almost bereft me of reason. It was faint and vague, but
+unmistakable in its horrible intensity. I glanced behind. The fog was
+dense and pallid, heaving undulously up the brown slope. The sky was
+gold under the setting sun, but below was the ashy gray of death. I
+stood for a moment on the brink of this sea of hell, and then leaped
+down the slope. The sunset opened before me, the night closed behind,
+and as I crawled home weak and tired, darkness shut down on the Dead
+Valley."
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+There seem to be certain well-defined roots existing in all countries,
+from which spring the current legends of the supernatural; and therefore
+for the germs of the stories in this book the Author claims no
+originality. These legends differ one from the other only in local color
+and in individual treatment. If the Author has succeeded in clothing one
+or two of these norms in some slightly new vesture, he is more than
+content.
+
+BOSTON, _July 3, 1895_.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINTING WAS DONE AT THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, FOR STONE &
+KIMBALL, PUBLISHERS.
+
+
+
+
+ Concerning the Books
+         _of_
+  _Stone & Kimball_
+
+     _1895-1896_
+
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+
+  _CHICAGO & LONDON_
+
+
+
+
+   _Cable Address:_
+
+ "ESSANKAY, CHICAGO"
+ "EDITORSHIP, LONDON"
+
+
+
+
+THE PUBLICATIONS OF STONE & KIMBALL.
+
+
+ADAMS, FRANCIS.
+
+    Essays in Modernity. Crown 8vo. $1.25, net.               _Shortly._
+
+ALLEN, GRANT.
+
+    THE LOWER SLOPES. Reminiscences of Excursions round the Base of
+    Helicon, undertaken for the most part in early manhood. With a
+    titlepage by J. Illingworth Kay. Printed by T. & A. Constable,
+    Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 80 pp. $1.50, net.
+
+ARCHER, WILLIAM.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vol. III.
+
+BELL, LILIAN.
+
+    A LITTLE SISTER TO THE WILDERNESS. By the author of "The Love
+    Affairs of an Old Maid." With a cover designed by Bruce Rogers.
+    16mo. 267 pp. $1.25.                              _Fourth thousand._
+
+BROWNE, E. S.
+
+    See English Classics. Hajji Baba.
+
+BURGESS, GILBERT.
+
+    THE LOVE LETTERS OF MR. H. AND MISS R. 1775-1779. Edited, with an
+    introduction by Gilbert Burgess. Small crown 8vo. 240 pp. $1.50.
+
+CARMAN, BLISS.
+
+    LOW TIDE ON GRAND PRÉ. Revised and enlarged. With a titlepage
+    designed by Martin Mower. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled edges. 132 pp.
+    $1.00, net.
+
+    Also fifty copies on old English handmade paper, each signed by the
+    author. Square 8vo. $3.50, net.                   _Very few remain._
+
+CARNATION SERIES.
+
+    Bound in cloth, with carnation design on the covers. 18mo. Rough
+    edges. $1.00 a volume.
+
+    Vol. I. THE GYPSY CHRIST AND OTHER TALES. By William Sharp.
+
+    Vol. II. THE SISTER OF A SAINT AND OTHER STORIES. By Grace Ellery
+    Channing.
+
+    Vol. III. BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE. A book of ghost stories. By Ralph
+    Adams Cram.
+
+    Vol. IV. THE SIN EATER AND OTHER STORIES. By Fiona Macleod.
+
+    Vol. V. THE GODS GIVE MY DONKEY WINGS. By Angus Evan Abbott.
+                                              _Other volumes to follow._
+
+CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY.
+
+    THE SISTER OF A SAINT AND OTHER STORIES. See Carnation Series.
+
+CHATFIELD-TAYLOR, H. C.
+
+    TWO WOMEN AND A FOOL. With eight pictures by C. D. Gibson. 232 pp.
+    $1.50.                                           _Seventh thousand._
+
+CONGREVE, WILLIAM.
+
+    THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE. See English Classics.
+
+CRAM, RALPH ADAMS.
+
+    BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE. A book of ghost stories. See Carnation
+    Series.
+
+DAVIDSON, JOHN.
+
+    PLAYS. An Unhistorical Pastoral; a Romantic Farce; Bruce, a
+    Chronicle Play; Smith, a Tragic Farce; Scaramouch in Naxos, a
+    Pantomime. With a frontispiece and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley.
+    Printed at the Ballantyne Press, London. Small 4to. 294 pp. $2.00,
+    net.
+
+DEKOVEN, MRS. REGINALD.
+
+    A SAWDUST DOLL. With cover and titlepage designed by Frank
+    Hazenplug. Printed at the Lakeside Press. 16mo. 237 pp. $1.25.
+                                                       _Fifth thousand._
+
+FIELD, EUGENE.
+
+    THE HOLY CROSS AND OTHER TALES. With cover, titlepage, and
+    initial-letter pieces designed by Louis J. Rhead. Printed at the
+    University Press, on English laid paper. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled
+    edges. 191 pp. $1.25.                              _Third thousand._
+
+    Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on Holland paper, with special
+    dedications of the various tales. 8vo. $5.00, net.
+                                                      _Very few remain._
+
+GALE, NORMAN.
+
+    A COUNTRY MUSE. First Series, revised and enlarged. Printed by T. &
+    A. Constable, Edinburgh. Crown, 8vo. 145 pp. $1.25, net.
+
+    A JUNE ROMANCE. With a titlepage and tailpiece designed by Basil
+    Johnson. Printed on antique paper at the Rugby Press. 107 pp. Price,
+    $1.00.                                             _Third thousand._
+
+ENGLISH CLASSICS.
+
+    Edited by William Ernest Henley. The ordinary "cheap edition"
+    appears to have served its purpose; the public has found out the
+    artist-printers, and is now ready for something better fashioned.
+    This, then, is the moment for the issue of such a series as, while
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+
+    The series will confine itself to no single period or department of
+    literature. Poetry, fiction, drama, biography, autobiography,
+    letters, essays,--in all these fields is the material of many goodly
+    volumes.
+
+    The books are printed by Messrs. Constable, of Edinburgh, on laid
+    paper, with deckle edges, and bound in crushed buckram, crown 8vo,
+    at $1.25 a volume, net.
+
+    THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY.
+
+    By Laurence Sterne. With an introduction by Charles Whibley, and a
+    portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE.
+
+    With an introduction by G. S. Street, and a portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN.
+
+    By James Morier. With an introduction by E. S. Browne, M. A., and a
+    portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    ENGLISH SEAMEN.
+
+    By Robert Southey. 1 vol.
+
+    LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HERBERT, AND SANDERSON.
+
+    By Izaak Walton. With an introduction by Vernon Blackburn, and a
+    portrait. 1 vol.
+                                                     _Others to follow._
+
+GARLAND, HAMLIN.
+
+    PRAIRIE SONGS. Verses. With cover, head and initial letter pieces
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+    specially made paper. 16mo. Buckram, gilt top, edges uncut. 164 pp.
+    $1.25, net.
+
+    Also 110 numbered copies, 100 for sale, on large paper, each signed
+    by the author. 8vo. $5.00, net.                   _Very few remain._
+
+    MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS. Six stories of the Mississippi Valley. A
+    revised edition, with an introduction by W. D. Howells, and
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+    Printed at the University Press on specially made paper. 16mo.
+    Buckram, gilt top and uncut edges. 251 pp. $1.25.
+                                                     _Twelfth thousand._
+
+    Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on large paper. 8vo. $5.00, net.
+                                                      _Very few remain._
+
+    CRUMBLING IDOLS. Twelve essays on Art, dealing chiefly with
+    Literature, Painting, and the Drama. Printed at the University
+    Press. 16mo. 192 pp. $1.25.
+
+GOSSE, EDMUND.
+
+    IN RUSSET AND SILVER. Printed at the University Press on English
+    laid paper. Cover designed by Will H. Bradley. 16mo. 158 pp. $1.25,
+    net.                                               _Second edition._
+
+    Also 75 copies on large paper, numbered from 1 to 10 (Japanese
+    vellum), at $6.00, and 11 to 75 (English handmade), at $3.50, net.
+
+GRAHAME, KENNETH.
+
+    THE GOLDEN AGE. 16mo. Crushed buckram. 241 pp. $1.25.
+                                                       _Third thousand._
+
+GREEN TREE LIBRARY.
+
+    A series of books representing what may broadly be called the new
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+    Vol. I. VISTAS. By William Sharp. 16mo. 183 pp. $1.25, net.
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+    Vol. II. THE PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Princess Maleine; The
+    Blind; The Intruder; The Seven Princesses. Translated by Richard
+    Hovey. With an introductory essay on Symbolism. 16mo. 369 pp. $1.25,
+    net.                                               _Second edition._
+
+    Vol. III. LITTLE EYOLF. A play by Henrik Ibsen. Translated by
+    William Archer. 16mo. 164 pp. $1.50 net.           _Second edition._
+
+    Vol. IV. POEMS OF PAUL VERLAINE. Translated by Gertrude Hall. With
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+
+    Also 100 numbered copies on Imperial Japanese vellum, with artist's
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+
+    Vol. V. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS AND OTHER TALES. By
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+
+    Vol. VII. THE PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Second series. Pelléas
+    and Mélisande, and Three Plays for Marionettes.
+
+    Translated by Richard Hovey. With an introduction by Maeterlinck.
+    16mo.                                              _In preparation._
+                                              _Other volumes to follow._
+
+HAKE, THOMAS GORDON.
+
+    SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF THOMAS GORDON HAKE. Edited, with an
+    introduction, by Mrs. Meynell (Alice C. Thompson). With a portrait
+    after a drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Printed by T. & A.
+    Constable, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 155 pp. $1.50, net.
+
+HALE, EDWARD EVERETT.
+
+    See Taylor.
+
+HALL, GERTRUDE.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vol. IV.
+
+HALL, TOM.
+
+    WHEN HEARTS ARE TRUMPS. Verses. With decorations by Will H. Bradley.
+    16mo. $1.25.                                       _Third thousand._
+
+HEAD, FRANKLIN H.
+
+    See Swing.
+
+HOVEY, RICHARD.
+
+    THE MARRIAGE OF GUENEVERE. With a cover designed by T. B. Meteyard.
+    18mo. $1.50.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.
+
+HOWELLS, W. D.
+
+    See Garland.
+
+IBSEN, HENRIK.
+
+    LITTLE EYOLF. See Green Tree Library, Vol. III.
+
+MACKAY, ERIC.
+
+    A SONG OF THE SEA, MY LADY OF DREAMS, AND OTHER POEMS. By the author
+    of "The Love Letters of a Violinist." 16mo. $1.25.
+
+MAETERLINCK, MAURICE.
+
+    PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.
+
+MCCULLOCH, HUGH, JR.
+
+    THE QUEST OF HERACLES AND OTHER POEMS. Titlepage designed by Pierre
+    la Rose. Printed at the De Vinne Press on Van Gelder handmade paper.
+    16mo. 95 pp. Cloth, $1.25, net.
+
+MEEKINS, LYNN R.
+
+    THE ROBB'S ISLAND WRECK AND OTHER STORIES. Printed at the University
+    Press, 16mo. 192 pp. $1.00.
+
+MEYNELL, MRS.
+
+    See Hake.
+
+MILLER, JOAQUIN.
+
+    THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. A poetic romance. Printed at the
+    University Press on American laid paper. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled
+    edges. 196 pp. $1.50.                               _Third edition._
+
+    Also 50 copies on large paper. $3.50, net.        _Very few remain._
+
+MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER.
+
+    ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY. His Life and His Work, with selections from
+    his poems. With a portrait from a drawing by August F. Jaccaci.
+    Printed at the De Vinne Press on English laid paper. 450 copies.
+    18mo. 120 pp. Price, $1.25, net.
+
+    Also, 60 numbered copies on Holland handmade paper (only 50 being
+    for sale), at $3.50.
+
+MORIER, JAMES.
+
+    THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN. See English Classics.
+
+OSBOURNE, LLOYD.
+
+    See Stevenson.
+
+O'SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR.
+
+    See Moulton.
+
+PARKER, GILBERT.
+
+    A LOVER'S DIARY. Songs in Sequence. With a frontispiece by Will H.
+    Low. Printed at the University Press on antique paper. 18mo. 147 pp.
+    $1.25, net.                                        _Second edition._
+
+    Also 50 copies on Dickinson handmade paper. $3.50 (all sold).
+
+    PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Tales of the Far North. Printed at the
+    University Press on laid paper. 18mo. 318 pp. $1.25.
+                                                        _Third edition._
+
+    WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC. The Story of a Lost Napoleon. With a
+    cover designed by Bruce Rogers. 16mo. 222 pp. $1.50.
+                                                       _Fifth thousand._
+
+POE, EDGAR ALLAN.
+
+    THE COMPLETE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Newly collected, edited, and
+    for the first time revised after the author's final manuscript
+    corrections, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry,
+    with many portraits, fac-similes, and pictures by Albert Edward
+    Sterner.
+
+    This is the only complete edition of Poe's works. The entire
+    writings have been revised; innumerable errors have been corrected;
+    quotations have been verified, and the work now stands--for the
+    first time--as Poe wished it to stand. The editors contribute a
+    memoir, critical introduction, and notes; the variorum texts are
+    given and new matter has been added. The portraits include several
+    which have never appeared in book form before, and the printing has
+    been carefully done at the University Press in Cambridge on
+    specially made, deckled edge paper.
+
+    In fine, the edition aims to be definitive, and is intended alike
+    for the librarian, the student, and the book-lover.
+
+    In ten volumes, price $15.00, net, a set; or separately, $1.50, net,
+    per volume.
+
+    The large-paper edition, limited to 250 numbered sets for America,
+    contains a series of illustrations to the tales by Aubrey Beardsley,
+    and a signed etching by Mr. Sterner,--not included in the
+    small-paper edition,--proofs of all the pictures printed on India
+    paper, and, in truth, is a luxurious edition. On handsome paper,
+    octavo. Price, $50.00, net. Sold only in sets; numbers will be
+    assigned as the orders are received.
+
+      New York Tribune: "At no time in the future is it probable that
+      the labors of his present editors and publishers will be
+      superseded."
+
+      New York Times: "Doubtless no other men in this country were
+      better fitted for this arduous and delicate task than those who
+      have, at length, undertaken it."
+
+SANTAYANA, GEORGE.
+
+    SONNETS AND OTHER POEMS. With titlepage designed by the author.
+    Printed at the University Press on laid paper. 16mo. Buckram. 90 pp.
+    Price, $1.25, net.                                   _Out of print._
+
+SHARP, WILLIAM.
+
+    VISTAS. See Green Tree Library, Vol. I.
+
+    THE GYPSY CHRIST AND OTHER TALES. See Carnation Series, Vol. I.
+
+SOUTHALL, J. E.
+
+    THE STORY OF BLUEBEARD. Newly translated and elaborately
+    illustrated. $1.25.
+
+SOUTHEY, ROBERT.
+
+    ENGLISH SEAMEN. See English Classics.
+
+STEDMAN, E. C.
+
+    See Poe.
+
+STERNE, LAURENCE.
+
+    THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. See English Classics.
+
+STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS.
+
+    THE LATER WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Published in a uniform
+    edition. 16mo. Bound in green crushed buckram.
+
+    THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT. 180 pp. $1.25.              _Fourth thousand._
+
+    VAILIMA LETTERS. From Robert Louis Stevenson to Sidney Colvin. With
+    an etched portrait by William Strang and two portraits of Stevenson
+    in Samoa. In two volumes. 16mo. $2.25.
+
+---- AND LLOYD OSBOURNE.
+
+    THE EBB-TIDE. A Trio and Quartette. 204 pp. $1.25. _Sixth thousand._
+
+---- AND WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.
+
+    MACAIRE. A Melodramatic Farce. In three acts. $1.00.
+
+STREET, G. S.
+
+    See Congreve.
+
+SWING, DAVID.
+
+    OLD PICTURES OF LIFE. With an introduction by Franklin H. Head. In
+    two volumes. 16mo. Vol. I., 191 pp.; vol. II., 220 pp. $2.00.
+
+TAYLOR, WINNIE LOUISE.
+
+    HIS BROKEN SWORD. A novel. With an introduction by Edward Everett
+    Hale. Printed at the University Press on American laid paper. 12mo.
+    Gilt top, deckled edges. 354 pp. $1.25.             _Third edition._
+
+THOMPSON, MAURICE.
+
+    LINCOLN'S GRAVE. A Poem. With a titlepage by George H. Hallowell.
+    Printed at the University Press. 16mo. 36 pp. Price, $1.00, net.
+
+VERLAINE, PAUL.
+
+    POEMS OF PAUL VERLAINE. See Green Tree Library, Vol. IV.
+
+WHIBLEY, CHARLES.
+
+    See Sterne.
+
+WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD.
+
+    See Poe.
+
+YEATS, W. B.
+
+    THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE. A play. With a frontispiece by Aubrey
+    Beardsley. Printed at the University Press. 16mo. 43 pp. Price,
+    $1.00, net.
+
+
+
+
+                   The Chap-Book.
+
+         _A Miniature Magazine and Review._
+
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+
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+               THE CAXTON BUILDING, CHICAGO.
+
+           PRICE, 5 CENTS. $1.00 A YEAR.
+
+                   CONTRIBUTORS.
+ Thomas Bailey Aldrich        Stéphane Mallarmé
+ Maurice Maeterlinck          Eugene Field
+ Richard Henry Stoddard       Hamlin Garland
+ Gilbert Parker               I. Zangwill
+ Kenneth Grahame              Louise Imogen Guiney
+ Bliss Carman                 Gertrude Hall
+ John Davidson                Maria Louise Pool
+ Charles G. D. Roberts        William Sharp
+ Paul Verlaine                Archibald Lampman
+ Alice Brown                  H. B. Marriott Watson
+ Julian Hawthorne             Richard Burton
+ Clyde Fitch                  H. H. Boyesen
+ Edmund Gosse                 Lewis Gates
+ Maurice Thompson             H. W. Mabie
+ C. F. Bragdon                F. Vallotton
+ Will H. Bradley              J. F. Raffaelli
+ Louise Chandler Moulton      C. D. Gibson
+ Robert Louis Stevenson       William Ernest Henley
+                 Theodore Wratislaw
+
+    There is no question that the Chap-Book is
+  the best printed periodical in the world.
+                              --_Boston Traveller._
+
+    The Chap-Book continues to be delightfully
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+                   --_Charleston News and Courier._
+
+
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Spirits and White, by Ralph Adams Cram
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Spirits and White
+       A Book of Ghost Stories
+
+Author: Ralph Adams Cram
+
+Release Date: September 22, 2008 [EBook #26687]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE</h1>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="bk1"><div class="figc1">
+<img src="images/001.png" width="300" height="75" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h1>Black Spirits &amp; White</h1>
+
+<div class="hd1"><i>A Book of Ghost Stories</i></div>
+
+<h2><span class="sp1">BY</span><br />
+RALPH ADAMS CRAM</h2>
+
+<div class="figc2">
+<img src="images/002.png" width="31" height="38" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="hd2">CHICAGO<br />
+STONE &amp; KIMBALL<br />
+MDCCCXCV</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="center"><small>COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY<br />
+STONE AND KIMBALL</small></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="poem" style="width: 16em;">
+<span class="i0">"BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">RED SPIRITS AND GRAY,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">MINGLE, MINGLE, MINGLE,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">YE THAT MINGLE MAY."<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="td2" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">NO. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">IN KROPFSBERG KEEP</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">THE WHITE VILLA</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">SISTER MADDELENA</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">NOTRE DAME DES EAUX</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">THE DEAD VALLEY</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">POSTSCRIPT</td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>No. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>No. 252 Rue M. le Prince.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> in May, 1886, I found myself at last in
+Paris, I naturally determined to throw myself
+on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene
+Marie d'Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a
+year or more ago on receiving word of the
+death of an aunt who had left him such property
+as she possessed. I fancy this windfall
+surprised him not a little, for the relations between
+the aunt and nephew had never been
+cordial, judging from Eugene's remarks touching
+the lady, who was, it seems, a more or
+less wicked and witch-like old person, with a
+penchant for black magic, at least such was
+the common report.</p>
+
+<p>Why she should leave all her property to
+d'Ardeche, no one could tell, unless it was
+that she felt his rather hobbledehoy tendencies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+towards Buddhism and occultism might
+some day lead him to her own unhallowed
+height of questionable illumination. To be sure
+d'Ardeche reviled her as a bad old woman,
+being himself in that state of enthusiastic exaltation
+which sometimes accompanies a boyish
+fancy for occultism; but in spite of his distant
+and repellent attitude, Mlle. Blaye de Tartas
+made him her sole heir, to the violent wrath of
+a questionable old party known to infamy as the
+Sar Torrevieja, the "King of the Sorcerers."
+This malevolent old portent, whose gray and
+crafty face was often seen in the Rue M. le
+Prince during the life of Mlle. de Tartas had,
+it seems, fully expected to enjoy her small
+wealth after her death; and when it appeared
+that she had left him only the contents of the
+gloomy old house in the Quartier Latin, giving
+the house itself and all else of which she died
+possessed to her nephew in America, the Sar
+proceeded to remove everything from the place,
+and then to curse it elaborately and comprehensively,
+together with all those who should ever
+dwell therein.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon he disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>This final episode was the last word I received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+from Eugene, but I knew the number of the
+house, 252 Rue M. le Prince. So, after a day or
+two given to a first cursory survey of Paris, I
+started across the Seine to find Eugene and compel
+him to do the honors of the city.</p>
+
+<p>Every one who knows the Latin Quarter knows
+the Rue M. le Prince, running up the hill towards
+the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is full of queer
+houses and odd corners,&mdash;or was in '86,&mdash;and
+certainly No. 252 was, when I found it, quite as
+queer as any. It was nothing but a doorway, a
+black arch of old stone between and under two
+new houses painted yellow. The effect of this
+bit of seventeenth-century masonry, with its dirty
+old doors, and rusty broken lantern sticking
+gaunt and grim out over the narrow sidewalk,
+was, in its frame of fresh plaster, sinister in
+the extreme.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if I had made a mistake in the
+number; it was quite evident that no one lived
+behind those cobwebs. I went into the doorway
+of one of the new h&ocirc;tels and interviewed the
+concierge.</p>
+
+<p>No, M. d'Ardeche did not live there, though
+to be sure he owned the mansion; he himself
+resided in Meudon, in the country house of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+late Mlle. de Tartas. Would Monsieur like the
+number and the street?</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur would like them extremely, so I took
+the card that the concierge wrote for me, and
+forthwith started for the river, in order that I
+might take a steamboat for Meudon. By one of
+those coincidences which happen so often, being
+quite inexplicable, I had not gone twenty paces
+down the street before I ran directly into the
+arms of Eugene d'Ardeche. In three minutes
+we were sitting in the queer little garden of the
+Chien Bleu, drinking vermouth and absinthe, and
+talking it all over.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not live in your aunt's house?" I said
+at last, interrogatively.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but if this sort of thing keeps on I shall
+have to. I like Meudon much better, and the
+house is perfect, all furnished, and nothing in
+it newer than the last century. You must come
+out with me to-night and see it. I have got a
+jolly room fixed up for my Buddha. But there
+is something wrong with this house opposite. I
+can't keep a tenant in it,&mdash;not four days. I have
+had three, all within six months, but the stories
+have gone around and a man would as soon
+think of hiring the Cour des Comptes to live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+in as No. 252. It is notorious. The fact is,
+it is haunted the worst way."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed and ordered more vermouth.</p>
+
+<p>"That is all right. It is haunted all the same,
+or enough to keep it empty, and the funny part
+is that no one knows <i>how</i> it is haunted. Nothing
+is ever seen, nothing heard. As far as I
+can find out, people just have the horrors there,
+and have them so bad they have to go to the
+hospital afterwards. I have one ex-tenant in the
+Bic&ecirc;tre now. So the house stands empty, and
+as it covers considerable ground and is taxed for
+a lot, I don't know what to do about it. I think
+I'll either give it to that child of sin, Torrevieja,
+or else go and live in it myself. I shouldn't mind
+the ghosts, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever stay there?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I have always intended to, and in
+fact I came up here to-day to see a couple of
+rake-hell fellows I know, Fargeau and Duchesne,
+doctors in the Clinical Hospital beyond here, up
+by the Parc Mont Souris. They promised that
+they would spend the night with me some time in
+my aunt's house,&mdash;which is called around here,
+you must know, 'la Bouche d'Enfer,'&mdash;and I
+thought perhaps they would make it this week,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+if they can get off duty. Come up with me
+while I see them, and then we can go across
+the river to V&eacute;four's and have some luncheon,
+you can get your things at the Chatham, and
+we will go out to Meudon, where of course
+you will spend the night with me."</p>
+
+<p>The plan suited me perfectly, so we went up
+to the hospital, found Fargeau, who declared
+that he and Duchesne were ready for anything,
+the nearer the real "bouche d'enfer" the better;
+that the following Thursday they would both
+be off duty for the night, and that on that
+day they would join in an attempt to outwit the
+devil and clear up the mystery of No. 252.</p>
+
+<p>"Does M. l'Am&eacute;ricain go with us?" asked
+Fargeau.</p>
+
+<p>"Why of course," I replied, "I intend to go,
+and you must not refuse me, d'Ardeche; I decline
+to be put off. Here is a chance for
+you to do the honors of your city in a
+manner which is faultless. Show me a real
+live ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having
+lost the Jardin Mabille."</p>
+
+<p>So it was settled.</p>
+
+<p>Later we went down to Meudon and ate
+dinner in the terrace room of the villa, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+was all that d'Ardeche had said, and more,
+so utterly was its atmosphere that of the seventeenth
+century. At dinner Eugene told me
+more about his late aunt, and the queer goings
+on in the old house.</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Blaye lived, it seems, all alone, except
+for one female servant of her own age; a severe,
+taciturn creature, with massive Breton features
+and a Breton tongue, whenever she vouchsafed
+to use it. No one ever was seen to enter the
+door of No. 252 except Jeanne the servant and
+the Sar Torrevieja, the latter coming constantly
+from none knew whither, and always entering,
+<i>never leaving</i>. Indeed, the neighbors, who for
+eleven years had watched the old sorcerer sidle
+crab-wise up to the bell almost every day, declared
+vociferously that <i>never</i> had he been seen
+to leave the house. Once, when they decided to
+keep absolute guard, the watcher, none other
+than Ma&icirc;tre Garceau of the Chien Bleu, after
+keeping his eyes fixed on the door from ten
+o'clock one morning when the Sar arrived until
+four in the afternoon, during which time the
+door was unopened (he knew this, for had he
+not gummed a ten-centime stamp over the
+joint and was not the stamp unbroken) nearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+fell down when the sinister figure of Torrevieja
+slid wickedly by him with a dry "Pardon, Monsieur!"
+and disappeared again through the black
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p>This was curious, for No. 252 was entirely
+surrounded by houses, its only windows opening
+on a courtyard into which no eye could look
+from the h&ocirc;tels of the Rue M. le Prince and
+the Rue de l'Ecole, and the mystery was one of
+the choice possessions of the Latin Quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Once a year the austerity of the place was
+broken, and the denizens of the whole quarter
+stood open-mouthed watching many carriages
+drive up to No. 252, many of them private, not
+a few with crests on the door panels, from all of
+them descending veiled female figures and men
+with coat collars turned up. Then followed
+curious sounds of music from within, and those
+whose houses joined the blank walls of No. 252
+became for the moment popular, for by placing
+the ear against the wall strange music could
+distinctly be heard, and the sound of monotonous
+chanting voices now and then. By dawn
+the last guest would have departed, and for
+another year the h&ocirc;tel of Mlle. de Tartas was
+ominously silent.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Eugene declared that he believed it was a
+celebration of "Walpurgisnacht," and certainly
+appearances favored such a fancy.</p>
+
+<p>"A queer thing about the whole affair is," he
+said, "the fact that every one in the street
+swears that about a month ago, while I was
+out in Concarneau for a visit, the music and
+voices were heard again, just as when my
+revered aunt was in the flesh. The house was
+perfectly empty, as I tell you, so it is quite possible
+that the good people were enjoying an
+hallucination."</p>
+
+<p>I must acknowledge that these stories did
+not reassure me; in fact, as Thursday came
+near, I began to regret a little my determination
+to spend the night in the house. I was too
+vain to back down, however, and the perfect
+coolness of the two doctors, who ran down Tuesday
+to Meudon to make a few arrangements,
+caused me to swear that I would die of fright
+before I would flinch. I suppose I believed
+more or less in ghosts, I am sure now that I am
+older I believe in them, there are in fact few
+things I can <i>not</i> believe. Two or three inexplicable
+things had happened to me, and, although
+this was before my adventure with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+Rendel in P&aelig;stum, I had a strong predisposition
+to believe some things that I could not
+explain, wherein I was out of sympathy with
+the age.</p>
+
+<p>Well, to come to the memorable night of the
+twelfth of June, we had made our preparations,
+and after depositing a big bag inside the doors
+of No. 252, went across to the Chien Bleu,
+where Fargeau and Duchesne turned up
+promptly, and we sat down to the best dinner
+P&egrave;re Garceau could create.</p>
+
+<p>I remember I hardly felt that the conversation
+was in good taste. It began with various
+stories of Indian fakirs and Oriental jugglery,
+matters in which Eugene was curiously well
+read, swerved to the horrors of the great Sepoy
+mutiny, and thus to reminiscences of the dissecting-room.
+By this time we had drunk more
+or less, and Duchesne launched into a photographic
+and Zolaesque account of the only time
+(as he said) when he was possessed of the
+panic of fear; namely, one night many years
+ago, when he was locked by accident into the
+dissecting-room of the Loucine, together with
+several cadavers of a rather unpleasant nature.
+I ventured to protest mildly against the choice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+of subjects, the result being a perfect carnival
+of horrors, so that when we finally drank our
+last <i>cr&egrave;me de cacao</i> and started for "la Bouche
+d'Enfer," my nerves were in a somewhat rocky
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>It was just ten o'clock when we came into
+the street. A hot dead wind drifted in great
+puffs through the city, and ragged masses of
+vapor swept the purple sky; an unsavory night
+altogether, one of those nights of hopeless lassitude
+when one feels, if one is at home, like doing
+nothing but drink mint juleps and smoke cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene opened the creaking door, and tried
+to light one of the lanterns; but the gusty wind
+blew out every match, and we finally had to
+close the outer doors before we could get a
+light. At last we had all the lanterns going,
+and I began to look around curiously. We were
+in a long, vaulted passage, partly carriageway,
+partly footpath, perfectly bare but for the
+street refuse which had drifted in with eddying
+winds. Beyond lay the courtyard, a curious
+place rendered more curious still by the fitful
+moonlight and the flashing of four dark lanterns.
+The place had evidently been once a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+most noble palace. Opposite rose the oldest
+portion, a three-story wall of the time of Francis
+I., with a great wisteria vine covering half.
+The wings on either side were more modern,
+seventeenth century, and ugly, while towards
+the street was nothing but a flat unbroken
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>The great bare court, littered with bits of
+paper blown in by the wind, fragments of packing
+cases, and straw, mysterious with flashing
+lights and flaunting shadows, while low masses
+of torn vapor drifted overhead, hiding, then
+revealing the stars, and all in absolute silence,
+not even the sounds of the streets entering this
+prison-like place, was weird and uncanny in the
+extreme. I must confess that already I began to
+feel a slight disposition towards the horrors, but
+with that curious inconsequence which so often
+happens in the case of those who are deliberately
+growing scared, I could think of nothing
+more reassuring than those delicious verses of
+Lewis Carroll's:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<span class="i0">"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That alone should encourage the crew.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What I tell you three times is true,"&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>which kept repeating themselves over and over
+in my brain with feverish insistence.</p>
+
+<p>Even the medical students had stopped their
+chaffing, and were studying the surroundings
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one thing certain," said Fargeau,
+"<i>anything</i> might have happened here without
+the slightest chance of discovery. Did ever
+you see such a perfect place for lawlessness?"</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>anything</i> might happen here now, with
+the same certainty of impunity," continued
+Duchesne, lighting his pipe, the snap of the
+match making us all start. "D'Ardeche, your
+lamented relative was certainly well fixed; she
+had full scope here for her traditional experiments
+in demonology."</p>
+
+<p>"Curse me if I don't believe that those same
+traditions were more or less founded on fact,"
+said Eugene. "I never saw this court under
+these conditions before, but I could believe anything
+now. What's that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but a door slamming," said Duchesne,
+loudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I wish doors wouldn't slam in houses
+that have been empty eleven months."</p>
+
+<p>"It is irritating," and Duchesne slipped his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+arm through mine; "but we must take things
+as they come. Remember we have to deal
+not only with the spectral lumber left here by
+your scarlet aunt, but as well with the supererogatory
+curse of that hell-cat Torrevieja. Come
+on! let's get inside before the hour arrives for
+the sheeted dead to squeak and gibber in these
+lonely halls. Light your pipes, your tobacco is
+a sure protection against 'your whoreson dead
+bodies'; light up and move on."</p>
+
+<p>We opened the hall door and entered a vaulted
+stone vestibule, full of dust, and cobwebby.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing on this floor," said Eugene,
+"except servants' rooms and offices, and I don't
+believe there is anything wrong with them. I
+never heard that there was, any way. Let's go
+up stairs."</p>
+
+<p>So far as we could see, the house was apparently
+perfectly uninteresting inside, all eighteenth-century
+work, the fa&ccedil;ade of the main
+building being, with the vestibule, the only
+portion of the Francis I. work.</p>
+
+<p>"The place was burned during the Terror,"
+said Eugene, "for my great-uncle, from whom
+Mlle. de Tartas inherited it, was a good and true
+Royalist; he went to Spain after the Revolution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+and did not come back until the accession of
+Charles X., when he restored the house, and
+then died, enormously old. This explains why
+it is all so new."</p>
+
+<p>The old Spanish sorcerer to whom Mlle. de
+Tartas had left her personal property had done
+his work thoroughly. The house was absolutely
+empty, even the wardrobes and bookcases built
+in had been carried away; we went through
+room after room, finding all absolutely dismantled,
+only the windows and doors with their
+casings, the parquet floors, and the florid Renaissance
+mantels remaining.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel better," remarked Fargeau. "The house
+may be haunted, but it don't look it, certainly;
+it is the most respectable place imaginable."</p>
+
+<p>"Just you wait," replied Eugene. "These are
+only the state apartments, which my aunt seldom
+used, except, perhaps, on her annual 'Walpurgisnacht.'
+Come up stairs and I will show you
+a better <i>mise en sc&egrave;ne</i>."</p>
+
+<p>On this floor, the rooms fronting the court, the
+sleeping-rooms, were quite small,&mdash;("They are
+the bad rooms all the same," said Eugene,)&mdash;four
+of them, all just as ordinary in appearance as
+those below. A corridor ran behind them connecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+with the wing corridor, and from this
+opened a door, unlike any of the other doors in
+that it was covered with green baize, somewhat
+moth-eaten. Eugene selected a key from the
+bunch he carried, unlocked the door, and with
+some difficulty forced it to swing inward; it was
+as heavy as the door of a safe.</p>
+
+<p>"We are now," he said, "on the very threshold
+of hell itself; these rooms in here were my
+scarlet aunt's unholy of unholies. I never let
+them with the rest of the house, but keep them
+as a curiosity. I only wish Torrevieja had kept
+out; as it was, he looted them, as he did the
+rest of the house, and nothing is left but the
+walls and ceiling and floor. They are something,
+however, and may suggest what the former
+condition must have been. Tremble and
+enter."</p>
+
+<p>The first apartment was a kind of anteroom, a
+cube of perhaps twenty feet each way, without
+windows, and with no doors except that by which
+we entered and another to the right. Walls, floor,
+and ceiling were covered with a black lacquer,
+brilliantly polished, that flashed the light of our
+lanterns in a thousand intricate reflections. It
+was like the inside of an enormous Japanese box,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+and about as empty. From this we passed to
+another room, and here we nearly dropped our
+lanterns. The room was circular, thirty feet or
+so in diameter, covered by a hemispherical dome;
+walls and ceiling were dark blue, spotted with
+gold stars; and reaching from floor to floor
+across the dome stretched a colossal figure in
+red lacquer of a nude woman kneeling, her
+legs reaching out along the floor on either
+side, her head touching the lintel of the door
+through which we had entered, her arms forming
+its sides, with the fore arms extended and
+stretching along the walls until they met the
+long feet. The most astounding, misshapen,
+absolutely terrifying thing, I think, I ever saw.
+From the navel hung a great white object, like
+the traditional roe's egg of the Arabian Nights.
+The floor was of red lacquer, and in it was
+inlaid a pentagram the size of the room, made
+of wide strips of brass. In the centre of this
+pentagram was a circular disk of black stone,
+slightly saucer-shaped, with a small outlet in the
+middle.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of the room was simply crushing,
+with this gigantic red figure crouched over it all,
+the staring eyes fixed on one, no matter what his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+position. None of us spoke, so oppressive was
+the whole thing.</p>
+
+<p>The third room was like the first in dimensions,
+but instead of being black it was entirely
+sheathed with plates of brass, walls, ceiling, and
+floor,&mdash;tarnished now, and turning green, but
+still brilliant under the lantern light. In the
+middle stood an oblong altar of porphyry, its
+longer dimensions on the axis of the suite of
+rooms, and at one end, opposite the range of
+doors, a pedestal of black basalt.</p>
+
+<p>This was all. Three rooms, stranger than
+these, even in their emptiness, it would be
+hard to imagine. In Egypt, in India, they
+would not be entirely out of place, but here
+in Paris, in a commonplace <i>h&ocirc;tel</i>, in the Rue
+M. le Prince, they were incredible.</p>
+
+<p>We retraced our steps, Eugene closed the
+iron door with its baize covering, and we went
+into one of the front chambers and sat down,
+looking at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice party, your aunt," said Fargeau. "Nice
+old party, with amiable tastes; I am glad we are
+not to spend the night in <i>those</i> rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose she did there?" inquired
+Duchesne. "I know more or less about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+black art, but that series of rooms is too much
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"My impression is," said d'Ardeche, "that the
+brazen room was a kind of sanctuary containing
+some image or other on the basalt base, while
+the stone in front was really an altar,&mdash;what the
+nature of the sacrifice might be I don't even
+guess. The round room may have been used
+for invocations and incantations. The pentagram
+looks like it. Any way it is all just
+about as queer and <i>fin de si&egrave;cle</i> as I can well
+imagine. Look here, it is nearly twelve, let's
+dispose of ourselves, if we are going to hunt
+this thing down."</p>
+
+<p>The four chambers on this floor of the old
+house were those said to be haunted, the
+wings being quite innocent, and, so far as we
+knew, the floors below. It was arranged that
+we should each occupy a room, leaving the
+doors open with the lights burning, and at the
+slightest cry or knock we were all to rush at
+once to the room from which the warning
+sound might come. There was no communication
+between the rooms to be sure, but, as
+the doors all opened into the corridor, every
+sound was plainly audible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The last room fell to me, and I looked it over
+carefully.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed innocent enough, a commonplace,
+square, rather lofty Parisian sleeping-room,
+finished in wood painted white, with a small
+marble mantel, a dusty floor of inlaid maple
+and cherry, walls hung with an ordinary French
+paper, apparently quite new, and two deeply embrasured
+windows looking out on the court.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the swinging sash with some trouble,
+and sat down in the window seat with my lantern
+beside me trained on the only door, which
+gave on the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>The wind had gone down, and it was very
+still without,&mdash;still and hot. The masses of
+luminous vapor were gathering thickly overhead,
+no longer urged by the gusty wind. The
+great masses of rank wisteria leaves, with here
+and there a second blossoming of purple flowers,
+hung dead over the window in the sluggish air.
+Across the roofs I could hear the sound of a
+belated <i>fiacre</i> in the streets below. I filled my
+pipe again and waited.</p>
+
+<p>For a time the voices of the men in the
+other rooms were a companionship, and at first
+I shouted to them now and then, but my voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+echoed rather unpleasantly through the long
+corridors, and had a suggestive way of reverberating
+around the left wing beside me, and
+coming out at a broken window at its extremity
+like the voice of another man. I soon
+gave up my attempts at conversation, and devoted
+myself to the task of keeping awake.</p>
+
+<p>It was not easy; why did I eat that lettuce
+salad at P&egrave;re Garceau's? I should have known
+better. It was making me irresistibly sleepy,
+and wakefulness was absolutely necessary. It
+was certainly gratifying to know that I could
+sleep, that my courage was by me to that extent,
+but in the interests of science I must keep
+awake. But almost never, it seemed, had sleep
+looked so desirable. Half a hundred times,
+nearly, I would doze for an instant, only to
+awake with a start, and find my pipe gone out.
+Nor did the exertion of relighting it pull me together.
+I struck my match mechanically, and
+with the first puff dropped off again. It was
+most vexing. I got up and walked around the
+room. It was most annoying. My cramped
+position had almost put both my legs to sleep.
+I could hardly stand. I felt numb, as though
+with cold. There was no longer any sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+from the other rooms, nor from without. I
+sank down in my window seat. How dark it
+was growing! I turned up the lantern. That
+pipe again, how obstinately it kept going out!
+and my last match was gone. The lantern, too,
+was <i>that</i> going out? I lifted my hand to turn it
+up again. It felt like lead, and fell beside me.</p>
+
+<p><i>Then</i> I awoke,&mdash;absolutely. I remembered
+the story of "The Haunters and the Haunted."
+<i>This</i> was the Horror. I tried to rise, to cry
+out. My body was like lead, my tongue was
+paralyzed. I could hardly move my eyes. And
+the light was going out. There was no question
+about that. Darker and darker yet; little
+by little the pattern of the paper was swallowed
+up in the advancing night. A prickling numbness
+gathered in every nerve, my right arm
+slipped without feeling from my lap to my side,
+and I could not raise it,&mdash;it swung helpless. A
+thin, keen humming began in my head, like
+the cicadas on a hillside in September. The
+darkness was coming fast.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, this was it. Something was subjecting
+me, body and mind, to slow paralysis. Physically
+I was already dead. If I could only hold
+my mind, my consciousness, I might still be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+safe, but could I? Could I resist the mad horror
+of this silence, the deepening dark, the
+creeping numbness? I knew that, like the
+man in the ghost story, my only safety lay here.</p>
+
+<p>It had come at last. My body was dead, I
+could no longer move my eyes. They were
+fixed in that last look on the place where the
+door had been, now only a deepening of the
+dark.</p>
+
+<p>Utter night: the last flicker of the lantern
+was gone. I sat and waited; my mind was
+still keen, but how long would it last? There
+was a limit even to the endurance of the utter
+panic of fear.</p>
+
+<p>Then the end began. In the velvet blackness
+came two white eyes, milky, opalescent,
+small, far away,&mdash;awful eyes, like a dead dream.
+More beautiful than I can describe, the flakes
+of white flame moving from the perimeter inward,
+disappearing in the centre, like a never
+ending flow of opal water into a circular tunnel.
+I could not have moved my eyes had I possessed
+the power: they devoured the fearful,
+beautiful things that grew slowly, slowly larger,
+fixed on me, advancing, growing more beautiful,
+the white flakes of light sweeping more swiftly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+into the blazing vortices, the awful fascination
+deepening in its insane intensity as the white,
+vibrating eyes grew nearer, larger.</p>
+
+<p>Like a hideous and implacable engine of
+death the eyes of the unknown Horror swelled
+and expanded until they were close before me,
+enormous, terrible, and I felt a slow, cold, wet
+breath propelled with mechanical regularity
+against my face, enveloping me in its fetid mist,
+in its charnel-house deadliness.</p>
+
+<p>With ordinary fear goes always a physical
+terror, but with me in the presence of this unspeakable
+Thing was only the utter and awful
+terror of the mind, the mad fear of a prolonged
+and ghostly nightmare. Again and again I
+tried to shriek, to make some noise, but physically
+I was utterly dead. I could only feel
+myself go mad with the terror of hideous death.
+The eyes were close on me,&mdash;their movement
+so swift that they seemed to be but palpitating
+flames, the dead breath was around me like the
+depths of the deepest sea.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a wet, icy mouth, like that of a
+dead cuttle-fish, shapeless, jelly-like, fell over
+mine. The horror began slowly to draw my
+life from me, but, as enormous and shuddering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+folds of palpitating jelly swept sinuously around
+me, my will came back, my body awoke with
+the reaction of final fear, and I closed with the
+nameless death that enfolded me.</p>
+
+<p>What was it that I was fighting? My arms
+sunk through the unresisting mass that was
+turning me to ice. Moment by moment new
+folds of cold jelly swept round me, crushing me
+with the force of Titans. I fought to wrest my
+mouth from this awful Thing that sealed it, but,
+if ever I succeeded and caught a single breath,
+the wet, sucking mass closed over my face
+again before I could cry out. I think I fought
+for hours, desperately, insanely, in a silence
+that was more hideous than any sound,&mdash;fought
+until I felt final death at hand, until the memory
+of all my life rushed over me like a flood, until
+I no longer had strength to wrench my face
+from that hellish succubus, until with a last
+mechanical struggle I fell and yielded to death.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Then I heard a voice say, "If he is dead, I
+can never forgive myself; I was to blame."</p>
+
+<p>Another replied, "He is not dead, I know we
+can save him if only we reach the hospital in
+time. Drive like hell, <i>cocher</i>! twenty francs
+for you, if you get there in three minutes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then there was night again, and nothingness,
+until I suddenly awoke and stared around. I
+lay in a hospital ward, very white and sunny,
+some yellow <i>fleurs-de-lis</i> stood beside the head
+of the pallet, and a tall sister of mercy sat by
+my side.</p>
+
+<p>To tell the story in a few words, I was in the
+H&ocirc;tel Dieu, where the men had taken me that
+fearful night of the twelfth of June. I asked
+for Fargeau or Duchesne, and by and by the
+latter came, and sitting beside the bed told me
+all that I did not know.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that they had sat, each in his room,
+hour after hour, hearing nothing, very much
+bored, and disappointed. Soon after two
+o'clock Fargeau, who was in the next room,
+called to me to ask if I was awake. I gave no
+reply, and, after shouting once or twice, he took
+his lantern and came to investigate. The door
+was locked on the inside! He instantly called
+d'Ardeche and Duchesne, and together they
+hurled themselves against the door. It resisted.
+Within they could hear irregular footsteps dashing
+here and there, with heavy breathing. Although
+frozen with terror, they fought to destroy
+the door and finally succeeded by using a great
+slab of marble that formed the shelf of the mantel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+in Fargeau's room. As the door crashed in,
+they were suddenly hurled back against the
+walls of the corridor, as though by an explosion,
+the lanterns were extinguished, and they found
+themselves in utter silence and darkness.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as they recovered from the shock,
+they leaped into the room and fell over my body
+in the middle of the floor. They lighted one
+of the lanterns, and saw the strangest sight that
+can be imagined. The floor and walls to the
+height of about six feet were running with something
+that seemed like stagnant water, thick,
+glutinous, sickening. As for me, I was drenched
+with the same cursed liquid. The odor of
+musk was nauseating. They dragged me
+away, stripped off my clothing, wrapped me in
+their coats, and hurried to the hospital, thinking
+me perhaps dead. Soon after sunrise
+d'Ardeche left the hospital, being assured that
+I was in a fair way to recovery, with time, and
+with Fargeau went up to examine by daylight
+the traces of the adventure that was so nearly
+fatal. They were too late. Fire engines were
+coming down the street as they passed the Acad&eacute;mie.
+A neighbor rushed up to d'Ardeche:
+"O Monsieur! what misfortune, yet what fortune!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+It is true <i>la Bouche d'Enfer</i>&mdash;I beg
+pardon, the residence of the lamented Mlle. de
+Tartas,&mdash;was burned, but not wholly, only the
+ancient building. The wings were saved, and
+for that great credit is due the brave firemen.
+Monsieur will remember them, no doubt."</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true. Whether a forgotten lantern,
+overturned in the excitement, had done the
+work, or whether the origin of the fire was more
+supernatural, it was certain that "the Mouth of
+Hell" was no more. A last engine was pumping
+slowly as d'Ardeche came up; half a dozen
+limp, and one distended, hose stretched through
+the <i>porte coch&egrave;re</i>, and within only the fa&ccedil;ade of
+Francis I. remained, draped still with the black
+stems of the wisteria. Beyond lay a great
+vacancy, where thin smoke was rising slowly.
+Every floor was gone, and the strange halls of
+Mlle. Blaye de Tartas were only a memory.</p>
+
+<p>With d'Ardeche I visited the place last
+year, but in the stead of the ancient walls was
+then only a new and ordinary building, fresh
+and respectable; yet the wonderful stories of
+the old <i>Bouche d'Enfer</i> still lingered in the quarter,
+and will hold there, I do not doubt, until the
+Day of Judgment.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p>
+<h2>IN KROPFSBERG KEEP.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>In Kropfsberg Keep.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">To</span> the traveller from Innsbr&uuml;ck to Munich, up
+the lovely valley of the silver Inn, many castles
+appear, one after another, each on its beetling
+cliff or gentle hill,&mdash;appear and disappear, melting
+into the dark fir trees that grow so thickly
+on every side,&mdash;Laneck, Lichtwer, Ratholtz,
+Tratzberg, Matzen, Kropfsberg, gathering close
+around the entrance to the dark and wonderful
+Zillerthal.</p>
+
+<p>But to us&mdash;Tom Rendel and myself&mdash;there
+are two castles only: not the gorgeous and
+princely Ambras, nor the noble old Tratzberg,
+with its crowded treasures of solemn and splendid
+medi&aelig;valism; but little Matzen, where
+eager hospitality forms the new life of a never-dead
+chivalry, and Kropfsberg, ruined, tottering,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+blasted by fire and smitten with grievous years,&mdash;a
+dead thing, and haunted,&mdash;full of strange
+legends, and eloquent of mystery and tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>We were visiting the von C&mdash;&mdash;s at Matzen,
+and gaining our first wondering knowledge of
+the courtly, cordial castle life in the Tyrol,&mdash;of
+the gentle and delicate hospitality of noble Austrians.
+Brixleg had ceased to be but a mark on
+a map, and had become a place of rest and delight,
+a home for homeless wanderers on the
+face of Europe, while Schloss Matzen was a
+synonym for all that was gracious and kindly
+and beautiful in life. The days moved on in a
+golden round of riding and driving and shooting:
+down to Landl and Thiersee for chamois,
+across the river to the magic Achensee, up the
+Zillerthal, across the Schmerner Joch, even to
+the railway station at Steinach. And in the
+evenings after the late dinners in the upper
+hall where the sleepy hounds leaned against
+our chairs looking at us with suppliant eyes,
+in the evenings when the fire was dying away
+in the hooded fireplace in the library, stories.
+Stories, and legends, and fairy tales, while the
+stiff old portraits changed countenance constantly
+under the flickering firelight, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+sound of the drifting Inn came softly across
+the meadows far below.</p>
+
+<p>If ever I tell the Story of Schloss Matzen,
+then will be the time to paint the too inadequate
+picture of this fair oasis in the desert of
+travel and tourists and hotels; but just now it
+is Kropfsberg the Silent that is of greater importance,
+for it was only in Matzen that the
+story was told by Fr&auml;ulein E&mdash;&mdash;, the gold-haired
+niece of Frau von C&mdash;&mdash;, one hot evening in July,
+when we were sitting in the great west window
+of the drawing-room after a long ride up the
+Stallenthal. All the windows were open to
+catch the faint wind, and we had sat for a long
+time watching the Otzethaler Alps turn rose-color
+over distant Innsbr&uuml;ck, then deepen to
+violet as the sun went down and the white
+mists rose slowly until Lichtwer and Laneck
+and Kropfsberg rose like craggy islands in a
+silver sea.</p>
+
+<p>And this is the story as Fr&auml;ulein E&mdash;&mdash; told
+it to us,&mdash;the Story of Kropfsberg Keep.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A great many years ago, soon after my grandfather
+died, and Matzen came to us, when I
+was a little girl, and so young that I remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+nothing of the affair except as something dreadful
+that frightened me very much, two young
+men who had studied painting with my grandfather
+came down to Brixleg from Munich,
+partly to paint, and partly to amuse themselves,&mdash;"ghost-hunting"
+as they said, for they were
+very sensible young men and prided themselves
+on it, laughing at all kinds of "superstition,"
+and particularly at that form which believed in
+ghosts and feared them. They had never seen
+a real ghost, you know, and they belonged to a
+certain set of people who believed nothing they
+had not seen themselves,&mdash;which always seemed
+to me <i>very</i> conceited. Well, they knew that we
+had lots of beautiful castles here in the "lower
+valley," and they assumed, and rightly, that
+every castle has at least <i>one</i> ghost story connected
+with it, so they chose this as their hunting
+ground, only the game they sought was
+ghosts, not chamois. Their plan was to visit
+every place that was supposed to be haunted,
+and to meet every reputed ghost, and prove that
+it really was no ghost at all.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little inn down in the village then,
+kept by an old man named Peter Rosskopf, and
+the two young men made this their headquarters.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+The very first night they began to draw from
+the old innkeeper all that he knew of legends
+and ghost stories connected with Brixleg and
+its castles, and as he was a most garrulous old
+gentleman he filled them with the wildest delight
+by his stories of the ghosts of the castles about
+the mouth of the Zillerthal. Of course the old
+man believed every word he said, and you can
+imagine his horror and amazement when, after
+telling his guests the particularly blood-curdling
+story of Kropfsberg and its haunted keep, the
+elder of the two boys, whose surname I have forgotten,
+but whose Christian name was Rupert,
+calmly said, "Your story is most satisfactory:
+we will sleep in Kropfsberg Keep to-morrow
+night, and you must provide us with all that
+we may need to make ourselves comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>The old man nearly fell into the fire. "What
+for a blockhead are you?" he cried, with big
+eyes. "The keep is haunted by Count Albert's
+ghost, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is why we are going there to-morrow
+night; we wish to make the acquaintance of
+Count Albert."</p>
+
+<p>"But there was a man stayed there once, and
+in the morning he was dead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Very silly of him; there are two of us, and
+we carry revolvers."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's a <i>ghost</i>, I tell you," almost screamed
+the innkeeper; "are ghosts afraid of firearms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whether they are or not, we are <i>not</i> afraid
+of <i>them</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Here the younger boy broke in,&mdash;he was
+named Otto von Kleist. I remember the name,
+for I had a music teacher once by that name.
+He abused the poor old man shamefully; told
+him that they were going to spend the night in
+Kropfsberg in spite of Count Albert and Peter
+Rosskopf, and that he might as well make the
+most of it and earn his money with cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, they finally bullied the old fellow
+into submission, and when the morning came
+he set about preparing for the suicide, as he
+considered it, with sighs and mutterings and
+ominous shakings of the head.</p>
+
+<p>You know the condition of the castle now,&mdash;nothing
+but scorched walls and crumbling piles
+of fallen masonry. Well, at the time I tell you
+of, the keep was still partially preserved. It was
+finally burned out only a few years ago by some
+wicked boys who came over from Jenbach to
+have a good time. But when the ghost hunters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+came, though the two lower floors had fallen
+into the crypt, the third floor remained. The
+peasants said it <i>could</i> not fall, but that it would
+stay until the Day of Judgment, because it was
+in the room above that the wicked Count Albert
+sat watching the flames destroy the great castle
+and his imprisoned guests, and where he finally
+hung himself in a suit of armor that had belonged
+to his medi&aelig;val ancestor, the first Count
+Kropfsberg.</p>
+
+<p>No one dared touch him, and so he hung
+there for twelve years, and all the time venturesome
+boys and daring men used to creep up
+the turret steps and stare awfully through the
+chinks in the door at that ghostly mass of
+steel that held within itself the body of a murderer
+and suicide, slowly returning to the dust
+from which it was made. Finally it disappeared,
+none knew whither, and for another dozen years
+the room stood empty but for the old furniture
+and the rotting hangings.</p>
+
+<p>So, when the two men climbed the stairway to
+the haunted room, they found a very different
+state of things from what exists now. The room
+was absolutely as it was left the night Count
+Albert burned the castle, except that all trace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+of the suspended suit of armor and its ghastly
+contents had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>No one had dared to cross the threshold, and
+I suppose that for forty years no living thing had
+entered that dreadful room.</p>
+
+<p>On one side stood a vast canopied bed of
+black wood, the damask hangings of which
+were covered with mould and mildew. All the
+clothing of the bed was in perfect order, and on
+it lay a book, open, and face downward. The
+only other furniture in the room consisted of
+several old chairs, a carved oak chest, and a big
+inlaid table covered with books and papers, and
+on one corner two or three bottles with dark
+solid sediment at the bottom, and a glass, also
+dark with the dregs of wine that had been poured
+out almost half a century before. The tapestry
+on the walls was green with mould, but hardly
+torn or otherwise defaced, for although the heavy
+dust of forty years lay on everything the room
+had been preserved from further harm. No
+spider web was to be seen, no trace of nibbling
+mice, not even a dead moth or fly on the
+sills of the diamond-paned windows; life seemed
+to have shunned the room utterly and finally.</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at the room curiously, and, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+am sure, not without some feelings of awe and
+unacknowledged fear; but, whatever they may
+have felt of instinctive shrinking, they said
+nothing, and quickly set to work to make the
+room passably inhabitable. They decided to
+touch nothing that had not absolutely to be
+changed, and therefore they made for themselves
+a bed in one corner with the mattress
+and linen from the inn. In the great fireplace
+they piled a lot of wood on the caked ashes of
+a fire dead for forty years, turned the old chest
+into a table, and laid out on it all their arrangements
+for the evening's amusement: food, two
+or three bottles of wine, pipes and tobacco, and
+the chess-board that was their inseparable travelling
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>All this they did themselves: the innkeeper
+would not even come within the walls of the
+outer court; he insisted that he had washed
+his hands of the whole affair, the silly dunderheads
+might go to their death their own way.
+<i>He</i> would not aid and abet them. One of
+the stable boys brought the basket of food
+and the wood and the bed up the winding
+stone stairs, to be sure, but neither money nor
+prayers nor threats would bring him within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+the walls of the accursed place, and he stared
+fearfully at the hare-brained boys as they worked
+around the dead old room preparing for the night
+that was coming so fast.</p>
+
+<p>At length everything was in readiness, and
+after a final visit to the inn for dinner Rupert
+and Otto started at sunset for the Keep. Half
+the village went with them, for Peter Rosskopf
+had babbled the whole story to an open-mouthed
+crowd of wondering men and women, and as to
+an execution the awe-struck crowd followed the
+two boys dumbly, curious to see if they surely
+would put their plan into execution. But none
+went farther than the outer doorway of the stairs,
+for it was already growing twilight. In absolute
+silence they watched the two foolhardy youths
+with their lives in their hands enter the terrible
+Keep, standing like a tower in the midst of the
+piles of stones that had once formed walls joining
+it with the mass of the castle beyond. When
+a moment later a light showed itself in the high
+windows above, they sighed resignedly and went
+their ways, to wait stolidly until morning should
+come and prove the truth of their fears and
+warnings.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time the ghost hunters built a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+huge fire, lighted their many candles, and sat
+down to await developments. Rupert afterwards
+told my uncle that they really felt no fear whatever,
+only a contemptuous curiosity, and they
+ate their supper with good appetite and an unusual
+relish. It was a long evening. They
+played many games of chess, waiting for midnight.
+Hour passed after hour, and nothing
+occurred to interrupt the monotony of the evening.
+Ten, eleven, came and went,&mdash;it was
+almost midnight. They piled more wood in
+the fireplace, lighted new candles, looked to
+their pistols&mdash;and waited. The clocks in the
+village struck twelve; the sound coming muffled
+through the high, deep-embrasured windows.
+Nothing happened, nothing to break the heavy
+silence; and with a feeling of disappointed
+relief they looked at each other and acknowledged
+that they had met another rebuff.</p>
+
+<p>Finally they decided that there was no use in
+sitting up and boring themselves any longer,
+they had much better rest; so Otto threw himself
+down on the mattress, falling almost immediately
+asleep. Rupert sat a little longer,
+smoking, and watching the stars creep along
+behind the shattered glass and the bent leads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+of the lofty windows; watching the fire fall
+together, and the strange shadows move mysteriously
+on the mouldering walls. The iron
+hook in the oak beam, that crossed the ceiling
+midway, fascinated him, not with fear, but
+morbidly. So, it was from that hook that for
+twelve years, twelve long years of changing
+summer and winter, the body of Count Albert,
+murderer and suicide, hung in its strange casing
+of medi&aelig;val steel; moving a little at first, and
+turning gently while the fire died out on the
+hearth, while the ruins of the castle grew cold,
+and horrified peasants sought for the bodies of
+the score of gay, reckless, wicked guests whom
+Count Albert had gathered in Kropfsberg for
+a last debauch, gathered to their terrible and
+untimely death. What a strange and fiendish
+idea it was, the young, handsome noble who
+had ruined himself and his family in the society
+of the splendid debauchees, gathering them all
+together, men and women who had known only
+love and pleasure, for a glorious and awful riot
+of luxury, and then, when they were all dancing
+in the great ballroom, locking the doors and
+burning the whole castle about them, the while
+he sat in the great keep listening to their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+screams of agonized fear, watching the fire
+sweep from wing to wing until the whole mighty
+mass was one enormous and awful pyre, and
+then, clothing himself in his great-great-grandfather's
+armor, hanging himself in the midst
+of the ruins of what had been a proud and
+noble castle. So ended a great family, a great
+house.</p>
+
+<p>But that was forty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>He was growing drowsy; the light flickered
+and flared in the fireplace; one by one the candles
+went out; the shadows grew thick in the
+room. Why did that great iron hook stand out
+so plainly? why did that dark shadow dance
+and quiver so mockingly behind it?&mdash;why&mdash; But
+he ceased to wonder at anything. He was
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him that he woke almost immediately;
+the fire still burned, though low
+and fitfully on the hearth. Otto was sleeping,
+breathing quietly and regularly; the shadows
+had gathered close around him, thick and
+murky; with every passing moment the light
+died in the fireplace; he felt stiff with cold.
+In the utter silence he heard the clock in the
+village strike two. He shivered with a sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+and irresistible feeling of fear, and abruptly
+turned and looked towards the hook in the
+ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, It was there. He knew that It would
+be. It seemed quite natural, he would have
+been disappointed had he seen nothing; but
+now he knew that the story was true, knew that
+he was wrong, and that the dead <i>do</i> sometimes
+return to earth, for there, in the fast-deepening
+shadow, hung the black mass of wrought steel,
+turning a little now and then, with the light
+flickering on the tarnished and rusty metal.
+He watched it quietly; he hardly felt afraid;
+it was rather a sentiment of sadness and fatality
+that filled him, of gloomy forebodings
+of something unknown, unimaginable. He sat
+and watched the thing disappear in the gathering
+dark, his hand on his pistol as it lay by him
+on the great chest. There was no sound but
+the regular breathing of the sleeping boy on the
+mattress.</p>
+
+<p>It had grown absolutely dark; a bat fluttered
+against the broken glass of the window. He
+wondered if he was growing mad, for&mdash;he hesitated
+to acknowledge it to himself&mdash;he heard
+music; far, curious music, a strange and luxurious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+dance, very faint, very vague, but unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>Like a flash of lightning came a jagged line
+of fire down the blank wall opposite him, a line
+that remained, that grew wider, that let a pale
+cold light into the room, showing him now all
+its details,&mdash;the empty fireplace, where a thin
+smoke rose in a spiral from a bit of charred
+wood, the mass of the great bed, and, in the
+very middle, black against the curious brightness,
+the armored man, or ghost, or devil, standing,
+not suspended, beneath the rusty hook.
+And with the rending of the wall the music
+grew more distinct, though sounding still very,
+very far away.</p>
+
+<p>Count Albert raised his mailed hand and
+beckoned to him; then turned, and stood in
+the riven wall.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word, Rupert rose and followed
+him, his pistol in hand. Count Albert passed
+through the mighty wall and disappeared in
+the unearthly light. Rupert followed mechanically.
+He felt the crushing of the mortar
+beneath his feet, the roughness of the jagged
+wall where he rested his hand to steady
+himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The keep rose absolutely isolated among the
+ruins, yet on passing through the wall Rupert
+found himself in a long, uneven corridor, the
+floor of which was warped and sagging, while
+the walls were covered on one side with big
+faded portraits of an inferior quality, like those
+in the corridor that connects the Pitti and Uffizzi
+in Florence. Before him moved the figure of
+Count Albert,&mdash;a black silhouette in the ever-increasing
+light. And always the music grew
+stronger and stranger, a mad, evil, seductive
+dance that bewitched even while it disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>In a final blaze of vivid, intolerable light, in
+a burst of hellish music that might have come
+from Bedlam, Rupert stepped from the corridor
+into a vast and curious room where at
+first he saw nothing, distinguished nothing but
+a mad, seething whirl of sweeping figures,
+white, in a white room, under white light,
+Count Albert standing before him, the only
+dark object to be seen. As his eyes grew
+accustomed to the fearful brightness, he knew
+that he was looking on a dance such as the
+damned might see in hell, but such as no living
+man had ever seen before.</p>
+
+<p>Around the long, narrow hall, under the fearful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+light that came from nowhere, but was omnipresent,
+swept a rushing stream of unspeakable
+horrors, dancing insanely, laughing, gibbering
+hideously; the dead of forty years. White,
+polished skeletons, bare of flesh and vesture,
+skeletons clothed in the dreadful rags of dried
+and rattling sinews, the tags of tattering grave-clothes
+flaunting behind them. These were the
+dead of many years ago. Then the dead of more
+recent times, with yellow bones showing only
+here and there, the long and insecure hair of
+their hideous heads writhing in the beating
+air. Then green and gray horrors, bloated
+and shapeless, stained with earth or dripping
+with spattering water; and here and there
+white, beautiful things, like chiselled ivory, the
+dead of yesterday, locked it may be, in the
+mummy arms of rattling skeletons.</p>
+
+<p>Round and round the cursed room, a swaying,
+swirling maelstrom of death, while the air grew
+thick with miasma, the floor foul with shreds of
+shrouds, and yellow parchment, clattering bones,
+and wisps of tangled hair.</p>
+
+<p>And in the very midst of this ring of death, a
+sight not for words nor for thought, a sight to
+blast forever the mind of the man who looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+upon it: a leaping, writhing dance of Count
+Albert's victims, the score of beautiful women
+and reckless men who danced to their awful
+death while the castle burned around them,
+charred and shapeless now, a living charnel-house
+of nameless horror.</p>
+
+<p>Count Albert, who had stood silent and
+gloomy, watching the dance of the damned,
+turned to Rupert, and for the first time spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"We are ready for you now; dance!"</p>
+
+<p>A prancing horror, dead some dozen years,
+perhaps, flaunted from the rushing river of
+the dead, and leered at Rupert with eyeless
+skull.</p>
+
+<p>"Dance!"</p>
+
+<p>Rupert stood frozen, motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Dance!"</p>
+
+<p>His hard lips moved. "Not if the devil came
+from hell to make me."</p>
+
+<p>Count Albert swept his vast two-handed
+sword into the f&#339;tid air while the tide of
+corruption paused in its swirling, and swept
+down on Rupert with gibbering grins.</p>
+
+<p>The room, and the howling dead, and the
+black portent before him circled dizzily around,
+as with a last effort of departing consciousness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+he drew his pistol and fired full in the face of
+Count Albert.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Perfect silence, perfect darkness; not a
+breath, not a sound: the dead stillness of a
+long-sealed tomb. Rupert lay on his back,
+stunned, helpless, his pistol clenched in his
+frozen hand, a smell of powder in the black
+air. Where was he? Dead? In hell? He
+reached his hand out cautiously; it fell on
+dusty boards. Outside, far away, a clock
+struck three. Had he dreamed? Of course;
+but how ghastly a dream! With chattering
+teeth he called softly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Otto!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply, and none when he called
+again and again. He staggered weakly to his
+feet, groping for matches and candles. A panic
+of abject terror came on him; the matches
+were gone! He turned towards the fireplace:
+a single coal glowed in the white ashes. He
+swept a mass of papers and dusty books from
+the table, and with trembling hands cowered
+over the embers, until he succeeded in lighting
+the dry tinder. Then he piled the old books
+on the blaze, and looked fearfully around.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No: It was gone,&mdash;thank God for that; the
+hook was empty.</p>
+
+<p>But why did Otto sleep so soundly; why did
+he not awake?</p>
+
+<p>He stepped unsteadily across the room in the
+flaring light of the burning books, and knelt by
+the mattress.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>So they found him in the morning, when no
+one came to the inn from Kropfsberg Keep,
+and the quaking Peter Rosskopf arranged a
+relief party;&mdash;found him kneeling beside the
+mattress where Otto lay, shot in the throat
+and quite dead.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE WHITE VILLA.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>The White Villa.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> we left Naples on the 8.10 train for
+P&aelig;stum, Tom and I, we fully intended returning
+by the 2.46. Not because two hours time
+seemed enough wherein to exhaust the interests
+of those deathless ruins of a dead civilization,
+but simply for the reason that, as our <i>Indicatore</i>
+informed us, there was but one other train, and
+that at 6.11, which would land us in Naples too
+late for the dinner at the Turners and the San
+Carlo afterwards. Not that I cared in the
+least for the dinner or the theatre; but then, I
+was not so obviously in Miss Turner's good
+graces as Tom Rendel was, which made a
+difference.</p>
+
+<p>However, we had promised, so that was an
+end of it.</p>
+
+<p>This was in the spring of '88, and at that
+time the railroad, which was being pushed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+onward to Reggio, whereby travellers to Sicily
+might be spared the agonies of a night on the
+fickle Mediterranean, reached no farther than
+Agropoli, some twenty miles beyond P&aelig;stum;
+but although the trains were as yet few and
+slow, we accepted the half-finished road with
+gratitude, for it penetrated the very centre of
+Campanian brigandage, and made it possible for
+us to see the matchless temples in safety, while
+a few years before it was necessary for intending
+visitors to obtain a military escort from the
+Government; and military escorts are not for
+young architects.</p>
+
+<p>So we set off contentedly, that white May
+morning, determined to make the best of our
+few hours, little thinking that before we saw
+Naples again we were to witness things that
+perhaps no American had ever seen before.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, when we left the train at
+"Pesto," and started to walk up the flowery
+lane leading to the temples, we were almost
+inclined to curse this same railroad. We had
+thought, in our innocence, that we should be
+alone, that no one else would think of enduring
+the long four hours' ride from Naples just to spend
+two hours in the ruins of these temples; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+the event proved our unwisdom. We were <i>not</i>
+alone. It was a compact little party of conventional
+sight-seers that accompanied us. The inevitable
+English family with the three daughters,
+prominent of teeth, flowing of hair, aggressive of
+scarlet Murrays and Baedekers; the two blond
+and untidy Germans; a French couple from the
+pages of <i>La Vie Parisienne</i>; and our "old man
+of the sea," the white-bearded Presbyterian
+minister from Pennsylvania who had made our
+life miserable in Rome at the time of the Pope's
+Jubilee. Fortunately for us, this terrible old man
+had fastened himself upon a party of American
+school-teachers travelling <i>en Cook</i>, and
+for the time we were safe; but our vision of
+two hours of dreamy solitude faded lamentably
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Yet how beautiful it was! this golden meadow
+walled with far, violet mountains, breathless
+under a May sun; and in the midst, rising from
+tangles of asphodel and acanthus, vast in the
+vacant plain, three temples, one silver gray, one
+golden gray, and one flushed with intangible
+rose. And all around nothing but velvet
+meadows stretching from the dim mountains
+behind, away to the sea, that showed only as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+thin line of silver just over the edge of the still
+grass.</p>
+
+<p>The tide of tourists swept noisily through
+the Basilica and the temple of Poseidon across
+the meadow to the distant temple of Ceres, and
+Tom and I were left alone to drink in all the
+fine wine of dreams that was possible in the
+time left us. We gave but little space to
+examining the temples the tourists had left, but
+in a few moments found ourselves lying in the
+grass to the east of Poseidon, looking dimly out
+towards the sea, heard now, but not seen,&mdash;a
+vague and pulsating murmur that blended with
+the humming of bees all about us.</p>
+
+<p>A small shepherd boy, with a woolly dog,
+made shy advances of friendship, and in a little
+time we had set him to gathering flowers for us:
+asphodels and bee-orchids, anemones, and the
+little thin green iris so fairylike and frail. The
+murmur of the tourist crowd had merged itself
+in the moan of the sea, and it was very still;
+suddenly I heard the words I had been waiting
+for,&mdash;the suggestion I had refrained from making
+myself, for I knew Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, old man, shall we let the 2.46 go to
+thunder?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I chuckled to myself. "But the Turners?"</p>
+
+<p>"They be blowed, we can tell them we
+missed the train."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just exactly what we shall do," I
+said, pulling out my watch, "unless we start for
+the station right now."</p>
+
+<p>But Tom drew an acanthus leaf across his
+face and showed no signs of moving; so I filled
+my pipe again, and we missed the train.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun dropped lower towards the sea,
+changing its silver line to gold, we pulled ourselves
+together, and for an hour or more
+sketched vigorously; but the mood was not on
+us. It was "too jolly fine to waste time working,"
+as Tom said; so we started off to explore
+the single street of the squalid town of Pesto
+that was lost within the walls of dead Poseidonia.
+It was not a pretty village,&mdash;if you
+can call a rut-riven lane and a dozen houses a
+village,&mdash;nor were the inhabitants thereof reassuring
+in appearance. There was no sign of
+a church,&mdash;nothing but dirty huts, and in the
+midst, one of two stories, rejoicing in the name
+of <i>Albergo del Sole</i>, the first story of which was
+a black and cavernous smithy, where certain
+swarthy knaves, looking like banditti out of a
+job, sat smoking sulkily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We might stay here all night," said Tom,
+grinning askance at this choice company; but
+his suggestion was not received with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Down where the lane from the station joined
+the main road stood the only sign of modern
+civilization,&mdash;a great square structure, half
+villa, half fortress, with round turrets on its
+four corners, and a ten-foot wall surrounding it.
+There were no windows in its first story, so far
+as we could see, and it had evidently been at
+one time the fortified villa of some Campanian
+noble. Now, however, whether because brigandage
+had been stamped out, or because the
+villa was empty and deserted, it was no longer
+formidable; the gates of the great wall hung
+sagging on their hinges, brambles growing all
+over them, and many of the windows in the
+upper story were broken and black. It was a
+strange place, weird and mysterious, and we
+looked at it curiously. "There is a story about
+that place," said Tom, with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing late: the sun was near the
+edge of the sea as we walked down the ivy-grown
+walls of the vanished city for the last
+time, and as we turned back, a red flush poured
+from the west, and painted the Doric temples<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+in pallid rose against the evanescent purple of
+the Apennines. Already a thin mist was rising
+from the meadows, and the temples hung pink
+in the misty grayness.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sorrow to leave the beautiful things,
+but we could run no risk of missing this last
+train, so we walked slowly back towards the
+temples.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that Johnny waving his arm at us
+for?" asked Tom, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know? We are not on his
+land, and the walls don't matter."</p>
+
+<p>We pulled out our watches simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>"What time are you?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Six minutes before six."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am seven minutes. It can't take us
+all that time to walk to the station."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure the train goes at 6.11?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead sure," I answered; and showed him
+the <i>Indicatore</i>.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a woman and two children were
+shrieking at us hysterically; but what they said
+I had no idea, their Italian being of a strange
+and awful nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," I said, "let's run; perhaps our
+watches are both slow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Or&mdash;perhaps the time-table is changed."</p>
+
+<p>Then we ran, and the populace cheered and
+shouted with enthusiasm; our dignified run
+became a panic-stricken rout, for as we turned
+into the lane, smoke was rising from beyond
+the bank that hid the railroad; a bell rang;
+we were so near that we could hear the interrogative
+<i>Pronte?</i> the impatient <i>Partenza!</i>
+and the definitive <i>Andiamo!</i> But the train
+was five hundred yards away, steaming towards
+Naples, when we plunged into the station as the
+clock struck six, and yelled for the station-master.</p>
+
+<p>He came, and we indulged in crimination and
+recrimination.</p>
+
+<p>When we could regard the situation calmly, it
+became apparent that the time-table <i>had</i> been
+changed two days before, the 6.11 now leaving
+at 5.58. A <i>facchino</i> came in, and we four
+sat down and regarded the situation judicially.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any other train?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Could we stay at the Albergo del Sole?"</p>
+
+<p>A forefinger drawn across the throat by the
+Capo Stazione with a significant "cluck" closed
+that question.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then we must stay with you here at the
+station."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Signori, I am not married. I live here
+only with the <i>facchini</i>. I have only one room
+to sleep in. It is impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"But we must sleep somewhere, likewise eat.
+What can we do?" and we shifted the responsibility
+deftly on the shoulders of the poor old
+man, who was growing excited again.</p>
+
+<p>He trotted nervously up and down the station
+for a minute, then he called the <i>facchino</i>. "Giuseppe,
+go up to the villa and ask if two <i>forestieri</i>
+who have missed the last train can stay there all
+night!"</p>
+
+<p>Protests were useless. The <i>facchino</i> was
+gone, and we waited anxiously for his return.
+It seemed as though he would never come.
+Darkness had fallen, and the moon was rising
+over the mountains. At last he appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"The Signori may stay all night, and welcome;
+but they cannot come to dinner, for
+there is nothing in the house to eat!"</p>
+
+<p>This was not reassuring, and again the old
+station-master lost himself in meditation. The
+results were admirable, for in a little time the
+table in the waiting-room had been transformed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+into a dining-table, and Tom and I
+were ravenously devouring a big omelette, and
+bread and cheese, and drinking a most shocking
+sour wine as though it were Ch&acirc;teau Yquem.
+A <i>facchino</i> served us, with clumsy good-will; and
+when we had induced our nervous old host to
+sit down with us and partake of his own hospitality,
+we succeeded in forming a passably jolly
+dinner-party, forgetting over our sour wine and
+cigarettes the coming hours from ten until sunrise,
+which lay before us in a dubious mist.</p>
+
+<p>It was with crowding apprehensions which we
+strove in vain to joke away that we set out at
+last to retrace our steps to the mysterious villa,
+the <i>facchino</i> Giuseppe leading the way. By
+this time the moon was well overhead, and just
+behind us as we tramped up the dewy lane,
+white in the moonlight between the ink-black
+hedgerows on either side. How still it was!
+Not a breath of air, not a sound of life; only
+the awful silence that had lain almost unbroken
+for two thousand years over this vast graveyard
+of a dead world.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed between the shattered gates
+and wound our way in the moonlight through
+the maze of gnarled fruit-trees, decaying farm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+implements and piles of lumber, towards the
+small door that formed the only opening in
+the first story of this deserted fortress, the
+cold silence was shattered by the harsh baying
+of dogs somewhere in the distance to the
+right, beyond the barns that formed one side
+of the court. From the villa came neither
+light nor sound. Giuseppe knocked at the
+weather-worn door, and the sound echoed cavernously
+within; but there was no other reply.
+He knocked again and again, and at length
+we heard the rasping jar of sliding bolts, and
+the door opened a little, showing an old, old
+man, bent with age and gaunt with malaria.
+Over his head he held a big Roman lamp,
+with three wicks, that cast strange shadows
+on his face,&mdash;a face that was harmless in its
+senility, but intolerably sad. He made no
+reply to our timid salutations, but motioned
+tremblingly to us to enter; and with a last
+"good-night" to Giuseppe we obeyed, and
+stood half-way up the stone stairs that led
+directly from the door, while the old man
+tediously shot every bolt and adjusted the
+heavy bar.</p>
+
+<p>Then we followed him in the semi-darkness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+up the steps into what had been the great
+hall of the villa. A fire was burning in a
+great fireplace so beautiful in design that
+Tom and I looked at each other with interest.
+By its fitful light we could see that we were
+in a huge circular room covered by a flat,
+saucer-shaped dome,&mdash;a room that must once
+have been superb and splendid, but that now
+was a lamentable wreck. The frescoes on the
+dome were stained and mildewed, and here
+and there the plaster was gone altogether; the
+carved doorways that led out on all sides had lost
+half the gold with which they had once been
+covered, and the floor was of brick, sunken
+into treacherous valleys. Rough chests, piles
+of old newspapers, fragments of harnesses,
+farm implements, a heap of rusty carbines and
+cutlasses, nameless litter of every possible kind,
+made the room into a wilderness which under
+the firelight seemed even more picturesque than
+it really was. And on this inexpressible confusion
+of lumber the pale shapes of the seventeenth-century
+nymphs, startling in their
+weather-stained nudity, looked down with vacant
+smiles.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments we warmed ourselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+before the fire; and then, in the same dejected
+silence, the old man led the way to one of the
+many doors, handed us a brass lamp, and with
+a stiff bow turned his back on us.</p>
+
+<p>Once in our room alone, Tom and I looked at
+each other with faces that expressed the most
+complex emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the rum goes," said Tom, "this
+is the rummiest go I ever experienced!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right, my boy; as you very justly remark, we
+are in for it. Help me shut this door, and then
+we will reconnoitre, take account of stock, and
+size up our chances."</p>
+
+<p>But the door showed no sign of closing; it
+grated on the brick floor and stuck in the
+warped casing, and it took our united efforts
+to jam the two inches of oak into its place, and
+turn the enormous old key in its rusty lock.</p>
+
+<p>"Better now, much better now," said Tom;
+"now let us see where we are."</p>
+
+<p>The room was easily twenty-five feet square,
+and high in proportion; evidently it had been
+a state apartment, for the walls were covered
+with carved panelling that had once been white
+and gold, with mirrors in the panels, the wood
+now stained every imaginable color, the mirrors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+cracked and broken, and dull with mildew. A
+big fire had just been lighted in the fireplace,
+the shutters were closed, and although the only
+furniture consisted of two massive bedsteads,
+and a chair with one leg shorter than the others,
+the room seemed almost comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>I opened one of the shutters, that closed the
+great windows that ran from the floor almost to
+the ceiling, and nearly fell through the cracked
+glass into the floorless balcony. "Tom, come
+here, quick," I cried; and for a few minutes
+neither of us thought about our dubious surroundings,
+for we were looking at P&aelig;stum by
+moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>A flat, white mist, like water, lay over the entire
+meadow; from the midst rose against the
+blue-black sky the three ghostly temples, black
+and silver in the vivid moonlight, floating, it
+seemed, in the fog; and behind them, seen in
+broken glints between the pallid shafts, stretched
+the line of the silver sea.</p>
+
+<p>Perfect silence,&mdash;the silence of implacable
+death.</p>
+
+<p>We watched the white tide of mist rise around
+the temples, until we were chilled through, and
+so presently went to bed. There was but one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+door in the room, and that was securely locked;
+the great windows were twenty feet from the
+ground, so we felt reasonably safe from all
+possible attack.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes Tom was asleep and breathing
+audibly; but my constitution is more nervous
+than his, and I lay awake for some
+little time, thinking of our curious adventure
+and of its possible outcome. Finally, I fell
+asleep,&mdash;for how long I do not know: but I
+woke with the feeling that some one had tried
+the handle of the door. The fire had fallen into
+a heap of coals which cast a red glow in the
+room, whereby I could see dimly the outline of
+Tom's bed, the broken-legged chair in front of
+the fireplace, and the door in its deep casing by
+the chimney, directly in front of my bed. I sat
+up, nervous from my sudden awakening under
+these strange circumstances, and stared at the
+door. The latch rattled, and the door swung
+smoothly open. I began to shiver coldly. That
+door was locked; Tom and I had all we could
+do to jam it together and lock it. But we <i>did</i>
+lock it; and now it was opening silently. In
+a minute more it as silently closed.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard a footstep,&mdash;I swear I heard a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+footstep <i>in the room</i>, and with it the <i>frou-frou</i>
+of trailing skirts; my breath stopped and my
+teeth grated against each other as I heard the
+soft footfalls and the feminine rustle pass along
+the room towards the fireplace. My eyes saw
+nothing; yet there was enough light in the room
+for me to distinguish the pattern on the carved
+panels of the door. The steps stopped by the
+fire, and I saw the broken-legged chair lean to
+the left, with a little jar as its short leg touched
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p>I sat still, frozen, motionless, staring at the
+vacancy that was filled with such terror for me;
+and as I looked, the seat of the chair creaked,
+and it came back to its upright position again.</p>
+
+<p>And then the footsteps came down the room
+lightly, towards the window; there was a pause,
+and then the great shutters swung back, and
+the white moonlight poured in. Its brilliancy
+was unbroken by any shadow, by any sign of
+material substance.</p>
+
+<p>I tried to cry out, to make some sound, to
+awaken Tom; this sense of utter loneliness in
+the presence of the Inexplicable was maddening.
+I don't know whether my lips obeyed my will
+or no; at all events, Tom lay motionless, with
+his deaf ear up, and gave no sign.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The shutters closed as silently as they had
+opened; the moonlight was gone, the firelight
+also, and in utter darkness I waited. If I could
+only <i>see</i>! If something were visible, I should
+not mind it so much; but this ghastly hearing of
+every little sound, every rustle of a gown, every
+breath, yet seeing nothing, was soul-destroying.
+I think in my abject terror I prayed that I might
+see, only see; but the darkness was unbroken.</p>
+
+<p>Then the footsteps began to waver fitfully,
+and I heard the rustle of garments sliding to
+the floor, the clatter of little shoes flung down,
+the rattle of buttons, and of metal against wood.</p>
+
+<p>Rigors shot over me, and my whole body
+shivered with collapse as I sank back on the
+pillow, waiting with every nerve tense, listening
+with all my life.</p>
+
+<p>The coverlid was turned back beside me, and
+in another moment the great bed sank a little as
+something slipped between the sheets with an
+audible sigh.</p>
+
+<p>I called to my aid every atom of remaining
+strength, and, with a cry that shivered between
+my clattering teeth, I hurled myself headlong
+from the bed on to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>I must have lain for some time stunned and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+unconscious, for when I finally came to myself
+it was cold in the room, there was no last glow
+of lingering coals in the fireplace, and I was stiff
+with chill.</p>
+
+<p>It all flashed over me like the haunting of a
+heavy dream. I laughed a little at the dim
+memory, with the thought, "I must try to recollect
+all the details; they will do to tell Tom,"
+and rose stiffly to return to bed, when&mdash;there
+it was again, and my heart stopped,&mdash;the hand
+on the door.</p>
+
+<p>I paused and listened. The door opened
+with a muffled creak, closed again, and I heard
+the lock turn rustily. I would have died now
+before getting into that bed again; but there
+was terror equally without; so I stood trembling
+and listened,&mdash;listened to heavy, stealthy
+steps creeping along on the other side of the
+bed. I clutched the coverlid, staring across
+into the dark.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rush in the air by my face, the
+sound of a blow, and simultaneously a shriek, so
+awful, so despairing, so blood-curdling that I
+felt my senses leaving me again as I sank
+crouching on the floor by the bed.</p>
+
+<p>And then began the awful duel, the duel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+of invisible, audible shapes; of things that
+shrieked and raved, mingling thin, feminine
+cries with low, stifled curses and indistinguishable
+words. Round and round the room, footsteps
+chasing footsteps in the ghastly night,
+now away by Tom's bed, now rushing swiftly
+down the great room until I felt the flash of
+swirling drapery on my hard lips. Round
+and round, turning and twisting till my brain
+whirled with the mad cries.</p>
+
+<p>They were coming nearer. I felt the jar of
+their feet on the floor beside me. Came one
+long, gurgling moan close over my head, and
+then, crushing down upon me, the weight of a
+collapsing body; there was long hair over my
+face, and in my staring eyes; and as awful silence
+succeeded the less awful tumult, life went out,
+and I fell unfathomable miles into nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>The gray dawn was sifting through the chinks
+in the shutters when I opened my eyes again.
+I lay stunned and faint, staring up at the mouldy
+frescoes on the ceiling, struggling to gather
+together my wandering senses and knit them
+into something like consciousness. But now
+as I pulled myself little by little together there
+was no thought of dreams before me. One<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+after another the awful incidents of that unspeakable
+night came back, and I lay incapable
+of movement, of action, trying to piece together
+the whirling fragments of memory that
+circled dizzily around me.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little it grew lighter in the room. I
+could see the pallid lines struggling through
+the shutters behind me, grow stronger along
+the broken and dusty floor. The tarnished
+mirrors reflected dirtily the growing daylight;
+a door closed, far away, and I heard the crowing
+of a cock; then by and by the whistle of a
+passing train.</p>
+
+<p>Years seemed to have passed since I first came
+into this terrible room. I had lost the use of
+my tongue, my voice refused to obey my panic-stricken
+desire to cry out; once or twice I tried
+in vain to force an articulate sound through my
+rigid lips; and when at last a broken whisper
+rewarded my feverish struggles, I felt a strange
+sense of great victory. How soundly he slept!
+Ordinarily, rousing him was no easy task, and
+now he revolted steadily against being awakened
+at this untimely hour. It seemed to me that I
+had called him for ages almost, before I heard
+him grunt sleepily and turn in bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tom," I cried weakly, "Tom, come and
+help me!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want? what is the matter with
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask, come and help me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fallen out of bed I guess;" and he laughed
+drowsily.</p>
+
+<p>My abject terror lest he should go to sleep
+again gave me new strength. Was it the actual
+physical paralysis born of killing fear that held
+me down? I could not have raised my head
+from the floor on my life; I could only cry out
+in deadly fear for Tom to come and help me.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you get up and get into bed?"
+he answered, when I implored him to come to
+me. "You have got a bad nightmare; wake
+up!"</p>
+
+<p>But something in my voice roused him at last,
+and he came chuckling across the room, stopping
+to throw open two of the great shutters and
+let a burst of white light into the room. He
+climbed up on the bed and peered over jeeringly.
+With the first glance the laugh died, and he
+leaped the bed and bent over me.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, man, what is the matter with you?
+You are hurt!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what is the matter; lift me
+up, get me away from here, and I'll tell you all
+I know."</p>
+
+<p>"But, old chap, you must be hurt awfully;
+the floor is covered with blood!"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted my head and held me in his powerful
+arms. I looked down: a great red stain
+blotted the floor beside me.</p>
+
+<p>But, apart from the black bruise on my head,
+there was no sign of a wound on my body, nor
+stain of blood on my lips. In as few words as
+possible I told him the whole story.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out of this," he said when I had
+finished; "this is no place for us. Brigands I
+can stand, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He helped me to dress, and as soon as possible
+we forced open the heavy door, the door I
+had seen turn so softly on its hinges only a few
+hours before, and came out into the great circular
+hall, no less strange and mysterious now
+in the half light of dawn than it had been by
+firelight. The room was empty, for it must
+have been very early, although a fire already
+blazed in the fireplace. We sat by the fire
+some time, seeing no one. Presently slow footsteps
+sounded in the stairway, and the old man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+entered, silent as the night before, nodding to
+us civilly, but showing by no sign any surprise
+which he may have felt at our early rising. In
+absolute silence he moved around, preparing
+coffee for us; and when at last the frugal breakfast
+was ready, and we sat around the rough
+table munching coarse bread and sipping the
+black coffee, he would reply to our overtures
+only by monosyllables.</p>
+
+<p>Any attempt at drawing from him some facts
+as to the history of the villa was received with
+a grave and frigid repellence that baffled us; and
+we were forced to say <i>addio</i> with our hunger for
+some explanation of the events of the night still
+unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>But we saw the temples by sunrise, when the
+mistlike lambent opals bathed the bases of the
+tall columns salmon in the morning light! It
+was a rhapsody in the pale and unearthly colors
+of Puvis de Chavannes vitalized and made glorious
+with splendid sunlight; the apotheosis of
+mist; a vision never before seen, never to be forgotten.
+It was so beautiful that the memory of
+my ghastly night paled and faded, and it was Tom
+who assailed the station-master with questions
+while we waited for the train from Agropoli.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Luckily he was more than loquacious, he was
+voluble under the ameliorating influence of the
+money we forced upon him; and this, in few
+words, was the story he told us while we sat on
+the platform smoking, marvelling at the mists
+that rose to the east, now veiling, now revealing
+the lavender Apennines.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a story of <i>La Villa Bianca</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Signori, certainly; and a story very
+strange and very terrible. It was much time
+ago, a hundred,&mdash;two hundred years; I do
+not know. Well, the Duca di San Damiano
+married a lady so fair, so most beautiful that
+she was called <i>La Luna di Pesto</i>; but she was
+of the people,&mdash;more, she was of the banditti:
+her father was of Calabria, and a terror of the
+Campagna. But the Duke was young, and he
+married her, and for her built the white villa;
+and it was a wonder throughout Campania,&mdash;you
+have seen? It is splendid now, even if a ruin.
+Well, it was less than a year after they came to
+the villa before the Duke grew jealous,&mdash;jealous
+of the new captain of the banditti who took the
+place of the father of <i>La Luna</i>, himself killed in
+a great battle up there in the mountains. Was
+there cause? Who shall know? But there were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+stories among the people of terrible things in the
+villa, and how <i>La Luna</i> was seen almost never
+outside the walls. Then the Duke would go for
+many days to Napoli, coming home only now and
+then to the villa that was become a fortress,
+so many men guarded its never-opening gates.
+And once&mdash;it was in the spring&mdash;the Duke came
+silently down from Napoli, and there, by the
+three poplars you see away towards the north,
+his carriage was set upon by armed men, and
+he was almost killed; but he had with him
+many guards, and after a terrible fight the brigands
+were beaten off; but before him, wounded,
+lay the captain,&mdash;the man whom he feared and
+hated. He looked at him, lying there under the
+torchlight, and in his hand saw <i>his own sword</i>.
+Then he became a devil: with the same sword
+he ran the brigand through, leaped in the carriage,
+and, entering the villa, crept to the chamber
+of <i>La Luna</i>, and killed her with the sword
+she had given to her lover.</p>
+
+<p>"This is all the story of the White Villa,
+except that the Duke came never again to
+Pesto. He went back to the king at Napoli,
+and for many years he was the scourge of
+the banditti of Campania; for the King made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+him a general, and San Damiano was a name
+feared by the lawless and loved by the peaceful,
+until he was killed in a battle down by
+Mormanno.</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>La Luna</i>? Some say she comes back
+to the villa, once a year, when the moon is full,
+in the month when she was slain; for the Duke
+buried her, they say, with his own hands, in the
+garden that was once under the window of her
+chamber; and as she died unshriven, so was she
+buried without the pale of the Church. Therefore
+she cannot sleep in peace,&mdash;<i>non &egrave; vero</i>? I
+do not know if the story is true, but this is the
+story, Signori, and there is the train for Napoli.
+<i>Ah, grazie! Signori, grazie tanto! A rivederci!
+Signori, a rivederci!</i>"</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+<h2>SISTER MADDELENA.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>Sister Maddelena.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Across</span> the valley of the Oreto from Monreale,
+on the slopes of the mountains just
+above the little village of Parco, lies the old
+convent of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister
+terrace at Monreale you can see its pale walls
+and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from
+the crowded citron and mulberry orchards that
+flourish, rank and wild, no longer cared for by
+pious and loving hands. From the rough road
+that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent
+is invisible, a gnarled and ragged olive
+grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well,
+while from Palermo one sees only the speck of
+white, flashing in the sun, indistinguishable from
+the many similar gleams of desert monastery or
+pauper village.</p>
+
+<p>Partly because of this seclusion, partly by
+reason of its extreme beauty, partly, it may be,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+because the present owners are more than
+charming and gracious in their pressing hospitality,
+Sta. Catarina seems to preserve an
+element of the poetic, almost magical; and as
+I drove with the Cavaliere Valguanera one
+evening in March out of Palermo, along the
+garden valley of the Oreto, then up the mountain
+side where the warm light of the spring
+sunset swept across from Monreale, lying
+golden and mellow on the luxuriant growth of
+figs, and olives, and orange-trees, and fantastic
+cacti, and so up to where the path of the convent
+swung off to the right round a dizzy point
+of cliff that reached out gaunt and gray from the
+olives below,&mdash;as I drove thus in the balmy air,
+and saw of a sudden a vision of creamy walls and
+orange roofs, draped in fantastic festoons of
+roses, with a single curving palm-tree stuck
+black and feathery against the gold sunset, it
+is hardly to be wondered at that I should slip
+into a mood of visionary enjoyment, looking
+for a time on the whole thing as the misty
+phantasm of a summer dream.</p>
+
+<p>The Cavaliere had introduced himself to
+us,&mdash;Tom Rendel and me,&mdash;one morning
+soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+first bewilderment of architects in this paradise
+of art and color, we were working nobly at
+our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella
+Palatina. He was himself an amateur arch&aelig;ologist,
+he told us, and passionately devoted to his
+island; so he felt impelled to speak to any one
+whom he saw appreciating the almost&mdash;and
+in a way fortunately&mdash;unknown beauties of
+Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted,
+and talking like the oldest friends.
+Of course he knew acquaintances of Rendel's,&mdash;some
+one always does: this time they were
+officers on the tubby U. S. S. "Quinebaug," that,
+during the summer of 1888, was trying to uphold
+the maritime honor of the United States
+in European waters. Luckily for us, one of
+the officers was a kind of cousin of Rendel's,
+and came from Baltimore as well, so, as he had
+visited at the Cavaliere's place, we were soon
+invited to do the same. It was in this way
+that, with the luck that attends Rendel wherever
+he goes, we came to see something of
+domestic life in Italy, and that I found myself
+involved in another of those adventures for
+which I naturally sought so little.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if there is any other place in Sicily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+so faultless as Sta. Catarina? Taormina is a
+paradise, an epitome of all that is beautiful in
+Italy,&mdash;Venice excepted. Girgenti is a solemn
+epic, with its golden temples between the sea and
+hills. Cefal&ugrave; is wild and strange, and Monreale
+a vision out of a fairy tale; but Sta. Catarina!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Fancy a convent of creamy stone and rose-red
+brick perched on a ledge of rock midway
+between earth and heaven, the cliff falling
+almost sheer to the valley two hundred feet
+and more, the mountain rising behind straight
+towards the sky; all the rocks covered with cactus
+and dwarf fig-trees, the convent draped in
+smothering roses, and in front a terrace with a
+fountain in the midst; and then&mdash;nothing&mdash;between
+you and the sapphire sea, six miles
+away. Below stretches the Eden valley, the
+Concha d'Oro, gold-green fig orchards alternating
+with smoke-blue olives, the mountains rising
+on either hand and sinking undulously away
+towards the bay where, like a magic city of ivory
+and nacre, Palermo lies guarded by the twin
+mountains, Monte Pellegrino and Capo Zafferano,
+arid rocks like dull amethysts, rose in
+sunlight, violet in shadow: lions couchant, guarding
+the sleeping town.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Seen as we saw it for the first time that hot
+evening in March, with the golden lambent light
+pouring down through the valley, making it in
+verity a "shell of gold," sitting in Indian chairs
+on the terrace, with the perfume of roses and
+jasmines all around us, the valley of the Oreto,
+Palermo, Sta. Catarina, Monreale,&mdash;all were but
+parts of a dreamy vision, like the heavenly city
+of Sir Percivale, to attain which he passed
+across the golden bridge that burned after him
+as he vanished in the intolerable light of the
+Beatific Vision.</p>
+
+<p>It was all so unreal, so phantasmal, that I
+was not surprised in the least when, late in
+the evening after the ladies had gone to their
+rooms, and the Cavaliere, Tom, and I were
+stretched out in chairs on the terrace, smoking
+lazily under the multitudinous stars, the Cavaliere
+said, "There is something I really must tell
+you both before you go to bed, so that you may
+be spared any unnecessary alarm."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to say that the place is
+haunted," said Rendel, feeling vaguely on the
+floor beside him for his glass of Amaro: "thank
+you; it is all it needs."</p>
+
+<p>The Cavaliere smiled a little: "Yes, that is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+just it. Sta. Catarina is really haunted; and
+much as my reason revolts against the idea as
+superstitious and savoring of priestcraft, yet I
+must acknowledge I see no way of avoiding the
+admission. I do not presume to offer any explanations,
+I only state the fact; and the fact is that
+to-night one or other of you will, in all human&mdash;or
+unhuman&mdash;probability, receive a visit from
+Sister Maddelena. You need not be in the
+least afraid, the apparition is perfectly gentle
+and harmless; and, moreover, having seen it
+once, you will never see it again. No one
+sees the ghost, or whatever it is, but once,
+and that usually the first night he spends in
+the house. I myself saw the thing eight&mdash;nine
+years ago, when I first bought the place
+from the Marchese di Muxaro; all my people
+have seen it, nearly all my guests, so I think you
+may as well be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell us what to expect," I said; "what
+kind of a ghost is this nocturnal visitor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is simple enough. Some time to-night you
+will suddenly awake and see before you a Carmelite
+nun who will look fixedly at you, say distinctly
+and very sadly, 'I cannot sleep,' and
+then vanish. That is all, it is hardly worth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+speaking of, only some people are terribly
+frightened if they are visited unwarned by
+strange apparitions; so I tell you this that you
+may be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>"This was a Carmelite convent, then?" I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it was suppressed after the unification
+of Italy, and given to the House of Muxaro; but
+the family died out, and I bought it. There is
+a story about the ghostly nun, who was only a
+novice, and even that unwillingly, which gives
+an interest to an otherwise very commonplace
+and uninteresting ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg that you will tell it us," cried Rendel.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a storm coming," I added. "See,
+the lightning is flashing already up among the
+mountains at the head of the valley; if the story
+is tragic, as it must be, now is just the time for
+it. You will tell it, will you not?"</p>
+
+<p>The Cavaliere smiled that slow, cryptic smile
+of his that was so unfathomable.</p>
+
+<p>"As you say, there is a shower coming, and
+as we have fierce tempests here, we might not
+sleep; so perhaps we may as well sit up a little
+longer, and I will tell you the story."</p>
+
+<p>The air was utterly still, hot and oppressive;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+the rich, sick odor of the oranges just bursting
+into bloom came up from the valley in a gently
+rising tide. The sky, thick with stars, seemed
+mirrored in the rich foliage below, so numerous
+were the glow-worms under the still trees, and
+the fireflies that gleamed in the hot air. Lightning
+flashed fitfully from the darkening west; but
+as yet no thunder broke the heavy silence.</p>
+
+<p>The Cavaliere lighted another cigar, and
+pulled a cushion under his head so that he
+could look down to the distant lights of the
+city. "This is the story," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Once upon a time, late in the last century,
+the Duca di Castiglione was attached to
+the court of Charles III., King of the Two
+Sicilies, down at Palermo. They tell me he
+was very ambitious, and, not content with
+marrying his son to one of the ladies of the
+House of Tuscany, had betrothed his only
+daughter, Rosalia, to Prince Antonio, a cousin
+of the king. His whole life was wrapped up
+in the fame of his family, and he quite forgot
+all domestic affection in his madness for dynastic
+glory. His son was a worthy scion, cold
+and proud; but Rosalia was, according to legend,
+utterly the reverse,&mdash;a passionate, beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+girl, wilful and headstrong, and careless of her
+family and the world.</p>
+
+<p>"The time had nearly come for her to marry
+Prince Antonio, a typical <i>rou&eacute;</i> of the Spanish
+court, when, through the treachery of a servant,
+the Duke discovered that his daughter was in
+love with a young military officer whose name
+I don't remember, and that an elopement had
+been planned to take place the next night.
+The fury and dismay of the old autocrat passed
+belief; he saw in a flash the downfall of all his
+hopes of family aggrandizement through union
+with the royal house, and, knowing well the
+spirit of his daughter, despaired of ever
+bringing her to subjection. Nevertheless, he
+attacked her unmercifully, and, by bullying and
+threats, by imprisonment, and even bodily
+chastisement, he tried to break her spirit and
+bend her to his indomitable will. Through his
+power at court he had the lover sent away to
+the mainland, and for more than a year he held
+his daughter closely imprisoned in his palace
+on the Toledo,&mdash;that one, you may remember,
+on the right, just beyond the Via del Collegio
+dei Gesuiti, with the beautiful iron-work grilles
+at all the windows, and the painted frieze.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+But nothing could move her, nothing bend
+her stubborn will; and at last, furious at the
+girl he could not govern, Castiglione sent her to
+this convent, then one of the few houses of
+barefoot Carmelite nuns in Italy. He stipulated
+that she should take the name of Maddelena,
+that he should never hear of her again,
+and that she should be held an absolute prisoner
+in this conventual castle.</p>
+
+<p>"Rosalia&mdash;or Sister Maddelena, as she was
+now&mdash;believed her lover dead, for her father had
+given her good proofs of this, and she believed
+him; nevertheless she refused to marry another,
+and seized upon the convent life as a blessed
+relief from the tyranny of her maniacal father.</p>
+
+<p>"She lived here for four or five years; her
+name was forgotten at court and in her father's
+palace. Rosalia di Castiglione was dead, and
+only Sister Maddelena lived, a Carmelite nun,
+in her place.</p>
+
+<p>"In 1798 Ferdinand IV. found himself driven
+from his throne on the mainland, his kingdom
+divided, and he himself forced to flee to Sicily.
+With him came the lover of the dead Rosalia,
+now high in military honor. He on his part
+had thought Rosalia dead, and it was only by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+accident that he found that she still lived, a
+Carmelite nun. Then began the second act of
+the romance that until then had been only sadly
+commonplace, but now became dark and tragic.
+Michele&mdash;Michele Biscari,&mdash;that was his
+name; I remember now&mdash;haunted the region
+of the convent, striving to communicate with
+Sister Maddelena; and at last, from the cliffs
+over us, up there among the citrons&mdash;you will
+see by the next flash of lightning&mdash;he saw her
+in the great cloister, recognized her in her white
+habit, found her the same dark and splendid
+beauty of six years before, only made more
+beautiful by her white habit and her rigid life.
+By and by he found a day when she was alone,
+and tossed a ring to her as she stood in the
+midst of the cloister. She looked up, saw him,
+and from that moment lived only to love him
+in life as she had loved his memory in the death
+she had thought had overtaken him.</p>
+
+<p>"With the utmost craft they arranged their
+plans together. They could not speak, for a
+word would have aroused the other inmates of
+the convent. They could make signs only
+when Sister Maddelena was alone. Michele
+could throw notes to her from the cliff,&mdash;a feat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+demanding a strong arm, as you will see, if you
+measure the distance with your eye,&mdash;and she
+could drop replies from the window over the
+cliff, which he picked up at the bottom.
+Finally he succeeded in casting into the cloister
+a coil of light rope. The girl fastened it to the
+bars of one of the windows, and&mdash;so great is
+the madness of love&mdash;Biscari actually climbed
+the rope from the valley to the window of the
+cell, a distance of almost two hundred feet, with
+but three little craggy resting-places in all that
+height. For nearly a month these nocturnal
+visits were undiscovered, and Michele had
+almost completed his arrangements for carrying
+the girl from Sta. Catarina and away to Spain,
+when unfortunately one of the sisters, suspecting
+some mystery, from the changed face of Sister
+Maddelena, began investigating, and at length
+discovered the rope neatly coiled up by the
+nun's window, and hidden under some clinging
+vines. She instantly told the Mother Superior;
+and together they watched from a window in
+the crypt of the chapel,&mdash;the only place, as you
+will see to-morrow, from which one could see the
+window of Sister Maddelena's cell. They saw
+the figure of Michele daringly ascending the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+slim rope; watched hour after hour, the Sister
+remaining while the Superior went to say the
+hours in the chapel, at each of which Sister
+Maddelena was present; and at last, at prime,
+just as the sun was rising, they saw the figure slip
+down the rope, watched the rope drawn up and
+concealed, and knew that Sister Maddelena was
+in their hands for vengeance and punishment,&mdash;a
+criminal.</p>
+
+<p>"The next day, by the order of the Mother
+Superior, Sister Maddelena was imprisoned in
+one of the cells under the chapel, charged with
+her guilt, and commanded to make full and
+complete confession. But not a word would
+she say, although they offered her forgiveness
+if she would tell the name of her lover. At
+last the Superior told her that after this fashion
+would they act the coming night: she herself
+would be placed in the crypt, tied in front of
+the window, her mouth gagged; that the rope
+would be lowered, and the lover allowed to
+approach even to the sill of her window, and at
+that moment the rope would be cut, and before
+her eyes her lover would be dashed to death on
+the ragged cliffs. The plan was feasible, and
+Sister Maddelena knew that the Mother was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+perfectly capable of carrying it out. Her stubborn
+spirit was broken, and in the only way possible;
+she begged for mercy, for the sparing of
+her lover. The Mother Superior was deaf at
+first; at last she said, 'It is your life or his.
+I will spare him on condition that you sacrifice
+your own life.' Sister Maddelena accepted
+the terms joyfully, wrote a last farewell to
+Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and
+with her own hands cut the rope and saw it
+fall coiling down to the valley bed far below.</p>
+
+<p>"Then she silently prepared for death; and at
+midnight, while her lover was wandering, mad
+with the horror of impotent fear, around the
+white walls of the convent, Sister Maddelena,
+for love of Michele, gave up her life. How, was
+never known. That she was indeed dead was
+only a suspicion, for when Biscari finally compelled
+the civil authorities to enter the convent,
+claiming that murder had been done there, they
+found no sign. Sister Maddelena had been
+sent to the parent house of the barefoot Carmelites
+at Avila in Spain, so the Superior
+stated, because of her incorrigible contumacy.
+The old Duke of Castiglione refused to stir
+hand or foot in the matter, and Michele, after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+fruitless attempts to prove that the Superior of
+Sta. Catarina had caused the death, was forced
+to leave Sicily. He sought in Spain for very
+long; but no sign of the girl was to be found,
+and at last he died, exhausted with suffering
+and sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Even the name of Sister Maddelena was forgotten,
+and it was not until the convents were
+suppressed, and this house came into the hands
+of the Muxaros, that her story was remembered.
+It was then that the ghost began to appear; and,
+an explanation being necessary, the story, or
+legend, was obtained from one of the nuns who
+still lived after the suppression. I think the
+fact&mdash;for it is a fact&mdash;of the ghost rather
+goes to prove that Michele was right, and that
+poor Rosalia gave her life a sacrifice for love,&mdash;whether
+in accordance with the terms of the
+legend or not, I cannot say. One or the other of
+you will probably see her to-night. You might
+ask her for the facts. Well, that is all the
+story of Sister Maddelena, known in the world
+as Rosalia di Castiglione. Do you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is admirable," said Rendel, enthusiastically.
+"But I fancy I should rather look on it
+simply as a story, and not as a warning of what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+is going to happen. I don't much fancy real
+ghosts myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But the poor Sister is quite harmless;" and
+Valguanera rose, stretching himself. "My servants
+say she wants a mass said over her, or
+something of that kind; but I haven't much love
+for such priestly hocus-pocus,&mdash;I beg your pardon"
+(turning to me), "I had forgotten that you
+were a Catholic: forgive my rudeness."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Cavaliere, I beg you not to
+apologize. I am sorry you cannot see things
+as I do; but don't for a moment think I am
+hypersensitive."</p>
+
+<p>"I have an excuse,&mdash;perhaps you will say only
+an explanation; but I live where I see all the absurdities
+and corruptions of the Church."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you let the accidents blind you to the
+essentials; but do not let us quarrel to-night,&mdash;see,
+the storm is close on us. Shall we go in?"</p>
+
+<p>The stars were blotted out through nearly all
+the sky; low, thunderous clouds, massed at the
+head of the valley, were sweeping over so close
+that they seemed to brush the black pines on
+the mountain above us. To the south and east
+the storm-clouds had shut down almost to the sea,
+leaving a space of black sky where the moon in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+its last quarter was rising just to the left of Monte
+Pellegrino,&mdash;a black silhouette against the pallid
+moonlight. The rosy lightning flashed almost
+incessantly, and through the fitful darkness came
+the sound of bells across the valley, the rushing
+torrent below, and the dull roar of the approaching
+rain, with a deep organ point of solemn thunder
+through it all.</p>
+
+<p>We fled indoors from the coming tempest,
+and taking our candles, said "good-night," and
+sought each his respective room.</p>
+
+<p>My own was in the southern part of the old
+convent, giving on the terrace we had just
+quitted, and about over the main doorway.
+The rushing storm, as it swept down the
+valley with the swelling torrent beneath, was
+very fascinating, and after wrapping myself
+in a dressing-gown I stood for some time by
+the deeply embrasured window, watching the
+blazing lightning and the beating rain whirled
+by fitful gusts of wind around the spurs of the
+mountains. Gradually the violence of the
+shower seemed to decrease, and I threw myself
+down on my bed in the hot air, wondering
+if I really was to experience the ghostly visit the
+Cavaliere so confidently predicted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I had thought out the whole matter to my own
+satisfaction, and fancied I knew exactly what
+I should do, in case Sister Maddelena came
+to visit me. The story touched me: the thought
+of the poor faithful girl who sacrificed herself for
+her lover,&mdash;himself, very likely, quite unworthy,&mdash;and
+who now could never sleep for reason of
+her unquiet soul, sent out into the storm of eternity
+without spiritual aid or counsel. I could not
+sleep; for the still vivid lightning, the crowding
+thoughts of the dead nun, and the shivering
+anticipation of my possible visitation, made
+slumber quite out of the question. No suspicion
+of sleepiness had visited me, when, perhaps
+an hour after midnight, came a sudden
+vivid flash of lightning, and, as my dazzled
+eyes began to regain the power of sight, I
+saw her as plainly as in life,&mdash;a tall figure,
+shrouded in the white habit of the Carmelites,
+her head bent, her hands clasped before
+her. In another flash of lightning she slowly
+raised her head and looked at me long and
+earnestly. She was very beautiful, like the
+Virgin of Beltraffio in the National Gallery,&mdash;more
+beautiful than I had supposed possible,
+her deep, passionate eyes very tender and pitiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+in their pleading, beseeching glance. I
+hardly think I was frightened, or even startled,
+but lay looking steadily at her as she stood
+in the beating lightning.</p>
+
+<p>Then she breathed, rather than articulated,
+with a voice that almost brought tears, so
+infinitely sad and sorrowful was it, "I cannot
+sleep!" and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful
+and questioning as bright tears fell from them
+down the pale dark face.</p>
+
+<p>The figure began to move slowly towards the
+door, its eyes fixed on mine with a look that was
+weary and almost agonized. I leaped from the
+bed and stood waiting. A look of utter gratitude
+swept over the face, and, turning, the figure
+passed through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>Out into the shadow of the corridor it moved,
+like a drift of pallid storm-cloud, and I followed,
+all natural and instinctive fear or nervousness
+quite blotted out by the part I felt I was to
+play in giving rest to a tortured soul. The corridors
+were velvet black; but the pale figure
+floated before me always, an unerring guide,
+now but a thin mist on the utter night, now
+white and clear in the bluish lightning through
+some window or doorway.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Down the stairway into the lower hall, across
+the refectory, where the great frescoed Crucifixion
+flared into sudden clearness under the fitful
+lightning, out into the silent cloister.</p>
+
+<p>It was very dark. I stumbled along the heaving
+bricks, now guiding myself by a hand on the
+whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column
+wet with the storm. From all the eaves the rain
+was dripping on to the pebbles at the foot of the
+arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital where
+it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister close.
+Still the white thing drifted before me to the farther
+side of the court, then along the cloister at
+right angles, and paused before one of the many
+doorways that led to the cells.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last
+now of the fleeting trail of storm, leaped around
+us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face
+turned again with the look of overwhelming
+desire, of beseeching pathos, that had choked
+my throat with an involuntary sob when first
+I saw Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval
+that ensued after the flash, and before the roaring
+thunder burst like the crash of battle over
+the trembling convent, I heard again the sorrowful
+words, "I cannot sleep," come from the impenetrable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+darkness. And when the lightning
+came again, the white figure was gone.</p>
+
+<p>I wandered around the courtyard, searching
+in vain for Sister Maddelena, even until the
+moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping
+fringes of the storm. I tried the door where
+the white figure vanished: it was locked; but I
+had found what I sought, and, carefully noting
+its location, went back to my room, but not to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel
+and me which of us had seen the ghost, and I
+told him my story; then I asked him to grant
+me permission to sift the thing to the bottom;
+and he courteously gave the whole matter into
+my charge, promising that he would consent to
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>I could hardly wait to finish breakfast; but no
+sooner was this done than, forgetting my morning
+pipe, I started with Rendel and the Cavaliere
+to investigate.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure there is nothing in that cell," said
+Valguanera, when we came in front of the door
+I had marked. "It is curious that you should
+have chosen the door of the very cell that
+tradition assigns to Sister Maddelena; but I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+have often examined that room myself, and I
+am sure that there is no chance for anything to
+be concealed. In fact, I had the floor taken up
+once, soon after I came here, knowing the room
+was that of the mysterious Sister, and thinking
+that there, if anywhere, the monastic crime
+would have taken place; still, we will go in, if
+you like."</p>
+
+<p>He unlocked the door, and we entered, one
+of us, at all events, with a beating heart. The
+cell was very small, hardly eight feet square.
+There certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing
+a body in the tiny place; and although I
+sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid,
+heavy answer,&mdash;the unmistakable sound of
+masonry.</p>
+
+<p>For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere
+answered. He had, he said, had it all removed,
+even to the curving surfaces of the vault below;
+yet somewhere in this room the body of the
+murdered girl was concealed,&mdash;of this I was certain.
+But where? There seemed no answer;
+and I was compelled to give up the search for
+the moment, somewhat to the amusement of
+Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see
+if I could solve the mystery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But I could not forget the subject, and towards
+noon started on another tour of investigation.
+I procured the keys from the Cavaliere,
+and examined the cells adjoining; they
+were apparently the same, each with its window
+opposite the door, and nothing&mdash; Stay, were
+they the same? I hastened into the suspected
+cell; it was as I thought: this cell, being on the
+corner, could have had two windows, yet only
+one was visible, and that to the left, at right
+angles with the doorway. Was it imagination?
+As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where
+the other window should be, I fancied that the
+sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was
+becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on
+the right, and, forcing open the little window,
+thrust my head out.</p>
+
+<p>It was found at last! In the smooth surface
+of the yellow wall was a rough space, following
+approximately the shape of the other cell windows,
+not plastered like the rest of the wall, but
+showing the shapes of bricks through its thick
+coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp
+of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure
+of the wall was deep enough; what a wall
+it was!&mdash;four feet at least, and the opening of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+the window reached to the floor, though the
+window itself was hardly three feet square. I
+felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved,
+and called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too
+excited to give them an explanation of my
+theories.</p>
+
+<p>They must have thought me mad when I
+suddenly began scraping away at the solid wall
+in front of the door; but in a few minutes they
+understood what I was about, for under the
+coatings of paint and plaster appeared the
+original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge
+had led me rightly, the space I had
+cleared was directly over a vertical joint between
+firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand,
+and rough amateurish work on the other, bricks
+laid anyway, and without order or science.</p>
+
+<p>Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail
+the rude wall, when I stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows
+what we may find?" So we set to work digging
+out the mortar around a brick at about the
+level of our eyes.</p>
+
+<p>How hard the mortar had become! But a
+brick yielded at last, and with trembling fingers
+I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+question there was a cavity there, not a solid
+wall; and with infinite care we removed another
+brick. Still the hole was too small to
+admit enough light from the dimly illuminated
+cell. With a chisel we pried at the sides of
+a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks
+in size. It moved, and we softly slid it from
+its bed.</p>
+
+<p>Valguanera, who was standing watching us
+as we lowered the bricks to the floor, gave a
+sudden cry, a cry like that of a frightened
+woman,&mdash;terrible, coming from him. Yet there
+was cause.</p>
+
+<p>Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks,
+hardly seen in the dim light, was a face, an
+ivory image, more beautiful than any antique
+bust, but drawn and distorted by unspeakable
+agony: the lovely mouth half open, as though
+gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and
+below, slim chiselled hands crossed on the
+breast, but clutching the folds of the white
+Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in
+every tense muscle, fighting against the determination
+of the rigid pose.</p>
+
+<p>We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful
+sight, fascinated, bewitched. So this was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
+ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then
+forced the beautiful creature to stand in the
+alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
+hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I
+had read of such things in romance; but to find
+the verity here, before my eyes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Steps came down the cloister, and with a
+simultaneous thought we sprang to the door
+and closed it behind us. The room was sacred;
+that awful sight was not for curious eyes. The
+gardener was coming to ask some trivial question
+of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him
+short. "Pietro, go down to Parco and ask
+Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I
+thanked him with a glance.) "Stay!" He
+turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
+o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>Valguanera thought a moment, then he said,
+"Bring two horses; the Signor Americano will
+go with you,&mdash;do you understand?" Then,
+turning to me, "You will go, will you not? I
+think you can explain matters to Padre Stefano
+better than I."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will go, more than gladly."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+So it happened that after a hasty luncheon I
+wound down the mountain to Parco, found
+Padre Stefano, explained my errand to him,
+found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
+and by five o'clock had him back at the convent
+with all that was necessary for the resting
+of the soul of the dead girl.</p>
+
+<p>In the warm twilight, with the last light of
+the sunset pouring into the little cell through
+the window where almost a century ago Rosalia
+had for the last time said farewell to her
+lover, we gathered together to speed her tortured
+soul on its journey, so long delayed.
+Nothing was omitted; all the needful offices
+of the Church were said by Padre Stefano,
+while the light in the window died away, and
+the flickering flames of the candles carried by
+two of the acolytes from San Francesco threw
+fitful flashes of pallid light into the dark recess
+where the white face had prayed to Heaven for
+a hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the
+hands of one of the acolytes, and with a sign of
+the cross in benediction while he chanted the
+<i>Asperges</i>, gently sprinkled the holy water on
+the upturned face. Instantly the whole vision<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and where
+once the candlelight had flickered on the perfect
+semblance of the girl dead so very long,
+it now fell only on the rough bricks which
+closed the window, bricks laid with frozen
+hearts by pitiless hands.</p>
+
+<p>But our task was not done yet. It had been
+arranged that Padre Stefano should remain at
+the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight
+made it possible he should say the first
+mass for the repose of the girl's soul. We sat
+on the terrace talking over the strange events
+of the last crowded hours, and I noted with
+satisfaction that the Cavaliere no longer spoke
+of the Church with that hardness, which had
+hurt me so often. It is true that the Padre was
+with us nearly all the time; but not only was
+Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic;
+and I wondered if it might not prove
+that more than one soul benefited by the untoward
+events of the day.</p>
+
+<p>With the aid of the astonished and delighted
+servants, and no little help as well from Signora
+Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in
+the chapel, and by midnight we had the gloomy
+sanctuary beautiful with flowers and candles.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+It was a curiously solemn service, in the first
+hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing
+candles and the thick incense, the odor of the
+opening orange-blooms drifting up in the fresh
+morning air, and mingling with the incense
+smoke and the perfume of flowers within.
+Many prayers were said that night for the
+soul of the dead girl, and I think many afterwards;
+for after the benediction I remained for
+a little time in my place, and when I rose from
+my knees and went towards the chapel door,
+I saw a figure kneeling still, and, with a start,
+recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled
+with quiet satisfaction and gratitude, and went
+away softly, content with the chain of events
+that now seemed finished.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the alcove was again walled up,
+for the precious dust could not be gathered together
+for transportation to consecrated ground;
+so I went down to the little cemetery at Parco
+for a basket of earth, which we cast in over the
+ashes of Sister Maddelena.</p>
+
+<p>By and by, when Rendel and I went away,
+with great regret, Valguanera came down to
+Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed
+in Sicily was assisting him to order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+a tablet of marble, whereon was carved this
+simple inscription:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="hd2">HERE LIES THE BODY OF<br />
+ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,<br />
+CALLED<br />
+SISTER MADDELENA.<br />
+HER SOUL<br />
+IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.</div>
+
+<p>To this I added in thought:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let him that is without sin among you cast
+the first stone."</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+<h2>NOTRE DAME DES EAUX.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>Notre Dame des Eaux.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">West</span> of St. Pol de Leon, on the sea-cliffs of
+Finisterre, stands the ancient church of Notre
+Dame des Eaux. Five centuries of beating
+winds and sweeping rains have moulded its
+angles, and worn its carvings and sculpture
+down to the very semblance of the ragged cliffs
+themselves, until even the Breton fisherman,
+looking lovingly from his boat as he makes for
+the harbor of Morlaix, hardly can say where
+the crags end, and where the church begins.
+The teeth of the winds of the sea have devoured,
+bit by bit, the fine sculpture of the
+doorway and the thin cusps of the window
+tracery; gray moss creeps caressingly over the
+worn walls in ineffectual protection; gentle
+vines, turned crabbed by the harsh beating of
+the fierce winds, clutch the crumbling buttresses,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+climb up over the sinking roof, reach
+in even at the louvres of the belfry, holding the
+little sanctuary safe in desperate arms against
+the savage warfare of the sea and sky.</p>
+
+<p>Many a time you may follow the rocky highway
+from St. Pol even around the last land of
+France, and so to Brest, yet never see sign of
+Notre Dame des Eaux; for it clings to a cliff
+somewhat lower than the road, and between
+grows a stunted thicket of harsh and ragged
+trees, their skeleton white branches, tortured
+and contorted, thrusting sorrowfully out of the
+hard, dark foliage that still grows below, where
+the rise of land below the highway gives some
+protection. You must leave the wood by the
+two cottages of yellow stone, about twenty
+miles beyond St. Pol, and go down to the right,
+around the old stone quarry; then, bearing to
+the left by the little cliff path, you will, in a
+moment, see the pointed roof of the tower of
+Notre Dame, and, later, come down to the side
+porch among the crosses of the arid little graveyard.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth the walk, for though the church
+has outwardly little but its sad picturesqueness
+to repay the artist, within it is a dream and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+delight. A Norman nave of round, red stone
+piers and arches, a delicate choir of the richest
+flamboyant, a High Altar of the time of Francis
+I., form only the mellow background and frame
+for carven tombs and dark old pictures, hanging
+lamps of iron and brass, and black, heavily
+carved choir-stalls of the Renaissance.</p>
+
+<p>So has the little church lain unnoticed for
+many centuries; for the horrors and follies of
+the Revolution have never come near, and the
+hardy and faithful people of Finisterre have
+feared God and loved Our Lady too well to harm
+her church. For many years it was the church
+of the Comtes de Jarleuc; and these are their
+tombs that mellow year by year under the warm
+light of the painted windows, given long ago
+by Comte Robert de Jarleuc, when the heir
+of Poullaouen came safely to shore in the harbor
+of Morlaix, having escaped from the Isle
+of Wight, where he had lain captive after the
+awful defeat of the fleet of Charles of Valois
+at Sluys. And now the heir of Poullaouen lies
+in a carven tomb, forgetful of the world where
+he fought so nobly: the dynasty he fought to
+establish, only a memory; the family he made
+glorious, a name; the Ch&acirc;teau Poullaouen a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+single crag of riven masonry in the fields of
+M. du Bois, mayor of Morlaix.</p>
+
+<p>It was Julien, Comte de Bergerac, who rediscovered
+Notre Dame des Eaux, and by his picture
+of its dreamy interior in the Salon of '86
+brought once more into notice this forgotten
+corner of the world. The next year a party of
+painters settled themselves near by, roughing it
+as best they could, and in the year following,
+Mme. de Bergerac and her daughter H&eacute;lo&iuml;se
+came with Julien, and, buying the old farm of
+Pontivy, on the highway over Notre Dame,
+turned it into a summer house that almost
+made amends for their lost ch&acirc;teau on the
+Dordogne, stolen from them as virulent Royalists
+by the triumphant Republic in 1794.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little a summer colony of painters
+gathered around Pontivy, and it was not until
+the spring of 1890 that the peace of the colony
+was broken. It was a sorrowful tragedy. Jean
+d'Yriex, the youngest and merriest devil of all the
+jolly crew, became suddenly moody and morose.
+At first this was attributed to his undisguised
+admiration for Mlle. H&eacute;lo&iuml;se, and was looked
+on as one of the vagaries of boyish passion; but
+one day, while riding with M. de Bergerac, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+suddenly seized the bridle of Julien's horse,
+wrenched it from his hand, and, turning his
+own horse's head towards the cliffs, lashed the
+terrified animals into a gallop straight towards
+the brink. He was only thwarted in his mad
+object by Julien, who with a quick blow sent
+him headlong in the dry grass, and reined in
+the terrified animals hardly a yard from the
+cliffs. When this happened, and no word of explanation
+was granted, only a sullen silence that
+lasted for days, it became clear that poor Jean's
+brain was wrong in some way. H&eacute;lo&iuml;se devoted
+herself to him with infinite patience,&mdash;though she
+felt no special affection for him, only pity,&mdash;and
+while he was with her he seemed sane and
+quiet. But at night some strange mania took
+possession of him. If he had worked on his
+Prix de Rome picture in the daytime, while
+H&eacute;lo&iuml;se sat by him, reading aloud or singing a
+little, no matter how good the work, it would
+have vanished in the morning, and he would
+again begin, only to erase his labor during
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>At last his growing insanity reached its
+climax; and one day in Notre Dame, when he
+had painted better than usual, he suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+stopped, seized a palette knife, and slashed the
+great canvas in strips. H&eacute;lo&iuml;se sprang forward
+to stop him, and in crazy fury he turned on her,
+striking at her throat with the palette knife.
+The thin steel snapped, and the white throat
+showed only a scarlet scratch. H&eacute;lo&iuml;se, without
+that ordinary terror that would crush most
+women, grasped the thin wrists of the madman,
+and, though he could easily have wrenched his
+hands away, d'Yriex sank on his knees in a
+passion of tears. He shut himself in his room
+at Pontivy, refusing to see any one, walking for
+hours up and down, fighting against growing
+madness. Soon Dr. Charpentier came from
+Paris, summoned by Mme. de Bergerac; and
+after one short, forced interview, left at once
+for Paris, taking M. d'Yriex with him.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later came a letter for Mme. de
+Bergerac, in which Dr. Charpentier confessed
+that Jean had disappeared, that he had allowed
+him too much liberty, owing to his apparent
+calmness, and that when the train stopped at
+Le Mans he had slipped from him and utterly
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>During the summer, word came occasionally
+that no trace had been found of the unhappy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+man, and at last the Pontivy colony realized that
+the merry boy was dead. Had he lived he
+<i>must</i> have been found, for the exertions of the
+police were perfect; yet not the slightest trace
+was discovered, and his lamentable death was
+acknowledged, not only by Mme. de Bergerac
+and Jean's family,&mdash;sorrowing for the death
+of their first-born, away in the warm hills of
+Loz&egrave;re,&mdash;but by Dr. Charpentier as well.</p>
+
+<p>So the summer passed, and the autumn came,
+and at last the cold rains of November&mdash;the
+skirmish line of the advancing army of winter&mdash;drove
+the colony back to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last day at Pontivy, and Mlle.
+H&eacute;lo&iuml;se had come down to Notre Dame for a
+last look at the beautiful shrine, a last prayer
+for the repose of the tortured soul of poor Jean
+d'Yriex. The rains had ceased for a time, and
+a warm stillness lay over the cliffs and on the
+creeping sea, swaying and lapping around the
+ragged shore. H&eacute;lo&iuml;se knelt very long before
+the Altar of Our Lady of the Waters; and when
+she finally rose, could not bring herself to leave
+as yet that place of sorrowful beauty, all warm
+and golden with the last light of the declining
+sun. She watched the old verger, Pierre Polou,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+stumping softly around the darkening building,
+and spoke to him once, asking the hour;
+but he was very deaf, as well as nearly blind,
+and he did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>So she sat in the corner of the aisle by the
+Altar of Our Lady of the Waters, watching the
+checkered light fade in the advancing shadows,
+dreaming sad day-dreams of the dead summer,
+until the day-dreams merged in night-dreams,
+and she fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Then the last light of the early sunset died
+in the gleaming quarries of the west window;
+Pierre Polou stumbled uncertainly through the
+dusky shadow, locked the sagging doors of the
+mouldering south porch, and took his way
+among the leaning crosses up to the highway
+and his little cottage, a good mile away,&mdash;the
+nearest house to the lonely Church of Notre
+Dame des Eaux.</p>
+
+<p>With the setting of the sun great clouds rose
+swiftly from the sea; the wind freshened, and
+the gaunt branches of the weather-worn trees
+in the churchyard lashed themselves beseechingly
+before the coming storm. The tide turned,
+and the waters at the foot of the rocks swept
+uneasily up the narrow beach and caught at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+weary cliffs, their sobbing growing and deepening
+to a threatening, solemn roar. Whirls of
+dead leaves rose in the churchyard, and threw
+themselves against the blank windows. The
+winter and the night came down together.</p>
+
+<p>H&eacute;lo&iuml;se awoke, bewildered and wondering;
+in a moment she realized the situation, and without
+fear or uneasiness. There was nothing to
+dread in Notre Dame by night; the ghosts, if
+there were ghosts, would not trouble her, and
+the doors were securely locked. It was foolish
+of her to fall asleep, and her mother would be
+most uneasy at Pontivy if she realized before
+dawn that H&eacute;lo&iuml;se had not returned. On the
+other hand, she was in the habit of wandering
+off to walk after dinner, often not coming home
+until late, so it was quite possible that she
+might return before Madame knew of her
+absence, for Polou came always to unlock the
+church for the low mass at six o'clock; so she
+arose from her cramped position in the aisle,
+and walked slowly up to the choir-rail, entered
+the chancel, and felt her way to one of the
+stalls, on the south side, where there were
+cushions and an easy back.</p>
+
+<p>It was really very beautiful in Notre Dame<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+by night; she had never suspected how strange
+and solemn the little church could be when the
+moon shone fitfully through the south windows,
+now bright and clear, now blotted out by sweeping
+clouds. The nave was barred with the long
+shadows of the heavy pillars, and when the
+moon came out she could see far down almost
+to the west end. How still it was! Only a
+soft low murmur without of the restless limbs
+of the trees, and of the creeping sea.</p>
+
+<p>It was very soothing, almost like a song; and
+H&eacute;lo&iuml;se felt sleep coming back to her as the
+clouds shut out the moon, and all the church
+grew black.</p>
+
+<p>She was drifting off into the last delicious
+moment of vanishing consciousness, when she
+suddenly came fully awake, with a shock that
+made every nerve tingle. In the midst of the
+far faint sounds of the tempestuous night she
+had heard a footstep! Yet the church was
+utterly empty, she was sure. And again! A
+footstep dragging and uncertain, stealthy and
+cautious, but an unmistakable step, away in
+the blackest shadow at the end of the church.</p>
+
+<p>She sat up, frozen with the fear that comes
+at night and that is overwhelming, her hands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+clutching the coarse carving of the arms of the
+stall, staring down into the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Again the footstep, and again,&mdash;slow, measured,
+one after another at intervals of perhaps
+half a minute, growing a little louder each time,
+a little nearer.</p>
+
+<p>Would the darkness never be broken?
+Would the cloud never pass? Minute after
+minute went like weary hours, and still the
+moon was hid, still the dead branches rattled
+clatteringly on the high windows. Unconsciously
+she moved, as under a magician's spell,
+down to the choir-rail, straining her eyes to
+pierce the thick night. And the step, it was
+very near! Ah, the moon at last! A white ray
+fell through the westernmost window, painting
+a bar of light on the floor of sagging stone.
+Then a second bar, then a third, and a fourth,
+and for a moment H&eacute;lo&iuml;se could have cried out
+with relief, for nothing broke the lines of light,&mdash;no
+figure, no shadow. In another moment came
+a step, and from the shadow of the last column
+appeared in the pallid moonlight the figure of a
+man. The girl stared breathless, the moonlight
+falling on her as she stood rigid against
+the low parapet. Another step and another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+and she saw before her&mdash;was it ghost or living
+man?&mdash;a white mad face staring from matted
+hair and beard, a tall thin figure half clothed in
+rags, limping as it stepped towards her with
+wounded feet. From the dead face stared mad
+eyes that gleamed like the eyes of a cat, fixed
+on hers with insane persistence, holding her,
+fascinating her as a cat fascinates a bird.</p>
+
+<p>One more step,&mdash;it was close before her now!
+those awful, luminous eyes dilating and contracting
+in awful palpitations. And the moon was
+going out; the shadows swept one by one over the
+windows; she stared at the moonlit face for a last
+fascinated glance&mdash;Mother of God! it was&mdash;&mdash; The
+shadow swept over them, and now only remained
+the blazing eyes and the dim outline of
+a form that crouched waveringly before her as
+a cat crouches, drawing its vibrating body together
+for the spring that blots out the life of
+the victim.</p>
+
+<p>In another instant the mad thing would leap;
+but just as the quiver swept over the crouching
+body, H&eacute;lo&iuml;se gathered all her strength into one
+action of desperate terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean, stop!"</p>
+
+<p>The thing crouched before her paused, chattering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+softly to itself; then it articulated dryly,
+and with all the trouble of a learning child,
+the one word, "<i>Chantez!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Without a thought, H&eacute;lo&iuml;se sang; it was the
+first thing that she remembered, an old Proven&ccedil;al
+song that d'Yriex had always loved. While
+she sang, the poor mad creature lay huddled at
+her feet, separated from her only by the choir
+parapet, its dilating, contracting eyes never moving
+for an instant. As the song died away, came
+again that awful tremor, indicative of the coming
+death-spring, and again she sang,&mdash;this time
+the old <i>Pange lingua</i>, its sonorous Latin sounding
+in the deserted church like the voice of dead
+centuries.</p>
+
+<p>And so she sang, on and on, hour after hour,&mdash;hymns
+and <i>chansons</i>, folk-songs and bits from
+comic operas, songs of the boulevards alternating
+with the <i>Tantum ergo</i> and the <i>O Filii et
+Fili&aelig;</i>. It mattered little what she sang. At
+last it seemed to her that it mattered little
+whether she sang or no; for her brain whirled
+round and round like a dizzy maelstrom, her
+icy hands, griping the hard rail, alone supported
+her dying body. She could hear no sound of her
+song; her body was numb, her mouth parched,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+her lips cracked and bleeding; she felt the drops
+of blood fall from her chin. And still she sang,
+with the yellow palpitating eyes holding her as
+in a vice. If only she could continue until dawn!
+It must be dawn so soon! The windows were
+growing gray, the rain lashed outside, she
+could distinguish the features of the horror
+before her; but the night of death was growing
+with the coming day, blackness swept down
+upon her; she could sing no more, her tortured
+lips made one last effort to form the
+words, "Mother of God, save me!" and night
+and death came down like a crushing wave.</p>
+
+<p>But her prayer was heard; the dawn had
+come, and Polou unlocked the porch-door for
+Father Augustin just in time to hear the last
+agonized cry. The maniac turned in the very
+act of leaping on his victim, and sprang for
+the two men, who stopped in dumb amazement.
+Poor old Pierre Polou went down at a
+blow; but Father Augustin was young and
+fearless, and he grappled the mad animal with all
+his strength and will. It would have gone ill
+even with him,&mdash;for no one can stand against
+the bestial fury of a man in whom reason is
+dead,&mdash;had not some sudden impulse seized the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+maniac, who pitched the priest aside with a
+single movement, and, leaping through the door,
+vanished forever.</p>
+
+<p>Did he hurl himself from the cliffs in the
+cold wet morning, or was he doomed to wander,
+a wild beast, until, captured, he beat himself
+in vain against the walls of some asylum, an unknown
+pauper lunatic? None ever knew.</p>
+
+<p>The colony at Pontivy was blotted out by
+the dreary tragedy, and Notre Dame des Eaux
+sank once more into silence and solitude. Once
+a year Father Augustin said mass for the repose
+of the soul of Jean d'Yriex; but no other memory
+remained of the horror that blighted the lives of
+an innocent girl and of a gray-haired mother
+mourning for her dead boy in far Loz&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE DEAD VALLEY.</h2>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+<h2><big>The Dead Valley.</big></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> a friend, Olof Ehrensv&auml;rd, a Swede by
+birth, who yet, by reason of a strange and melancholy
+mischance of his early boyhood, has thrown
+his lot with that of the New World. It is a
+curious story of a headstrong boy and a proud
+and relentless family: the details do not matter
+here, but they are sufficient to weave a web of
+romance around the tall yellow-bearded man
+with the sad eyes and the voice that gives itself
+perfectly to plaintive little Swedish songs remembered
+out of childhood. In the winter evenings
+we play chess together, he and I, and after some
+close, fierce battle has been fought to a finish&mdash;usually
+with my own defeat&mdash;we fill our pipes
+again, and Ehrensv&auml;rd tells me stories of the
+far, half-remembered days in the fatherland,
+before he went to sea: stories that grow very
+strange and incredible as the night deepens and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+the fire falls together, but stories that, nevertheless,
+I fully believe.</p>
+
+<p>One of them made a strong impression on me,
+so I set it down here, only regretting that I cannot
+reproduce the curiously perfect English and
+the delicate accent which to me increased the
+fascination of the tale. Yet, as best I can remember
+it, here it is.</p>
+
+<p>"I never told you how Nils and I went over
+the hills to Hallsberg, and how we found the
+Dead Valley, did I? Well, this is the way it
+happened. I must have been about twelve
+years old, and Nils Sj&ouml;berg, whose father's estate
+joined ours, was a few months younger.
+We were inseparable just at that time, and
+whatever we did, we did together.</p>
+
+<p>"Once a week it was market day in Engelholm,
+and Nils and I went always there to see
+the strange sights that the market gathered
+from all the surrounding country. One day we
+quite lost our hearts, for an old man from across
+the Elfborg had brought a little dog to sell,
+that seemed to us the most beautiful dog in all
+the world. He was a round, woolly puppy, so
+funny that Nils and I sat down on the ground
+and laughed at him, until he came and played<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+with us in so jolly a way that we felt that there
+was only one really desirable thing in life, and
+that was the little dog of the old man from
+across the hills. But alas! we had not half
+money enough wherewith to buy him, so we
+were forced to beg the old man not to sell him
+before the next market day, promising that we
+would bring the money for him then. He gave
+us his word, and we ran home very fast and implored
+our mothers to give us money for the
+little dog.</p>
+
+<p>"We got the money, but we could not wait
+for the next market day. Suppose the puppy
+should be sold! The thought frightened us so
+that we begged and implored that we might be
+allowed to go over the hills to Hallsberg where
+the old man lived, and get the little dog ourselves,
+and at last they told us we might go.
+By starting early in the morning we should
+reach Hallsberg by three o'clock, and it was
+arranged that we should stay there that night
+with Nils's aunt, and, leaving by noon the next
+day, be home again by sunset.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon after sunrise we were on our way, after
+having received minute instructions as to just
+what we should do in all possible and impossible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+circumstances, and finally a repeated injunction
+that we should start for home at the same hour
+the next day, so that we might get safely back
+before nightfall.</p>
+
+<p>"For us, it was magnificent sport, and we
+started off with our rifles, full of the sense of
+our very great importance: yet the journey was
+simple enough, along a good road, across the
+big hills we knew so well, for Nils and I had
+shot over half the territory this side of the dividing
+ridge of the Elfborg. Back of Engelholm
+lay a long valley, from which rose the low
+mountains, and we had to cross this, and then
+follow the road along the side of the hills for
+three or four miles, before a narrow path
+branched off to the left, leading up through
+the pass.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing occurred of interest on the way
+over, and we reached Hallsberg in due season,
+found to our inexpressible joy that the little dog
+was not sold, secured him, and so went to the
+house of Nils's aunt to spend the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Why we did not leave early on the following
+day, I can't quite remember; at all events, I
+know we stopped at a shooting range just outside
+of the town, where most attractive pasteboard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+pigs were sliding slowly through painted
+foliage, serving so as beautiful marks. The
+result was that we did not get fairly started for
+home until afternoon, and as we found ourselves
+at last pushing up the side of the mountain
+with the sun dangerously near their summits, I
+think we were a little scared at the prospect of
+the examination and possible punishment that
+awaited us when we got home at midnight.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore we hurried as fast as possible up
+the mountain side, while the blue dusk closed in
+about us, and the light died in the purple sky.
+At first we had talked hilariously, and the little
+dog had leaped ahead of us with the utmost
+joy. Latterly, however, a curious oppression
+came on us; we did not speak or even whistle,
+while the dog fell behind, following us with hesitation
+in every muscle.</p>
+
+<p>"We had passed through the foothills and
+the low spurs of the mountains, and were almost
+at the top of the main range, when life
+seemed to go out of everything, leaving the
+world dead, so suddenly silent the forest became,
+so stagnant the air. Instinctively we halted to
+listen.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect silence,&mdash;the crushing silence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+deep forests at night; and more, for always,
+even in the most impenetrable fastnesses of the
+wooded mountains, is the multitudinous murmur
+of little lives, awakened by the darkness, exaggerated
+and intensified by the stillness of the
+air and the great dark: but here and now the
+silence seemed unbroken even by the turn of a
+leaf, the movement of a twig, the note of night
+bird or insect. I could hear the blood beat
+through my veins; and the crushing of the
+grass under our feet as we advanced with hesitating
+steps sounded like the falling of trees.</p>
+
+<p>"And the air was stagnant,&mdash;dead. The
+atmosphere seemed to lie upon the body like
+the weight of sea on a diver who has ventured
+too far into its awful depths. What we usually
+call silence seems so only in relation to the din of
+ordinary experience. This was silence in the
+absolute, and it crushed the mind while it
+intensified the senses, bringing down the awful
+weight of inextinguishable fear.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that Nils and I stared towards each
+other in abject terror, listening to our quick,
+heavy breathing, that sounded to our acute
+senses like the fitful rush of waters. And the
+poor little dog we were leading justified our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+terror. The black oppression seemed to crush
+him even as it did us. He lay close on the
+ground, moaning feebly, and dragging himself
+painfully and slowly closer to Nils's feet. I
+think this exhibition of utter animal fear was
+the last touch, and must inevitably have blasted
+our reason&mdash;mine anyway; but just then, as we
+stood quaking on the bounds of madness, came
+a sound, so awful, so ghastly, so horrible, that
+it seemed to rouse us from the dead spell that
+was on us.</p>
+
+<p>"In the depth of the silence came a cry,
+beginning as a low, sorrowful moan, rising to a
+tremulous shriek, culminating in a yell that
+seemed to tear the night in sunder and rend the
+world as by a cataclysm. So fearful was it
+that I could not believe it had actual existence:
+it passed previous experience, the powers of
+belief, and for a moment I thought it the result
+of my own animal terror, an hallucination born
+of tottering reason.</p>
+
+<p>"A glance at Nils dispelled this thought in a
+flash. In the pale light of the high stars he
+was the embodiment of all possible human fear,
+quaking with an ague, his jaw fallen, his tongue
+out, his eyes protruding like those of a hanged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+man. Without a word we fled, the panic of
+fear giving us strength, and together, the little
+dog caught close in Nils's arms, we sped down
+the side of the cursed mountains,&mdash;anywhere,
+goal was of no account: we had but one impulse&mdash;to
+get away from that place.</p>
+
+<p>"So under the black trees and the far white
+stars that flashed through the still leaves overhead,
+we leaped down the mountain side, regardless
+of path or landmark, straight through
+the tangled underbrush, across mountain
+streams, through fens and copses, anywhere,
+so only that our course was downward.</p>
+
+<p>"How long we ran thus, I have no idea,
+but by and by the forest fell behind, and we
+found ourselves among the foothills, and fell
+exhausted on the dry short grass, panting like
+tired dogs.</p>
+
+<p>"It was lighter here in the open, and presently
+we looked around to see where we were, and
+how we were to strike out in order to find the
+path that would lead us home. We looked
+in vain for a familiar sign. Behind us rose the
+great wall of black forest on the flank of the
+mountain: before us lay the undulating mounds
+of low foothills, unbroken by trees or rocks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+and beyond, only the fall of black sky bright
+with multitudinous stars that turned its velvet
+depth to a luminous gray.</p>
+
+<p>"As I remember, we did not speak to each
+other once: the terror was too heavy on us for
+that, but by and by we rose simultaneously and
+started out across the hills.</p>
+
+<p>"Still the same silence, the same dead,
+motionless air&mdash;air that was at once sultry
+and chilling: a heavy heat struck through with
+an icy chill that felt almost like the burning
+of frozen steel. Still carrying the helpless
+dog, Nils pressed on through the hills, and I
+followed close behind. At last, in front of us,
+rose a slope of moor touching the white stars.
+We climbed it wearily, reached the top, and
+found ourselves gazing down into a great,
+smooth valley, filled half way to the brim with&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>"As far as the eye could see stretched a level
+plain of ashy white, faintly phosphorescent, a
+sea of velvet fog that lay like motionless water,
+or rather like a floor of alabaster, so dense did
+it appear, so seemingly capable of sustaining
+weight. If it were possible, I think that sea of
+dead white mist struck even greater terror into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+my soul than the heavy silence or the deadly
+cry&mdash;so ominous was it, so utterly unreal, so
+phantasmal, so impossible, as it lay there like a
+dead ocean under the steady stars. Yet through
+that mist <i>we must go</i>! there seemed no other
+way home, and, shattered with abject fear, mad
+with the one desire to get back, we started
+down the slope to where the sea of milky mist
+ceased, sharp and distinct around the stems of
+the rough grass.</p>
+
+<p>"I put one foot into the ghostly fog. A chill
+as of death struck through me, stopping my
+heart, and I threw myself backward on the
+slope. At that instant came again the shriek,
+close, close, right in our ears, in ourselves, and
+far out across that damnable sea I saw the cold
+fog lift like a water-spout and toss itself high in
+writhing convolutions towards the sky. The
+stars began to grow dim as thick vapor swept
+across them, and in the growing dark I saw a
+great, watery moon lift itself slowly above the
+palpitating sea, vast and vague in the gathering
+mist.</p>
+
+<p>"This was enough: we turned and fled along
+the margin of the white sea that throbbed now
+with fitful motion below us, rising, rising, slowly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+and steadily, driving us higher and higher up
+the side of the foothills.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a race for life; that we knew. How
+we kept it up I cannot understand, but we did,
+and at last we saw the white sea fall behind us
+as we staggered up the end of the valley, and
+then down into a region that we knew, and so
+into the old path. The last thing I remember
+was hearing a strange voice, that of Nils, but
+horribly changed, stammer brokenly, 'The dog
+is dead!' and then the whole world turned
+around twice, slowly and resistlessly, and consciousness
+went out with a crash.</p>
+
+<p>"It was some three weeks later, as I remember,
+that I awoke in my own room, and found
+my mother sitting beside the bed. I could not
+think very well at first, but as I slowly grew
+strong again, vague flashes of recollection began
+to come to me, and little by little the whole sequence
+of events of that awful night in the
+Dead Valley came back. All that I could gain
+from what was told me was that three weeks
+before I had been found in my own bed, raging
+sick, and that my illness grew fast into brain
+fever. I tried to speak of the dread things that
+had happened to me, but I saw at once that no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+one looked on them save as the hauntings of a
+dying frenzy, and so I closed my mouth and
+kept my own counsel.</p>
+
+<p>"I must see Nils, however, and so I asked
+for him. My mother told me that he also had
+been ill with a strange fever, but that he was
+now quite well again. Presently they brought
+him in, and when we were alone I began to
+speak to him of the night on the mountain. I
+shall never forget the shock that struck me
+down on my pillow when the boy denied everything:
+denied having gone with me, ever having
+heard the cry, having seen the valley, or
+feeling the deadly chill of the ghostly fog.
+Nothing would shake his determined ignorance,
+and in spite of myself I was forced to admit
+that his denials came from no policy of concealment,
+but from blank oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>"My weakened brain was in a turmoil. Was
+it all but the floating phantasm of delirium? Or
+had the horror of the real thing blotted Nils's
+mind into blankness so far as the events of the
+night in the Dead Valley were concerned? The
+latter explanation seemed the only one, else how
+explain the sudden illness which in a night had
+struck us both down? I said nothing more,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+either to Nils or to my own people, but waited,
+with a growing determination that, once well
+again, I would find that valley if it really
+existed.</p>
+
+<p>"It was some weeks before I was really well
+enough to go, but finally, late in September, I
+chose a bright, warm, still day, the last smile of
+the dying summer, and started early in the morning
+along the path that led to Hallsberg. I was
+sure I knew where the trail struck off to the
+right, down which we had come from the valley
+of dead water, for a great tree grew by the
+Hallsberg path at the point where, with a sense
+of salvation, we had found the home road.
+Presently I saw it to the right, a little distance
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the bright sunlight and the clear air
+had worked as a tonic to me, for by the time I
+came to the foot of the great pine, I had quite
+lost faith in the verity of the vision that haunted
+me, believing at last that it was indeed but the
+nightmare of madness. Nevertheless, I turned
+sharply to the right, at the base of the tree, into
+a narrow path that led through a dense thicket.
+As I did so I tripped over something. A swarm
+of flies sung into the air around me, and looking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+down I saw the matted fleece, with the poor
+little bones thrusting through, of the dog we
+had bought in Hallsberg.</p>
+
+<p>"Then my courage went out with a puff, and
+I knew that it all was true, and that now I was
+frightened. Pride and the desire for adventure
+urged me on, however, and I pressed into the
+close thicket that barred my way. The path
+was hardly visible: merely the worn road of
+some small beasts, for, though it showed in the
+crisp grass, the bushes above grew thick and
+hardly penetrable. The land rose slowly, and
+rising grew clearer, until at last I came out on a
+great slope of hill, unbroken by trees or shrubs,
+very like my memory of that rise of land we had
+topped in order that we might find the dead valley
+and the icy fog. I looked at the sun; it was
+bright and clear, and all around insects were
+humming in the autumn air, and birds were
+darting to and fro. Surely there was no danger,
+not until nightfall at least; so I began to whistle,
+and with a rush mounted the last crest of brown
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>"There lay the Dead Valley! A great oval
+basin, almost as smooth and regular as though
+made by man. On all sides the grass crept over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+the brink of the encircling hills, dusty green on
+the crests, then fading into ashy brown, and so
+to a deadly white, this last color forming a thin
+ring, running in a long line around the slope.
+And then? Nothing. Bare, brown, hard earth,
+glittering with grains of alkali, but otherwise
+dead and barren. Not a tuft of grass, not a
+stick of brushwood, not even a stone, but only
+the vast expanse of beaten clay.</p>
+
+<p>"In the midst of the basin, perhaps a mile
+and a half away, the level expanse was broken
+by a great dead tree, rising leafless and gaunt
+into the air. Without a moment's hesitation I
+started down into the valley and made for this
+goal. Every particle of fear seemed to have
+left me, and even the valley itself did not look
+so very terrifying. At all events, I was driven
+by an overwhelming curiosity, and there seemed
+to be but one thing in the world to do,&mdash;to get
+to that Tree! As I trudged along over the
+hard earth, I noticed that the multitudinous
+voices of birds and insects had died away. No
+bee or butterfly hovered through the air, no
+insects leaped or crept over the dull earth. The
+very air itself was stagnant.</p>
+
+<p>"As I drew near the skeleton tree, I noticed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+the glint of sunlight on a kind of white mound
+around its roots, and I wondered curiously. It
+was not until I had come close that I saw its
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>"All around the roots and barkless trunk
+was heaped a wilderness of little bones. Tiny
+skulls of rodents and of birds, thousands of
+them, rising about the dead tree and streaming
+off for several yards in all directions, until the
+dreadful pile ended in isolated skulls and scattered
+skeletons. Here and there a larger bone
+appeared,&mdash;the thigh of a sheep, the hoofs of
+a horse, and to one side, grinning slowly, a
+human skull.</p>
+
+<p>"I stood quite still, staring with all my eyes,
+when suddenly the dense silence was broken by
+a faint, forlorn cry high over my head. I looked
+up and saw a great falcon turning and sailing
+downward just over the tree. In a moment more
+she fell motionless on the bleaching bones.</p>
+
+<p>"Horror struck me, and I rushed for home,
+my brain whirling, a strange numbness growing
+in me. I ran steadily, on and on. At last I
+glanced up. Where was the rise of hill? I
+looked around wildly. Close before me was the
+dead tree with its pile of bones. I had circled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+it round and round, and the valley wall was still
+a mile and a half away.</p>
+
+<p>"I stood dazed and frozen. The sun was
+sinking, red and dull, towards the line of hills.
+In the east the dark was growing fast. Was
+there still time? <i>Time!</i> It was not <i>that</i> I
+wanted, it was <i>will</i>! My feet seemed clogged
+as in a nightmare. I could hardly drag them
+over the barren earth. And then I felt the slow
+chill creeping through me. I looked down.
+Out of the earth a thin mist was rising, collecting
+in little pools that grew ever larger until
+they joined here and there, their currents swirling
+slowly like thin blue smoke. The western
+hills halved the copper sun. When it was dark
+I should hear that shriek again, and then I should
+die. I knew that, and with every remaining
+atom of will I staggered towards the red west
+through the writhing mist that crept clammily
+around my ankles, retarding my steps.</p>
+
+<p>"And as I fought my way off from the Tree,
+the horror grew, until at last I thought I was
+going to die. The silence pursued me like dumb
+ghosts, the still air held my breath, the hellish
+fog caught at my feet like cold hands.</p>
+
+<p>"But I won! though not a moment too soon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+As I crawled on my hands and knees up the
+brown slope, I heard, far away and high in the
+air, the cry that already had almost bereft me
+of reason. It was faint and vague, but unmistakable
+in its horrible intensity. I glanced behind.
+The fog was dense and pallid, heaving
+undulously up the brown slope. The sky was
+gold under the setting sun, but below was the
+ashy gray of death. I stood for a moment on
+the brink of this sea of hell, and then leaped
+down the slope. The sunset opened before
+me, the night closed behind, and as I crawled
+home weak and tired, darkness shut down on
+the Dead Valley."</p>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+<h2>POSTSCRIPT.</h2>
+
+<p>There seem to be certain well-defined roots
+existing in all countries, from which spring
+the current legends of the supernatural; and
+therefore for the germs of the stories in this
+book the Author claims no originality. These
+legends differ one from the other only in local
+color and in individual treatment. If the Author
+has succeeded in clothing one or two of these
+norms in some slightly new vesture, he is more
+than content.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Boston</span>, <i>July 3, 1895</i>.</p>
+
+<div class="p1">THE END.</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="bk2"><p><small>THE PRINTING WAS DONE AT
+THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO,
+FOR STONE &amp; KIMBALL, PUBLISHERS.</small></p></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><big>Concerning the Books</big><br />
+<small><i>of</i></small><br />
+<big><i>Stone &amp; Kimball</i></big></h2>
+
+<div class="center"><i><big>1895-1896</big></i></div>
+
+<div class="figc3">
+<img src="images/003.png" width="200" height="123" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="center"><i>CHICAGO &amp; LONDON</i></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="hd2"><i>Cable Address:</i><br />
+"ESSANKAY, CHICAGO"<br />
+"EDITORSHIP, LONDON"</div>
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>
+<h2>THE PUBLICATIONS<br />
+<span class="sp1">OF</span><br />
+<big>STONE &amp; KIMBALL.</big></h2>
+
+<div class="bk3"><p class="p2">ADAMS, FRANCIS.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Essays in Modernity. Crown 8vo. $1.25,
+net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Shortly.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">ALLEN, GRANT.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Lower Slopes.</span> Reminiscences of
+Excursions round the Base of Helicon, undertaken
+for the most part in early manhood. With
+a titlepage by J. Illingworth Kay. Printed by
+T. &amp; A. Constable, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo.
+80 pp. $1.50, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">ARCHER, WILLIAM.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library, Vol. III.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">BELL, LILIAN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Little Sister to the Wilderness.</span> By
+the author of "The Love Affairs of an Old
+Maid." With a cover designed by Bruce Rogers.
+16mo. 267 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Fourth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">BROWNE, E. S.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#ENGLISH_CLASSICS">English Classics. Hajji Baba.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">BURGESS, GILBERT.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Love Letters of Mr. H. and Miss
+R.</span> 1775-1779. Edited, with an introduction
+by Gilbert Burgess. Small crown 8vo. 240 pp.
+$1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">CARMAN, BLISS.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Low Tide on Grand Pr&eacute;.</span> Revised and
+enlarged. With a titlepage designed by Martin
+Mower. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled edges.
+132 pp. $1.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also fifty copies on old English handmade
+paper, each signed by the author. Square 8vo.
+$3.50, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Very few remain.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="CARNATION_SERIES" id="CARNATION_SERIES"></a>CARNATION SERIES.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Bound in cloth, with carnation design on the
+covers. 18mo. Rough edges. $1.00 a
+volume.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. I. <span class="smcap">The Gypsy Christ and Other
+Tales.</span> By William Sharp.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. II. <span class="smcap">The Sister of a Saint and
+Other Stories.</span> By Grace Ellery Channing.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. III. <span class="smcap">Black Spirits and White.</span>
+A book of ghost stories. By Ralph Adams
+Cram.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. IV. <span class="smcap">The Sin Eater and Other
+Stories.</span> By Fiona Macleod.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. V. <span class="smcap">The Gods Give My Donkey
+Wings.</span> By Angus Evan Abbott.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Other volumes to follow.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Sister of a Saint and Other Stories.</span>
+See <a href="#CARNATION_SERIES">Carnation Series</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">CHATFIELD-TAYLOR, H. C.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Two Women and a Fool.</span> With eight
+pictures by C. D. Gibson. 232 pp. $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Seventh thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="CONGREVE" id="CONGREVE"></a>CONGREVE, WILLIAM.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Comedies of William Congreve.</span>
+See <a href="#ENGLISH_CLASSICS">English Classics</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">CRAM, RALPH ADAMS.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Black Spirits and White.</span> A book of
+ghost stories. See <a href="#CARNATION_SERIES">Carnation Series</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">DAVIDSON, JOHN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Plays.</span> An Unhistorical Pastoral; a Romantic
+Farce; Bruce, a Chronicle Play; Smith,
+a Tragic Farce; Scaramouch in Naxos, a Pantomime.
+With a frontispiece and cover design
+by Aubrey Beardsley. Printed at the Ballantyne
+Press, London. Small 4to. 294 pp. $2.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class="smcap">DeKOVEN</span>, MRS. REGINALD.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Sawdust Doll.</span> With cover and titlepage
+designed by Frank Hazenplug. Printed
+at the Lakeside Press. 16mo. 237 pp.
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Fifth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">FIELD, EUGENE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Holy Cross and Other Tales.</span>
+With cover, titlepage, and initial-letter pieces
+designed by Louis J. Rhead. Printed at the
+University Press, on English laid paper. 18mo.
+Gilt top, deckled edges. 191 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on Holland
+paper, with special dedications of the various
+tales. 8vo. $5.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Very few remain.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">GALE, NORMAN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Country Muse.</span> First Series, revised
+and enlarged. Printed by T. &amp; A. Constable,
+Edinburgh. Crown, 8vo. 145 pp. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span><span class="smcap">A June Romance.</span> With a titlepage and
+tailpiece designed by Basil Johnson. Printed
+on antique paper at the Rugby Press. 107 pp.
+Price, $1.00.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="ENGLISH_CLASSICS" id="ENGLISH_CLASSICS"></a>ENGLISH CLASSICS.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Edited by William Ernest Henley. The
+ordinary "cheap edition" appears to have
+served its purpose; the public has found out
+the artist-printers, and is now ready for something
+better fashioned. This, then, is the
+moment for the issue of such a series as, while
+well within the reach of the average buyer, shall
+be at once an ornament to the shelf of him that
+owns, and a delight to the eye of him that reads.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">The series will confine itself to no single
+period or department of literature. Poetry,
+fiction, drama, biography, autobiography, letters,
+essays,&mdash;in all these fields is the material
+of many goodly volumes.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">The books are printed by Messrs. Constable,
+of Edinburgh, on laid paper, with deckle edges,
+and bound in crushed buckram, crown 8vo, at
+$1.25 a volume, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><big>THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF
+TRISTRAM SHANDY.</big></p>
+
+<p class="p3">By Laurence Sterne. With an introduction
+by Charles Whibley, and a portrait. 2 vols.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><big>THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM
+CONGREVE.</big></p>
+
+<p class="p3">With an introduction by G. S. Street, and a
+portrait. 2 vols.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span><big>THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA
+OF ISPAHAN.</big></p>
+
+<p class="p3">By James Morier. With an introduction by
+E. S. Browne, M. A., and a portrait. 2 vols.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><big>ENGLISH SEAMEN.</big></p>
+
+<p class="p3">By Robert Southey. 1 vol.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><big>LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON,
+HOOKER, HERBERT, AND SANDERSON.</big></p>
+
+<p class="p3">By Izaak Walton. With an introduction by
+Vernon Blackburn, and a portrait. 1 vol.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Others to follow.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="GARLAND" id="GARLAND"></a>GARLAND, HAMLIN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Prairie Songs.</span> Verses. With cover, head
+and initial letter pieces designed by H. T. Carpenter.
+Printed at the University Press on
+specially made paper. 16mo. Buckram, gilt
+top, edges uncut. 164 pp. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 110 numbered copies, 100 for sale, on
+large paper, each signed by the author. 8vo.
+$5.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Very few remain.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Main-Travelled Roads.</span> Six stories of
+the Mississippi Valley. A revised edition, with
+an introduction by W. D. Howells, and frontispiece,
+headpieces, and cover design by H. T.
+Carpenter. Printed at the University Press on
+specially made paper. 16mo. Buckram, gilt
+top and uncut edges. 251 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Twelfth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on large paper.
+8vo. $5.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Very few remain.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Crumbling Idols.</span> Twelve essays on Art,
+dealing chiefly with Literature, Painting, and
+the Drama. Printed at the University Press.
+16mo. 192 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">GOSSE, EDMUND.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">In Russet and Silver.</span> Printed at the
+University Press on English laid paper. Cover
+designed by Will H. Bradley. 16mo. 158 pp.
+$1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Second edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 75 copies on large paper, numbered
+from 1 to 10 (Japanese vellum), at $6.00, and
+11 to 75 (English handmade), at $3.50, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">GRAHAME, KENNETH.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Golden Age.</span> 16mo. Crushed buckram.
+241 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY" id="GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY"></a>GREEN TREE LIBRARY.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">A series of books representing what may
+broadly be called the new movement in literature.
+The intention is to publish uniformly
+the best of the decadent writings of various
+countries, done into English and consistently
+brought together for the first time. The
+volumes are all copyright, and are issued in a
+uniform binding&mdash;The Green Tree&mdash;designed
+by Henry McCarter.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. I. <span class="smcap">Vistas.</span> By William Sharp. 16mo.
+183 pp. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. II. <span class="smcap">The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck.</span>
+Princess Maleine; The Blind; The
+Intruder; The Seven Princesses. Translated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>
+by Richard Hovey. With an introductory
+essay on Symbolism. 16mo. 369 pp. $1.25,
+net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Second edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. III. <span class="smcap">Little Eyolf.</span> A play by Henrik
+Ibsen. Translated by William Archer.
+16mo. 164 pp. $1.50 net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Second edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. IV. <span class="smcap">Poems of Paul Verlaine.</span>
+Translated by Gertrude Hall. With pictures
+by Henry McCarter. 16mo. 110 pp. $1.50,
+net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 100 numbered copies on Imperial
+Japanese vellum, with artist's proofs of all the
+pictures. Small 4to. Nos. 1 to 15, containing
+an extra set of proofs on India paper, mounted,
+$15.00, net. Nos. 16 to 100, $10.00, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. V. <span class="smcap">The Massacre of the Innocents
+and Other Tales.</span> By Maeterlinck,
+Eekhoudt, Van Lerbergh, and the leaders of
+the Belgian Renaissance. Translated by Edith
+Wingate Rinder. 16mo. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. VI. <span class="smcap">Pharais.</span> A Celtic Romance.
+By Fiona Macleod. 16mo. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Vol. VII. <span class="smcap">The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck.</span>
+Second series. Pell&eacute;as and M&eacute;lisande,
+and Three Plays for Marionettes.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Translated by Richard Hovey. With an
+introduction by Maeterlinck. 16mo.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>In preparation.</i><br />
+<i>Other volumes to follow.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="HAKE" id="HAKE"></a>HAKE, THOMAS GORDON.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Selections from the Poems of Thomas
+Gordon Hake.</span> Edited, with an introduction,
+by Mrs. Meynell (Alice C. Thompson). With<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
+a portrait after a drawing by Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti. Printed by T. &amp; A. Constable, Edinburgh.
+Crown 8vo. 155 pp. $1.50, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">HALE, EDWARD EVERETT.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#TAYLOR">Taylor</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">HALL, GERTRUDE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library, Vol. IV.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">HALL, TOM.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">When Hearts are Trumps.</span> Verses.
+With decorations by Will H. Bradley. 16mo.
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">HEAD, FRANKLIN H.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#SWING">Swing</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">HOVEY, RICHARD.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Marriage of Guenevere.</span> With a
+cover designed by T. B. Meteyard. 18mo.
+$1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">HOWELLS, W. D.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#GARLAND">Garland</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">IBSEN, HENRIK.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Little Eyolf.</span> See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library,
+Vol. III.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">MACKAY, ERIC.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Song of the Sea, My Lady of Dreams,
+and Other Poems.</span> By the author of "The
+Love Letters of a Violinist." 16mo. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">MAETERLINCK, MAURICE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck.</span></p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><span class="smcap">McCULLOCH</span>, HUGH, JR.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Quest of Heracles and Other
+Poems.</span> Titlepage designed by Pierre la
+Rose. Printed at the De Vinne Press on Van
+Gelder handmade paper. 16mo. 95 pp.
+Cloth, $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">MEEKINS, LYNN R.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Robb's Island Wreck and Other
+Stories.</span> Printed at the University Press,
+16mo. 192 pp. $1.00.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">MEYNELL, MRS.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#HAKE">Hake</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">MILLER, JOAQUIN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Building of the City Beautiful.</span>
+A poetic romance. Printed at the University
+Press on American laid paper. 18mo. Gilt
+top, deckled edges. 196 pp. $1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 50 copies on large paper. $3.50, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Very few remain.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="MOULTON" id="MOULTON"></a>MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Arthur O'Shaughnessy.</span> His Life and
+His Work, with selections from his poems.
+With a portrait from a drawing by August F.
+Jaccaci. Printed at the De Vinne Press on
+English laid paper. 450 copies. 18mo. 120
+pp. Price, $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also, 60 numbered copies on Holland handmade
+paper (only 50 being for sale), at $3.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">MORIER, JAMES.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan.</span>
+See <a href="#ENGLISH_CLASSICS">English Classics</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>OSBOURNE, LLOYD.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#STEVENSON">Stevenson</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">O'SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#MOULTON">Moulton</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">PARKER, GILBERT.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Lover's Diary.</span> Songs in Sequence.
+With a frontispiece by Will H. Low. Printed
+at the University Press on antique paper. 18mo.
+147 pp. $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Second edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">Also 50 copies on Dickinson handmade
+paper. $3.50 (all sold).</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Pierre and His People.</span> Tales of the Far
+North. Printed at the University Press on laid
+paper. 18mo. 318 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">When Valmond Came to Pontiac.</span> The
+Story of a Lost Napoleon. With a cover
+designed by Bruce Rogers. 16mo. 222 pp.
+$1.50.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Fifth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="POE" id="POE"></a>POE, EDGAR ALLAN.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Complete Works of Edgar Allan
+Poe.</span> Newly collected, edited, and for the
+first time revised after the author's final manuscript
+corrections, by Edmund Clarence Stedman
+and George Edward Woodberry, with many
+portraits, fac-similes, and pictures by Albert
+Edward Sterner.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">This is the only complete edition of Poe's
+works. The entire writings have been revised;
+innumerable errors have been corrected; quotations
+have been verified, and the work now
+stands&mdash;for the first time&mdash;as Poe wished it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
+stand. The editors contribute a memoir, critical
+introduction, and notes; the variorum texts are
+given and new matter has been added. The
+portraits include several which have never appeared
+in book form before, and the printing has
+been carefully done at the University Press in
+Cambridge on specially made, deckled edge
+paper.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">In fine, the edition aims to be definitive, and
+is intended alike for the librarian, the student,
+and the book-lover.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">In ten volumes, price $15.00, net, a set; or
+separately, $1.50, net, per volume.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">The large-paper edition, limited to 250 numbered
+sets for America, contains a series of
+illustrations to the tales by Aubrey Beardsley,
+and a signed etching by Mr. Sterner,&mdash;not
+included in the small-paper edition,&mdash;proofs
+of all the pictures printed on India paper, and,
+in truth, is a luxurious edition. On handsome
+paper, octavo. Price, $50.00, net. Sold only in
+sets; numbers will be assigned as the orders are
+received.</p>
+
+<div class="bq"><p class="p3">New York Tribune: "At no time in the future is
+it probable that the labors of his present editors and
+publishers will be superseded."</p>
+
+<p class="p3">New York Times: "Doubtless no other men in
+this country were better fitted for this arduous and
+delicate task than those who have, at length, undertaken
+it."</p></div>
+
+<p class="p2">SANTAYANA, GEORGE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Sonnets and Other Poems.</span> With titlepage
+designed by the author. Printed at the
+University Press on laid paper. 16mo. Buckram.
+90 pp. Price, $1.25, net.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Out of print.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>SHARP, WILLIAM.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Vistas.</span> See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree Library, Vol. I.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Gypsy Christ and Other Tales.</span>
+See <a href="#CARNATION_SERIES">Carnation Series, Vol. I.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">SOUTHALL, J. E.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Story of Bluebeard.</span> Newly translated
+and elaborately illustrated. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">SOUTHEY, ROBERT.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">English Seamen.</span> See <a href="#ENGLISH_CLASSICS">English Classics</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">STEDMAN, E. C.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#POE">Poe</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="STERNE" id="STERNE"></a>STERNE, LAURENCE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Life and Opinions of Tristram
+Shandy.</span> See <a href="#ENGLISH_CLASSICS">English Classics</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="STEVENSON" id="STEVENSON"></a>STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Later Works of Robert Louis Stevenson.</span>
+Published in a uniform edition. 16mo.
+Bound in green crushed buckram.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Amateur Emigrant.</span> 180 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Fourth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Vailima Letters.</span> From Robert Louis
+Stevenson to Sidney Colvin. With an etched
+portrait by William Strang and two portraits of
+Stevenson in Samoa. In two volumes. 16mo.
+$2.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">&mdash;&mdash; AND LLOYD OSBOURNE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Ebb-Tide.</span> A Trio and Quartette.
+204 pp. $1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Sixth thousand.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">&mdash;&mdash; AND WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Macaire.</span> A Melodramatic Farce. In three
+acts. $1.00.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span>STREET, G. S.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#CONGREVE">Congreve</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="SWING" id="SWING"></a>SWING, DAVID.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Old Pictures of Life.</span> With an introduction
+by Franklin H. Head. In two volumes.
+16mo. Vol. I., 191 pp.; vol. II., 220 pp.
+$2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="p2"><a name="TAYLOR" id="TAYLOR"></a>TAYLOR, WINNIE LOUISE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">His Broken Sword.</span> A novel. With an
+introduction by Edward Everett Hale. Printed
+at the University Press on American laid paper.
+12mo. Gilt top, deckled edges. 354 pp.
+$1.25.</p>
+
+<p class="p4"><i>Third edition.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2">THOMPSON, MAURICE.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Lincoln's Grave.</span> A Poem. With a titlepage
+by George H. Hallowell. Printed at the
+University Press. 16mo. 36 pp. Price, $1.00,
+net.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">VERLAINE, PAUL.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Poems of Paul Verlaine.</span> See <a href="#GREEN_TREE_LIBRARY">Green Tree
+Library, Vol. IV.</a></p>
+
+<p class="p2">WHIBLEY, CHARLES.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#STERNE">Sterne</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD.</p>
+
+<p class="p3">See <a href="#POE">Poe</a>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2">YEATS, W. B.</p>
+
+<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">The Land of Heart's Desire.</span> A play.
+With a frontispiece by Aubrey Beardsley. Printed
+at the University Press. 16mo. 43 pp.
+Price, $1.00, net.</p></div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2>The Chap-Book.</h2>
+
+<div class="bk4"><p class="center"><i><big>A Miniature Magazine and Review.</big></i></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><big>Semi-Monthly.</big></i></p>
+
+<p class="p5"><big>STONE &amp; KIMBALL<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Caxton Building, Chicago.</span></big></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap"><big>Price, 5 Cents. $1.00 a Year.</big></span></p></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table class="sp4" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="2"><big>CONTRIBUTORS.</big></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Thomas Bailey Aldrich</td><td class="td3">St&eacute;phane Mallarm&eacute;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Maurice Maeterlinck</td><td class="td3">Eugene Field</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Richard Henry Stoddard</td><td class="td3">Hamlin Garland</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Gilbert Parker</td><td class="td3">I. Zangwill</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Kenneth Grahame</td><td class="td3">Louise Imogen Guiney</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Bliss Carman</td><td class="td3">Gertrude Hall</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">John Davidson</td><td class="td3">Maria Louise Pool</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Charles G. D. Roberts</td><td class="td3">William Sharp</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Paul Verlaine</td><td class="td3">Archibald Lampman</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Alice Brown</td><td class="td3">H. B. Marriott Watson</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Julian Hawthorne</td><td class="td3">Richard Burton</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Clyde Fitch</td><td class="td3">H. H. Boyesen</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Edmund Gosse</td><td class="td3">Lewis Gates</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Maurice Thompson</td><td class="td3">H. W. Mabie</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">C. F. Bragdon</td><td class="td3">F. Vallotton</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Will H. Bradley</td><td class="td3">J. F. Raffaelli</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Louise Chandler Moulton</td><td class="td3">C. D. Gibson</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1">Robert Louis Stevenson</td><td class="td3">William Ernest Henley</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="center" colspan="2">Theodore Wratislaw</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class="figc1" style="width: 25em;"><p class="p3">There is no question that the Chap-Book
+is the best printed periodical in the world.</p>
+
+<p class="p4">&mdash;<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p3">The Chap-Book continues to be delightfully
+clever and irresponsible.</p>
+
+<p class="p4">&mdash;<i>Charleston News and Courier.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="trn"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b>
+Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Black Spirits and White, by Ralph Adams Cram
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,3790 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Spirits and White, by Ralph Adams Cram
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Black Spirits and White
+       A Book of Ghost Stories
+
+Author: Ralph Adams Cram
+
+Release Date: September 22, 2008 [EBook #26687]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Clarke, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE
+
+
+
+
+     CARNATION SERIES
+
+   Black Spirits & White
+
+ _A Book of Ghost Stories_
+
+
+            BY
+     RALPH ADAMS CRAM
+
+
+         [Device]
+
+
+          CHICAGO
+      STONE & KIMBALL
+
+         MDCCCXCV
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
+  STONE AND KIMBALL
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. The oe
+    ligature is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+    "BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,
+      RED SPIRITS AND GRAY,
+    MINGLE, MINGLE, MINGLE,
+      YE THAT MINGLE MAY."
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+                               PAGE
+ NO. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE         3
+ IN KROPFSBERG KEEP              33
+ THE WHITE VILLA                 55
+ SISTER MADDELENA                83
+ NOTRE DAME DES EAUX            115
+ THE DEAD VALLEY                133
+ POSTSCRIPT                     151
+
+
+
+
+No. 252 RUE M. LE PRINCE.
+
+
+
+
+No. 252 Rue M. le Prince.
+
+
+When in May, 1886, I found myself at last in Paris, I naturally
+determined to throw myself on the charity of an old chum of mine, Eugene
+Marie d'Ardeche, who had forsaken Boston a year or more ago on receiving
+word of the death of an aunt who had left him such property as she
+possessed. I fancy this windfall surprised him not a little, for the
+relations between the aunt and nephew had never been cordial, judging
+from Eugene's remarks touching the lady, who was, it seems, a more or
+less wicked and witch-like old person, with a penchant for black magic,
+at least such was the common report.
+
+Why she should leave all her property to d'Ardeche, no one could tell,
+unless it was that she felt his rather hobbledehoy tendencies towards
+Buddhism and occultism might some day lead him to her own unhallowed
+height of questionable illumination. To be sure d'Ardeche reviled her as
+a bad old woman, being himself in that state of enthusiastic exaltation
+which sometimes accompanies a boyish fancy for occultism; but in spite
+of his distant and repellent attitude, Mlle. Blaye de Tartas made him
+her sole heir, to the violent wrath of a questionable old party known to
+infamy as the Sar Torrevieja, the "King of the Sorcerers." This
+malevolent old portent, whose gray and crafty face was often seen in the
+Rue M. le Prince during the life of Mlle. de Tartas had, it seems, fully
+expected to enjoy her small wealth after her death; and when it appeared
+that she had left him only the contents of the gloomy old house in the
+Quartier Latin, giving the house itself and all else of which she died
+possessed to her nephew in America, the Sar proceeded to remove
+everything from the place, and then to curse it elaborately and
+comprehensively, together with all those who should ever dwell therein.
+
+Whereupon he disappeared.
+
+This final episode was the last word I received from Eugene, but I knew
+the number of the house, 252 Rue M. le Prince. So, after a day or two
+given to a first cursory survey of Paris, I started across the Seine to
+find Eugene and compel him to do the honors of the city.
+
+Every one who knows the Latin Quarter knows the Rue M. le Prince,
+running up the hill towards the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is full of
+queer houses and odd corners,--or was in '86,--and certainly No. 252
+was, when I found it, quite as queer as any. It was nothing but a
+doorway, a black arch of old stone between and under two new houses
+painted yellow. The effect of this bit of seventeenth-century masonry,
+with its dirty old doors, and rusty broken lantern sticking gaunt and
+grim out over the narrow sidewalk, was, in its frame of fresh plaster,
+sinister in the extreme.
+
+I wondered if I had made a mistake in the number; it was quite evident
+that no one lived behind those cobwebs. I went into the doorway of one
+of the new hotels and interviewed the concierge.
+
+No, M. d'Ardeche did not live there, though to be sure he owned the
+mansion; he himself resided in Meudon, in the country house of the late
+Mlle. de Tartas. Would Monsieur like the number and the street?
+
+Monsieur would like them extremely, so I took the card that the
+concierge wrote for me, and forthwith started for the river, in order
+that I might take a steamboat for Meudon. By one of those coincidences
+which happen so often, being quite inexplicable, I had not gone twenty
+paces down the street before I ran directly into the arms of Eugene
+d'Ardeche. In three minutes we were sitting in the queer little garden
+of the Chien Bleu, drinking vermouth and absinthe, and talking it all
+over.
+
+"You do not live in your aunt's house?" I said at last, interrogatively.
+
+"No, but if this sort of thing keeps on I shall have to. I like Meudon
+much better, and the house is perfect, all furnished, and nothing in it
+newer than the last century. You must come out with me to-night and see
+it. I have got a jolly room fixed up for my Buddha. But there is
+something wrong with this house opposite. I can't keep a tenant in
+it,--not four days. I have had three, all within six months, but the
+stories have gone around and a man would as soon think of hiring the
+Cour des Comptes to live in as No. 252. It is notorious. The fact is,
+it is haunted the worst way."
+
+I laughed and ordered more vermouth.
+
+"That is all right. It is haunted all the same, or enough to keep it
+empty, and the funny part is that no one knows _how_ it is haunted.
+Nothing is ever seen, nothing heard. As far as I can find out, people
+just have the horrors there, and have them so bad they have to go to the
+hospital afterwards. I have one ex-tenant in the Bicetre now. So the
+house stands empty, and as it covers considerable ground and is taxed
+for a lot, I don't know what to do about it. I think I'll either give it
+to that child of sin, Torrevieja, or else go and live in it myself. I
+shouldn't mind the ghosts, I am sure."
+
+"Did you ever stay there?"
+
+"No, but I have always intended to, and in fact I came up here to-day to
+see a couple of rake-hell fellows I know, Fargeau and Duchesne, doctors
+in the Clinical Hospital beyond here, up by the Parc Mont Souris. They
+promised that they would spend the night with me some time in my aunt's
+house,--which is called around here, you must know, 'la Bouche
+d'Enfer,'--and I thought perhaps they would make it this week, if they
+can get off duty. Come up with me while I see them, and then we can go
+across the river to Vefour's and have some luncheon, you can get your
+things at the Chatham, and we will go out to Meudon, where of course you
+will spend the night with me."
+
+The plan suited me perfectly, so we went up to the hospital, found
+Fargeau, who declared that he and Duchesne were ready for anything, the
+nearer the real "bouche d'enfer" the better; that the following Thursday
+they would both be off duty for the night, and that on that day they
+would join in an attempt to outwit the devil and clear up the mystery of
+No. 252.
+
+"Does M. l'Americain go with us?" asked Fargeau.
+
+"Why of course," I replied, "I intend to go, and you must not refuse me,
+d'Ardeche; I decline to be put off. Here is a chance for you to do the
+honors of your city in a manner which is faultless. Show me a real live
+ghost, and I will forgive Paris for having lost the Jardin Mabille."
+
+So it was settled.
+
+Later we went down to Meudon and ate dinner in the terrace room of the
+villa, which was all that d'Ardeche had said, and more, so utterly was
+its atmosphere that of the seventeenth century. At dinner Eugene told me
+more about his late aunt, and the queer goings on in the old house.
+
+Mlle. Blaye lived, it seems, all alone, except for one female servant of
+her own age; a severe, taciturn creature, with massive Breton features
+and a Breton tongue, whenever she vouchsafed to use it. No one ever was
+seen to enter the door of No. 252 except Jeanne the servant and the Sar
+Torrevieja, the latter coming constantly from none knew whither, and
+always entering, _never leaving_. Indeed, the neighbors, who for eleven
+years had watched the old sorcerer sidle crab-wise up to the bell almost
+every day, declared vociferously that _never_ had he been seen to leave
+the house. Once, when they decided to keep absolute guard, the watcher,
+none other than Maitre Garceau of the Chien Bleu, after keeping his eyes
+fixed on the door from ten o'clock one morning when the Sar arrived
+until four in the afternoon, during which time the door was unopened (he
+knew this, for had he not gummed a ten-centime stamp over the joint and
+was not the stamp unbroken) nearly fell down when the sinister figure
+of Torrevieja slid wickedly by him with a dry "Pardon, Monsieur!" and
+disappeared again through the black doorway.
+
+This was curious, for No. 252 was entirely surrounded by houses, its
+only windows opening on a courtyard into which no eye could look from
+the hotels of the Rue M. le Prince and the Rue de l'Ecole, and the
+mystery was one of the choice possessions of the Latin Quarter.
+
+Once a year the austerity of the place was broken, and the denizens of
+the whole quarter stood open-mouthed watching many carriages drive up to
+No. 252, many of them private, not a few with crests on the door panels,
+from all of them descending veiled female figures and men with coat
+collars turned up. Then followed curious sounds of music from within,
+and those whose houses joined the blank walls of No. 252 became for the
+moment popular, for by placing the ear against the wall strange music
+could distinctly be heard, and the sound of monotonous chanting voices
+now and then. By dawn the last guest would have departed, and for
+another year the hotel of Mlle. de Tartas was ominously silent.
+
+Eugene declared that he believed it was a celebration of
+"Walpurgisnacht," and certainly appearances favored such a fancy.
+
+"A queer thing about the whole affair is," he said, "the fact that every
+one in the street swears that about a month ago, while I was out in
+Concarneau for a visit, the music and voices were heard again, just as
+when my revered aunt was in the flesh. The house was perfectly empty, as
+I tell you, so it is quite possible that the good people were enjoying
+an hallucination."
+
+I must acknowledge that these stories did not reassure me; in fact, as
+Thursday came near, I began to regret a little my determination to spend
+the night in the house. I was too vain to back down, however, and the
+perfect coolness of the two doctors, who ran down Tuesday to Meudon to
+make a few arrangements, caused me to swear that I would die of fright
+before I would flinch. I suppose I believed more or less in ghosts, I am
+sure now that I am older I believe in them, there are in fact few things
+I can _not_ believe. Two or three inexplicable things had happened to
+me, and, although this was before my adventure with Rendel in Paestum, I
+had a strong predisposition to believe some things that I could not
+explain, wherein I was out of sympathy with the age.
+
+Well, to come to the memorable night of the twelfth of June, we had made
+our preparations, and after depositing a big bag inside the doors of No.
+252, went across to the Chien Bleu, where Fargeau and Duchesne turned up
+promptly, and we sat down to the best dinner Pere Garceau could create.
+
+I remember I hardly felt that the conversation was in good taste. It
+began with various stories of Indian fakirs and Oriental jugglery,
+matters in which Eugene was curiously well read, swerved to the horrors
+of the great Sepoy mutiny, and thus to reminiscences of the
+dissecting-room. By this time we had drunk more or less, and Duchesne
+launched into a photographic and Zolaesque account of the only time (as
+he said) when he was possessed of the panic of fear; namely, one night
+many years ago, when he was locked by accident into the dissecting-room
+of the Loucine, together with several cadavers of a rather unpleasant
+nature. I ventured to protest mildly against the choice of subjects,
+the result being a perfect carnival of horrors, so that when we finally
+drank our last _creme de cacao_ and started for "la Bouche d'Enfer," my
+nerves were in a somewhat rocky condition.
+
+It was just ten o'clock when we came into the street. A hot dead wind
+drifted in great puffs through the city, and ragged masses of vapor
+swept the purple sky; an unsavory night altogether, one of those nights
+of hopeless lassitude when one feels, if one is at home, like doing
+nothing but drink mint juleps and smoke cigarettes.
+
+Eugene opened the creaking door, and tried to light one of the lanterns;
+but the gusty wind blew out every match, and we finally had to close the
+outer doors before we could get a light. At last we had all the lanterns
+going, and I began to look around curiously. We were in a long, vaulted
+passage, partly carriageway, partly footpath, perfectly bare but for the
+street refuse which had drifted in with eddying winds. Beyond lay the
+courtyard, a curious place rendered more curious still by the fitful
+moonlight and the flashing of four dark lanterns. The place had
+evidently been once a most noble palace. Opposite rose the oldest
+portion, a three-story wall of the time of Francis I., with a great
+wisteria vine covering half. The wings on either side were more modern,
+seventeenth century, and ugly, while towards the street was nothing but
+a flat unbroken wall.
+
+The great bare court, littered with bits of paper blown in by the wind,
+fragments of packing cases, and straw, mysterious with flashing lights
+and flaunting shadows, while low masses of torn vapor drifted overhead,
+hiding, then revealing the stars, and all in absolute silence, not even
+the sounds of the streets entering this prison-like place, was weird and
+uncanny in the extreme. I must confess that already I began to feel a
+slight disposition towards the horrors, but with that curious
+inconsequence which so often happens in the case of those who are
+deliberately growing scared, I could think of nothing more reassuring
+than those delicious verses of Lewis Carroll's:--
+
+    "Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice,
+      That alone should encourage the crew.
+    Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice,
+      What I tell you three times is true,"--
+
+which kept repeating themselves over and over in my brain with feverish
+insistence.
+
+Even the medical students had stopped their chaffing, and were studying
+the surroundings gravely.
+
+"There is one thing certain," said Fargeau, "_anything_ might have
+happened here without the slightest chance of discovery. Did ever you
+see such a perfect place for lawlessness?"
+
+"And _anything_ might happen here now, with the same certainty of
+impunity," continued Duchesne, lighting his pipe, the snap of the match
+making us all start. "D'Ardeche, your lamented relative was certainly
+well fixed; she had full scope here for her traditional experiments in
+demonology."
+
+"Curse me if I don't believe that those same traditions were more or
+less founded on fact," said Eugene. "I never saw this court under these
+conditions before, but I could believe anything now. What's that!"
+
+"Nothing but a door slamming," said Duchesne, loudly.
+
+"Well, I wish doors wouldn't slam in houses that have been empty eleven
+months."
+
+"It is irritating," and Duchesne slipped his arm through mine; "but we
+must take things as they come. Remember we have to deal not only with
+the spectral lumber left here by your scarlet aunt, but as well with the
+supererogatory curse of that hell-cat Torrevieja. Come on! let's get
+inside before the hour arrives for the sheeted dead to squeak and gibber
+in these lonely halls. Light your pipes, your tobacco is a sure
+protection against 'your whoreson dead bodies'; light up and move on."
+
+We opened the hall door and entered a vaulted stone vestibule, full of
+dust, and cobwebby.
+
+"There is nothing on this floor," said Eugene, "except servants' rooms
+and offices, and I don't believe there is anything wrong with them. I
+never heard that there was, any way. Let's go up stairs."
+
+So far as we could see, the house was apparently perfectly uninteresting
+inside, all eighteenth-century work, the facade of the main building
+being, with the vestibule, the only portion of the Francis I. work.
+
+"The place was burned during the Terror," said Eugene, "for my
+great-uncle, from whom Mlle. de Tartas inherited it, was a good and true
+Royalist; he went to Spain after the Revolution, and did not come back
+until the accession of Charles X., when he restored the house, and then
+died, enormously old. This explains why it is all so new."
+
+The old Spanish sorcerer to whom Mlle. de Tartas had left her personal
+property had done his work thoroughly. The house was absolutely empty,
+even the wardrobes and bookcases built in had been carried away; we went
+through room after room, finding all absolutely dismantled, only the
+windows and doors with their casings, the parquet floors, and the florid
+Renaissance mantels remaining.
+
+"I feel better," remarked Fargeau. "The house may be haunted, but it
+don't look it, certainly; it is the most respectable place imaginable."
+
+"Just you wait," replied Eugene. "These are only the state apartments,
+which my aunt seldom used, except, perhaps, on her annual
+'Walpurgisnacht.' Come up stairs and I will show you a better _mise en
+scene_."
+
+On this floor, the rooms fronting the court, the sleeping-rooms, were
+quite small,--("They are the bad rooms all the same," said
+Eugene,)--four of them, all just as ordinary in appearance as those
+below. A corridor ran behind them connecting with the wing corridor,
+and from this opened a door, unlike any of the other doors in that it
+was covered with green baize, somewhat moth-eaten. Eugene selected a key
+from the bunch he carried, unlocked the door, and with some difficulty
+forced it to swing inward; it was as heavy as the door of a safe.
+
+"We are now," he said, "on the very threshold of hell itself; these
+rooms in here were my scarlet aunt's unholy of unholies. I never let
+them with the rest of the house, but keep them as a curiosity. I only
+wish Torrevieja had kept out; as it was, he looted them, as he did the
+rest of the house, and nothing is left but the walls and ceiling and
+floor. They are something, however, and may suggest what the former
+condition must have been. Tremble and enter."
+
+The first apartment was a kind of anteroom, a cube of perhaps twenty
+feet each way, without windows, and with no doors except that by which
+we entered and another to the right. Walls, floor, and ceiling were
+covered with a black lacquer, brilliantly polished, that flashed the
+light of our lanterns in a thousand intricate reflections. It was like
+the inside of an enormous Japanese box, and about as empty. From this
+we passed to another room, and here we nearly dropped our lanterns. The
+room was circular, thirty feet or so in diameter, covered by a
+hemispherical dome; walls and ceiling were dark blue, spotted with gold
+stars; and reaching from floor to floor across the dome stretched a
+colossal figure in red lacquer of a nude woman kneeling, her legs
+reaching out along the floor on either side, her head touching the
+lintel of the door through which we had entered, her arms forming its
+sides, with the fore arms extended and stretching along the walls until
+they met the long feet. The most astounding, misshapen, absolutely
+terrifying thing, I think, I ever saw. From the navel hung a great white
+object, like the traditional roe's egg of the Arabian Nights. The floor
+was of red lacquer, and in it was inlaid a pentagram the size of the
+room, made of wide strips of brass. In the centre of this pentagram was
+a circular disk of black stone, slightly saucer-shaped, with a small
+outlet in the middle.
+
+The effect of the room was simply crushing, with this gigantic red
+figure crouched over it all, the staring eyes fixed on one, no matter
+what his position. None of us spoke, so oppressive was the whole thing.
+
+The third room was like the first in dimensions, but instead of being
+black it was entirely sheathed with plates of brass, walls, ceiling, and
+floor,--tarnished now, and turning green, but still brilliant under the
+lantern light. In the middle stood an oblong altar of porphyry, its
+longer dimensions on the axis of the suite of rooms, and at one end,
+opposite the range of doors, a pedestal of black basalt.
+
+This was all. Three rooms, stranger than these, even in their emptiness,
+it would be hard to imagine. In Egypt, in India, they would not be
+entirely out of place, but here in Paris, in a commonplace _hotel_, in
+the Rue M. le Prince, they were incredible.
+
+We retraced our steps, Eugene closed the iron door with its baize
+covering, and we went into one of the front chambers and sat down,
+looking at each other.
+
+"Nice party, your aunt," said Fargeau. "Nice old party, with amiable
+tastes; I am glad we are not to spend the night in _those_ rooms."
+
+"What do you suppose she did there?" inquired Duchesne. "I know more or
+less about black art, but that series of rooms is too much for me."
+
+"My impression is," said d'Ardeche, "that the brazen room was a kind of
+sanctuary containing some image or other on the basalt base, while the
+stone in front was really an altar,--what the nature of the sacrifice
+might be I don't even guess. The round room may have been used for
+invocations and incantations. The pentagram looks like it. Any way it is
+all just about as queer and _fin de siecle_ as I can well imagine. Look
+here, it is nearly twelve, let's dispose of ourselves, if we are going
+to hunt this thing down."
+
+The four chambers on this floor of the old house were those said to be
+haunted, the wings being quite innocent, and, so far as we knew, the
+floors below. It was arranged that we should each occupy a room, leaving
+the doors open with the lights burning, and at the slightest cry or
+knock we were all to rush at once to the room from which the warning
+sound might come. There was no communication between the rooms to be
+sure, but, as the doors all opened into the corridor, every sound was
+plainly audible.
+
+The last room fell to me, and I looked it over carefully.
+
+It seemed innocent enough, a commonplace, square, rather lofty Parisian
+sleeping-room, finished in wood painted white, with a small marble
+mantel, a dusty floor of inlaid maple and cherry, walls hung with an
+ordinary French paper, apparently quite new, and two deeply embrasured
+windows looking out on the court.
+
+I opened the swinging sash with some trouble, and sat down in the window
+seat with my lantern beside me trained on the only door, which gave on
+the corridor.
+
+The wind had gone down, and it was very still without,--still and hot.
+The masses of luminous vapor were gathering thickly overhead, no longer
+urged by the gusty wind. The great masses of rank wisteria leaves, with
+here and there a second blossoming of purple flowers, hung dead over the
+window in the sluggish air. Across the roofs I could hear the sound of a
+belated _fiacre_ in the streets below. I filled my pipe again and
+waited.
+
+For a time the voices of the men in the other rooms were a
+companionship, and at first I shouted to them now and then, but my
+voice echoed rather unpleasantly through the long corridors, and had a
+suggestive way of reverberating around the left wing beside me, and
+coming out at a broken window at its extremity like the voice of another
+man. I soon gave up my attempts at conversation, and devoted myself to
+the task of keeping awake.
+
+It was not easy; why did I eat that lettuce salad at Pere Garceau's? I
+should have known better. It was making me irresistibly sleepy, and
+wakefulness was absolutely necessary. It was certainly gratifying to
+know that I could sleep, that my courage was by me to that extent, but
+in the interests of science I must keep awake. But almost never, it
+seemed, had sleep looked so desirable. Half a hundred times, nearly, I
+would doze for an instant, only to awake with a start, and find my pipe
+gone out. Nor did the exertion of relighting it pull me together. I
+struck my match mechanically, and with the first puff dropped off again.
+It was most vexing. I got up and walked around the room. It was most
+annoying. My cramped position had almost put both my legs to sleep. I
+could hardly stand. I felt numb, as though with cold. There was no
+longer any sound from the other rooms, nor from without. I sank down in
+my window seat. How dark it was growing! I turned up the lantern. That
+pipe again, how obstinately it kept going out! and my last match was
+gone. The lantern, too, was _that_ going out? I lifted my hand to turn
+it up again. It felt like lead, and fell beside me.
+
+_Then_ I awoke,--absolutely. I remembered the story of "The Haunters and
+the Haunted." _This_ was the Horror. I tried to rise, to cry out. My
+body was like lead, my tongue was paralyzed. I could hardly move my
+eyes. And the light was going out. There was no question about that.
+Darker and darker yet; little by little the pattern of the paper was
+swallowed up in the advancing night. A prickling numbness gathered in
+every nerve, my right arm slipped without feeling from my lap to my
+side, and I could not raise it,--it swung helpless. A thin, keen humming
+began in my head, like the cicadas on a hillside in September. The
+darkness was coming fast.
+
+Yes, this was it. Something was subjecting me, body and mind, to slow
+paralysis. Physically I was already dead. If I could only hold my mind,
+my consciousness, I might still be safe, but could I? Could I resist
+the mad horror of this silence, the deepening dark, the creeping
+numbness? I knew that, like the man in the ghost story, my only safety
+lay here.
+
+It had come at last. My body was dead, I could no longer move my eyes.
+They were fixed in that last look on the place where the door had been,
+now only a deepening of the dark.
+
+Utter night: the last flicker of the lantern was gone. I sat and waited;
+my mind was still keen, but how long would it last? There was a limit
+even to the endurance of the utter panic of fear.
+
+Then the end began. In the velvet blackness came two white eyes, milky,
+opalescent, small, far away,--awful eyes, like a dead dream. More
+beautiful than I can describe, the flakes of white flame moving from the
+perimeter inward, disappearing in the centre, like a never ending flow
+of opal water into a circular tunnel. I could not have moved my eyes had
+I possessed the power: they devoured the fearful, beautiful things that
+grew slowly, slowly larger, fixed on me, advancing, growing more
+beautiful, the white flakes of light sweeping more swiftly into the
+blazing vortices, the awful fascination deepening in its insane
+intensity as the white, vibrating eyes grew nearer, larger.
+
+Like a hideous and implacable engine of death the eyes of the unknown
+Horror swelled and expanded until they were close before me, enormous,
+terrible, and I felt a slow, cold, wet breath propelled with mechanical
+regularity against my face, enveloping me in its fetid mist, in its
+charnel-house deadliness.
+
+With ordinary fear goes always a physical terror, but with me in the
+presence of this unspeakable Thing was only the utter and awful terror
+of the mind, the mad fear of a prolonged and ghostly nightmare. Again
+and again I tried to shriek, to make some noise, but physically I was
+utterly dead. I could only feel myself go mad with the terror of hideous
+death. The eyes were close on me,--their movement so swift that they
+seemed to be but palpitating flames, the dead breath was around me like
+the depths of the deepest sea.
+
+Suddenly a wet, icy mouth, like that of a dead cuttle-fish, shapeless,
+jelly-like, fell over mine. The horror began slowly to draw my life from
+me, but, as enormous and shuddering folds of palpitating jelly swept
+sinuously around me, my will came back, my body awoke with the reaction
+of final fear, and I closed with the nameless death that enfolded me.
+
+What was it that I was fighting? My arms sunk through the unresisting
+mass that was turning me to ice. Moment by moment new folds of cold
+jelly swept round me, crushing me with the force of Titans. I fought to
+wrest my mouth from this awful Thing that sealed it, but, if ever I
+succeeded and caught a single breath, the wet, sucking mass closed over
+my face again before I could cry out. I think I fought for hours,
+desperately, insanely, in a silence that was more hideous than any
+sound,--fought until I felt final death at hand, until the memory of all
+my life rushed over me like a flood, until I no longer had strength to
+wrench my face from that hellish succubus, until with a last mechanical
+struggle I fell and yielded to death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then I heard a voice say, "If he is dead, I can never forgive myself; I
+was to blame."
+
+Another replied, "He is not dead, I know we can save him if only we
+reach the hospital in time. Drive like hell, _cocher_! twenty francs for
+you, if you get there in three minutes."
+
+Then there was night again, and nothingness, until I suddenly awoke and
+stared around. I lay in a hospital ward, very white and sunny, some
+yellow _fleurs-de-lis_ stood beside the head of the pallet, and a tall
+sister of mercy sat by my side.
+
+To tell the story in a few words, I was in the Hotel Dieu, where the men
+had taken me that fearful night of the twelfth of June. I asked for
+Fargeau or Duchesne, and by and by the latter came, and sitting beside
+the bed told me all that I did not know.
+
+It seems that they had sat, each in his room, hour after hour, hearing
+nothing, very much bored, and disappointed. Soon after two o'clock
+Fargeau, who was in the next room, called to me to ask if I was awake. I
+gave no reply, and, after shouting once or twice, he took his lantern
+and came to investigate. The door was locked on the inside! He instantly
+called d'Ardeche and Duchesne, and together they hurled themselves
+against the door. It resisted. Within they could hear irregular
+footsteps dashing here and there, with heavy breathing. Although frozen
+with terror, they fought to destroy the door and finally succeeded by
+using a great slab of marble that formed the shelf of the mantel in
+Fargeau's room. As the door crashed in, they were suddenly hurled back
+against the walls of the corridor, as though by an explosion, the
+lanterns were extinguished, and they found themselves in utter silence
+and darkness.
+
+As soon as they recovered from the shock, they leaped into the room and
+fell over my body in the middle of the floor. They lighted one of the
+lanterns, and saw the strangest sight that can be imagined. The floor
+and walls to the height of about six feet were running with something
+that seemed like stagnant water, thick, glutinous, sickening. As for me,
+I was drenched with the same cursed liquid. The odor of musk was
+nauseating. They dragged me away, stripped off my clothing, wrapped me
+in their coats, and hurried to the hospital, thinking me perhaps dead.
+Soon after sunrise d'Ardeche left the hospital, being assured that I was
+in a fair way to recovery, with time, and with Fargeau went up to
+examine by daylight the traces of the adventure that was so nearly
+fatal. They were too late. Fire engines were coming down the street as
+they passed the Academie. A neighbor rushed up to d'Ardeche: "O
+Monsieur! what misfortune, yet what fortune! It is true _la Bouche
+d'Enfer_--I beg pardon, the residence of the lamented Mlle. de
+Tartas,--was burned, but not wholly, only the ancient building. The
+wings were saved, and for that great credit is due the brave firemen.
+Monsieur will remember them, no doubt."
+
+It was quite true. Whether a forgotten lantern, overturned in the
+excitement, had done the work, or whether the origin of the fire was
+more supernatural, it was certain that "the Mouth of Hell" was no more.
+A last engine was pumping slowly as d'Ardeche came up; half a dozen
+limp, and one distended, hose stretched through the _porte cochere_, and
+within only the facade of Francis I. remained, draped still with the
+black stems of the wisteria. Beyond lay a great vacancy, where thin
+smoke was rising slowly. Every floor was gone, and the strange halls of
+Mlle. Blaye de Tartas were only a memory.
+
+With d'Ardeche I visited the place last year, but in the stead of the
+ancient walls was then only a new and ordinary building, fresh and
+respectable; yet the wonderful stories of the old _Bouche d'Enfer_ still
+lingered in the quarter, and will hold there, I do not doubt, until the
+Day of Judgment.
+
+
+
+
+IN KROPFSBERG KEEP.
+
+
+
+
+In Kropfsberg Keep.
+
+
+To the traveller from Innsbrueck to Munich, up the lovely valley of the
+silver Inn, many castles appear, one after another, each on its beetling
+cliff or gentle hill,--appear and disappear, melting into the dark fir
+trees that grow so thickly on every side,--Laneck, Lichtwer, Ratholtz,
+Tratzberg, Matzen, Kropfsberg, gathering close around the entrance to
+the dark and wonderful Zillerthal.
+
+But to us--Tom Rendel and myself--there are two castles only: not the
+gorgeous and princely Ambras, nor the noble old Tratzberg, with its
+crowded treasures of solemn and splendid mediaevalism; but little Matzen,
+where eager hospitality forms the new life of a never-dead chivalry, and
+Kropfsberg, ruined, tottering, blasted by fire and smitten with
+grievous years,--a dead thing, and haunted,--full of strange legends,
+and eloquent of mystery and tragedy.
+
+We were visiting the von C----s at Matzen, and gaining our first
+wondering knowledge of the courtly, cordial castle life in the
+Tyrol,--of the gentle and delicate hospitality of noble Austrians.
+Brixleg had ceased to be but a mark on a map, and had become a place of
+rest and delight, a home for homeless wanderers on the face of Europe,
+while Schloss Matzen was a synonym for all that was gracious and kindly
+and beautiful in life. The days moved on in a golden round of riding and
+driving and shooting: down to Landl and Thiersee for chamois, across the
+river to the magic Achensee, up the Zillerthal, across the Schmerner
+Joch, even to the railway station at Steinach. And in the evenings after
+the late dinners in the upper hall where the sleepy hounds leaned
+against our chairs looking at us with suppliant eyes, in the evenings
+when the fire was dying away in the hooded fireplace in the library,
+stories. Stories, and legends, and fairy tales, while the stiff old
+portraits changed countenance constantly under the flickering firelight,
+and the sound of the drifting Inn came softly across the meadows far
+below.
+
+If ever I tell the Story of Schloss Matzen, then will be the time to
+paint the too inadequate picture of this fair oasis in the desert of
+travel and tourists and hotels; but just now it is Kropfsberg the Silent
+that is of greater importance, for it was only in Matzen that the story
+was told by Fraeulein E----, the gold-haired niece of Frau von C----, one
+hot evening in July, when we were sitting in the great west window of
+the drawing-room after a long ride up the Stallenthal. All the windows
+were open to catch the faint wind, and we had sat for a long time
+watching the Otzethaler Alps turn rose-color over distant Innsbrueck,
+then deepen to violet as the sun went down and the white mists rose
+slowly until Lichtwer and Laneck and Kropfsberg rose like craggy islands
+in a silver sea.
+
+And this is the story as Fraeulein E---- told it to us,--the Story of
+Kropfsberg Keep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great many years ago, soon after my grandfather died, and Matzen came
+to us, when I was a little girl, and so young that I remember nothing
+of the affair except as something dreadful that frightened me very much,
+two young men who had studied painting with my grandfather came down to
+Brixleg from Munich, partly to paint, and partly to amuse
+themselves,--"ghost-hunting" as they said, for they were very sensible
+young men and prided themselves on it, laughing at all kinds of
+"superstition," and particularly at that form which believed in ghosts
+and feared them. They had never seen a real ghost, you know, and they
+belonged to a certain set of people who believed nothing they had not
+seen themselves,--which always seemed to me _very_ conceited. Well, they
+knew that we had lots of beautiful castles here in the "lower valley,"
+and they assumed, and rightly, that every castle has at least _one_
+ghost story connected with it, so they chose this as their hunting
+ground, only the game they sought was ghosts, not chamois. Their plan
+was to visit every place that was supposed to be haunted, and to meet
+every reputed ghost, and prove that it really was no ghost at all.
+
+There was a little inn down in the village then, kept by an old man
+named Peter Rosskopf, and the two young men made this their
+headquarters. The very first night they began to draw from the old
+innkeeper all that he knew of legends and ghost stories connected with
+Brixleg and its castles, and as he was a most garrulous old gentleman he
+filled them with the wildest delight by his stories of the ghosts of the
+castles about the mouth of the Zillerthal. Of course the old man
+believed every word he said, and you can imagine his horror and
+amazement when, after telling his guests the particularly blood-curdling
+story of Kropfsberg and its haunted keep, the elder of the two boys,
+whose surname I have forgotten, but whose Christian name was Rupert,
+calmly said, "Your story is most satisfactory: we will sleep in
+Kropfsberg Keep to-morrow night, and you must provide us with all that
+we may need to make ourselves comfortable."
+
+The old man nearly fell into the fire. "What for a blockhead are you?"
+he cried, with big eyes. "The keep is haunted by Count Albert's ghost, I
+tell you!"
+
+"That is why we are going there to-morrow night; we wish to make the
+acquaintance of Count Albert."
+
+"But there was a man stayed there once, and in the morning he was
+dead."
+
+"Very silly of him; there are two of us, and we carry revolvers."
+
+"But it's a _ghost_, I tell you," almost screamed the innkeeper; "are
+ghosts afraid of firearms?"
+
+"Whether they are or not, we are _not_ afraid of _them_."
+
+Here the younger boy broke in,--he was named Otto von Kleist. I remember
+the name, for I had a music teacher once by that name. He abused the
+poor old man shamefully; told him that they were going to spend the
+night in Kropfsberg in spite of Count Albert and Peter Rosskopf, and
+that he might as well make the most of it and earn his money with
+cheerfulness.
+
+In a word, they finally bullied the old fellow into submission, and when
+the morning came he set about preparing for the suicide, as he
+considered it, with sighs and mutterings and ominous shakings of the
+head.
+
+You know the condition of the castle now,--nothing but scorched walls
+and crumbling piles of fallen masonry. Well, at the time I tell you of,
+the keep was still partially preserved. It was finally burned out only a
+few years ago by some wicked boys who came over from Jenbach to have a
+good time. But when the ghost hunters came, though the two lower floors
+had fallen into the crypt, the third floor remained. The peasants said
+it _could_ not fall, but that it would stay until the Day of Judgment,
+because it was in the room above that the wicked Count Albert sat
+watching the flames destroy the great castle and his imprisoned guests,
+and where he finally hung himself in a suit of armor that had belonged
+to his mediaeval ancestor, the first Count Kropfsberg.
+
+No one dared touch him, and so he hung there for twelve years, and all
+the time venturesome boys and daring men used to creep up the turret
+steps and stare awfully through the chinks in the door at that ghostly
+mass of steel that held within itself the body of a murderer and
+suicide, slowly returning to the dust from which it was made. Finally it
+disappeared, none knew whither, and for another dozen years the room
+stood empty but for the old furniture and the rotting hangings.
+
+So, when the two men climbed the stairway to the haunted room, they
+found a very different state of things from what exists now. The room
+was absolutely as it was left the night Count Albert burned the castle,
+except that all trace of the suspended suit of armor and its ghastly
+contents had vanished.
+
+No one had dared to cross the threshold, and I suppose that for forty
+years no living thing had entered that dreadful room.
+
+On one side stood a vast canopied bed of black wood, the damask hangings
+of which were covered with mould and mildew. All the clothing of the bed
+was in perfect order, and on it lay a book, open, and face downward. The
+only other furniture in the room consisted of several old chairs, a
+carved oak chest, and a big inlaid table covered with books and papers,
+and on one corner two or three bottles with dark solid sediment at the
+bottom, and a glass, also dark with the dregs of wine that had been
+poured out almost half a century before. The tapestry on the walls was
+green with mould, but hardly torn or otherwise defaced, for although the
+heavy dust of forty years lay on everything the room had been preserved
+from further harm. No spider web was to be seen, no trace of nibbling
+mice, not even a dead moth or fly on the sills of the diamond-paned
+windows; life seemed to have shunned the room utterly and finally.
+
+The men looked at the room curiously, and, I am sure, not without some
+feelings of awe and unacknowledged fear; but, whatever they may have
+felt of instinctive shrinking, they said nothing, and quickly set to
+work to make the room passably inhabitable. They decided to touch
+nothing that had not absolutely to be changed, and therefore they made
+for themselves a bed in one corner with the mattress and linen from the
+inn. In the great fireplace they piled a lot of wood on the caked ashes
+of a fire dead for forty years, turned the old chest into a table, and
+laid out on it all their arrangements for the evening's amusement: food,
+two or three bottles of wine, pipes and tobacco, and the chess-board
+that was their inseparable travelling companion.
+
+All this they did themselves: the innkeeper would not even come within
+the walls of the outer court; he insisted that he had washed his hands
+of the whole affair, the silly dunderheads might go to their death their
+own way. _He_ would not aid and abet them. One of the stable boys
+brought the basket of food and the wood and the bed up the winding stone
+stairs, to be sure, but neither money nor prayers nor threats would
+bring him within the walls of the accursed place, and he stared
+fearfully at the hare-brained boys as they worked around the dead old
+room preparing for the night that was coming so fast.
+
+At length everything was in readiness, and after a final visit to the
+inn for dinner Rupert and Otto started at sunset for the Keep. Half the
+village went with them, for Peter Rosskopf had babbled the whole story
+to an open-mouthed crowd of wondering men and women, and as to an
+execution the awe-struck crowd followed the two boys dumbly, curious to
+see if they surely would put their plan into execution. But none went
+farther than the outer doorway of the stairs, for it was already growing
+twilight. In absolute silence they watched the two foolhardy youths with
+their lives in their hands enter the terrible Keep, standing like a
+tower in the midst of the piles of stones that had once formed walls
+joining it with the mass of the castle beyond. When a moment later a
+light showed itself in the high windows above, they sighed resignedly
+and went their ways, to wait stolidly until morning should come and
+prove the truth of their fears and warnings.
+
+In the mean time the ghost hunters built a huge fire, lighted their
+many candles, and sat down to await developments. Rupert afterwards told
+my uncle that they really felt no fear whatever, only a contemptuous
+curiosity, and they ate their supper with good appetite and an unusual
+relish. It was a long evening. They played many games of chess, waiting
+for midnight. Hour passed after hour, and nothing occurred to interrupt
+the monotony of the evening. Ten, eleven, came and went,--it was almost
+midnight. They piled more wood in the fireplace, lighted new candles,
+looked to their pistols--and waited. The clocks in the village struck
+twelve; the sound coming muffled through the high, deep-embrasured
+windows. Nothing happened, nothing to break the heavy silence; and with
+a feeling of disappointed relief they looked at each other and
+acknowledged that they had met another rebuff.
+
+Finally they decided that there was no use in sitting up and boring
+themselves any longer, they had much better rest; so Otto threw himself
+down on the mattress, falling almost immediately asleep. Rupert sat a
+little longer, smoking, and watching the stars creep along behind the
+shattered glass and the bent leads of the lofty windows; watching the
+fire fall together, and the strange shadows move mysteriously on the
+mouldering walls. The iron hook in the oak beam, that crossed the
+ceiling midway, fascinated him, not with fear, but morbidly. So, it was
+from that hook that for twelve years, twelve long years of changing
+summer and winter, the body of Count Albert, murderer and suicide, hung
+in its strange casing of mediaeval steel; moving a little at first, and
+turning gently while the fire died out on the hearth, while the ruins of
+the castle grew cold, and horrified peasants sought for the bodies of
+the score of gay, reckless, wicked guests whom Count Albert had gathered
+in Kropfsberg for a last debauch, gathered to their terrible and
+untimely death. What a strange and fiendish idea it was, the young,
+handsome noble who had ruined himself and his family in the society of
+the splendid debauchees, gathering them all together, men and women who
+had known only love and pleasure, for a glorious and awful riot of
+luxury, and then, when they were all dancing in the great ballroom,
+locking the doors and burning the whole castle about them, the while he
+sat in the great keep listening to their screams of agonized fear,
+watching the fire sweep from wing to wing until the whole mighty mass
+was one enormous and awful pyre, and then, clothing himself in his
+great-great-grandfather's armor, hanging himself in the midst of the
+ruins of what had been a proud and noble castle. So ended a great
+family, a great house.
+
+But that was forty years ago.
+
+He was growing drowsy; the light flickered and flared in the fireplace;
+one by one the candles went out; the shadows grew thick in the room. Why
+did that great iron hook stand out so plainly? why did that dark shadow
+dance and quiver so mockingly behind it?--why-- But he ceased to wonder
+at anything. He was asleep.
+
+It seemed to him that he woke almost immediately; the fire still burned,
+though low and fitfully on the hearth. Otto was sleeping, breathing
+quietly and regularly; the shadows had gathered close around him, thick
+and murky; with every passing moment the light died in the fireplace; he
+felt stiff with cold. In the utter silence he heard the clock in the
+village strike two. He shivered with a sudden and irresistible feeling
+of fear, and abruptly turned and looked towards the hook in the ceiling.
+
+Yes, It was there. He knew that It would be. It seemed quite natural, he
+would have been disappointed had he seen nothing; but now he knew that
+the story was true, knew that he was wrong, and that the dead _do_
+sometimes return to earth, for there, in the fast-deepening shadow, hung
+the black mass of wrought steel, turning a little now and then, with the
+light flickering on the tarnished and rusty metal. He watched it
+quietly; he hardly felt afraid; it was rather a sentiment of sadness and
+fatality that filled him, of gloomy forebodings of something unknown,
+unimaginable. He sat and watched the thing disappear in the gathering
+dark, his hand on his pistol as it lay by him on the great chest. There
+was no sound but the regular breathing of the sleeping boy on the
+mattress.
+
+It had grown absolutely dark; a bat fluttered against the broken glass
+of the window. He wondered if he was growing mad, for--he hesitated to
+acknowledge it to himself--he heard music; far, curious music, a strange
+and luxurious dance, very faint, very vague, but unmistakable.
+
+Like a flash of lightning came a jagged line of fire down the blank wall
+opposite him, a line that remained, that grew wider, that let a pale
+cold light into the room, showing him now all its details,--the empty
+fireplace, where a thin smoke rose in a spiral from a bit of charred
+wood, the mass of the great bed, and, in the very middle, black against
+the curious brightness, the armored man, or ghost, or devil, standing,
+not suspended, beneath the rusty hook. And with the rending of the wall
+the music grew more distinct, though sounding still very, very far away.
+
+Count Albert raised his mailed hand and beckoned to him; then turned,
+and stood in the riven wall.
+
+Without a word, Rupert rose and followed him, his pistol in hand. Count
+Albert passed through the mighty wall and disappeared in the unearthly
+light. Rupert followed mechanically. He felt the crushing of the mortar
+beneath his feet, the roughness of the jagged wall where he rested his
+hand to steady himself.
+
+The keep rose absolutely isolated among the ruins, yet on passing
+through the wall Rupert found himself in a long, uneven corridor, the
+floor of which was warped and sagging, while the walls were covered on
+one side with big faded portraits of an inferior quality, like those in
+the corridor that connects the Pitti and Uffizzi in Florence. Before him
+moved the figure of Count Albert,--a black silhouette in the
+ever-increasing light. And always the music grew stronger and stranger,
+a mad, evil, seductive dance that bewitched even while it disgusted.
+
+In a final blaze of vivid, intolerable light, in a burst of hellish
+music that might have come from Bedlam, Rupert stepped from the corridor
+into a vast and curious room where at first he saw nothing,
+distinguished nothing but a mad, seething whirl of sweeping figures,
+white, in a white room, under white light, Count Albert standing before
+him, the only dark object to be seen. As his eyes grew accustomed to the
+fearful brightness, he knew that he was looking on a dance such as the
+damned might see in hell, but such as no living man had ever seen
+before.
+
+Around the long, narrow hall, under the fearful light that came from
+nowhere, but was omnipresent, swept a rushing stream of unspeakable
+horrors, dancing insanely, laughing, gibbering hideously; the dead of
+forty years. White, polished skeletons, bare of flesh and vesture,
+skeletons clothed in the dreadful rags of dried and rattling sinews, the
+tags of tattering grave-clothes flaunting behind them. These were the
+dead of many years ago. Then the dead of more recent times, with yellow
+bones showing only here and there, the long and insecure hair of their
+hideous heads writhing in the beating air. Then green and gray horrors,
+bloated and shapeless, stained with earth or dripping with spattering
+water; and here and there white, beautiful things, like chiselled ivory,
+the dead of yesterday, locked it may be, in the mummy arms of rattling
+skeletons.
+
+Round and round the cursed room, a swaying, swirling maelstrom of death,
+while the air grew thick with miasma, the floor foul with shreds of
+shrouds, and yellow parchment, clattering bones, and wisps of tangled
+hair.
+
+And in the very midst of this ring of death, a sight not for words nor
+for thought, a sight to blast forever the mind of the man who looked
+upon it: a leaping, writhing dance of Count Albert's victims, the score
+of beautiful women and reckless men who danced to their awful death
+while the castle burned around them, charred and shapeless now, a living
+charnel-house of nameless horror.
+
+Count Albert, who had stood silent and gloomy, watching the dance of the
+damned, turned to Rupert, and for the first time spoke.
+
+"We are ready for you now; dance!"
+
+A prancing horror, dead some dozen years, perhaps, flaunted from the
+rushing river of the dead, and leered at Rupert with eyeless skull.
+
+"Dance!"
+
+Rupert stood frozen, motionless.
+
+"Dance!"
+
+His hard lips moved. "Not if the devil came from hell to make me."
+
+Count Albert swept his vast two-handed sword into the f[oe]tid air while
+the tide of corruption paused in its swirling, and swept down on Rupert
+with gibbering grins.
+
+The room, and the howling dead, and the black portent before him circled
+dizzily around, as with a last effort of departing consciousness he
+drew his pistol and fired full in the face of Count Albert.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perfect silence, perfect darkness; not a breath, not a sound: the dead
+stillness of a long-sealed tomb. Rupert lay on his back, stunned,
+helpless, his pistol clenched in his frozen hand, a smell of powder in
+the black air. Where was he? Dead? In hell? He reached his hand out
+cautiously; it fell on dusty boards. Outside, far away, a clock struck
+three. Had he dreamed? Of course; but how ghastly a dream! With
+chattering teeth he called softly,--
+
+"Otto!"
+
+There was no reply, and none when he called again and again. He
+staggered weakly to his feet, groping for matches and candles. A panic
+of abject terror came on him; the matches were gone! He turned towards
+the fireplace: a single coal glowed in the white ashes. He swept a mass
+of papers and dusty books from the table, and with trembling hands
+cowered over the embers, until he succeeded in lighting the dry tinder.
+Then he piled the old books on the blaze, and looked fearfully around.
+
+No: It was gone,--thank God for that; the hook was empty.
+
+But why did Otto sleep so soundly; why did he not awake?
+
+He stepped unsteadily across the room in the flaring light of the
+burning books, and knelt by the mattress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So they found him in the morning, when no one came to the inn from
+Kropfsberg Keep, and the quaking Peter Rosskopf arranged a relief
+party;--found him kneeling beside the mattress where Otto lay, shot in
+the throat and quite dead.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE VILLA.
+
+
+
+
+The White Villa.
+
+
+When we left Naples on the 8.10 train for Paestum, Tom and I, we fully
+intended returning by the 2.46. Not because two hours time seemed enough
+wherein to exhaust the interests of those deathless ruins of a dead
+civilization, but simply for the reason that, as our _Indicatore_
+informed us, there was but one other train, and that at 6.11, which
+would land us in Naples too late for the dinner at the Turners and the
+San Carlo afterwards. Not that I cared in the least for the dinner or
+the theatre; but then, I was not so obviously in Miss Turner's good
+graces as Tom Rendel was, which made a difference.
+
+However, we had promised, so that was an end of it.
+
+This was in the spring of '88, and at that time the railroad, which was
+being pushed onward to Reggio, whereby travellers to Sicily might be
+spared the agonies of a night on the fickle Mediterranean, reached no
+farther than Agropoli, some twenty miles beyond Paestum; but although the
+trains were as yet few and slow, we accepted the half-finished road with
+gratitude, for it penetrated the very centre of Campanian brigandage,
+and made it possible for us to see the matchless temples in safety,
+while a few years before it was necessary for intending visitors to
+obtain a military escort from the Government; and military escorts are
+not for young architects.
+
+So we set off contentedly, that white May morning, determined to make
+the best of our few hours, little thinking that before we saw Naples
+again we were to witness things that perhaps no American had ever seen
+before.
+
+For a moment, when we left the train at "Pesto," and started to walk up
+the flowery lane leading to the temples, we were almost inclined to
+curse this same railroad. We had thought, in our innocence, that we
+should be alone, that no one else would think of enduring the long four
+hours' ride from Naples just to spend two hours in the ruins of these
+temples; but the event proved our unwisdom. We were _not_ alone. It was
+a compact little party of conventional sight-seers that accompanied us.
+The inevitable English family with the three daughters, prominent of
+teeth, flowing of hair, aggressive of scarlet Murrays and Baedekers; the
+two blond and untidy Germans; a French couple from the pages of _La Vie
+Parisienne_; and our "old man of the sea," the white-bearded
+Presbyterian minister from Pennsylvania who had made our life miserable
+in Rome at the time of the Pope's Jubilee. Fortunately for us, this
+terrible old man had fastened himself upon a party of American
+school-teachers travelling _en Cook_, and for the time we were safe; but
+our vision of two hours of dreamy solitude faded lamentably away.
+
+Yet how beautiful it was! this golden meadow walled with far, violet
+mountains, breathless under a May sun; and in the midst, rising from
+tangles of asphodel and acanthus, vast in the vacant plain, three
+temples, one silver gray, one golden gray, and one flushed with
+intangible rose. And all around nothing but velvet meadows stretching
+from the dim mountains behind, away to the sea, that showed only as a
+thin line of silver just over the edge of the still grass.
+
+The tide of tourists swept noisily through the Basilica and the temple
+of Poseidon across the meadow to the distant temple of Ceres, and Tom
+and I were left alone to drink in all the fine wine of dreams that was
+possible in the time left us. We gave but little space to examining the
+temples the tourists had left, but in a few moments found ourselves
+lying in the grass to the east of Poseidon, looking dimly out towards
+the sea, heard now, but not seen,--a vague and pulsating murmur that
+blended with the humming of bees all about us.
+
+A small shepherd boy, with a woolly dog, made shy advances of
+friendship, and in a little time we had set him to gathering flowers for
+us: asphodels and bee-orchids, anemones, and the little thin green iris
+so fairylike and frail. The murmur of the tourist crowd had merged
+itself in the moan of the sea, and it was very still; suddenly I heard
+the words I had been waiting for,--the suggestion I had refrained from
+making myself, for I knew Thomas.
+
+"I say, old man, shall we let the 2.46 go to thunder?"
+
+I chuckled to myself. "But the Turners?"
+
+"They be blowed, we can tell them we missed the train."
+
+"That is just exactly what we shall do," I said, pulling out my watch,
+"unless we start for the station right now."
+
+But Tom drew an acanthus leaf across his face and showed no signs of
+moving; so I filled my pipe again, and we missed the train.
+
+As the sun dropped lower towards the sea, changing its silver line to
+gold, we pulled ourselves together, and for an hour or more sketched
+vigorously; but the mood was not on us. It was "too jolly fine to waste
+time working," as Tom said; so we started off to explore the single
+street of the squalid town of Pesto that was lost within the walls of
+dead Poseidonia. It was not a pretty village,--if you can call a
+rut-riven lane and a dozen houses a village,--nor were the inhabitants
+thereof reassuring in appearance. There was no sign of a
+church,--nothing but dirty huts, and in the midst, one of two stories,
+rejoicing in the name of _Albergo del Sole_, the first story of which
+was a black and cavernous smithy, where certain swarthy knaves, looking
+like banditti out of a job, sat smoking sulkily.
+
+"We might stay here all night," said Tom, grinning askance at this
+choice company; but his suggestion was not received with enthusiasm.
+
+Down where the lane from the station joined the main road stood the only
+sign of modern civilization,--a great square structure, half villa, half
+fortress, with round turrets on its four corners, and a ten-foot wall
+surrounding it. There were no windows in its first story, so far as we
+could see, and it had evidently been at one time the fortified villa of
+some Campanian noble. Now, however, whether because brigandage had been
+stamped out, or because the villa was empty and deserted, it was no
+longer formidable; the gates of the great wall hung sagging on their
+hinges, brambles growing all over them, and many of the windows in the
+upper story were broken and black. It was a strange place, weird and
+mysterious, and we looked at it curiously. "There is a story about that
+place," said Tom, with conviction.
+
+It was growing late: the sun was near the edge of the sea as we walked
+down the ivy-grown walls of the vanished city for the last time, and as
+we turned back, a red flush poured from the west, and painted the Doric
+temples in pallid rose against the evanescent purple of the Apennines.
+Already a thin mist was rising from the meadows, and the temples hung
+pink in the misty grayness.
+
+It was a sorrow to leave the beautiful things, but we could run no risk
+of missing this last train, so we walked slowly back towards the
+temples.
+
+"What is that Johnny waving his arm at us for?" asked Tom, suddenly.
+
+"How should I know? We are not on his land, and the walls don't matter."
+
+We pulled out our watches simultaneously.
+
+"What time are you?" I said.
+
+"Six minutes before six."
+
+"And I am seven minutes. It can't take us all that time to walk to the
+station."
+
+"Are you sure the train goes at 6.11?"
+
+"Dead sure," I answered; and showed him the _Indicatore_.
+
+By this time a woman and two children were shrieking at us hysterically;
+but what they said I had no idea, their Italian being of a strange and
+awful nature.
+
+"Look here," I said, "let's run; perhaps our watches are both slow."
+
+"Or--perhaps the time-table is changed."
+
+Then we ran, and the populace cheered and shouted with enthusiasm; our
+dignified run became a panic-stricken rout, for as we turned into the
+lane, smoke was rising from beyond the bank that hid the railroad; a
+bell rang; we were so near that we could hear the interrogative
+_Pronte?_ the impatient _Partenza!_ and the definitive _Andiamo!_ But
+the train was five hundred yards away, steaming towards Naples, when we
+plunged into the station as the clock struck six, and yelled for the
+station-master.
+
+He came, and we indulged in crimination and recrimination.
+
+When we could regard the situation calmly, it became apparent that the
+time-table _had_ been changed two days before, the 6.11 now leaving at
+5.58. A _facchino_ came in, and we four sat down and regarded the
+situation judicially.
+
+"Was there any other train?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Could we stay at the Albergo del Sole?"
+
+A forefinger drawn across the throat by the Capo Stazione with a
+significant "cluck" closed that question.
+
+"Then we must stay with you here at the station."
+
+"But, Signori, I am not married. I live here only with the _facchini_. I
+have only one room to sleep in. It is impossible!"
+
+"But we must sleep somewhere, likewise eat. What can we do?" and we
+shifted the responsibility deftly on the shoulders of the poor old man,
+who was growing excited again.
+
+He trotted nervously up and down the station for a minute, then he
+called the _facchino_. "Giuseppe, go up to the villa and ask if two
+_forestieri_ who have missed the last train can stay there all night!"
+
+Protests were useless. The _facchino_ was gone, and we waited anxiously
+for his return. It seemed as though he would never come. Darkness had
+fallen, and the moon was rising over the mountains. At last he appeared.
+
+"The Signori may stay all night, and welcome; but they cannot come to
+dinner, for there is nothing in the house to eat!"
+
+This was not reassuring, and again the old station-master lost himself
+in meditation. The results were admirable, for in a little time the
+table in the waiting-room had been transformed into a dining-table, and
+Tom and I were ravenously devouring a big omelette, and bread and
+cheese, and drinking a most shocking sour wine as though it were Chateau
+Yquem. A _facchino_ served us, with clumsy good-will; and when we had
+induced our nervous old host to sit down with us and partake of his own
+hospitality, we succeeded in forming a passably jolly dinner-party,
+forgetting over our sour wine and cigarettes the coming hours from ten
+until sunrise, which lay before us in a dubious mist.
+
+It was with crowding apprehensions which we strove in vain to joke away
+that we set out at last to retrace our steps to the mysterious villa,
+the _facchino_ Giuseppe leading the way. By this time the moon was well
+overhead, and just behind us as we tramped up the dewy lane, white in
+the moonlight between the ink-black hedgerows on either side. How still
+it was! Not a breath of air, not a sound of life; only the awful silence
+that had lain almost unbroken for two thousand years over this vast
+graveyard of a dead world.
+
+As we passed between the shattered gates and wound our way in the
+moonlight through the maze of gnarled fruit-trees, decaying farm
+implements and piles of lumber, towards the small door that formed the
+only opening in the first story of this deserted fortress, the cold
+silence was shattered by the harsh baying of dogs somewhere in the
+distance to the right, beyond the barns that formed one side of the
+court. From the villa came neither light nor sound. Giuseppe knocked at
+the weather-worn door, and the sound echoed cavernously within; but
+there was no other reply. He knocked again and again, and at length we
+heard the rasping jar of sliding bolts, and the door opened a little,
+showing an old, old man, bent with age and gaunt with malaria. Over his
+head he held a big Roman lamp, with three wicks, that cast strange
+shadows on his face,--a face that was harmless in its senility, but
+intolerably sad. He made no reply to our timid salutations, but motioned
+tremblingly to us to enter; and with a last "good-night" to Giuseppe we
+obeyed, and stood half-way up the stone stairs that led directly from
+the door, while the old man tediously shot every bolt and adjusted the
+heavy bar.
+
+Then we followed him in the semi-darkness up the steps into what had
+been the great hall of the villa. A fire was burning in a great
+fireplace so beautiful in design that Tom and I looked at each other
+with interest. By its fitful light we could see that we were in a huge
+circular room covered by a flat, saucer-shaped dome,--a room that must
+once have been superb and splendid, but that now was a lamentable wreck.
+The frescoes on the dome were stained and mildewed, and here and there
+the plaster was gone altogether; the carved doorways that led out on all
+sides had lost half the gold with which they had once been covered, and
+the floor was of brick, sunken into treacherous valleys. Rough chests,
+piles of old newspapers, fragments of harnesses, farm implements, a heap
+of rusty carbines and cutlasses, nameless litter of every possible kind,
+made the room into a wilderness which under the firelight seemed even
+more picturesque than it really was. And on this inexpressible confusion
+of lumber the pale shapes of the seventeenth-century nymphs, startling
+in their weather-stained nudity, looked down with vacant smiles.
+
+For a few moments we warmed ourselves before the fire; and then, in the
+same dejected silence, the old man led the way to one of the many doors,
+handed us a brass lamp, and with a stiff bow turned his back on us.
+
+Once in our room alone, Tom and I looked at each other with faces that
+expressed the most complex emotions.
+
+"Well, of all the rum goes," said Tom, "this is the rummiest go I ever
+experienced!"
+
+"Right, my boy; as you very justly remark, we are in for it. Help me
+shut this door, and then we will reconnoitre, take account of stock, and
+size up our chances."
+
+But the door showed no sign of closing; it grated on the brick floor and
+stuck in the warped casing, and it took our united efforts to jam the
+two inches of oak into its place, and turn the enormous old key in its
+rusty lock.
+
+"Better now, much better now," said Tom; "now let us see where we are."
+
+The room was easily twenty-five feet square, and high in proportion;
+evidently it had been a state apartment, for the walls were covered with
+carved panelling that had once been white and gold, with mirrors in the
+panels, the wood now stained every imaginable color, the mirrors
+cracked and broken, and dull with mildew. A big fire had just been
+lighted in the fireplace, the shutters were closed, and although the
+only furniture consisted of two massive bedsteads, and a chair with one
+leg shorter than the others, the room seemed almost comfortable.
+
+I opened one of the shutters, that closed the great windows that ran
+from the floor almost to the ceiling, and nearly fell through the
+cracked glass into the floorless balcony. "Tom, come here, quick," I
+cried; and for a few minutes neither of us thought about our dubious
+surroundings, for we were looking at Paestum by moonlight.
+
+A flat, white mist, like water, lay over the entire meadow; from the
+midst rose against the blue-black sky the three ghostly temples, black
+and silver in the vivid moonlight, floating, it seemed, in the fog; and
+behind them, seen in broken glints between the pallid shafts, stretched
+the line of the silver sea.
+
+Perfect silence,--the silence of implacable death.
+
+We watched the white tide of mist rise around the temples, until we were
+chilled through, and so presently went to bed. There was but one door
+in the room, and that was securely locked; the great windows were twenty
+feet from the ground, so we felt reasonably safe from all possible
+attack.
+
+In a few minutes Tom was asleep and breathing audibly; but my
+constitution is more nervous than his, and I lay awake for some little
+time, thinking of our curious adventure and of its possible outcome.
+Finally, I fell asleep,--for how long I do not know: but I woke with the
+feeling that some one had tried the handle of the door. The fire had
+fallen into a heap of coals which cast a red glow in the room, whereby I
+could see dimly the outline of Tom's bed, the broken-legged chair in
+front of the fireplace, and the door in its deep casing by the chimney,
+directly in front of my bed. I sat up, nervous from my sudden awakening
+under these strange circumstances, and stared at the door. The latch
+rattled, and the door swung smoothly open. I began to shiver coldly.
+That door was locked; Tom and I had all we could do to jam it together
+and lock it. But we _did_ lock it; and now it was opening silently. In a
+minute more it as silently closed.
+
+Then I heard a footstep,--I swear I heard a footstep _in the room_, and
+with it the _frou-frou_ of trailing skirts; my breath stopped and my
+teeth grated against each other as I heard the soft footfalls and the
+feminine rustle pass along the room towards the fireplace. My eyes saw
+nothing; yet there was enough light in the room for me to distinguish
+the pattern on the carved panels of the door. The steps stopped by the
+fire, and I saw the broken-legged chair lean to the left, with a little
+jar as its short leg touched the floor.
+
+I sat still, frozen, motionless, staring at the vacancy that was filled
+with such terror for me; and as I looked, the seat of the chair creaked,
+and it came back to its upright position again.
+
+And then the footsteps came down the room lightly, towards the window;
+there was a pause, and then the great shutters swung back, and the white
+moonlight poured in. Its brilliancy was unbroken by any shadow, by any
+sign of material substance.
+
+I tried to cry out, to make some sound, to awaken Tom; this sense of
+utter loneliness in the presence of the Inexplicable was maddening. I
+don't know whether my lips obeyed my will or no; at all events, Tom lay
+motionless, with his deaf ear up, and gave no sign.
+
+The shutters closed as silently as they had opened; the moonlight was
+gone, the firelight also, and in utter darkness I waited. If I could
+only _see_! If something were visible, I should not mind it so much; but
+this ghastly hearing of every little sound, every rustle of a gown,
+every breath, yet seeing nothing, was soul-destroying. I think in my
+abject terror I prayed that I might see, only see; but the darkness was
+unbroken.
+
+Then the footsteps began to waver fitfully, and I heard the rustle of
+garments sliding to the floor, the clatter of little shoes flung down,
+the rattle of buttons, and of metal against wood.
+
+Rigors shot over me, and my whole body shivered with collapse as I sank
+back on the pillow, waiting with every nerve tense, listening with all
+my life.
+
+The coverlid was turned back beside me, and in another moment the great
+bed sank a little as something slipped between the sheets with an
+audible sigh.
+
+I called to my aid every atom of remaining strength, and, with a cry
+that shivered between my clattering teeth, I hurled myself headlong from
+the bed on to the floor.
+
+I must have lain for some time stunned and unconscious, for when I
+finally came to myself it was cold in the room, there was no last glow
+of lingering coals in the fireplace, and I was stiff with chill.
+
+It all flashed over me like the haunting of a heavy dream. I laughed a
+little at the dim memory, with the thought, "I must try to recollect all
+the details; they will do to tell Tom," and rose stiffly to return to
+bed, when--there it was again, and my heart stopped,--the hand on the
+door.
+
+I paused and listened. The door opened with a muffled creak, closed
+again, and I heard the lock turn rustily. I would have died now before
+getting into that bed again; but there was terror equally without; so I
+stood trembling and listened,--listened to heavy, stealthy steps
+creeping along on the other side of the bed. I clutched the coverlid,
+staring across into the dark.
+
+There was a rush in the air by my face, the sound of a blow, and
+simultaneously a shriek, so awful, so despairing, so blood-curdling that
+I felt my senses leaving me again as I sank crouching on the floor by
+the bed.
+
+And then began the awful duel, the duel of invisible, audible shapes;
+of things that shrieked and raved, mingling thin, feminine cries with
+low, stifled curses and indistinguishable words. Round and round the
+room, footsteps chasing footsteps in the ghastly night, now away by
+Tom's bed, now rushing swiftly down the great room until I felt the
+flash of swirling drapery on my hard lips. Round and round, turning and
+twisting till my brain whirled with the mad cries.
+
+They were coming nearer. I felt the jar of their feet on the floor
+beside me. Came one long, gurgling moan close over my head, and then,
+crushing down upon me, the weight of a collapsing body; there was long
+hair over my face, and in my staring eyes; and as awful silence
+succeeded the less awful tumult, life went out, and I fell unfathomable
+miles into nothingness.
+
+The gray dawn was sifting through the chinks in the shutters when I
+opened my eyes again. I lay stunned and faint, staring up at the mouldy
+frescoes on the ceiling, struggling to gather together my wandering
+senses and knit them into something like consciousness. But now as I
+pulled myself little by little together there was no thought of dreams
+before me. One after another the awful incidents of that unspeakable
+night came back, and I lay incapable of movement, of action, trying to
+piece together the whirling fragments of memory that circled dizzily
+around me.
+
+Little by little it grew lighter in the room. I could see the pallid
+lines struggling through the shutters behind me, grow stronger along the
+broken and dusty floor. The tarnished mirrors reflected dirtily the
+growing daylight; a door closed, far away, and I heard the crowing of a
+cock; then by and by the whistle of a passing train.
+
+Years seemed to have passed since I first came into this terrible room.
+I had lost the use of my tongue, my voice refused to obey my
+panic-stricken desire to cry out; once or twice I tried in vain to force
+an articulate sound through my rigid lips; and when at last a broken
+whisper rewarded my feverish struggles, I felt a strange sense of great
+victory. How soundly he slept! Ordinarily, rousing him was no easy task,
+and now he revolted steadily against being awakened at this untimely
+hour. It seemed to me that I had called him for ages almost, before I
+heard him grunt sleepily and turn in bed.
+
+"Tom," I cried weakly, "Tom, come and help me!"
+
+"What do you want? what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Don't ask, come and help me!"
+
+"Fallen out of bed I guess;" and he laughed drowsily.
+
+My abject terror lest he should go to sleep again gave me new strength.
+Was it the actual physical paralysis born of killing fear that held me
+down? I could not have raised my head from the floor on my life; I could
+only cry out in deadly fear for Tom to come and help me.
+
+"Why don't you get up and get into bed?" he answered, when I implored
+him to come to me. "You have got a bad nightmare; wake up!"
+
+But something in my voice roused him at last, and he came chuckling
+across the room, stopping to throw open two of the great shutters and
+let a burst of white light into the room. He climbed up on the bed and
+peered over jeeringly. With the first glance the laugh died, and he
+leaped the bed and bent over me.
+
+"My God, man, what is the matter with you? You are hurt!"
+
+"I don't know what is the matter; lift me up, get me away from here, and
+I'll tell you all I know."
+
+"But, old chap, you must be hurt awfully; the floor is covered with
+blood!"
+
+He lifted my head and held me in his powerful arms. I looked down: a
+great red stain blotted the floor beside me.
+
+But, apart from the black bruise on my head, there was no sign of a
+wound on my body, nor stain of blood on my lips. In as few words as
+possible I told him the whole story.
+
+"Let's get out of this," he said when I had finished; "this is no place
+for us. Brigands I can stand, but--"
+
+He helped me to dress, and as soon as possible we forced open the heavy
+door, the door I had seen turn so softly on its hinges only a few hours
+before, and came out into the great circular hall, no less strange and
+mysterious now in the half light of dawn than it had been by firelight.
+The room was empty, for it must have been very early, although a fire
+already blazed in the fireplace. We sat by the fire some time, seeing no
+one. Presently slow footsteps sounded in the stairway, and the old man
+entered, silent as the night before, nodding to us civilly, but showing
+by no sign any surprise which he may have felt at our early rising. In
+absolute silence he moved around, preparing coffee for us; and when at
+last the frugal breakfast was ready, and we sat around the rough table
+munching coarse bread and sipping the black coffee, he would reply to
+our overtures only by monosyllables.
+
+Any attempt at drawing from him some facts as to the history of the
+villa was received with a grave and frigid repellence that baffled us;
+and we were forced to say _addio_ with our hunger for some explanation
+of the events of the night still unsatisfied.
+
+But we saw the temples by sunrise, when the mistlike lambent opals
+bathed the bases of the tall columns salmon in the morning light! It was
+a rhapsody in the pale and unearthly colors of Puvis de Chavannes
+vitalized and made glorious with splendid sunlight; the apotheosis of
+mist; a vision never before seen, never to be forgotten. It was so
+beautiful that the memory of my ghastly night paled and faded, and it
+was Tom who assailed the station-master with questions while we waited
+for the train from Agropoli.
+
+Luckily he was more than loquacious, he was voluble under the
+ameliorating influence of the money we forced upon him; and this, in few
+words, was the story he told us while we sat on the platform smoking,
+marvelling at the mists that rose to the east, now veiling, now
+revealing the lavender Apennines.
+
+"Is there a story of _La Villa Bianca_?"
+
+"Ah, Signori, certainly; and a story very strange and very terrible. It
+was much time ago, a hundred,--two hundred years; I do not know. Well,
+the Duca di San Damiano married a lady so fair, so most beautiful that
+she was called _La Luna di Pesto_; but she was of the people,--more, she
+was of the banditti: her father was of Calabria, and a terror of the
+Campagna. But the Duke was young, and he married her, and for her built
+the white villa; and it was a wonder throughout Campania,--you have
+seen? It is splendid now, even if a ruin. Well, it was less than a year
+after they came to the villa before the Duke grew jealous,--jealous of
+the new captain of the banditti who took the place of the father of _La
+Luna_, himself killed in a great battle up there in the mountains. Was
+there cause? Who shall know? But there were stories among the people of
+terrible things in the villa, and how _La Luna_ was seen almost never
+outside the walls. Then the Duke would go for many days to Napoli,
+coming home only now and then to the villa that was become a fortress,
+so many men guarded its never-opening gates. And once--it was in the
+spring--the Duke came silently down from Napoli, and there, by the three
+poplars you see away towards the north, his carriage was set upon by
+armed men, and he was almost killed; but he had with him many guards,
+and after a terrible fight the brigands were beaten off; but before him,
+wounded, lay the captain,--the man whom he feared and hated. He looked
+at him, lying there under the torchlight, and in his hand saw _his own
+sword_. Then he became a devil: with the same sword he ran the brigand
+through, leaped in the carriage, and, entering the villa, crept to the
+chamber of _La Luna_, and killed her with the sword she had given to her
+lover.
+
+"This is all the story of the White Villa, except that the Duke came
+never again to Pesto. He went back to the king at Napoli, and for many
+years he was the scourge of the banditti of Campania; for the King made
+him a general, and San Damiano was a name feared by the lawless and
+loved by the peaceful, until he was killed in a battle down by Mormanno.
+
+"And _La Luna_? Some say she comes back to the villa, once a year, when
+the moon is full, in the month when she was slain; for the Duke buried
+her, they say, with his own hands, in the garden that was once under the
+window of her chamber; and as she died unshriven, so was she buried
+without the pale of the Church. Therefore she cannot sleep in
+peace,--_non e vero_? I do not know if the story is true, but this is
+the story, Signori, and there is the train for Napoli. _Ah, grazie!
+Signori, grazie tanto! A rivederci! Signori, a rivederci!_"
+
+
+
+
+SISTER MADDELENA.
+
+
+
+
+Sister Maddelena.
+
+
+Across the valley of the Oreto from Monreale, on the slopes of the
+mountains just above the little village of Parco, lies the old convent
+of Sta. Catarina. From the cloister terrace at Monreale you can see its
+pale walls and the slim campanile of its chapel rising from the crowded
+citron and mulberry orchards that flourish, rank and wild, no longer
+cared for by pious and loving hands. From the rough road that climbs the
+mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged
+olive grove intervening, and a spur of cliffs as well, while from
+Palermo one sees only the speck of white, flashing in the sun,
+indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or
+pauper village.
+
+Partly because of this seclusion, partly by reason of its extreme
+beauty, partly, it may be, because the present owners are more than
+charming and gracious in their pressing hospitality, Sta. Catarina seems
+to preserve an element of the poetic, almost magical; and as I drove
+with the Cavaliere Valguanera one evening in March out of Palermo, along
+the garden valley of the Oreto, then up the mountain side where the warm
+light of the spring sunset swept across from Monreale, lying golden and
+mellow on the luxuriant growth of figs, and olives, and orange-trees,
+and fantastic cacti, and so up to where the path of the convent swung
+off to the right round a dizzy point of cliff that reached out gaunt and
+gray from the olives below,--as I drove thus in the balmy air, and saw
+of a sudden a vision of creamy walls and orange roofs, draped in
+fantastic festoons of roses, with a single curving palm-tree stuck black
+and feathery against the gold sunset, it is hardly to be wondered at
+that I should slip into a mood of visionary enjoyment, looking for a
+time on the whole thing as the misty phantasm of a summer dream.
+
+The Cavaliere had introduced himself to us,--Tom Rendel and me,--one
+morning soon after we reached Palermo, when, in the first bewilderment
+of architects in this paradise of art and color, we were working nobly
+at our sketches in that dream of delight, the Capella Palatina. He was
+himself an amateur archaeologist, he told us, and passionately devoted to
+his island; so he felt impelled to speak to any one whom he saw
+appreciating the almost--and in a way fortunately--unknown beauties of
+Palermo. In a little time we were fully acquainted, and talking like the
+oldest friends. Of course he knew acquaintances of Rendel's,--some one
+always does: this time they were officers on the tubby U. S. S.
+"Quinebaug," that, during the summer of 1888, was trying to uphold the
+maritime honor of the United States in European waters. Luckily for us,
+one of the officers was a kind of cousin of Rendel's, and came from
+Baltimore as well, so, as he had visited at the Cavaliere's place, we
+were soon invited to do the same. It was in this way that, with the luck
+that attends Rendel wherever he goes, we came to see something of
+domestic life in Italy, and that I found myself involved in another of
+those adventures for which I naturally sought so little.
+
+I wonder if there is any other place in Sicily so faultless as Sta.
+Catarina? Taormina is a paradise, an epitome of all that is beautiful in
+Italy,--Venice excepted. Girgenti is a solemn epic, with its golden
+temples between the sea and hills. Cefalu is wild and strange, and
+Monreale a vision out of a fairy tale; but Sta. Catarina!--
+
+Fancy a convent of creamy stone and rose-red brick perched on a ledge of
+rock midway between earth and heaven, the cliff falling almost sheer to
+the valley two hundred feet and more, the mountain rising behind
+straight towards the sky; all the rocks covered with cactus and dwarf
+fig-trees, the convent draped in smothering roses, and in front a
+terrace with a fountain in the midst; and then--nothing--between you and
+the sapphire sea, six miles away. Below stretches the Eden valley, the
+Concha d'Oro, gold-green fig orchards alternating with smoke-blue
+olives, the mountains rising on either hand and sinking undulously away
+towards the bay where, like a magic city of ivory and nacre, Palermo
+lies guarded by the twin mountains, Monte Pellegrino and Capo Zafferano,
+arid rocks like dull amethysts, rose in sunlight, violet in shadow:
+lions couchant, guarding the sleeping town.
+
+Seen as we saw it for the first time that hot evening in March, with the
+golden lambent light pouring down through the valley, making it in
+verity a "shell of gold," sitting in Indian chairs on the terrace, with
+the perfume of roses and jasmines all around us, the valley of the
+Oreto, Palermo, Sta. Catarina, Monreale,--all were but parts of a dreamy
+vision, like the heavenly city of Sir Percivale, to attain which he
+passed across the golden bridge that burned after him as he vanished in
+the intolerable light of the Beatific Vision.
+
+It was all so unreal, so phantasmal, that I was not surprised in the
+least when, late in the evening after the ladies had gone to their
+rooms, and the Cavaliere, Tom, and I were stretched out in chairs on the
+terrace, smoking lazily under the multitudinous stars, the Cavaliere
+said, "There is something I really must tell you both before you go to
+bed, so that you may be spared any unnecessary alarm."
+
+"You are going to say that the place is haunted," said Rendel, feeling
+vaguely on the floor beside him for his glass of Amaro: "thank you; it
+is all it needs."
+
+The Cavaliere smiled a little: "Yes, that is just it. Sta. Catarina is
+really haunted; and much as my reason revolts against the idea as
+superstitious and savoring of priestcraft, yet I must acknowledge I see
+no way of avoiding the admission. I do not presume to offer any
+explanations, I only state the fact; and the fact is that to-night one
+or other of you will, in all human--or unhuman--probability, receive a
+visit from Sister Maddelena. You need not be in the least afraid, the
+apparition is perfectly gentle and harmless; and, moreover, having seen
+it once, you will never see it again. No one sees the ghost, or whatever
+it is, but once, and that usually the first night he spends in the
+house. I myself saw the thing eight--nine years ago, when I first bought
+the place from the Marchese di Muxaro; all my people have seen it,
+nearly all my guests, so I think you may as well be prepared."
+
+"Then tell us what to expect," I said; "what kind of a ghost is this
+nocturnal visitor?"
+
+"It is simple enough. Some time to-night you will suddenly awake and see
+before you a Carmelite nun who will look fixedly at you, say distinctly
+and very sadly, 'I cannot sleep,' and then vanish. That is all, it is
+hardly worth speaking of, only some people are terribly frightened if
+they are visited unwarned by strange apparitions; so I tell you this
+that you may be prepared."
+
+"This was a Carmelite convent, then?" I said.
+
+"Yes; it was suppressed after the unification of Italy, and given to the
+House of Muxaro; but the family died out, and I bought it. There is a
+story about the ghostly nun, who was only a novice, and even that
+unwillingly, which gives an interest to an otherwise very commonplace
+and uninteresting ghost."
+
+"I beg that you will tell it us," cried Rendel.
+
+"There is a storm coming," I added. "See, the lightning is flashing
+already up among the mountains at the head of the valley; if the story
+is tragic, as it must be, now is just the time for it. You will tell it,
+will you not?"
+
+The Cavaliere smiled that slow, cryptic smile of his that was so
+unfathomable.
+
+"As you say, there is a shower coming, and as we have fierce tempests
+here, we might not sleep; so perhaps we may as well sit up a little
+longer, and I will tell you the story."
+
+The air was utterly still, hot and oppressive; the rich, sick odor of
+the oranges just bursting into bloom came up from the valley in a gently
+rising tide. The sky, thick with stars, seemed mirrored in the rich
+foliage below, so numerous were the glow-worms under the still trees,
+and the fireflies that gleamed in the hot air. Lightning flashed
+fitfully from the darkening west; but as yet no thunder broke the heavy
+silence.
+
+The Cavaliere lighted another cigar, and pulled a cushion under his head
+so that he could look down to the distant lights of the city. "This is
+the story," he said.
+
+"Once upon a time, late in the last century, the Duca di Castiglione was
+attached to the court of Charles III., King of the Two Sicilies, down at
+Palermo. They tell me he was very ambitious, and, not content with
+marrying his son to one of the ladies of the House of Tuscany, had
+betrothed his only daughter, Rosalia, to Prince Antonio, a cousin of the
+king. His whole life was wrapped up in the fame of his family, and he
+quite forgot all domestic affection in his madness for dynastic glory.
+His son was a worthy scion, cold and proud; but Rosalia was, according
+to legend, utterly the reverse,--a passionate, beautiful girl, wilful
+and headstrong, and careless of her family and the world.
+
+"The time had nearly come for her to marry Prince Antonio, a typical
+_roue_ of the Spanish court, when, through the treachery of a servant,
+the Duke discovered that his daughter was in love with a young military
+officer whose name I don't remember, and that an elopement had been
+planned to take place the next night. The fury and dismay of the old
+autocrat passed belief; he saw in a flash the downfall of all his hopes
+of family aggrandizement through union with the royal house, and,
+knowing well the spirit of his daughter, despaired of ever bringing her
+to subjection. Nevertheless, he attacked her unmercifully, and, by
+bullying and threats, by imprisonment, and even bodily chastisement, he
+tried to break her spirit and bend her to his indomitable will. Through
+his power at court he had the lover sent away to the mainland, and for
+more than a year he held his daughter closely imprisoned in his palace
+on the Toledo,--that one, you may remember, on the right, just beyond
+the Via del Collegio dei Gesuiti, with the beautiful iron-work grilles
+at all the windows, and the painted frieze. But nothing could move her,
+nothing bend her stubborn will; and at last, furious at the girl he
+could not govern, Castiglione sent her to this convent, then one of the
+few houses of barefoot Carmelite nuns in Italy. He stipulated that she
+should take the name of Maddelena, that he should never hear of her
+again, and that she should be held an absolute prisoner in this
+conventual castle.
+
+"Rosalia--or Sister Maddelena, as she was now--believed her lover dead,
+for her father had given her good proofs of this, and she believed him;
+nevertheless she refused to marry another, and seized upon the convent
+life as a blessed relief from the tyranny of her maniacal father.
+
+"She lived here for four or five years; her name was forgotten at court
+and in her father's palace. Rosalia di Castiglione was dead, and only
+Sister Maddelena lived, a Carmelite nun, in her place.
+
+"In 1798 Ferdinand IV. found himself driven from his throne on the
+mainland, his kingdom divided, and he himself forced to flee to Sicily.
+With him came the lover of the dead Rosalia, now high in military honor.
+He on his part had thought Rosalia dead, and it was only by accident
+that he found that she still lived, a Carmelite nun. Then began the
+second act of the romance that until then had been only sadly
+commonplace, but now became dark and tragic. Michele--Michele
+Biscari,--that was his name; I remember now--haunted the region of the
+convent, striving to communicate with Sister Maddelena; and at last,
+from the cliffs over us, up there among the citrons--you will see by the
+next flash of lightning--he saw her in the great cloister, recognized
+her in her white habit, found her the same dark and splendid beauty of
+six years before, only made more beautiful by her white habit and her
+rigid life. By and by he found a day when she was alone, and tossed a
+ring to her as she stood in the midst of the cloister. She looked up,
+saw him, and from that moment lived only to love him in life as she had
+loved his memory in the death she had thought had overtaken him.
+
+"With the utmost craft they arranged their plans together. They could
+not speak, for a word would have aroused the other inmates of the
+convent. They could make signs only when Sister Maddelena was alone.
+Michele could throw notes to her from the cliff,--a feat demanding a
+strong arm, as you will see, if you measure the distance with your
+eye,--and she could drop replies from the window over the cliff, which
+he picked up at the bottom. Finally he succeeded in casting into the
+cloister a coil of light rope. The girl fastened it to the bars of one
+of the windows, and--so great is the madness of love--Biscari actually
+climbed the rope from the valley to the window of the cell, a distance
+of almost two hundred feet, with but three little craggy resting-places
+in all that height. For nearly a month these nocturnal visits were
+undiscovered, and Michele had almost completed his arrangements for
+carrying the girl from Sta. Catarina and away to Spain, when
+unfortunately one of the sisters, suspecting some mystery, from the
+changed face of Sister Maddelena, began investigating, and at length
+discovered the rope neatly coiled up by the nun's window, and hidden
+under some clinging vines. She instantly told the Mother Superior; and
+together they watched from a window in the crypt of the chapel,--the
+only place, as you will see to-morrow, from which one could see the
+window of Sister Maddelena's cell. They saw the figure of Michele
+daringly ascending the slim rope; watched hour after hour, the Sister
+remaining while the Superior went to say the hours in the chapel, at
+each of which Sister Maddelena was present; and at last, at prime, just
+as the sun was rising, they saw the figure slip down the rope, watched
+the rope drawn up and concealed, and knew that Sister Maddelena was in
+their hands for vengeance and punishment,--a criminal.
+
+"The next day, by the order of the Mother Superior, Sister Maddelena was
+imprisoned in one of the cells under the chapel, charged with her guilt,
+and commanded to make full and complete confession. But not a word would
+she say, although they offered her forgiveness if she would tell the
+name of her lover. At last the Superior told her that after this fashion
+would they act the coming night: she herself would be placed in the
+crypt, tied in front of the window, her mouth gagged; that the rope
+would be lowered, and the lover allowed to approach even to the sill of
+her window, and at that moment the rope would be cut, and before her
+eyes her lover would be dashed to death on the ragged cliffs. The plan
+was feasible, and Sister Maddelena knew that the Mother was perfectly
+capable of carrying it out. Her stubborn spirit was broken, and in the
+only way possible; she begged for mercy, for the sparing of her lover.
+The Mother Superior was deaf at first; at last she said, 'It is your
+life or his. I will spare him on condition that you sacrifice your own
+life.' Sister Maddelena accepted the terms joyfully, wrote a last
+farewell to Michele, fastened the note to the rope, and with her own
+hands cut the rope and saw it fall coiling down to the valley bed far
+below.
+
+"Then she silently prepared for death; and at midnight, while her lover
+was wandering, mad with the horror of impotent fear, around the white
+walls of the convent, Sister Maddelena, for love of Michele, gave up her
+life. How, was never known. That she was indeed dead was only a
+suspicion, for when Biscari finally compelled the civil authorities to
+enter the convent, claiming that murder had been done there, they found
+no sign. Sister Maddelena had been sent to the parent house of the
+barefoot Carmelites at Avila in Spain, so the Superior stated, because
+of her incorrigible contumacy. The old Duke of Castiglione refused to
+stir hand or foot in the matter, and Michele, after fruitless attempts
+to prove that the Superior of Sta. Catarina had caused the death, was
+forced to leave Sicily. He sought in Spain for very long; but no sign of
+the girl was to be found, and at last he died, exhausted with suffering
+and sorrow.
+
+"Even the name of Sister Maddelena was forgotten, and it was not until
+the convents were suppressed, and this house came into the hands of the
+Muxaros, that her story was remembered. It was then that the ghost began
+to appear; and, an explanation being necessary, the story, or legend,
+was obtained from one of the nuns who still lived after the suppression.
+I think the fact--for it is a fact--of the ghost rather goes to prove
+that Michele was right, and that poor Rosalia gave her life a sacrifice
+for love,--whether in accordance with the terms of the legend or not, I
+cannot say. One or the other of you will probably see her to-night. You
+might ask her for the facts. Well, that is all the story of Sister
+Maddelena, known in the world as Rosalia di Castiglione. Do you like
+it?"
+
+"It is admirable," said Rendel, enthusiastically. "But I fancy I should
+rather look on it simply as a story, and not as a warning of what is
+going to happen. I don't much fancy real ghosts myself."
+
+"But the poor Sister is quite harmless;" and Valguanera rose, stretching
+himself. "My servants say she wants a mass said over her, or something
+of that kind; but I haven't much love for such priestly hocus-pocus,--I
+beg your pardon" (turning to me), "I had forgotten that you were a
+Catholic: forgive my rudeness."
+
+"My dear Cavaliere, I beg you not to apologize. I am sorry you cannot
+see things as I do; but don't for a moment think I am hypersensitive."
+
+"I have an excuse,--perhaps you will say only an explanation; but I live
+where I see all the absurdities and corruptions of the Church."
+
+"Perhaps you let the accidents blind you to the essentials; but do not
+let us quarrel to-night,--see, the storm is close on us. Shall we go
+in?"
+
+The stars were blotted out through nearly all the sky; low, thunderous
+clouds, massed at the head of the valley, were sweeping over so close
+that they seemed to brush the black pines on the mountain above us. To
+the south and east the storm-clouds had shut down almost to the sea,
+leaving a space of black sky where the moon in its last quarter was
+rising just to the left of Monte Pellegrino,--a black silhouette against
+the pallid moonlight. The rosy lightning flashed almost incessantly, and
+through the fitful darkness came the sound of bells across the valley,
+the rushing torrent below, and the dull roar of the approaching rain,
+with a deep organ point of solemn thunder through it all.
+
+We fled indoors from the coming tempest, and taking our candles, said
+"good-night," and sought each his respective room.
+
+My own was in the southern part of the old convent, giving on the
+terrace we had just quitted, and about over the main doorway. The
+rushing storm, as it swept down the valley with the swelling torrent
+beneath, was very fascinating, and after wrapping myself in a
+dressing-gown I stood for some time by the deeply embrasured window,
+watching the blazing lightning and the beating rain whirled by fitful
+gusts of wind around the spurs of the mountains. Gradually the violence
+of the shower seemed to decrease, and I threw myself down on my bed in
+the hot air, wondering if I really was to experience the ghostly visit
+the Cavaliere so confidently predicted.
+
+I had thought out the whole matter to my own satisfaction, and fancied I
+knew exactly what I should do, in case Sister Maddelena came to visit
+me. The story touched me: the thought of the poor faithful girl who
+sacrificed herself for her lover,--himself, very likely, quite
+unworthy,--and who now could never sleep for reason of her unquiet soul,
+sent out into the storm of eternity without spiritual aid or counsel. I
+could not sleep; for the still vivid lightning, the crowding thoughts of
+the dead nun, and the shivering anticipation of my possible visitation,
+made slumber quite out of the question. No suspicion of sleepiness had
+visited me, when, perhaps an hour after midnight, came a sudden vivid
+flash of lightning, and, as my dazzled eyes began to regain the power of
+sight, I saw her as plainly as in life,--a tall figure, shrouded in the
+white habit of the Carmelites, her head bent, her hands clasped before
+her. In another flash of lightning she slowly raised her head and looked
+at me long and earnestly. She was very beautiful, like the Virgin of
+Beltraffio in the National Gallery,--more beautiful than I had supposed
+possible, her deep, passionate eyes very tender and pitiful in their
+pleading, beseeching glance. I hardly think I was frightened, or even
+startled, but lay looking steadily at her as she stood in the beating
+lightning.
+
+Then she breathed, rather than articulated, with a voice that almost
+brought tears, so infinitely sad and sorrowful was it, "I cannot sleep!"
+and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful and questioning as bright tears
+fell from them down the pale dark face.
+
+The figure began to move slowly towards the door, its eyes fixed on mine
+with a look that was weary and almost agonized. I leaped from the bed
+and stood waiting. A look of utter gratitude swept over the face, and,
+turning, the figure passed through the doorway.
+
+Out into the shadow of the corridor it moved, like a drift of pallid
+storm-cloud, and I followed, all natural and instinctive fear or
+nervousness quite blotted out by the part I felt I was to play in giving
+rest to a tortured soul. The corridors were velvet black; but the pale
+figure floated before me always, an unerring guide, now but a thin mist
+on the utter night, now white and clear in the bluish lightning through
+some window or doorway.
+
+Down the stairway into the lower hall, across the refectory, where the
+great frescoed Crucifixion flared into sudden clearness under the fitful
+lightning, out into the silent cloister.
+
+It was very dark. I stumbled along the heaving bricks, now guiding
+myself by a hand on the whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column wet
+with the storm. From all the eaves the rain was dripping on to the
+pebbles at the foot of the arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital
+where it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister close. Still the
+white thing drifted before me to the farther side of the court, then
+along the cloister at right angles, and paused before one of the many
+doorways that led to the cells.
+
+A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last now of the fleeting trail
+of storm, leaped around us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face
+turned again with the look of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos,
+that had choked my throat with an involuntary sob when first I saw
+Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval that ensued after the flash, and
+before the roaring thunder burst like the crash of battle over the
+trembling convent, I heard again the sorrowful words, "I cannot sleep,"
+come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again,
+the white figure was gone.
+
+I wandered around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena,
+even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of
+the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was
+locked; but I had found what I sought, and, carefully noting its
+location, went back to my room, but not to sleep.
+
+In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen
+the ghost, and I told him my story; then I asked him to grant me
+permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the
+whole matter into my charge, promising that he would consent to
+anything.
+
+I could hardly wait to finish breakfast; but no sooner was this done
+than, forgetting my morning pipe, I started with Rendel and the
+Cavaliere to investigate.
+
+"I am sure there is nothing in that cell," said Valguanera, when we came
+in front of the door I had marked. "It is curious that you should have
+chosen the door of the very cell that tradition assigns to Sister
+Maddelena; but I have often examined that room myself, and I am sure
+that there is no chance for anything to be concealed. In fact, I had the
+floor taken up once, soon after I came here, knowing the room was that
+of the mysterious Sister, and thinking that there, if anywhere, the
+monastic crime would have taken place; still, we will go in, if you
+like."
+
+He unlocked the door, and we entered, one of us, at all events, with a
+beating heart. The cell was very small, hardly eight feet square. There
+certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing a body in the tiny place;
+and although I sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid, heavy
+answer,--the unmistakable sound of masonry.
+
+For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere answered. He had, he said,
+had it all removed, even to the curving surfaces of the vault below; yet
+somewhere in this room the body of the murdered girl was concealed,--of
+this I was certain. But where? There seemed no answer; and I was
+compelled to give up the search for the moment, somewhat to the
+amusement of Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see if I could
+solve the mystery.
+
+But I could not forget the subject, and towards noon started on another
+tour of investigation. I procured the keys from the Cavaliere, and
+examined the cells adjoining; they were apparently the same, each with
+its window opposite the door, and nothing-- Stay, were they the same? I
+hastened into the suspected cell; it was as I thought: this cell, being
+on the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and
+that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination?
+As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should
+be, I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was
+becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing
+open the little window, thrust my head out.
+
+It was found at last! In the smooth surface of the yellow wall was a
+rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell
+windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes
+of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp
+of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep
+enough; what a wall it was!--four feet at least, and the opening of the
+window reached to the floor, though the window itself was hardly three
+feet square. I felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved, and
+called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too excited to give them an explanation
+of my theories.
+
+They must have thought me mad when I suddenly began scraping away at the
+solid wall in front of the door; but in a few minutes they understood
+what I was about, for under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared
+the original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me
+rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint
+between firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand, and rough amateurish work
+on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without order or science.
+
+Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail the rude wall, when I
+stopped him.
+
+"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows what we may find?" So we set to
+work digging out the mortar around a brick at about the level of our
+eyes.
+
+How hard the mortar had become! But a brick yielded at last, and with
+trembling fingers I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond question
+there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we
+removed another brick. Still the hole was too small to admit enough
+light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the
+sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks in size. It
+moved, and we softly slid it from its bed.
+
+Valguanera, who was standing watching us as we lowered the bricks to the
+floor, gave a sudden cry, a cry like that of a frightened
+woman,--terrible, coming from him. Yet there was cause.
+
+Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim
+light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust,
+but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half
+open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below,
+slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of
+the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense
+muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.
+
+We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated,
+bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
+ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful
+creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
+hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things
+in romance; but to find the verity here, before my eyes--
+
+Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous thought we sprang
+to the door and closed it behind us. The room was sacred; that awful
+sight was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some
+trivial question of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go
+down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked
+him with a glance.) "Stay!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
+o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+Valguanera thought a moment, then he said, "Bring two horses; the Signor
+Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me,
+"You will go, will you not? I think you can explain matters to Padre
+Stefano better than I."
+
+"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a
+hasty luncheon I wound down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano,
+explained my errand to him, found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
+and by five o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was
+necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.
+
+In the warm twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the
+little cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had
+for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to
+speed her tortured soul on its journey, so long delayed. Nothing was
+omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre
+Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering
+flames of the candles carried by two of the acolytes from San Francesco
+threw fitful flashes of pallid light into the dark recess where the
+white face had prayed to Heaven for a hundred years.
+
+Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the hands of one of the
+acolytes, and with a sign of the cross in benediction while he chanted
+the _Asperges_, gently sprinkled the holy water on the upturned face.
+Instantly the whole vision crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and
+where once the candlelight had flickered on the perfect semblance of the
+girl dead so very long, it now fell only on the rough bricks which
+closed the window, bricks laid with frozen hearts by pitiless hands.
+
+But our task was not done yet. It had been arranged that Padre Stefano
+should remain at the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight
+made it possible he should say the first mass for the repose of the
+girl's soul. We sat on the terrace talking over the strange events of
+the last crowded hours, and I noted with satisfaction that the Cavaliere
+no longer spoke of the Church with that hardness, which had hurt me so
+often. It is true that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but
+not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I
+wondered if it might not prove that more than one soul benefited by the
+untoward events of the day.
+
+With the aid of the astonished and delighted servants, and no little
+help as well from Signora Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in
+the chapel, and by midnight we had the gloomy sanctuary beautiful with
+flowers and candles. It was a curiously solemn service, in the first
+hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing candles and the thick
+incense, the odor of the opening orange-blooms drifting up in the fresh
+morning air, and mingling with the incense smoke and the perfume of
+flowers within. Many prayers were said that night for the soul of the
+dead girl, and I think many afterwards; for after the benediction I
+remained for a little time in my place, and when I rose from my knees
+and went towards the chapel door, I saw a figure kneeling still, and,
+with a start, recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled with quiet
+satisfaction and gratitude, and went away softly, content with the chain
+of events that now seemed finished.
+
+The next day the alcove was again walled up, for the precious dust could
+not be gathered together for transportation to consecrated ground; so I
+went down to the little cemetery at Parco for a basket of earth, which
+we cast in over the ashes of Sister Maddelena.
+
+By and by, when Rendel and I went away, with great regret, Valguanera
+came down to Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed in
+Sicily was assisting him to order a tablet of marble, whereon was
+carved this simple inscription:--
+
+      HERE LIES THE BODY OF
+     ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,
+             CALLED
+       SISTER MADDELENA.
+            HER SOUL
+    IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.
+
+To this I added in thought:--
+
+"Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone."
+
+
+
+
+NOTRE DAME DES EAUX.
+
+
+
+
+Notre Dame des Eaux.
+
+
+West of St. Pol de Leon, on the sea-cliffs of Finisterre, stands the
+ancient church of Notre Dame des Eaux. Five centuries of beating winds
+and sweeping rains have moulded its angles, and worn its carvings and
+sculpture down to the very semblance of the ragged cliffs themselves,
+until even the Breton fisherman, looking lovingly from his boat as he
+makes for the harbor of Morlaix, hardly can say where the crags end, and
+where the church begins. The teeth of the winds of the sea have
+devoured, bit by bit, the fine sculpture of the doorway and the thin
+cusps of the window tracery; gray moss creeps caressingly over the worn
+walls in ineffectual protection; gentle vines, turned crabbed by the
+harsh beating of the fierce winds, clutch the crumbling buttresses,
+climb up over the sinking roof, reach in even at the louvres of the
+belfry, holding the little sanctuary safe in desperate arms against the
+savage warfare of the sea and sky.
+
+Many a time you may follow the rocky highway from St. Pol even around
+the last land of France, and so to Brest, yet never see sign of Notre
+Dame des Eaux; for it clings to a cliff somewhat lower than the road,
+and between grows a stunted thicket of harsh and ragged trees, their
+skeleton white branches, tortured and contorted, thrusting sorrowfully
+out of the hard, dark foliage that still grows below, where the rise of
+land below the highway gives some protection. You must leave the wood by
+the two cottages of yellow stone, about twenty miles beyond St. Pol, and
+go down to the right, around the old stone quarry; then, bearing to the
+left by the little cliff path, you will, in a moment, see the pointed
+roof of the tower of Notre Dame, and, later, come down to the side porch
+among the crosses of the arid little graveyard.
+
+It is worth the walk, for though the church has outwardly little but its
+sad picturesqueness to repay the artist, within it is a dream and a
+delight. A Norman nave of round, red stone piers and arches, a delicate
+choir of the richest flamboyant, a High Altar of the time of Francis I.,
+form only the mellow background and frame for carven tombs and dark old
+pictures, hanging lamps of iron and brass, and black, heavily carved
+choir-stalls of the Renaissance.
+
+So has the little church lain unnoticed for many centuries; for the
+horrors and follies of the Revolution have never come near, and the
+hardy and faithful people of Finisterre have feared God and loved Our
+Lady too well to harm her church. For many years it was the church of
+the Comtes de Jarleuc; and these are their tombs that mellow year by
+year under the warm light of the painted windows, given long ago by
+Comte Robert de Jarleuc, when the heir of Poullaouen came safely to
+shore in the harbor of Morlaix, having escaped from the Isle of Wight,
+where he had lain captive after the awful defeat of the fleet of Charles
+of Valois at Sluys. And now the heir of Poullaouen lies in a carven
+tomb, forgetful of the world where he fought so nobly: the dynasty he
+fought to establish, only a memory; the family he made glorious, a name;
+the Chateau Poullaouen a single crag of riven masonry in the fields of
+M. du Bois, mayor of Morlaix.
+
+It was Julien, Comte de Bergerac, who rediscovered Notre Dame des Eaux,
+and by his picture of its dreamy interior in the Salon of '86 brought
+once more into notice this forgotten corner of the world. The next year
+a party of painters settled themselves near by, roughing it as best they
+could, and in the year following, Mme. de Bergerac and her daughter
+Heloise came with Julien, and, buying the old farm of Pontivy, on the
+highway over Notre Dame, turned it into a summer house that almost made
+amends for their lost chateau on the Dordogne, stolen from them as
+virulent Royalists by the triumphant Republic in 1794.
+
+Little by little a summer colony of painters gathered around Pontivy,
+and it was not until the spring of 1890 that the peace of the colony was
+broken. It was a sorrowful tragedy. Jean d'Yriex, the youngest and
+merriest devil of all the jolly crew, became suddenly moody and morose.
+At first this was attributed to his undisguised admiration for Mlle.
+Heloise, and was looked on as one of the vagaries of boyish passion; but
+one day, while riding with M. de Bergerac, he suddenly seized the
+bridle of Julien's horse, wrenched it from his hand, and, turning his
+own horse's head towards the cliffs, lashed the terrified animals into a
+gallop straight towards the brink. He was only thwarted in his mad
+object by Julien, who with a quick blow sent him headlong in the dry
+grass, and reined in the terrified animals hardly a yard from the
+cliffs. When this happened, and no word of explanation was granted, only
+a sullen silence that lasted for days, it became clear that poor Jean's
+brain was wrong in some way. Heloise devoted herself to him with
+infinite patience,--though she felt no special affection for him, only
+pity,--and while he was with her he seemed sane and quiet. But at night
+some strange mania took possession of him. If he had worked on his Prix
+de Rome picture in the daytime, while Heloise sat by him, reading aloud
+or singing a little, no matter how good the work, it would have vanished
+in the morning, and he would again begin, only to erase his labor during
+the night.
+
+At last his growing insanity reached its climax; and one day in Notre
+Dame, when he had painted better than usual, he suddenly stopped,
+seized a palette knife, and slashed the great canvas in strips. Heloise
+sprang forward to stop him, and in crazy fury he turned on her, striking
+at her throat with the palette knife. The thin steel snapped, and the
+white throat showed only a scarlet scratch. Heloise, without that
+ordinary terror that would crush most women, grasped the thin wrists of
+the madman, and, though he could easily have wrenched his hands away,
+d'Yriex sank on his knees in a passion of tears. He shut himself in his
+room at Pontivy, refusing to see any one, walking for hours up and down,
+fighting against growing madness. Soon Dr. Charpentier came from Paris,
+summoned by Mme. de Bergerac; and after one short, forced interview,
+left at once for Paris, taking M. d'Yriex with him.
+
+A few days later came a letter for Mme. de Bergerac, in which Dr.
+Charpentier confessed that Jean had disappeared, that he had allowed him
+too much liberty, owing to his apparent calmness, and that when the
+train stopped at Le Mans he had slipped from him and utterly vanished.
+
+During the summer, word came occasionally that no trace had been found
+of the unhappy man, and at last the Pontivy colony realized that the
+merry boy was dead. Had he lived he _must_ have been found, for the
+exertions of the police were perfect; yet not the slightest trace was
+discovered, and his lamentable death was acknowledged, not only by Mme.
+de Bergerac and Jean's family,--sorrowing for the death of their
+first-born, away in the warm hills of Lozere,--but by Dr. Charpentier as
+well.
+
+So the summer passed, and the autumn came, and at last the cold rains of
+November--the skirmish line of the advancing army of winter--drove the
+colony back to Paris.
+
+It was the last day at Pontivy, and Mlle. Heloise had come down to Notre
+Dame for a last look at the beautiful shrine, a last prayer for the
+repose of the tortured soul of poor Jean d'Yriex. The rains had ceased
+for a time, and a warm stillness lay over the cliffs and on the creeping
+sea, swaying and lapping around the ragged shore. Heloise knelt very
+long before the Altar of Our Lady of the Waters; and when she finally
+rose, could not bring herself to leave as yet that place of sorrowful
+beauty, all warm and golden with the last light of the declining sun.
+She watched the old verger, Pierre Polou, stumping softly around the
+darkening building, and spoke to him once, asking the hour; but he was
+very deaf, as well as nearly blind, and he did not answer.
+
+So she sat in the corner of the aisle by the Altar of Our Lady of the
+Waters, watching the checkered light fade in the advancing shadows,
+dreaming sad day-dreams of the dead summer, until the day-dreams merged
+in night-dreams, and she fell asleep.
+
+Then the last light of the early sunset died in the gleaming quarries of
+the west window; Pierre Polou stumbled uncertainly through the dusky
+shadow, locked the sagging doors of the mouldering south porch, and took
+his way among the leaning crosses up to the highway and his little
+cottage, a good mile away,--the nearest house to the lonely Church of
+Notre Dame des Eaux.
+
+With the setting of the sun great clouds rose swiftly from the sea; the
+wind freshened, and the gaunt branches of the weather-worn trees in the
+churchyard lashed themselves beseechingly before the coming storm. The
+tide turned, and the waters at the foot of the rocks swept uneasily up
+the narrow beach and caught at the weary cliffs, their sobbing growing
+and deepening to a threatening, solemn roar. Whirls of dead leaves rose
+in the churchyard, and threw themselves against the blank windows. The
+winter and the night came down together.
+
+Heloise awoke, bewildered and wondering; in a moment she realized the
+situation, and without fear or uneasiness. There was nothing to dread in
+Notre Dame by night; the ghosts, if there were ghosts, would not trouble
+her, and the doors were securely locked. It was foolish of her to fall
+asleep, and her mother would be most uneasy at Pontivy if she realized
+before dawn that Heloise had not returned. On the other hand, she was in
+the habit of wandering off to walk after dinner, often not coming home
+until late, so it was quite possible that she might return before Madame
+knew of her absence, for Polou came always to unlock the church for the
+low mass at six o'clock; so she arose from her cramped position in the
+aisle, and walked slowly up to the choir-rail, entered the chancel, and
+felt her way to one of the stalls, on the south side, where there were
+cushions and an easy back.
+
+It was really very beautiful in Notre Dame by night; she had never
+suspected how strange and solemn the little church could be when the
+moon shone fitfully through the south windows, now bright and clear, now
+blotted out by sweeping clouds. The nave was barred with the long
+shadows of the heavy pillars, and when the moon came out she could see
+far down almost to the west end. How still it was! Only a soft low
+murmur without of the restless limbs of the trees, and of the creeping
+sea.
+
+It was very soothing, almost like a song; and Heloise felt sleep coming
+back to her as the clouds shut out the moon, and all the church grew
+black.
+
+She was drifting off into the last delicious moment of vanishing
+consciousness, when she suddenly came fully awake, with a shock that
+made every nerve tingle. In the midst of the far faint sounds of the
+tempestuous night she had heard a footstep! Yet the church was utterly
+empty, she was sure. And again! A footstep dragging and uncertain,
+stealthy and cautious, but an unmistakable step, away in the blackest
+shadow at the end of the church.
+
+She sat up, frozen with the fear that comes at night and that is
+overwhelming, her hands clutching the coarse carving of the arms of the
+stall, staring down into the dark.
+
+Again the footstep, and again,--slow, measured, one after another at
+intervals of perhaps half a minute, growing a little louder each time, a
+little nearer.
+
+Would the darkness never be broken? Would the cloud never pass? Minute
+after minute went like weary hours, and still the moon was hid, still
+the dead branches rattled clatteringly on the high windows.
+Unconsciously she moved, as under a magician's spell, down to the
+choir-rail, straining her eyes to pierce the thick night. And the step,
+it was very near! Ah, the moon at last! A white ray fell through the
+westernmost window, painting a bar of light on the floor of sagging
+stone. Then a second bar, then a third, and a fourth, and for a moment
+Heloise could have cried out with relief, for nothing broke the lines of
+light,--no figure, no shadow. In another moment came a step, and from
+the shadow of the last column appeared in the pallid moonlight the
+figure of a man. The girl stared breathless, the moonlight falling on
+her as she stood rigid against the low parapet. Another step and
+another, and she saw before her--was it ghost or living man?--a white
+mad face staring from matted hair and beard, a tall thin figure half
+clothed in rags, limping as it stepped towards her with wounded feet.
+From the dead face stared mad eyes that gleamed like the eyes of a cat,
+fixed on hers with insane persistence, holding her, fascinating her as a
+cat fascinates a bird.
+
+One more step,--it was close before her now! those awful, luminous eyes
+dilating and contracting in awful palpitations. And the moon was going
+out; the shadows swept one by one over the windows; she stared at the
+moonlit face for a last fascinated glance--Mother of God! it was---- The
+shadow swept over them, and now only remained the blazing eyes and the
+dim outline of a form that crouched waveringly before her as a cat
+crouches, drawing its vibrating body together for the spring that blots
+out the life of the victim.
+
+In another instant the mad thing would leap; but just as the quiver
+swept over the crouching body, Heloise gathered all her strength into
+one action of desperate terror.
+
+"Jean, stop!"
+
+The thing crouched before her paused, chattering softly to itself; then
+it articulated dryly, and with all the trouble of a learning child, the
+one word, "_Chantez!_"
+
+Without a thought, Heloise sang; it was the first thing that she
+remembered, an old Provencal song that d'Yriex had always loved. While
+she sang, the poor mad creature lay huddled at her feet, separated from
+her only by the choir parapet, its dilating, contracting eyes never
+moving for an instant. As the song died away, came again that awful
+tremor, indicative of the coming death-spring, and again she sang,--this
+time the old _Pange lingua_, its sonorous Latin sounding in the deserted
+church like the voice of dead centuries.
+
+And so she sang, on and on, hour after hour,--hymns and _chansons_,
+folk-songs and bits from comic operas, songs of the boulevards
+alternating with the _Tantum ergo_ and the _O Filii et Filiae_. It
+mattered little what she sang. At last it seemed to her that it mattered
+little whether she sang or no; for her brain whirled round and round
+like a dizzy maelstrom, her icy hands, griping the hard rail, alone
+supported her dying body. She could hear no sound of her song; her body
+was numb, her mouth parched, her lips cracked and bleeding; she felt
+the drops of blood fall from her chin. And still she sang, with the
+yellow palpitating eyes holding her as in a vice. If only she could
+continue until dawn! It must be dawn so soon! The windows were growing
+gray, the rain lashed outside, she could distinguish the features of the
+horror before her; but the night of death was growing with the coming
+day, blackness swept down upon her; she could sing no more, her tortured
+lips made one last effort to form the words, "Mother of God, save me!"
+and night and death came down like a crushing wave.
+
+But her prayer was heard; the dawn had come, and Polou unlocked the
+porch-door for Father Augustin just in time to hear the last agonized
+cry. The maniac turned in the very act of leaping on his victim, and
+sprang for the two men, who stopped in dumb amazement. Poor old Pierre
+Polou went down at a blow; but Father Augustin was young and fearless,
+and he grappled the mad animal with all his strength and will. It would
+have gone ill even with him,--for no one can stand against the bestial
+fury of a man in whom reason is dead,--had not some sudden impulse
+seized the maniac, who pitched the priest aside with a single movement,
+and, leaping through the door, vanished forever.
+
+Did he hurl himself from the cliffs in the cold wet morning, or was he
+doomed to wander, a wild beast, until, captured, he beat himself in vain
+against the walls of some asylum, an unknown pauper lunatic? None ever
+knew.
+
+The colony at Pontivy was blotted out by the dreary tragedy, and Notre
+Dame des Eaux sank once more into silence and solitude. Once a year
+Father Augustin said mass for the repose of the soul of Jean d'Yriex;
+but no other memory remained of the horror that blighted the lives of an
+innocent girl and of a gray-haired mother mourning for her dead boy in
+far Lozere.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD VALLEY.
+
+
+
+
+The Dead Valley.
+
+
+I have a friend, Olof Ehrensvaerd, a Swede by birth, who yet, by reason
+of a strange and melancholy mischance of his early boyhood, has thrown
+his lot with that of the New World. It is a curious story of a
+headstrong boy and a proud and relentless family: the details do not
+matter here, but they are sufficient to weave a web of romance around
+the tall yellow-bearded man with the sad eyes and the voice that gives
+itself perfectly to plaintive little Swedish songs remembered out of
+childhood. In the winter evenings we play chess together, he and I, and
+after some close, fierce battle has been fought to a finish--usually
+with my own defeat--we fill our pipes again, and Ehrensvaerd tells me
+stories of the far, half-remembered days in the fatherland, before he
+went to sea: stories that grow very strange and incredible as the night
+deepens and the fire falls together, but stories that, nevertheless, I
+fully believe.
+
+One of them made a strong impression on me, so I set it down here, only
+regretting that I cannot reproduce the curiously perfect English and the
+delicate accent which to me increased the fascination of the tale. Yet,
+as best I can remember it, here it is.
+
+"I never told you how Nils and I went over the hills to Hallsberg, and
+how we found the Dead Valley, did I? Well, this is the way it happened.
+I must have been about twelve years old, and Nils Sjoeberg, whose
+father's estate joined ours, was a few months younger. We were
+inseparable just at that time, and whatever we did, we did together.
+
+"Once a week it was market day in Engelholm, and Nils and I went always
+there to see the strange sights that the market gathered from all the
+surrounding country. One day we quite lost our hearts, for an old man
+from across the Elfborg had brought a little dog to sell, that seemed to
+us the most beautiful dog in all the world. He was a round, woolly
+puppy, so funny that Nils and I sat down on the ground and laughed at
+him, until he came and played with us in so jolly a way that we felt
+that there was only one really desirable thing in life, and that was the
+little dog of the old man from across the hills. But alas! we had not
+half money enough wherewith to buy him, so we were forced to beg the old
+man not to sell him before the next market day, promising that we would
+bring the money for him then. He gave us his word, and we ran home very
+fast and implored our mothers to give us money for the little dog.
+
+"We got the money, but we could not wait for the next market day.
+Suppose the puppy should be sold! The thought frightened us so that we
+begged and implored that we might be allowed to go over the hills to
+Hallsberg where the old man lived, and get the little dog ourselves, and
+at last they told us we might go. By starting early in the morning we
+should reach Hallsberg by three o'clock, and it was arranged that we
+should stay there that night with Nils's aunt, and, leaving by noon the
+next day, be home again by sunset.
+
+"Soon after sunrise we were on our way, after having received minute
+instructions as to just what we should do in all possible and
+impossible circumstances, and finally a repeated injunction that we
+should start for home at the same hour the next day, so that we might
+get safely back before nightfall.
+
+"For us, it was magnificent sport, and we started off with our rifles,
+full of the sense of our very great importance: yet the journey was
+simple enough, along a good road, across the big hills we knew so well,
+for Nils and I had shot over half the territory this side of the
+dividing ridge of the Elfborg. Back of Engelholm lay a long valley, from
+which rose the low mountains, and we had to cross this, and then follow
+the road along the side of the hills for three or four miles, before a
+narrow path branched off to the left, leading up through the pass.
+
+"Nothing occurred of interest on the way over, and we reached Hallsberg
+in due season, found to our inexpressible joy that the little dog was
+not sold, secured him, and so went to the house of Nils's aunt to spend
+the night.
+
+"Why we did not leave early on the following day, I can't quite
+remember; at all events, I know we stopped at a shooting range just
+outside of the town, where most attractive pasteboard pigs were sliding
+slowly through painted foliage, serving so as beautiful marks. The
+result was that we did not get fairly started for home until afternoon,
+and as we found ourselves at last pushing up the side of the mountain
+with the sun dangerously near their summits, I think we were a little
+scared at the prospect of the examination and possible punishment that
+awaited us when we got home at midnight.
+
+"Therefore we hurried as fast as possible up the mountain side, while
+the blue dusk closed in about us, and the light died in the purple sky.
+At first we had talked hilariously, and the little dog had leaped ahead
+of us with the utmost joy. Latterly, however, a curious oppression came
+on us; we did not speak or even whistle, while the dog fell behind,
+following us with hesitation in every muscle.
+
+"We had passed through the foothills and the low spurs of the mountains,
+and were almost at the top of the main range, when life seemed to go out
+of everything, leaving the world dead, so suddenly silent the forest
+became, so stagnant the air. Instinctively we halted to listen.
+
+"Perfect silence,--the crushing silence of deep forests at night; and
+more, for always, even in the most impenetrable fastnesses of the wooded
+mountains, is the multitudinous murmur of little lives, awakened by the
+darkness, exaggerated and intensified by the stillness of the air and
+the great dark: but here and now the silence seemed unbroken even by the
+turn of a leaf, the movement of a twig, the note of night bird or
+insect. I could hear the blood beat through my veins; and the crushing
+of the grass under our feet as we advanced with hesitating steps sounded
+like the falling of trees.
+
+"And the air was stagnant,--dead. The atmosphere seemed to lie upon the
+body like the weight of sea on a diver who has ventured too far into its
+awful depths. What we usually call silence seems so only in relation to
+the din of ordinary experience. This was silence in the absolute, and it
+crushed the mind while it intensified the senses, bringing down the
+awful weight of inextinguishable fear.
+
+"I know that Nils and I stared towards each other in abject terror,
+listening to our quick, heavy breathing, that sounded to our acute
+senses like the fitful rush of waters. And the poor little dog we were
+leading justified our terror. The black oppression seemed to crush him
+even as it did us. He lay close on the ground, moaning feebly, and
+dragging himself painfully and slowly closer to Nils's feet. I think
+this exhibition of utter animal fear was the last touch, and must
+inevitably have blasted our reason--mine anyway; but just then, as we
+stood quaking on the bounds of madness, came a sound, so awful, so
+ghastly, so horrible, that it seemed to rouse us from the dead spell
+that was on us.
+
+"In the depth of the silence came a cry, beginning as a low, sorrowful
+moan, rising to a tremulous shriek, culminating in a yell that seemed to
+tear the night in sunder and rend the world as by a cataclysm. So
+fearful was it that I could not believe it had actual existence: it
+passed previous experience, the powers of belief, and for a moment I
+thought it the result of my own animal terror, an hallucination born of
+tottering reason.
+
+"A glance at Nils dispelled this thought in a flash. In the pale light
+of the high stars he was the embodiment of all possible human fear,
+quaking with an ague, his jaw fallen, his tongue out, his eyes
+protruding like those of a hanged man. Without a word we fled, the
+panic of fear giving us strength, and together, the little dog caught
+close in Nils's arms, we sped down the side of the cursed
+mountains,--anywhere, goal was of no account: we had but one impulse--to
+get away from that place.
+
+"So under the black trees and the far white stars that flashed through
+the still leaves overhead, we leaped down the mountain side, regardless
+of path or landmark, straight through the tangled underbrush, across
+mountain streams, through fens and copses, anywhere, so only that our
+course was downward.
+
+"How long we ran thus, I have no idea, but by and by the forest fell
+behind, and we found ourselves among the foothills, and fell exhausted
+on the dry short grass, panting like tired dogs.
+
+"It was lighter here in the open, and presently we looked around to see
+where we were, and how we were to strike out in order to find the path
+that would lead us home. We looked in vain for a familiar sign. Behind
+us rose the great wall of black forest on the flank of the mountain:
+before us lay the undulating mounds of low foothills, unbroken by trees
+or rocks, and beyond, only the fall of black sky bright with
+multitudinous stars that turned its velvet depth to a luminous gray.
+
+"As I remember, we did not speak to each other once: the terror was too
+heavy on us for that, but by and by we rose simultaneously and started
+out across the hills.
+
+"Still the same silence, the same dead, motionless air--air that was at
+once sultry and chilling: a heavy heat struck through with an icy chill
+that felt almost like the burning of frozen steel. Still carrying the
+helpless dog, Nils pressed on through the hills, and I followed close
+behind. At last, in front of us, rose a slope of moor touching the white
+stars. We climbed it wearily, reached the top, and found ourselves
+gazing down into a great, smooth valley, filled half way to the brim
+with--what?
+
+"As far as the eye could see stretched a level plain of ashy white,
+faintly phosphorescent, a sea of velvet fog that lay like motionless
+water, or rather like a floor of alabaster, so dense did it appear, so
+seemingly capable of sustaining weight. If it were possible, I think
+that sea of dead white mist struck even greater terror into my soul
+than the heavy silence or the deadly cry--so ominous was it, so utterly
+unreal, so phantasmal, so impossible, as it lay there like a dead ocean
+under the steady stars. Yet through that mist _we must go_! there seemed
+no other way home, and, shattered with abject fear, mad with the one
+desire to get back, we started down the slope to where the sea of milky
+mist ceased, sharp and distinct around the stems of the rough grass.
+
+"I put one foot into the ghostly fog. A chill as of death struck through
+me, stopping my heart, and I threw myself backward on the slope. At that
+instant came again the shriek, close, close, right in our ears, in
+ourselves, and far out across that damnable sea I saw the cold fog lift
+like a water-spout and toss itself high in writhing convolutions towards
+the sky. The stars began to grow dim as thick vapor swept across them,
+and in the growing dark I saw a great, watery moon lift itself slowly
+above the palpitating sea, vast and vague in the gathering mist.
+
+"This was enough: we turned and fled along the margin of the white sea
+that throbbed now with fitful motion below us, rising, rising, slowly
+and steadily, driving us higher and higher up the side of the foothills.
+
+"It was a race for life; that we knew. How we kept it up I cannot
+understand, but we did, and at last we saw the white sea fall behind us
+as we staggered up the end of the valley, and then down into a region
+that we knew, and so into the old path. The last thing I remember was
+hearing a strange voice, that of Nils, but horribly changed, stammer
+brokenly, 'The dog is dead!' and then the whole world turned around
+twice, slowly and resistlessly, and consciousness went out with a crash.
+
+"It was some three weeks later, as I remember, that I awoke in my own
+room, and found my mother sitting beside the bed. I could not think very
+well at first, but as I slowly grew strong again, vague flashes of
+recollection began to come to me, and little by little the whole
+sequence of events of that awful night in the Dead Valley came back. All
+that I could gain from what was told me was that three weeks before I
+had been found in my own bed, raging sick, and that my illness grew fast
+into brain fever. I tried to speak of the dread things that had happened
+to me, but I saw at once that no one looked on them save as the
+hauntings of a dying frenzy, and so I closed my mouth and kept my own
+counsel.
+
+"I must see Nils, however, and so I asked for him. My mother told me
+that he also had been ill with a strange fever, but that he was now
+quite well again. Presently they brought him in, and when we were alone
+I began to speak to him of the night on the mountain. I shall never
+forget the shock that struck me down on my pillow when the boy denied
+everything: denied having gone with me, ever having heard the cry,
+having seen the valley, or feeling the deadly chill of the ghostly fog.
+Nothing would shake his determined ignorance, and in spite of myself I
+was forced to admit that his denials came from no policy of concealment,
+but from blank oblivion.
+
+"My weakened brain was in a turmoil. Was it all but the floating
+phantasm of delirium? Or had the horror of the real thing blotted Nils's
+mind into blankness so far as the events of the night in the Dead Valley
+were concerned? The latter explanation seemed the only one, else how
+explain the sudden illness which in a night had struck us both down? I
+said nothing more, either to Nils or to my own people, but waited, with
+a growing determination that, once well again, I would find that valley
+if it really existed.
+
+"It was some weeks before I was really well enough to go, but finally,
+late in September, I chose a bright, warm, still day, the last smile of
+the dying summer, and started early in the morning along the path that
+led to Hallsberg. I was sure I knew where the trail struck off to the
+right, down which we had come from the valley of dead water, for a great
+tree grew by the Hallsberg path at the point where, with a sense of
+salvation, we had found the home road. Presently I saw it to the right,
+a little distance ahead.
+
+"I think the bright sunlight and the clear air had worked as a tonic to
+me, for by the time I came to the foot of the great pine, I had quite
+lost faith in the verity of the vision that haunted me, believing at
+last that it was indeed but the nightmare of madness. Nevertheless, I
+turned sharply to the right, at the base of the tree, into a narrow path
+that led through a dense thicket. As I did so I tripped over something.
+A swarm of flies sung into the air around me, and looking down I saw
+the matted fleece, with the poor little bones thrusting through, of the
+dog we had bought in Hallsberg.
+
+"Then my courage went out with a puff, and I knew that it all was true,
+and that now I was frightened. Pride and the desire for adventure urged
+me on, however, and I pressed into the close thicket that barred my way.
+The path was hardly visible: merely the worn road of some small beasts,
+for, though it showed in the crisp grass, the bushes above grew thick
+and hardly penetrable. The land rose slowly, and rising grew clearer,
+until at last I came out on a great slope of hill, unbroken by trees or
+shrubs, very like my memory of that rise of land we had topped in order
+that we might find the dead valley and the icy fog. I looked at the sun;
+it was bright and clear, and all around insects were humming in the
+autumn air, and birds were darting to and fro. Surely there was no
+danger, not until nightfall at least; so I began to whistle, and with a
+rush mounted the last crest of brown hill.
+
+"There lay the Dead Valley! A great oval basin, almost as smooth and
+regular as though made by man. On all sides the grass crept over the
+brink of the encircling hills, dusty green on the crests, then fading
+into ashy brown, and so to a deadly white, this last color forming a
+thin ring, running in a long line around the slope. And then? Nothing.
+Bare, brown, hard earth, glittering with grains of alkali, but otherwise
+dead and barren. Not a tuft of grass, not a stick of brushwood, not even
+a stone, but only the vast expanse of beaten clay.
+
+"In the midst of the basin, perhaps a mile and a half away, the level
+expanse was broken by a great dead tree, rising leafless and gaunt into
+the air. Without a moment's hesitation I started down into the valley
+and made for this goal. Every particle of fear seemed to have left me,
+and even the valley itself did not look so very terrifying. At all
+events, I was driven by an overwhelming curiosity, and there seemed to
+be but one thing in the world to do,--to get to that Tree! As I trudged
+along over the hard earth, I noticed that the multitudinous voices of
+birds and insects had died away. No bee or butterfly hovered through the
+air, no insects leaped or crept over the dull earth. The very air itself
+was stagnant.
+
+"As I drew near the skeleton tree, I noticed the glint of sunlight on a
+kind of white mound around its roots, and I wondered curiously. It was
+not until I had come close that I saw its nature.
+
+"All around the roots and barkless trunk was heaped a wilderness of
+little bones. Tiny skulls of rodents and of birds, thousands of them,
+rising about the dead tree and streaming off for several yards in all
+directions, until the dreadful pile ended in isolated skulls and
+scattered skeletons. Here and there a larger bone appeared,--the thigh
+of a sheep, the hoofs of a horse, and to one side, grinning slowly, a
+human skull.
+
+"I stood quite still, staring with all my eyes, when suddenly the dense
+silence was broken by a faint, forlorn cry high over my head. I looked
+up and saw a great falcon turning and sailing downward just over the
+tree. In a moment more she fell motionless on the bleaching bones.
+
+"Horror struck me, and I rushed for home, my brain whirling, a strange
+numbness growing in me. I ran steadily, on and on. At last I glanced up.
+Where was the rise of hill? I looked around wildly. Close before me was
+the dead tree with its pile of bones. I had circled it round and round,
+and the valley wall was still a mile and a half away.
+
+"I stood dazed and frozen. The sun was sinking, red and dull, towards
+the line of hills. In the east the dark was growing fast. Was there
+still time? _Time!_ It was not _that_ I wanted, it was _will_! My feet
+seemed clogged as in a nightmare. I could hardly drag them over the
+barren earth. And then I felt the slow chill creeping through me. I
+looked down. Out of the earth a thin mist was rising, collecting in
+little pools that grew ever larger until they joined here and there,
+their currents swirling slowly like thin blue smoke. The western hills
+halved the copper sun. When it was dark I should hear that shriek again,
+and then I should die. I knew that, and with every remaining atom of
+will I staggered towards the red west through the writhing mist that
+crept clammily around my ankles, retarding my steps.
+
+"And as I fought my way off from the Tree, the horror grew, until at
+last I thought I was going to die. The silence pursued me like dumb
+ghosts, the still air held my breath, the hellish fog caught at my feet
+like cold hands.
+
+"But I won! though not a moment too soon. As I crawled on my hands and
+knees up the brown slope, I heard, far away and high in the air, the cry
+that already had almost bereft me of reason. It was faint and vague, but
+unmistakable in its horrible intensity. I glanced behind. The fog was
+dense and pallid, heaving undulously up the brown slope. The sky was
+gold under the setting sun, but below was the ashy gray of death. I
+stood for a moment on the brink of this sea of hell, and then leaped
+down the slope. The sunset opened before me, the night closed behind,
+and as I crawled home weak and tired, darkness shut down on the Dead
+Valley."
+
+
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT.
+
+
+There seem to be certain well-defined roots existing in all countries,
+from which spring the current legends of the supernatural; and therefore
+for the germs of the stories in this book the Author claims no
+originality. These legends differ one from the other only in local color
+and in individual treatment. If the Author has succeeded in clothing one
+or two of these norms in some slightly new vesture, he is more than
+content.
+
+BOSTON, _July 3, 1895_.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+THE PRINTING WAS DONE AT THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, FOR STONE &
+KIMBALL, PUBLISHERS.
+
+
+
+
+ Concerning the Books
+         _of_
+  _Stone & Kimball_
+
+     _1895-1896_
+
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+
+  _CHICAGO & LONDON_
+
+
+
+
+   _Cable Address:_
+
+ "ESSANKAY, CHICAGO"
+ "EDITORSHIP, LONDON"
+
+
+
+
+THE PUBLICATIONS OF STONE & KIMBALL.
+
+
+ADAMS, FRANCIS.
+
+    Essays in Modernity. Crown 8vo. $1.25, net.               _Shortly._
+
+ALLEN, GRANT.
+
+    THE LOWER SLOPES. Reminiscences of Excursions round the Base of
+    Helicon, undertaken for the most part in early manhood. With a
+    titlepage by J. Illingworth Kay. Printed by T. & A. Constable,
+    Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 80 pp. $1.50, net.
+
+ARCHER, WILLIAM.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vol. III.
+
+BELL, LILIAN.
+
+    A LITTLE SISTER TO THE WILDERNESS. By the author of "The Love
+    Affairs of an Old Maid." With a cover designed by Bruce Rogers.
+    16mo. 267 pp. $1.25.                              _Fourth thousand._
+
+BROWNE, E. S.
+
+    See English Classics. Hajji Baba.
+
+BURGESS, GILBERT.
+
+    THE LOVE LETTERS OF MR. H. AND MISS R. 1775-1779. Edited, with an
+    introduction by Gilbert Burgess. Small crown 8vo. 240 pp. $1.50.
+
+CARMAN, BLISS.
+
+    LOW TIDE ON GRAND PRE. Revised and enlarged. With a titlepage
+    designed by Martin Mower. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled edges. 132 pp.
+    $1.00, net.
+
+    Also fifty copies on old English handmade paper, each signed by the
+    author. Square 8vo. $3.50, net.                   _Very few remain._
+
+CARNATION SERIES.
+
+    Bound in cloth, with carnation design on the covers. 18mo. Rough
+    edges. $1.00 a volume.
+
+    Vol. I. THE GYPSY CHRIST AND OTHER TALES. By William Sharp.
+
+    Vol. II. THE SISTER OF A SAINT AND OTHER STORIES. By Grace Ellery
+    Channing.
+
+    Vol. III. BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE. A book of ghost stories. By Ralph
+    Adams Cram.
+
+    Vol. IV. THE SIN EATER AND OTHER STORIES. By Fiona Macleod.
+
+    Vol. V. THE GODS GIVE MY DONKEY WINGS. By Angus Evan Abbott.
+                                              _Other volumes to follow._
+
+CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY.
+
+    THE SISTER OF A SAINT AND OTHER STORIES. See Carnation Series.
+
+CHATFIELD-TAYLOR, H. C.
+
+    TWO WOMEN AND A FOOL. With eight pictures by C. D. Gibson. 232 pp.
+    $1.50.                                           _Seventh thousand._
+
+CONGREVE, WILLIAM.
+
+    THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE. See English Classics.
+
+CRAM, RALPH ADAMS.
+
+    BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE. A book of ghost stories. See Carnation
+    Series.
+
+DAVIDSON, JOHN.
+
+    PLAYS. An Unhistorical Pastoral; a Romantic Farce; Bruce, a
+    Chronicle Play; Smith, a Tragic Farce; Scaramouch in Naxos, a
+    Pantomime. With a frontispiece and cover design by Aubrey Beardsley.
+    Printed at the Ballantyne Press, London. Small 4to. 294 pp. $2.00,
+    net.
+
+DEKOVEN, MRS. REGINALD.
+
+    A SAWDUST DOLL. With cover and titlepage designed by Frank
+    Hazenplug. Printed at the Lakeside Press. 16mo. 237 pp. $1.25.
+                                                       _Fifth thousand._
+
+FIELD, EUGENE.
+
+    THE HOLY CROSS AND OTHER TALES. With cover, titlepage, and
+    initial-letter pieces designed by Louis J. Rhead. Printed at the
+    University Press, on English laid paper. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled
+    edges. 191 pp. $1.25.                              _Third thousand._
+
+    Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on Holland paper, with special
+    dedications of the various tales. 8vo. $5.00, net.
+                                                      _Very few remain._
+
+GALE, NORMAN.
+
+    A COUNTRY MUSE. First Series, revised and enlarged. Printed by T. &
+    A. Constable, Edinburgh. Crown, 8vo. 145 pp. $1.25, net.
+
+    A JUNE ROMANCE. With a titlepage and tailpiece designed by Basil
+    Johnson. Printed on antique paper at the Rugby Press. 107 pp. Price,
+    $1.00.                                             _Third thousand._
+
+ENGLISH CLASSICS.
+
+    Edited by William Ernest Henley. The ordinary "cheap edition"
+    appears to have served its purpose; the public has found out the
+    artist-printers, and is now ready for something better fashioned.
+    This, then, is the moment for the issue of such a series as, while
+    well within the reach of the average buyer, shall be at once an
+    ornament to the shelf of him that owns, and a delight to the eye of
+    him that reads.
+
+    The series will confine itself to no single period or department of
+    literature. Poetry, fiction, drama, biography, autobiography,
+    letters, essays,--in all these fields is the material of many goodly
+    volumes.
+
+    The books are printed by Messrs. Constable, of Edinburgh, on laid
+    paper, with deckle edges, and bound in crushed buckram, crown 8vo,
+    at $1.25 a volume, net.
+
+    THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY.
+
+    By Laurence Sterne. With an introduction by Charles Whibley, and a
+    portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    THE COMEDIES OF WILLIAM CONGREVE.
+
+    With an introduction by G. S. Street, and a portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN.
+
+    By James Morier. With an introduction by E. S. Browne, M. A., and a
+    portrait. 2 vols.
+
+    ENGLISH SEAMEN.
+
+    By Robert Southey. 1 vol.
+
+    LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, HERBERT, AND SANDERSON.
+
+    By Izaak Walton. With an introduction by Vernon Blackburn, and a
+    portrait. 1 vol.
+                                                     _Others to follow._
+
+GARLAND, HAMLIN.
+
+    PRAIRIE SONGS. Verses. With cover, head and initial letter pieces
+    designed by H. T. Carpenter. Printed at the University Press on
+    specially made paper. 16mo. Buckram, gilt top, edges uncut. 164 pp.
+    $1.25, net.
+
+    Also 110 numbered copies, 100 for sale, on large paper, each signed
+    by the author. 8vo. $5.00, net.                   _Very few remain._
+
+    MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS. Six stories of the Mississippi Valley. A
+    revised edition, with an introduction by W. D. Howells, and
+    frontispiece, headpieces, and cover design by H. T. Carpenter.
+    Printed at the University Press on specially made paper. 16mo.
+    Buckram, gilt top and uncut edges. 251 pp. $1.25.
+                                                     _Twelfth thousand._
+
+    Also 110 copies, 100 for sale, on large paper. 8vo. $5.00, net.
+                                                      _Very few remain._
+
+    CRUMBLING IDOLS. Twelve essays on Art, dealing chiefly with
+    Literature, Painting, and the Drama. Printed at the University
+    Press. 16mo. 192 pp. $1.25.
+
+GOSSE, EDMUND.
+
+    IN RUSSET AND SILVER. Printed at the University Press on English
+    laid paper. Cover designed by Will H. Bradley. 16mo. 158 pp. $1.25,
+    net.                                               _Second edition._
+
+    Also 75 copies on large paper, numbered from 1 to 10 (Japanese
+    vellum), at $6.00, and 11 to 75 (English handmade), at $3.50, net.
+
+GRAHAME, KENNETH.
+
+    THE GOLDEN AGE. 16mo. Crushed buckram. 241 pp. $1.25.
+                                                       _Third thousand._
+
+GREEN TREE LIBRARY.
+
+    A series of books representing what may broadly be called the new
+    movement in literature. The intention is to publish uniformly the
+    best of the decadent writings of various countries, done into
+    English and consistently brought together for the first time. The
+    volumes are all copyright, and are issued in a uniform binding--The
+    Green Tree--designed by Henry McCarter.
+
+    Vol. I. VISTAS. By William Sharp. 16mo. 183 pp. $1.25, net.
+
+    Vol. II. THE PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Princess Maleine; The
+    Blind; The Intruder; The Seven Princesses. Translated by Richard
+    Hovey. With an introductory essay on Symbolism. 16mo. 369 pp. $1.25,
+    net.                                               _Second edition._
+
+    Vol. III. LITTLE EYOLF. A play by Henrik Ibsen. Translated by
+    William Archer. 16mo. 164 pp. $1.50 net.           _Second edition._
+
+    Vol. IV. POEMS OF PAUL VERLAINE. Translated by Gertrude Hall. With
+    pictures by Henry McCarter. 16mo. 110 pp. $1.50, net.
+
+    Also 100 numbered copies on Imperial Japanese vellum, with artist's
+    proofs of all the pictures. Small 4to. Nos. 1 to 15, containing an
+    extra set of proofs on India paper, mounted, $15.00, net. Nos. 16 to
+    100, $10.00, net.
+
+    Vol. V. THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS AND OTHER TALES. By
+    Maeterlinck, Eekhoudt, Van Lerbergh, and the leaders of the Belgian
+    Renaissance. Translated by Edith Wingate Rinder. 16mo. $1.25, net.
+
+    Vol. VI. PHARAIS. A Celtic Romance. By Fiona Macleod. 16mo. $1.25,
+    net.
+
+    Vol. VII. THE PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Second series. Pelleas
+    and Melisande, and Three Plays for Marionettes.
+
+    Translated by Richard Hovey. With an introduction by Maeterlinck.
+    16mo.                                              _In preparation._
+                                              _Other volumes to follow._
+
+HAKE, THOMAS GORDON.
+
+    SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF THOMAS GORDON HAKE. Edited, with an
+    introduction, by Mrs. Meynell (Alice C. Thompson). With a portrait
+    after a drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Printed by T. & A.
+    Constable, Edinburgh. Crown 8vo. 155 pp. $1.50, net.
+
+HALE, EDWARD EVERETT.
+
+    See Taylor.
+
+HALL, GERTRUDE.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vol. IV.
+
+HALL, TOM.
+
+    WHEN HEARTS ARE TRUMPS. Verses. With decorations by Will H. Bradley.
+    16mo. $1.25.                                       _Third thousand._
+
+HEAD, FRANKLIN H.
+
+    See Swing.
+
+HOVEY, RICHARD.
+
+    THE MARRIAGE OF GUENEVERE. With a cover designed by T. B. Meteyard.
+    18mo. $1.50.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.
+
+HOWELLS, W. D.
+
+    See Garland.
+
+IBSEN, HENRIK.
+
+    LITTLE EYOLF. See Green Tree Library, Vol. III.
+
+MACKAY, ERIC.
+
+    A SONG OF THE SEA, MY LADY OF DREAMS, AND OTHER POEMS. By the author
+    of "The Love Letters of a Violinist." 16mo. $1.25.
+
+MAETERLINCK, MAURICE.
+
+    PLAYS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK.
+
+    See Green Tree Library, Vols. II. and VII.
+
+MCCULLOCH, HUGH, JR.
+
+    THE QUEST OF HERACLES AND OTHER POEMS. Titlepage designed by Pierre
+    la Rose. Printed at the De Vinne Press on Van Gelder handmade paper.
+    16mo. 95 pp. Cloth, $1.25, net.
+
+MEEKINS, LYNN R.
+
+    THE ROBB'S ISLAND WRECK AND OTHER STORIES. Printed at the University
+    Press, 16mo. 192 pp. $1.00.
+
+MEYNELL, MRS.
+
+    See Hake.
+
+MILLER, JOAQUIN.
+
+    THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. A poetic romance. Printed at the
+    University Press on American laid paper. 18mo. Gilt top, deckled
+    edges. 196 pp. $1.50.                               _Third edition._
+
+    Also 50 copies on large paper. $3.50, net.        _Very few remain._
+
+MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER.
+
+    ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY. His Life and His Work, with selections from
+    his poems. With a portrait from a drawing by August F. Jaccaci.
+    Printed at the De Vinne Press on English laid paper. 450 copies.
+    18mo. 120 pp. Price, $1.25, net.
+
+    Also, 60 numbered copies on Holland handmade paper (only 50 being
+    for sale), at $3.50.
+
+MORIER, JAMES.
+
+    THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA OF ISPAHAN. See English Classics.
+
+OSBOURNE, LLOYD.
+
+    See Stevenson.
+
+O'SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR.
+
+    See Moulton.
+
+PARKER, GILBERT.
+
+    A LOVER'S DIARY. Songs in Sequence. With a frontispiece by Will H.
+    Low. Printed at the University Press on antique paper. 18mo. 147 pp.
+    $1.25, net.                                        _Second edition._
+
+    Also 50 copies on Dickinson handmade paper. $3.50 (all sold).
+
+    PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE. Tales of the Far North. Printed at the
+    University Press on laid paper. 18mo. 318 pp. $1.25.
+                                                        _Third edition._
+
+    WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC. The Story of a Lost Napoleon. With a
+    cover designed by Bruce Rogers. 16mo. 222 pp. $1.50.
+                                                       _Fifth thousand._
+
+POE, EDGAR ALLAN.
+
+    THE COMPLETE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. Newly collected, edited, and
+    for the first time revised after the author's final manuscript
+    corrections, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry,
+    with many portraits, fac-similes, and pictures by Albert Edward
+    Sterner.
+
+    This is the only complete edition of Poe's works. The entire
+    writings have been revised; innumerable errors have been corrected;
+    quotations have been verified, and the work now stands--for the
+    first time--as Poe wished it to stand. The editors contribute a
+    memoir, critical introduction, and notes; the variorum texts are
+    given and new matter has been added. The portraits include several
+    which have never appeared in book form before, and the printing has
+    been carefully done at the University Press in Cambridge on
+    specially made, deckled edge paper.
+
+    In fine, the edition aims to be definitive, and is intended alike
+    for the librarian, the student, and the book-lover.
+
+    In ten volumes, price $15.00, net, a set; or separately, $1.50, net,
+    per volume.
+
+    The large-paper edition, limited to 250 numbered sets for America,
+    contains a series of illustrations to the tales by Aubrey Beardsley,
+    and a signed etching by Mr. Sterner,--not included in the
+    small-paper edition,--proofs of all the pictures printed on India
+    paper, and, in truth, is a luxurious edition. On handsome paper,
+    octavo. Price, $50.00, net. Sold only in sets; numbers will be
+    assigned as the orders are received.
+
+      New York Tribune: "At no time in the future is it probable that
+      the labors of his present editors and publishers will be
+      superseded."
+
+      New York Times: "Doubtless no other men in this country were
+      better fitted for this arduous and delicate task than those who
+      have, at length, undertaken it."
+
+SANTAYANA, GEORGE.
+
+    SONNETS AND OTHER POEMS. With titlepage designed by the author.
+    Printed at the University Press on laid paper. 16mo. Buckram. 90 pp.
+    Price, $1.25, net.                                   _Out of print._
+
+SHARP, WILLIAM.
+
+    VISTAS. See Green Tree Library, Vol. I.
+
+    THE GYPSY CHRIST AND OTHER TALES. See Carnation Series, Vol. I.
+
+SOUTHALL, J. E.
+
+    THE STORY OF BLUEBEARD. Newly translated and elaborately
+    illustrated. $1.25.
+
+SOUTHEY, ROBERT.
+
+    ENGLISH SEAMEN. See English Classics.
+
+STEDMAN, E. C.
+
+    See Poe.
+
+STERNE, LAURENCE.
+
+    THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF TRISTRAM SHANDY. See English Classics.
+
+STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS.
+
+    THE LATER WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Published in a uniform
+    edition. 16mo. Bound in green crushed buckram.
+
+    THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT. 180 pp. $1.25.              _Fourth thousand._
+
+    VAILIMA LETTERS. From Robert Louis Stevenson to Sidney Colvin. With
+    an etched portrait by William Strang and two portraits of Stevenson
+    in Samoa. In two volumes. 16mo. $2.25.
+
+---- AND LLOYD OSBOURNE.
+
+    THE EBB-TIDE. A Trio and Quartette. 204 pp. $1.25. _Sixth thousand._
+
+---- AND WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.
+
+    MACAIRE. A Melodramatic Farce. In three acts. $1.00.
+
+STREET, G. S.
+
+    See Congreve.
+
+SWING, DAVID.
+
+    OLD PICTURES OF LIFE. With an introduction by Franklin H. Head. In
+    two volumes. 16mo. Vol. I., 191 pp.; vol. II., 220 pp. $2.00.
+
+TAYLOR, WINNIE LOUISE.
+
+    HIS BROKEN SWORD. A novel. With an introduction by Edward Everett
+    Hale. Printed at the University Press on American laid paper. 12mo.
+    Gilt top, deckled edges. 354 pp. $1.25.             _Third edition._
+
+THOMPSON, MAURICE.
+
+    LINCOLN'S GRAVE. A Poem. With a titlepage by George H. Hallowell.
+    Printed at the University Press. 16mo. 36 pp. Price, $1.00, net.
+
+VERLAINE, PAUL.
+
+    POEMS OF PAUL VERLAINE. See Green Tree Library, Vol. IV.
+
+WHIBLEY, CHARLES.
+
+    See Sterne.
+
+WOODBERRY, GEORGE EDWARD.
+
+    See Poe.
+
+YEATS, W. B.
+
+    THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE. A play. With a frontispiece by Aubrey
+    Beardsley. Printed at the University Press. 16mo. 43 pp. Price,
+    $1.00, net.
+
+
+
+
+                   The Chap-Book.
+
+         _A Miniature Magazine and Review._
+
+                  _Semi-Monthly._
+
+       STONE & KIMBALL
+               THE CAXTON BUILDING, CHICAGO.
+
+           PRICE, 5 CENTS. $1.00 A YEAR.
+
+                   CONTRIBUTORS.
+ Thomas Bailey Aldrich        Stephane Mallarme
+ Maurice Maeterlinck          Eugene Field
+ Richard Henry Stoddard       Hamlin Garland
+ Gilbert Parker               I. Zangwill
+ Kenneth Grahame              Louise Imogen Guiney
+ Bliss Carman                 Gertrude Hall
+ John Davidson                Maria Louise Pool
+ Charles G. D. Roberts        William Sharp
+ Paul Verlaine                Archibald Lampman
+ Alice Brown                  H. B. Marriott Watson
+ Julian Hawthorne             Richard Burton
+ Clyde Fitch                  H. H. Boyesen
+ Edmund Gosse                 Lewis Gates
+ Maurice Thompson             H. W. Mabie
+ C. F. Bragdon                F. Vallotton
+ Will H. Bradley              J. F. Raffaelli
+ Louise Chandler Moulton      C. D. Gibson
+ Robert Louis Stevenson       William Ernest Henley
+                 Theodore Wratislaw
+
+    There is no question that the Chap-Book is
+  the best printed periodical in the world.
+                              --_Boston Traveller._
+
+    The Chap-Book continues to be delightfully
+  clever and irresponsible.
+                   --_Charleston News and Courier._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Black Spirits and White, by Ralph Adams Cram
+
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