What Was It?

Scary Books: Great Ghost Stories

FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN





It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the

strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose

detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared

to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all

such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.

I have, after mature onsideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple

and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed

under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the

annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.



I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some

respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the

reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence,

surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green

enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a

fountain, and a few fruit trees ragged and unpruned, indicate that this

spot in past days was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and

flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.



The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a large spiral

staircase winding through its centre, while the various apartments are

of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since

by Mr. A----, the well-known New York merchant, who five years ago threw

the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr.

A----, as every one knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after,

of a broken heart. Almost immediately after the news of his decease

reached this country and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth

Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the

widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker

and his wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had

passed for the purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that

they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any

visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various

rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands.

Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight,

accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of

viewless hands along the massive balusters. The caretaker and his wife

declared they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed,

dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and

supernatural manifestations continued. The neighbourhood caught up the

story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several

persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always before the bargain was

closed they heard the unpleasant rumours and declined to treat any

further.



It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a

boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move further up

town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.

Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of

boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she

had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which

she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons,--a

sea-captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that

they would leave,--all of Mrs. Moffat's guests declared that they would

accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.



Our removal was effected in the month of May, and we were charmed with

our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is

situated, between Seventh and Eighth avenues, is one of the pleasantest

localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down

nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of

verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does,

straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the

ragged garden which surrounded the house, although displaying on washing

days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to

look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our

cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their dark

lanterns in the long grass.



Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No. -- than we began

to expect ghosts. We absolutely awaited their advent with eagerness. Our

dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had

purchased Mrs. Crowe's "Night Side of Nature" for his own private

delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire household for

not having bought twenty copies. The man led a life of supreme

wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of espionage was

established, of which he was the victim. If he incautiously laid the

book down for an instant and left the room, it was immediately seized

and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person

of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well

versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story

the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel

happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there

was an instant silence, and every one was prepared for an immediate

clanking of chains and a spectral form.



After a month of psychological excitement, it was with the utmost

dissatisfaction that we were forced to acknowledge that nothing in the

remotest degree approaching the supernatural had manifested itself. Once

the black butler asseverated that his candle had been blown out by some

invisible agency while he was undressing himself for the night; but as

I had more than once discovered this coloured gentleman in a condition

when one candle must have appeared to him like two, I thought it

possible that, by going a step further in his potations, he might have

reversed this phenomenon, and seen no candle at all where he ought to

have beheld one.



Things were in this state when an accident took place so awful and

inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare

memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was

over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my

evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which existed

between the Doctor and myself, we were linked together by a vice. We

both smoked opium. We knew each other's secret, and respected it. We

enjoyed together that wonderful expansion of thought, that marvellous

intensifying of the perceptive faculties, that boundless feeling of

existence when we seem to have points of contact with the whole

universe,--in short, that unimaginable spiritual bliss, which I would

not surrender for a throne, and which I hope you, reader, will

never--never taste.



Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in

secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly

smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While

smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and

calmest channels of thought. We talked of the East, and endeavoured to

recall the magical panorama of its glowing scenery. We criticized the

most sensuous poets,--those who painted life ruddy with health, brimming

with passion, happy in the possession of youth and strength and beauty.

If we talked of Shakespeare's "Tempest," we lingered over Ariel, and

avoided Caliban. Like the Guebers, we turned our faces to the East, and

saw only the sunny side of the world.



This skilful colouring of our train of thought produced in our

subsequent visions a corresponding tone. The splendours of Arabian

fairyland dyed our dreams. We paced the narrow strip of grass with the

tread and port of kings. The song of the rana arborea, while he clung

to the bark of the ragged plum-tree, sounded like the strains of divine

musicians. Houses, walls, and streets melted like rain clouds, and

vistas of unimaginable glory stretched away before us. It was a

rapturous companionship. We enjoyed the vast delight more perfectly

because, even in our most ecstatic moments, we were conscious of each

other's presence. Our pleasures, while individual, were still twin,

vibrating and moving in musical accord.



On the evening in question, the tenth of July, the Doctor and myself

drifted into an unusually metaphysical mood. We lit our large

meerschaums, filled with fine Turkish tobacco, in the core of which

burned a little black nut of opium, that, like the nut in the fairy

tale, held within its narrow limits wonders beyond the reach of kings;

we paced to and fro, conversing. A strange perversity dominated the

currents of our thought. They would not flow through the sun-lit

channels into which we strove to divert them. For some unaccountable

reason, they constantly diverged into dark and lonesome beds, where a

continual gloom brooded. It was in vain that, after our old fashion, we

flung ourselves on the shores of the East, and talked of its gay

bazaars, of the splendours of the time of Haroun, of harems and golden

palaces. Black afreets continually arose from the depths of our talk,

and expanded, like the one the fisherman released from the copper

vessel, until they blotted everything bright from our vision.

Insensibly, we yielded to the occult force that swayed us, and indulged

in gloomy speculation. We had talked some time upon the proneness of the

human mind to mysticism, and the almost universal love of the terrible,

when Hammond suddenly said to me, "What do you consider to be the

greatest element of terror?"



The question puzzled me. That many things were terrible, I knew.

Stumbling over a corpse in the dark; beholding, as I once did, a woman

floating down a deep and rapid river, with wildly lifted arms, and

awful, upturned face, uttering, as she drifted, shrieks that rent one's

heart while we, spectators, stood frozen at a window which overhung the

river at a height of sixty feet, unable to make the slightest effort to

save her, but dumbly watching her last supreme agony and her

disappearance. A shattered wreck, with no life visible, encountered

floating listlessly on the ocean, is a terrible object, for it suggests

a huge terror, the proportions of which are veiled. But it now struck

me, for the first time, that there must be one great and ruling

embodiment of fear,--a King of Terrors, to which all others must

succumb. What might it be? To what train of circumstances would it owe

its existence?



"I confess, Hammond," I replied to my friend, "I never considered the

subject before. That there must be one Something more terrible than any

other thing, I feel. I cannot attempt, however, even the most vague

definition."



"I am somewhat like you, Harry," he answered. "I feel my capacity to

experience a terror greater than anything yet conceived by the human

mind;--something combining in fearful and unnatural amalgamation

hitherto supposed incompatible elements. The calling of the voices in

Brockden Brown's novel of 'Wieland' is awful; so is the picture of the

Dweller of the Threshold, in Bulwer's 'Zanoni'; but," he added, shaking

his head gloomily, "there is something more horrible still than those."



"Look here, Hammond," I rejoined, "let us drop this kind of talk, for

Heaven's sake! We shall suffer for it, depend on it."



"I don't know what's the matter with me tonight," he replied, "but my

brain is running upon all sorts of weird and awful thoughts. I feel as

if I could write a story like Hoffman, tonight, if I were only master of

a literary style."



"Well, if we are going to be Hoffmanesque in our talk, I'm off to bed.

Opium and nightmares should never be brought together. How sultry it is!

Good night, Hammond."



"Good night, Harry. Pleasant dreams to you."



"To you, gloomy wretch, afreets, ghouls, and enchanters."



We parted, and each sought his respective chamber. I undressed quickly

and got into bed, taking with me, according to my usual custom, a book,

over which I generally read myself to sleep. I opened the volume as soon

as I had laid my head upon the pillow, and instantly flung it to the

other side of the room. It was Goudon's "History of Monsters,"--a

curious French work, which I had lately imported from Paris, but which,

in the state of mind I had then reached, was anything but an agreeable

companion. I resolved to go to sleep at once; so, turning down my gas

until nothing but a little blue point of light glimmered on the top of

the tube, I composed myself to rest.



The room was in total darkness. The atom of gas that still remained

alight did not illuminate a distance of three inches round the burner. I

desperately drew my arm across my eyes, as if to shut out even the

darkness, and tried to think of nothing. It was in vain. The confounded

themes touched on by Hammond in the garden kept obtruding themselves on

my brain. I battled against them. I erected ramparts of would-be

blankness of intellect to keep them out. They still crowded upon me.

While I was lying still as a corpse, hoping that by a perfect physical

inaction I should hasten mental repose, an awful incident occurred. A

Something dropped, as it seemed, from the ceiling, plumb upon my chest,

and the next instant I felt two bony hands encircling my throat,

endeavouring to choke me.



I am no coward, and am possessed of considerable physical strength. The

suddenness of the attack, instead of stunning me, strung every nerve to

its highest tension. My body acted from instinct, before my brain had

time to realize the terrors of my position. In an instant I wound two

muscular arms around the creature, and squeezed it, with all the

strength of despair, against my chest. In a few seconds the bony hands

that had fastened on my throat loosened their hold, and I was free to

breathe once more. Then commenced a struggle of awful intensity.

Immersed in the most profound darkness, totally ignorant of the nature

of the Thing by which I was so suddenly attacked, finding my grasp

slipping every moment, by reason, it seemed to me, of the entire

nakedness of my assailant, bitten with sharp teeth in the shoulder,

neck, and chest, having every moment to protect my throat against a pair

of sinewy, agile hands, which my utmost efforts could not

confine,--these were a combination of circumstances to combat which

required all the strength, skill, and courage that I possessed.



At last, after a silent, deadly, exhausting struggle, I got my assailant

under by a series of incredible efforts of strength. Once pinned, with

my knee on what I made out to be its chest, I knew that I was victor. I

rested for a moment to breathe. I heard the creature beneath me panting

in the darkness, and felt the violent throbbing of a heart. It was

apparently as exhausted as I was; that was one comfort. At this moment I

remembered that I usually placed under my pillow, before going to bed, a

large yellow silk pocket handkerchief. I felt for it instantly; it was

there. In a few seconds more I had, after a fashion, pinioned the

creature's arms.



I now felt tolerably secure. There was nothing more to be done but to

turn on the gas, and, having first seen what my midnight assailant was

like, arouse the household. I will confess to being actuated by a

certain pride in not giving the alarm before; I wished to make the

capture alone and unaided.



Never losing my hold for an instant, I slipped from the bed to the

floor, dragging my captive with me. I had but a few steps to make to

reach the gas-burner; these I made with the greatest caution, holding

the creature in a grip like a vice. At last I got within arm's length of

the tiny speck of blue light which told me where the gas-burner lay.

Quick as lightning I released my grasp with one hand and let on the full

flood of light. Then I turned to look at my captive.



I cannot even attempt to give any definition of my sensations the

instant after I turned on the gas. I suppose I must have shrieked with

terror, for in less than a minute afterward my room was crowded with the

inmates of the house. I shudder now as I think of that awful moment. I

saw nothing! Yes; I had one arm firmly clasped round a breathing,

panting, corporeal shape, my other hand gripped with all its strength a

throat as warm, as apparently fleshy, as my own; and yet, with this

living substance in my grasp, with its body pressed against my own, and

all in the bright glare of a large jet of gas, I absolutely beheld

nothing! Not even an outline,--a vapour!



I do not, even at this hour, realize the situation in which I found

myself. I cannot recall the astounding incident thoroughly. Imagination

in vain tries to compass the awful paradox.



It breathed. I felt its warm breath upon my cheek. It struggled

fiercely. It had hands. They clutched me. Its skin was smooth, like my

own. There it lay, pressed close up against me, solid as stone,--and yet

utterly invisible!



I wonder that I did not faint or go mad on the instant. Some wonderful

instinct must have sustained me; for, absolutely, in place of loosening

my hold on the terrible Enigma, I seemed to gain an additional strength

in my moment of horror, and tightened my grasp with such wonderful force

that I felt the creature shivering with agony.



Just then Hammond entered my room at the head of the household. As soon

as he beheld my face--which, I suppose, must have been an awful sight to

look at--he hastened forward, crying, "Great heaven, Harry! what has

happened?"



"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried, "come here. O, this is awful! I have been

attacked in bed by something or other, which I have hold of; but I can't

see it,--I can't see it!"



Hammond, doubtless struck by the unfeigned horror expressed in my

countenance, made one or two steps forward with an anxious yet puzzled

expression. A very audible titter burst from the remainder of my

visitors. This suppressed laughter made me furious. To laugh at a human

being in my position! It was the worst species of cruelty. Now, I can

understand why the appearance of a man struggling violently, as it would

seem, with an airy nothing, and calling for assistance against a vision,

should have appeared ludicrous. Then, so great was my rage against the

mocking crowd that had I the power I would have stricken them dead where

they stood.



"Hammond! Hammond!" I cried again, despairingly, "for God's sake come to

me. I can hold the--the thing but a short while longer. It is

overpowering me. Help me! Help me!"



"Harry," whispered Hammond, approaching me, "you have been smoking too

much opium."



"I swear to you, Hammond, that this is no vision," I answered, in the

same low tone. "Don't you see how it shakes my whole frame with its

struggles? If you don't believe me, convince yourself. Feel it,--touch

it."



Hammond advanced and laid his hand in the spot I indicated. A wild cry

of horror burst from him. He had felt it!



In a moment he had discovered somewhere in my room a long piece of

cord, and was the next instant winding it and knotting it about the body

of the unseen being that I clasped in my arms.



"Harry," he said, in a hoarse, agitated voice, for, though he preserved

his presence of mind, he was deeply moved, "Harry, it's all safe now.

You may let go, old fellow, if you're tired. The Thing can't move."



I was utterly exhausted, and I gladly loosed my hold.



Hammond stood holding the ends of the cord that bound the Invisible,

twisted round his hand, while before him, self-supporting as it were, he

beheld a rope laced and interlaced, and stretching tightly around a

vacant space. I never saw a man look so thoroughly stricken with awe.

Nevertheless his face expressed all the courage and determination which

I knew him to possess. His lips, although white, were set firmly, and

one could perceive at a glance that, although stricken with fear, he was

not daunted.



The confusion that ensued among the guests of the house who were

witnesses of this extraordinary scene between Hammond and myself,--who

beheld the pantomime of binding this struggling Something,--who beheld

me almost sinking from physical exhaustion when my task of jailer was

over,--the confusion and terror that took possession of the bystanders,

when they saw all this, was beyond description. The weaker ones fled

from the apartment. The few who remained clustered near the door and

could not be induced to approach Hammond and his Charge. Still

incredulity broke out through their terror. They had not the courage to

satisfy themselves, and yet they doubted. It was in vain that I begged

of some of the men to come near and convince themselves by touch of the

existence in that room of a living being which was invisible. They were

incredulous, but did not dare to undeceive themselves. How could a

solid, living, breathing body be invisible, they asked. My reply was

this. I gave a sign to Hammond, and both of us--conquering our fearful

repugnance to touch the invisible creature--lifted it from the ground,

manacled as it was, and took it to my bed. Its weight was about that of

a boy of fourteen.



"Now, my friends," I said, as Hammond and myself held the creature

suspended over the bed, "I can give you self-evident proof that here is

a solid, ponderable body, which, nevertheless, you cannot see. Be good

enough to watch the surface of the bed attentively."



I was astonished at my own courage in treating this strange event so

calmly; but I had recovered from my first terror, and felt a sort of

scientific pride in the affair, which dominated every other feeling.



The eyes of the bystanders were immediately fixed on my bed. At a given

signal Hammond and I let the creature fall. There was a dull sound of a

heavy body alighting on a soft mass. The timbers of the bed creaked. A

deep impression marked itself distinctly on the pillow, and on the bed

itself. The crowd who witnessed this gave a low cry, and rushed from

the room. Hammond and I were left alone with our Mystery.



We remained silent for some time, listening to the low, irregular

breathing of the creature on the bed, and watching the rustle of the

bed-clothes as it impotently struggled to free itself from confinement.

Then Hammond spoke.



"Harry, this is awful."



"Ay, awful."



"But not unaccountable."



"Not unaccountable! What do you mean? Such a thing has never occurred

since the birth of the world. I know not what to think, Hammond. God

grant that I am not mad, and that this is not an insane fantasy!"



"Let us reason a little, Harry. Here is a solid body which we touch, but

which we cannot see. The fact is so unusual that it strikes us with

terror. Is there no parallel, though, for such a phenomenon? Take a

piece of pure glass. It is tangible and transparent. A certain chemical

coarseness is all that prevents its being so entirely transparent as to

be totally invisible. It is not theoretically impossible, mind you, to

make a glass which shall not reflect a single ray of light,--a glass so

pure and homogeneous in its atoms that the rays from the sun will pass

through it as they do through the air, refracted but not reflected. We

do not see the air, and yet we feel it."



"That's all very well, Hammond, but these are inanimate substances.

Glass does not breathe, air does not breathe. This thing has a heart

that palpitates,--a will that moves it,--lungs that play, and inspire

and respire."



"You forget the phenomena of which we have so often heard of late,"

answered the Doctor, gravely. "At the meetings called 'spirit circles,'

invisible hands have been thrust into the hands of those persons round

the table,--warm, fleshly hands that seemed to pulsate with mortal

life."



"What? Do you think, then, that this thing is----"



"I don't know what it is," was the solemn reply; "but please the gods I

will, with your assistance, thoroughly investigate it."



We watched together, smoking many pipes, all night long, by the bedside

of the unearthly being that tossed and panted until it was apparently

wearied out. Then we learned by the low, regular breathing that it

slept.



The next morning the house was all astir. The boarders congregated on

the landing outside my room, and Hammond and myself were lions. We had

to answer a thousand questions as to the state of our extraordinary

prisoner, for as yet not one person in the house except ourselves could

be induced to set foot in the apartment.



The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in

which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was

something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand

indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for liberty

which themselves were invisible.



Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to

discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general

appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our

hands over the creature's form, its outlines and lineaments were human.

There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,

however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet

felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a

smooth surface and tracing its outlines with chalk, as shoemakers trace

the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.

Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.



A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster of

Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our wishes.

But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb the

setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another thought.

Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs,--that was evident

by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility, we could do

with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after the worthy

physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement, he proceeded

to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward we were enabled

to remove the fetters from the creature's body, and a modeller was

busily engaged in covering the invisible form with the moist clay. In

five minutes more we had a mould, and before evening a rough facsimile

of the Mystery. It was shaped like a man,--distorted, uncouth, and

horrible, but still a man. It was small, not over four feet and some

inches in height, and its limbs revealed a muscular development that was

unparalleled. Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever

seen. Gustav Dore, or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything

so horrible. There is a face in one of the latter's illustrations to Un

Voyage ou il vous plaira, which somewhat approaches the countenance of

this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I

should fancy a ghoul might be. It looked as if it was capable of feeding

on human flesh.



Having satisfied our curiosity, and bound every one in the house to

secrecy, it became a question what was to be done with our Enigma? It

was impossible that we should keep such a horror in our house; it was

equally impossible that such an awful being should be let loose upon the

world. I confess that I would have gladly voted for the creature's

destruction. But who would shoulder the responsibility? Who would

undertake the execution of this horrible semblance of a human being? Day

after day this question was deliberated gravely. The boarders all left

the house. Mrs. Moffat was in despair, and threatened Hammond and myself

with all sorts of legal penalties if we did not remove the Horror. Our

answer was, "We will go if you like, but we decline taking this creature

with us. Remove it yourself if you please. It appeared in your house. On

you the responsibility rests." To this there was, of course, no answer.

Mrs. Moffat could not obtain for love or money a person who would even

approach the Mystery.



The most singular part of the affair was that we were entirely ignorant

of what the creature habitually fed on. Everything in the way of

nutriment that we could think of was placed before it, but was never

touched. It was awful to stand by, day after day, and see the clothes

toss, and hear the hard breathing, and know that it was starving.



Ten, twelve days, a fortnight passed, and it still lived. The pulsations

of the heart, however, were daily growing fainter, and had now nearly

ceased. It was evident that the creature was dying for want of

sustenance. While this terrible life-struggle was going on, I felt

miserable. I could not sleep. Horrible as the creature was, it was

pitiful to think of the pangs it was suffering.



At last it died. Hammond and I found it cold and stiff one morning in

the bed. The heart had ceased to beat, the lungs to inspire. We hastened

to bury it in the garden. It was a strange funeral, the dropping of that

viewless corpse into the damp hole. The cast of its form I gave to

Doctor X----, who keeps it in his museum in Tenth Street.



As I am on the eve of a long journey from which I may not return, I have

drawn up this narrative of an event the most singular that has ever come

to my knowledge.