With Intent To Steal

Scary Books: The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories
:

To sleep in a lonely barn when the best bedrooms in the house were at

our disposal, seemed, to say the least, unnecessary, and I felt that

some explanation was due to our host.



But Shorthouse, I soon discovered, had seen to all that; our enterprise

would be tolerated, not welcomed, for the master kept this sort of thing

down with a firm hand. And then, how little I could get this man,

Shorthouse, to tell e. There was much I wanted to ask and hear, but he

surrounded himself with impossible barriers. It was ludicrous; he was

surely asking a good deal of me, and yet he would give so little in

return, and his reason--that it was for my good--may have been perfectly

true, but did not bring me any comfort in its train. He gave me sops now

and then, however, to keep up my curiosity, till I soon was aware that

there were growing up side by side within me a genuine interest and an

equally genuine fear; and something of both these is probably necessary

to all real excitement.



The barn in question was some distance from the house, on the side of

the stables, and I had passed it on several of my journeyings to and fro

wondering at its forlorn and untarred appearance under a regime where

everything was so spick and span; but it had never once occurred to me

as possible that I should come to spend a night under its roof with a

comparative stranger, and undergo there an experience belonging to an

order of things I had always rather ridiculed and despised.



At the moment I can only partially recall the process by which

Shorthouse persuaded me to lend him my company. Like myself, he was a

guest in this autumn house-party, and where there were so many to

chatter and to chaff, I think his taciturnity of manner had appealed to

me by contrast, and that I wished to repay something of what I owed.

There was, no doubt, flattery in it as well, for he was more than twice

my age, a man of amazingly wide experience, an explorer of all the

world's corners where danger lurked, and--most subtle flattery of

all--by far the best shot in the whole party, our host included.



At first, however, I held out a bit.



"But surely this story you tell," I said, "has the parentage common to

all such tales--a superstitious heart and an imaginative brain--and has

grown now by frequent repetition into an authentic ghost story? Besides,

this head gardener of half a century ago," I added, seeing that he still

went on cleaning his gun in silence, "who was he, and what positive

information have you about him beyond the fact that he was found hanging

from the rafters, dead?"



"He was no mere head gardener, this man who passed as such," he replied

without looking up, "but a fellow of splendid education who used this

curious disguise for his own purposes. Part of this very barn, of which

he always kept the key, was found to have been fitted up as a complete

laboratory, with athanor, alembic, cucurbite, and other appliances, some

of which the master destroyed at once--perhaps for the best--and which I

have only been able to guess at--"



"Black Arts," I laughed.



"Who knows?" he rejoined quietly. "The man undoubtedly possessed

knowledge--dark knowledge--that was most unusual and dangerous, and I

can discover no means by which he came to it--no ordinary means, that

is. But I _have_ found many facts in the case which point to the

exercise of a most desperate and unscrupulous will; and the strange

disappearances in the neighbourhood, as well as the bones found buried

in the kitchen garden, though never actually traced to him, seem to me

full of dreadful suggestion."



I laughed again, a little uncomfortably perhaps, and said it reminded

one of the story of Giles de Rays, marechal of France, who was said to

have killed and tortured to death in a few years no less than one

hundred and sixty women and children for the purposes of necromancy, and

who was executed for his crimes at Nantes. But Shorthouse would not

"rise," and only returned to his subject.



"His suicide seems to have been only just in time to escape arrest," he

said.



"A magician of no high order then," I observed sceptically, "if suicide

was his only way of evading the country police."



"The police of London and St. Petersburg rather," returned Shorthouse;

"for the headquarters of this pretty company was somewhere in Russia,

and his apparatus all bore the marks of the most skilful foreign make. A

Russian woman then employed in the household--governess, or

something--vanished, too, about the same time and was never caught. She

was no doubt the cleverest of the lot. And, remember, the object of this

appalling group was not mere vulgar gain, but a kind of knowledge that

called for the highest qualities of courage and intellect in the

seekers."



I admit I was impressed by the man's conviction of voice and manner, for

there is something very compelling in the force of an earnest man's

belief, though I still affected to sneer politely.



"But, like most Black Magicians, the fellow only succeeded in compassing

his own destruction--that of his tools, rather, and of escaping

himself."



"So that he might better accomplish his objects _elsewhere and

otherwise_," said Shorthouse, giving, as he spoke, the most minute

attention to the cleaning of the lock.



"Elsewhere and otherwise," I gasped.



"As if the shell he left hanging from the rafter in the barn in no way

impeded the man's spirit from continuing his dreadful work under new

conditions," he added quietly, without noticing my interruption. "The

idea being that he sometimes revisits the garden and the barn, chiefly

the barn--"



"The barn!" I exclaimed; "for what purpose?"



"Chiefly the barn," he finished, as if he had not heard me, "that is,

when there is anybody in it."



I stared at him without speaking, for there was a wonder in me how he

would add to this.



"When he wants fresh material, that is--he comes to steal from the

living."



"Fresh material!" I repeated aghast. "To steal from the living!" Even

then, in broad daylight, I was foolishly conscious of a creeping

sensation at the roots of my hair, as if a cold breeze were passing over

my skull.



"The strong vitality of the living is what this sort of creature is

supposed to need most," he went on imperturbably, "and where he has

worked and thought and struggled before is the easiest place for him to

get it in. The former conditions are in some way more easily

reconstructed--" He stopped suddenly, and devoted all his attention to

the gun. "It's difficult to explain, you know, rather," he added

presently, "and, besides, it's much better that you should not know till

afterwards."



I made a noise that was the beginning of a score of questions and of as

many sentences, but it got no further than a mere noise, and Shorthouse,

of course, stepped in again.



"Your scepticism," he added, "is one of the qualities that induce me to

ask you to spend the night there with me."



"In those days," he went on, in response to my urging for more

information, "the family were much abroad, and often travelled for years

at a time. This man was invaluable in their absence. His wonderful

knowledge of horticulture kept the gardens--French, Italian, English--in

perfect order. He had carte blanche in the matter of expense, and of

course selected all his own underlings. It was the sudden, unexpected

return of the master that surprised the amazing stories of the

countryside before the fellow, with all his cleverness, had time to

prepare or conceal."



"But is there no evidence, no more recent evidence, to show that

something is likely to happen if we sit up there?" I asked, pressing him

yet further, and I think to his liking, for it showed at least that I

was interested. "Has anything happened there lately, for instance?"



Shorthouse glanced up from the gun he was cleaning so assiduously, and

the smoke from his pipe curled up into an odd twist between me and the

black beard and oriental, sun-tanned face. The magnetism of his look and

expression brought more sense of conviction to me than I had felt

hitherto, and I realised that there had been a sudden little change in

my attitude and that I was now much more inclined to go in for the

adventure with him. At least, I thought, with such a man, one would be

safe in any emergency; for he is determined, resourceful, and to be

depended upon.



"There's the point," he answered slowly; "for there has apparently been

a fresh outburst--an attack almost, it seems,--quite recently. There is

evidence, of course, plenty of it, or I should not feel the interest I

do feel, but--" he hesitated a moment, as though considering how much he

ought to let me know, "but the fact is that three men this summer, on

separate occasions, who have gone into that barn after nightfall, have

been _accosted_--"



"Accosted?" I repeated, betrayed into the interruption by his choice of

so singular a word.



"And one of the stablemen--a recent arrival and quite ignorant of the

story--who had to go in there late one night, saw a dark substance

hanging down from one of the rafters, and when he climbed up, shaking

all over, to cut it down--for he said he felt sure it was a corpse--the

knife passed through nothing but air, and he heard a sound up under the

eaves as if someone were laughing. Yet, while he slashed away, and

afterwards too, the thing went on swinging there before his eyes and

turning slowly with its own weight, like a huge joint on a spit. The man

declares, too, that it had a large bearded face, and that the mouth was

open and drawn down like the mouth of a hanged man."



"Can we question this fellow?"



"He's gone--gave notice at once, but not before I had questioned him

myself very closely."



"Then this was quite recent?" I said, for I knew Shorthouse had not been

in the house more than a week.



"Four days ago," he replied. "But, more than that, only three days ago a

couple of men were in there together in full daylight when one of them

suddenly turned deadly faint. He said that he felt an overmastering

impulse to hang himself; and he looked about for a rope and was furious

when his companion tried to prevent him--"



"But he did prevent him?"



"Just in time, but not before he had clambered on to a beam. He was very

violent."



I had so much to say and ask that I could get nothing out in time, and

Shorthouse went on again.



"I've had a sort of watching brief for this case," he said with a smile,

whose real significance, however, completely escaped me at the time,

"and one of the most disagreeable features about it is the deliberate

way the servants have invented excuses to go out to the place, and

always after dark; some of them who have no right to go there, and no

real occasion at all--have never been there in their lives before

probably--and now all of a sudden have shown the keenest desire and

determination to go out there about dusk, or soon after, and with the

most paltry and foolish excuses in the world. Of course," he added,

"they have been prevented, but the desire, stronger than their

superstitious dread, and which they cannot explain, is very curious."



"Very," I admitted, feeling that my hair was beginning to stand up

again.



"You see," he went on presently, "it all points to volition--in fact to

deliberate arrangement. It is no mere family ghost that goes with every

ivied house in England of a certain age; it is something real, and

something very malignant."



He raised his face from the gun barrel, and for the first time his eye

caught mine in the full. Yes, he was very much in earnest. Also, he knew

a great deal more than he meant to tell.



"It's worth tempting--and fighting, _I_ think," he said; "but I want a

companion with me. Are you game?" His enthusiasm undoubtedly caught me,

but I still wanted to hedge a bit.



"I'm very sceptical," I pleaded.



"All the better," he said, almost as if to himself. "You have the pluck;

I have the knowledge--"



"The knowledge?"



He looked round cautiously as if to make sure that there was no one

within earshot.



"I've been in the place myself," he said in a lowered voice, "quite

lately--in fact only three nights ago--the day the man turned queer."



I stared.



"But--I was obliged to come out--"



Still I stared.



"Quickly," he added significantly.



"You've gone into the thing pretty thoroughly," was all I could find to

say, for I had almost made up my mind to go with him, and was not sure

that I wanted to hear too much beforehand.



He nodded. "It's a bore, of course, but I must do everything

thoroughly--or not at all."



"That's why you clean your own gun, I suppose?"



"That's why, when there's any danger, I take as few chances as

possible," he said, with the same enigmatical smile I had noticed

before; and then he added with emphasis, "And that is also why I ask you

to keep me company now."



Of course, the shaft went straight home, and I gave my promise without

further ado.



Our preparations for the night--a couple of rugs and a flask of black

coffee--were not elaborate, and we found no difficulty, about ten

o'clock, in absenting ourselves from the billiard-room without

attracting curiosity. Shorthouse met me by arrangement under the cedar

on the back lawn, and I at once realised with vividness what a

difference there is between making plans in the daytime and carrying

them out in the dark. One's common-sense--at least in matters of this

sort--is reduced to a minimum, and imagination with all her attendant

sprites usurps the place of judgment. Two and two no longer make

four--they make a mystery, and the mystery loses no time in growing into

a menace. In this particular case, however, my imagination did not find

wings very readily, for I knew that my companion was the most

_unmovable_ of men--an unemotional, solid block of a man who would

never lose his head, and in any conceivable state of affairs would

always take the right as well as the strong course. So my faith in the

man gave me a false courage that was nevertheless very consoling, and I

looked forward to the night's adventure with a genuine appetite.



Side by side, and in silence, we followed the path that skirted the East

Woods, as they were called, and then led across two hay fields, and

through another wood, to the barn, which thus lay about half a mile from

the Lower Farm. To the Lower Farm, indeed, it properly belonged; and

this made us realise more clearly how very ingenious must have been the

excuses of the Hall servants who felt the desire to visit it.



It had been raining during the late afternoon, and the trees were still

dripping heavily on all sides, but the moment we left the second wood

and came out into the open, we saw a clearing with the stars overhead,

against which the barn outlined itself in a black, lugubrious shadow.

Shorthouse led the way--still without a word--and we crawled in through

a low door and seated ourselves in a soft heap of hay in the extreme

corner.



"Now," he said, speaking for the first time, "I'll show you the inside

of the barn, so that you may know where you are, and what to do, in

case anything happens."



A match flared in the darkness, and with the help of two more that

followed I saw the interior of a lofty and somewhat rickety-looking

barn, erected upon a wall of grey stones that ran all round and extended

to a height of perhaps four feet. Above this masonry rose the wooden

sides, running up into the usual vaulted roof, and supported by a double

tier of massive oak rafters, which stretched across from wall to wall

and were intersected by occasional uprights. I felt as if we were inside

the skeleton of some antediluvian monster whose huge black ribs

completely enfolded us. Most of this, of course, only sketched itself to

my eye in the uncertain light of the flickering matches, and when I said

I had seen enough, and the matches went out, we were at once enveloped

in an atmosphere as densely black as anything that I have ever known.

And the silence equalled the darkness.



We made ourselves comfortable and talked in low voices. The rugs, which

were very large, covered our legs; and our shoulders sank into a really

luxurious bed of softness. Yet neither of us apparently felt sleepy. I

certainly didn't, and Shorthouse, dropping his customary brevity that

fell little short of gruffness, plunged into an easy run of talking

that took the form after a time of personal reminiscences. This rapidly

became a vivid narration of adventure and travel in far countries, and

at any other time I should have allowed myself to become completely

absorbed in what he told. But, unfortunately, I was never able for a

single instant to forget the real purpose of our enterprise, and

consequently I felt all my senses more keenly on the alert than usual,

and my attention accordingly more or less distracted. It was, indeed, a

revelation to hear Shorthouse unbosom himself in this fashion, and to a

young man it was of course doubly fascinating; but the little sounds

that always punctuate even the deepest silence out of doors claimed some

portion of my attention, and as the night grew on I soon became aware

that his tales seemed somewhat disconnected and abrupt--and that, in

fact, I heard really only part of them.



It was not so much that I actually heard other sounds, but that I

_expected_ to hear them; this was what stole the other half of my

listening. There was neither wind nor rain to break the stillness, and

certainly there were no physical presences in our neighbourhood, for we

were half a mile even from the Lower Farm; and from the Hall and

stables, at least a mile. Yet the stillness was being continually

broken--perhaps _disturbed_ is a better word--and it was to these very

remote and tiny disturbances that I felt compelled to devote at least

half my listening faculties.



From time to time, however, I made a remark or asked a question, to show

that I was listening and interested; but, in a sense, my questions

always seemed to bear in one direction and to make for one issue,

namely, my companion's previous experience in the barn when he had been

obliged to come out "quickly."



Apparently I could not help myself in the matter, for this was really

the one consuming curiosity I had; and the fact that it was better for

me not to know it made me the keener to know it all, even the worst.



Shorthouse realised this even better than I did. I could tell it by the

way he dodged, or wholly ignored, my questions, and this subtle sympathy

between us showed plainly enough, had I been able at the time to reflect

upon its meaning, that the nerves of both of us were in a very sensitive

and highly-strung condition. Probably, the complete confidence I felt in

his ability to face whatever might happen, and the extent to which also

I relied upon him for my own courage, prevented the exercise of my

ordinary powers of reflection, while it left my senses free to a more

than usual degree of activity.



Things must have gone on in this way for a good hour or more, when I

made the sudden discovery that there was something unusual in the

conditions of our environment. This sounds a roundabout mode of

expression, but I really know not how else to put it. The discovery

almost rushed upon me. By rights, we were two men waiting in an alleged

haunted barn for something to happen; and, as two men who trusted one

another implicitly (though for very different reasons), there should

have been two minds keenly alert, with the ordinary senses in active

co-operation. Some slight degree of nervousness, too, there might also

have been, but beyond this, nothing. It was therefore with something of

dismay that I made the sudden discovery that there _was_ something more,

and something that I ought to have noticed very much sooner than I

actually did notice it.



The fact was--Shorthouse's stream of talk was wholly unnatural. He was

talking with a purpose. He did not wish to be cornered by my questions,

true, but he had another and a deeper purpose still, and it grew upon

me, as an unpleasant deduction from my discovery, that this strong,

cynical, unemotional man by my side was talking--and had been talking

all this time--to gain a particular end. And this end, I soon felt

clearly, was to _convince himself_. But, of what?



For myself, as the hours wore on towards midnight, I was not anxious to

find the answer; but in the end it became impossible to avoid it, and I

knew as I listened, that he was pouring forth this steady stream of

vivid reminiscences of travel--South Seas, big game, Russian

exploration, women, adventures of all sorts--_because he wished the past

to reassert itself to the complete exclusion of the present_. He was

taking his precautions. He was afraid.



I felt a hundred things, once this was clear to me, but none of them

more than the wish to get up at once and leave the barn. If Shorthouse

was afraid already, what in the world was to happen to me in the long

hours that lay ahead? . . . I only know that, in my fierce efforts to deny

to myself the evidence of his partial collapse, the strength came that

enabled me to play my part properly, and I even found myself helping

him by means of animated remarks upon his stories, and by more or less

judicious questions. I also helped him by dismissing from my mind any

desire to enquire into the truth of his former experience; and it was

good I did so, for had he turned it loose on me, with those great powers

of convincing description that he had at his command, I verily believe

that I should never have crawled from that barn alive. So, at least, I

felt at the moment. It was the instinct of self-preservation, and it

brought sound judgment.



Here, then, at least, with different motives, reached, too, by opposite

ways, we were both agreed upon one thing, namely, that temporarily we

would forget. Fools we were, for a dominant emotion is not so easily

banished, and we were for ever recurring to it in a hundred ways direct

and indirect. A real fear cannot be so easily trifled with, and while we

toyed on the surface with thousands and thousands of words--mere

words--our sub-conscious activities were steadily gaining force, and

would before very long have to be properly acknowledged. We could not

get away from it. At last, when he had finished the recital of an

adventure which brought him near enough to a horrible death, I admitted

that in my uneventful life I had never yet been face to face with a

real fear. It slipped out inadvertently, and, of course, without

intention, but the tendency in him at the time was too strong to be

resisted. He saw the loophole, and made for it full tilt.



"It is the same with all the emotions," he said. "The experiences of

others never give a complete account. Until a man has deliberately

turned and faced for himself the fiends that chase him down the years,

he has no knowledge of what they really are, or of what they can do.

Imaginative authors may write, moralists may preach, and scholars may

criticise, but they are dealing all the time in a coinage of which they

know not the actual value. Their listener gets a sensation--but not the

true one. Until you have faced these emotions," he went on, with the

same race of words that had come from him the whole evening, "and made

them your own, your slaves, you have no idea of the power that is in

them--hunger, that shows lights beckoning beyond the grave; thirst, that

fills with mingled ice and fire; passion, love, loneliness, revenge,

and--" He paused for a minute, and though I knew we were on the brink I

was powerless to hold him. " . . . _and fear_," he went on--"fear . . .

I think that death from fear, or madness from fear, must sum up in a

second of time the total of all the most awful sensations it is possible

for a man to know."



"Then you have yourself felt something of this fear," I interrupted;

"for you said just now--"



"I do not mean physical fear," he replied; "for that is more or less a

question of nerves and will, and it is imagination that makes men

cowards. I mean an _absolute_ fear, a physical fear one might call it,

that reaches the soul and withers every power one possesses."



He said a lot more, for he, too, was wholly unable to stem the torrent

once it broke loose; but I have forgotten it; or, rather, mercifully I

did not hear it, for I stopped my ears and only heard the occasional

words when I took my fingers out to find if he had come to an end. In

due course he did come to an end, and there we left it, for I then knew

positively what he already knew: that somewhere here in the night, and

within the walls of this very barn where we were sitting, there was

waiting Something of dreadful malignancy and of great power. Something

that we might both have to face ere morning, and Something that he had

already tried to face once and failed in the attempt.



The night wore slowly on; and it gradually became more and more clear to

me that I could not dare to rely as at first upon my companion, and that

our positions were undergoing a slow process of reversal. I thank Heaven

this was not borne in upon me too suddenly; and that I had at least the

time to readjust myself somewhat to the new conditions. Preparation was

possible, even if it was not much, and I sought by every means in my

power to gather up all the shreds of my courage, so that they might

together make a decent rope that would stand the strain when it came.

The strain would come, that was certain, and I was thoroughly well

aware--though for my life I cannot put into words the reasons for my

knowledge--that the massing of the material against us was proceeding

somewhere in the darkness with determination and a horrible skill

besides.



Shorthouse meanwhile talked without ceasing. The great quantity of hay

opposite--or straw, I believe it actually was--seemed to deaden the

sound of his voice, but the silence, too, had become so oppressive that

I welcomed his torrent and even dreaded the moment when it would stop. I

heard, too, the gentle ticking of my watch. Each second uttered its

voice and dropped away into a gulf, as if starting on a journey whence

there was no return. Once a dog barked somewhere in the distance,

probably on the Lower Farm; and once an owl hooted close outside and I

could hear the swishing of its wings as it passed overhead. Above me, in

the darkness, I could just make out the outline of the barn, sinister

and black, the rows of rafters stretching across from wall to wall like

wicked arms that pressed upon the hay. Shorthouse, deep in some involved

yarn of the South Seas that was meant to be full of cheer and sunshine,

and yet only succeeded in making a ghastly mixture of unnatural

colouring, seemed to care little whether I listened or not. He made no

appeal to me, and I made one or two quite irrelevant remarks which

passed him by and proved that he was merely uttering sounds. He, too,

was afraid of the silence.



I fell to wondering how long a man could talk without stopping. . . . Then

it seemed to me that these words of his went falling into the same gulf

where the seconds dropped, only they were heavier and fell faster. I

began to chase them. Presently one of them fell much faster than the

rest, and I pursued it and found myself almost immediately in a land of

clouds and shadows. They rose up and enveloped me, pressing on the

eyelids. . . . It must have been just here that I actually fell asleep,

somewhere between twelve and one o'clock, because, as I chased this word

at tremendous speed through space, I knew that I had left the other

words far, very far behind me, till, at last, I could no longer hear

them at all. The voice of the story-teller was beyond the reach of

hearing; and I was falling with ever increasing rapidity through an

immense void.



A sound of whispering roused me. Two persons were talking under their

breath close beside me. The words in the main escaped me, but I caught

every now and then bitten-off phrases and half sentences, to which,

however, I could attach no intelligible meaning. The words were quite

close--at my very side in fact--and one of the voices sounded so

familiar, that curiosity overcame dread, and I turned to look. I was not

mistaken; _it was Shorthouse whispering_. But the other person, who must

have been just a little beyond him, was lost in the darkness and

invisible to me. It seemed then that Shorthouse at once turned up his

face and looked at me and, by some means or other that caused me no

surprise at the time, I easily made out the features in the darkness.

They wore an expression I had never seen there before; he seemed

distressed, exhausted, worn out, and as though he were about to give in

after a long mental struggle. He looked at me, almost beseechingly, and

the whispering of the other person died away.



"They're at me," he said.



I found it quite impossible to answer; the words stuck in my throat. His

voice was thin, plaintive, almost like a child's.



"I shall have to go. I'm not as strong as I thought. They'll call it

suicide, but, of course, it's really murder." There was real anguish in

his voice, and it terrified me.



A deep silence followed these extraordinary words, and I somehow

understood that the Other Person was just going to carry on the

conversation--I even fancied I saw lips shaping themselves just over my

friend's shoulder--when I felt a sharp blow in the ribs and a voice,

this time a deep voice, sounded in my ear. I opened my eyes, and the

wretched dream vanished. Yet it left behind it an impression of a strong

and quite unusual reality.



"_Do_ try not to go to sleep again," he said sternly. "You seem

exhausted. Do you feel so?" There was a note in his voice I did not

welcome,--less than alarm, but certainly more than mere solicitude.



"I do feel terribly sleepy all of a sudden," I admitted, ashamed.



"So you may," he added very earnestly; "but I rely on you to keep awake,

if only to watch. You have been asleep for half an hour at least--and

you were so still--I thought I'd wake you--"



"Why?" I asked, for my curiosity and nervousness were altogether too

strong to be resisted. "Do you think we are in danger?"



"I think _they_ are about here now. I feel my vitality going

rapidly--that's always the first sign. You'll last longer than I,

remember. Watch carefully."



The conversation dropped. I was afraid to say all I wanted to say. It

would have been too unmistakably a confession; and intuitively I

realised the danger of admitting the existence of certain emotions until

positively forced to. But presently Shorthouse began again. His voice

sounded odd, and as if it had lost power. It was more like a woman's or

a boy's voice than a man's, and recalled the voice in my dream.



"I suppose you've got a knife?" he asked.



"Yes--a big clasp knife; but why?" He made no answer. "You don't think a

practical joke likely? No one suspects we're here," I went on. Nothing

was more significant of our real feelings this night than the way we

toyed with words, and never dared more than to skirt the things in our

mind.



"It's just as well to be prepared," he answered evasively. "Better be

quite sure. See which pocket it's in--so as to be ready."



I obeyed mechanically, and told him. But even this scrap of talk proved

to me that he was getting further from me all the time in his mind. He

was following a line that was strange to me, and, as he distanced me, I

felt that the sympathy between us grew more and more strained. _He knew

more_; it was not that I minded so much--but that he was willing to

_communicate less_. And in proportion as I lost his support, I dreaded

his increasing silence. Not of words--for he talked more volubly than

ever, and with a fiercer purpose--but his silence in giving no hint of

what he must have known to be really going on the whole time.



The night was perfectly still. Shorthouse continued steadily talking,

and I jogged him now and again with remarks or questions in order to

keep awake. He paid no attention, however, to either.



About two in the morning a short shower fell, and the drops rattled

sharply on the roof like shot. I was glad when it stopped, for it

completely drowned all other sounds and made it impossible to hear

anything else that might be going on. Something _was_ going on, too, all

the time, though for the life of me I could not say what. The outer

world had grown quite dim--the house-party, the shooters, the

billiard-room, and the ordinary daily incidents of my visit. All my

energies were concentrated on the present, and the constant strain of

watching, waiting, listening, was excessively telling.



Shorthouse still talked of his adventures, in some Eastern country now,

and less connectedly. These adventures, real or imaginary, had quite a

savour of the Arabian Nights, and did not by any means make it easier

for me to keep my hold on reality. The lightest weight will affect the

balance under such circumstances, and in this case the weight of his

talk was on the wrong scale. His words were very rapid, and I found it

overwhelmingly difficult not to follow them into that great gulf of

darkness where they all rushed and vanished. But that, I knew, meant

sleep again. Yet, it was strange I should feel sleepy when at the same

time all my nerves were fairly tingling. Every time I heard what seemed

like a step outside, or a movement in the hay opposite, the blood stood

still for a moment in my veins. Doubtless, the unremitting strain told

upon me more than I realised, and this was doubly great now that I knew

Shorthouse was a source of weakness instead of strength, as I had

counted. Certainly, a curious sense of languor grew upon me more and

more, and I was sure that the man beside me was engaged in the same

struggle. The feverishness of his talk proved this, if nothing else. It

was dreadfully hard to keep awake.



But this time, instead of dropping into the gulf, I saw something come

up out of it! It reached our world by a door in the side of the barn

furthest from me, and it came in cautiously and silently and moved into

the mass of hay opposite. There, for a moment, I lost it, but presently

I caught it again higher up. It was clinging, like a great bat, to the

side of the barn. Something trailed behind it, I could not make out

what. . . . It crawled up the wooden wall and began to move out along one

of the rafters. A numb terror settled down all over me as I watched it.

The thing trailing behind it was apparently a rope.



The whispering began again just then, but the only words I could catch

seemed without meaning; it was almost like another language. The voices

were above me, under the roof. Suddenly I saw signs of active movement

going on just beyond the place where the thing lay upon the rafter.

There was something else up there with it! Then followed panting, like

the quick breathing that accompanies effort, and the next minute a black

mass dropped through the air and dangled at the end of the rope.



Instantly, it all flashed upon me. I sprang to my feet and rushed

headlong across the floor of the barn. How I moved so quickly in the

darkness I do not know; but, even as I ran, it flashed into my mind that

I should never get at my knife in time to cut the thing down, or else

that I should find it had been taken from me. Somehow or other--the

Goddess of Dreams knows how--I climbed up by the hay bales and swung out

along the rafter. I was hanging, of course, by my arms, and the knife

was already between my teeth, though I had no recollection of how it got

there. It was open. The mass, hanging like a side of bacon, was only a

few feet in front of me, and I could plainly see the dark line of rope

that fastened it to the beam. I then noticed for the first time that it

was swinging and turning in the air, and that as I approached it seemed

to move along the beam, so that the same distance was always maintained

between us. The only thing I could do--for there was no time to

hesitate--was to jump at it through the air and slash at the rope as I

dropped.



I seized the knife with my right hand, gave a great swing of my body

with my legs and leaped forward at it through the air. Horrors! It was

closer to me than I knew, and I plunged full into it, and the arm with

the knife missed the rope and cut deeply into some substance that was

soft and yielding. But, as I dropped past it, the thing had time to turn

half its width so that it swung round and faced me--and I could have

sworn as I rushed past it through the air, that it had the features of

Shorthouse.



The shock of this brought the vile nightmare to an abrupt end, and I

woke up a second time on the soft hay-bed to find that the grey dawn was

stealing in, and that I was exceedingly cold. After all I had failed to

keep awake, and my sleep, since it was growing light, must have lasted

at least an hour. A whole hour off my guard!



There was no sound from Shorthouse, to whom, of course, my first

thoughts turned; probably his flow of words had ceased long ago, and he

too had yielded to the persuasions of the seductive god. I turned to

wake him and get the comfort of companionship for the horror of my

dream, when to my utter dismay I saw that the place where he had been

was vacant. He was no longer beside me.



It had been no little shock before to discover that the ally in whom lay

all my faith and dependence was really frightened, but it is quite

impossible to describe the sensations I experienced when I realised he

had gone altogether and that I was alone in the barn. For a minute or

two my head swam and I felt a prey to a helpless terror. The dream, too,

still seemed half real, so vivid had it been! I was thoroughly

frightened--hot and cold by turns--and I clutched the hay at my side in

handfuls, and for some moments had no idea in the world what I should

do.



This time, at least, I was unmistakably awake, and I made a great effort

to collect myself and face the meaning of the disappearance of my

companion. In this I succeeded so far that I decided upon a thorough

search of the barn, inside and outside. It was a dreadful undertaking,

and I did not feel at all sure of being able to bring it to a

conclusion, but I knew pretty well that unless something was done at

once, I should simply collapse.



But, when I tried to move, I found that the cold, and fear, and I know

not what else unholy besides, combined to make it almost impossible. I

suddenly realised that a tour of inspection, during the whole of which

my back would be open to attack, was not to be thought of. My will was

not equal to it. Anything might spring upon me any moment from the dark

corners, and the growing light was just enough to reveal every movement

I made to any who might be watching. For, even then, and while I was

still half dazed and stupid, I knew perfectly well that someone was

watching me all the time with the utmost intentness. I had not merely

awakened; I had _been_ awakened.



I decided to try another plan; I called to him. My voice had a thin weak

sound, far away and quite unreal, and there was no answer to it. Hark,

though! There was something that might have been a very faint voice near

me!



I called again, this time with greater distinctness, "Shorthouse, where

are you? can you hear me?"



There certainly was a sound, but it was not a voice. Something was

moving. It was someone shuffling along, and it seemed to be outside the

barn. I was afraid to call again, and the sound continued. It was an

ordinary sound enough, no doubt, but it came to me just then as

something unusual and unpleasant. Ordinary sounds remain ordinary only

so long as one is not listening to them; under the influence of intense

listening they become unusual, portentous, and therefore extraordinary.

So, this common sound came to me as something uncommon, disagreeable. It

conveyed, too, an impression of stealth. And with it there was another,

a slighter sound.



Just at this minute the wind bore faintly over the field the sound of

the stable clock, a mile away. It was three o'clock; the hour when

life's pulses beat lowest; when poor souls lying between life and death

find it hardest to resist. Vividly I remember this thought crashing

through my brain with a sound of thunder, and I realised that the strain

on my nerves was nearing the limit, and that something would have to be

done at once if I was to reclaim my self-control at all.



When thinking over afterwards the events of this dreadful night, it has

always seemed strange to me that my second nightmare, so vivid in its

terror and its nearness, should have furnished me with no inkling of

what was really going on all this while; and that I should not have been

able to put two and two together, or have discovered sooner than I did

_what_ this sound was and _where_ it came from. I can well believe that

the vile scheming which lay behind the whole experience found it an easy

trifle to direct my hearing amiss; though, of course, it may equally

well have been due to the confused condition of my mind at the time and

to the general nervous tension under which I was undoubtedly suffering.



But, whatever the cause for my stupidity at first in failing to trace

the sound to its proper source, I can only say here that it was with a

shock of unexampled horror that my eye suddenly glanced upwards and

caught sight of the figure moving in the shadows above my head among the

rafters. Up to this moment I had thought that it was somebody outside

the barn, crawling round the walls till it came to a door; and the rush

of horror that froze my heart when I looked up and saw that it was

Shorthouse creeping stealthily along a beam, is something altogether

beyond the power of words to describe.



He was staring intently down upon me, and I knew at once that it was he

who had been watching me.



This point was, I think, for me the climax of feeling in the whole

experience; I was incapable of any further sensation--that is any

further sensation in the same direction. But here the abominable

character of the affair showed itself most plainly, for it suddenly

presented an entirely new aspect to me. The light fell on the picture

from a new angle, and galvanised me into a fresh ability to feel when I

thought a merciful numbness had supervened. It may not sound a great

deal in the printed letter, but it came to me almost as if it had been

an extension of consciousness, for the Hand that held the pencil

suddenly touched in with ghastly effect of contrast the element of the

ludicrous. Nothing could have been worse just then. Shorthouse, the

masterful spirit, so intrepid in the affairs of ordinary life, whose

power increased rather than lessened in the face of danger--this man,

creeping on hands and knees along a rafter in a barn at three o'clock in

the morning, watching me all the time as a cat watches a mouse! Yes, it

was distinctly ludicrous, and while it gave me a measure with which to

gauge the dread emotion that caused his aberration, it stirred

somewhere deep in my interior the strings of an empty laughter.



One of those moments then came to me that are said to come sometimes

under the stress of great emotion, when in an instant the mind grows

dazzlingly clear. An abnormal lucidity took the place of my confusion of

thought, and I suddenly understood that the two dreams which I had taken

for nightmares must really have been sent me, and that I had been

allowed for one moment to look over the edge of what was to come; the

Good was helping, even when the Evil was most determined to destroy.



I saw it all clearly now. Shorthouse had overrated his strength. The

terror inspired by his first visit to the barn (when he had failed) had

roused the man's whole nature to win, and he had brought me to divert

the deadly stream of evil. That he had again underrated the power

against him was apparent as soon as he entered the barn, and his wild

talk, and refusal to admit what he felt, were due to this desire not to

acknowledge the insidious fear that was growing in his heart. But, at

length, it had become too strong. He had left my side in my sleep--had

been overcome himself, perhaps, first in _his_ sleep, by the dreadful

impulse. He knew that I should interfere, and with every movement he

made, he watched me steadily, for the mania was upon him and he was

_determined to hang himself_. He pretended not to hear me calling, and I

knew that anything coming between him and his purpose would meet the

full force of his fury--the fury of a maniac, of one, for the time

being, truly possessed.



For a minute or two I sat there and stared. I saw then for the first

time that there was a bit of rope trailing after him, and that this was

what made the rustling sound I had noticed. Shorthouse, too, had come to

a stop. His body lay along the rafter like a crouching animal. He was

looking hard at me. That whitish patch was his face.



I can lay claim to no courage in the matter, for I must confess that in

one sense I was frightened almost beyond control. But at the same time

the necessity for decided action, if I was to save his life, came to me

with an intense relief. No matter what animated him for the moment,

Shorthouse was only a _man_; it was flesh and blood I had to contend

with and not the intangible powers. Only a few hours before I had seen

him cleaning his gun, smoking his pipe, knocking the billiard balls

about with very human clumsiness, and the picture flashed across my

mind with the most wholesome effect.



Then I dashed across the floor of the barn and leaped upon the hay bales

as a preliminary to climbing up the sides to the first rafter. It was

far more difficult than in my dream. Twice I slipped back into the hay,

and as I scrambled up for the third time I saw that Shorthouse, who thus

far had made no sound or movement, was now busily doing something with

his hands upon the beam. He was at its further end, and there must have

been fully fifteen feet between us. Yet I saw plainly what he was doing;

he was fastening the rope to the rafter. _The other end, I saw, was

already round his neck!_



This gave me at once the necessary strength, and in a second I had swung

myself on to a beam, crying aloud with all the authority I could put

into my voice--



"You fool, man! What in the world are you trying to do? Come down at

once!"



My energetic actions and words combined had an immediate effect upon him

for which I blessed Heaven; for he looked up from his horrid task,

stared hard at me for a second or two, and then came wriggling along

like a great cat to intercept me. He came by a series of leaps and

bounds and at an astonishing pace, and the way he moved somehow inspired

me with a fresh horror, for it did not seem the natural movement of a

human being at all, but more, as I have said, like that of some lithe

wild animal.



He was close upon me. I had no clear idea of what exactly I meant to do.

I could see his face plainly now; he was grinning cruelly; the eyes were

positively luminous, and the menacing expression of the mouth was most

distressing to look upon. Otherwise it was the face of a chalk man,

white and dead, with all the semblance of the living human drawn out of

it. Between his teeth he held my clasp knife, which he must have taken

from me in my sleep, and with a flash I recalled his anxiety to know

exactly which pocket it was in.



"Drop that knife!" I shouted at him, "and drop after it yourself--"



"Don't you dare to stop me!" he hissed, the breath coming between his

lips across the knife that he held in his teeth. "Nothing in the world

can stop me now--I have promised--and I must do it. I can't hold out any

longer."



"Then drop the knife and I'll help you," I shouted back in his face. "I

promise--"



"No use," he cried, laughing a little, "I must do it and you can't stop

me."



I heard a sound of laughter, too, somewhere in the air behind me. The

next second Shorthouse came at me with a single bound.



To this day I cannot quite tell how it happened. It is still a wild

confusion and a fever of horror in my mind, but from somewhere I drew

more than my usual allowance of strength, and before he could well have

realised what I meant to do, I had his throat between my fingers. He

opened his teeth and the knife dropped at once, for I gave him a squeeze

he need never forget. Before, my muscles had felt like so much soaked

paper; now they recovered their natural strength, and more besides. I

managed to work ourselves along the rafter until the hay was beneath us,

and then, completely exhausted, I let go my hold and we swung round

together and dropped on to the hay, he clawing at me in the air even as

we fell.



The struggle that began by my fighting for his life ended in a wild

effort to save my own, for Shorthouse was quite beside himself, and had

no idea what he was doing. Indeed, he has always averred that he

remembers nothing of the entire night's experiences after the time when

he first woke me from sleep. A sort of deadly mist settled over him, he

declares, and he lost all sense of his own identity. The rest was a

blank until he came to his senses under a mass of hay with me on the top

of him.



It was the hay that saved us, first by breaking the fall and then by

impeding his movements so that I was able to prevent his choking me to

death.