Great Supernatural Stories: 101 Horrifying Tales

By Stefan Dziemianowicz

Ghosts! Vampires! Zombies! Monsters! The literature of the supernatural abounds with some of the most frightening horrors imagined into existence. They mock our notions of what should be and challenge the security of the boundaries of our rational world. While there are limits to what we consider natural, there are no limits to the supernatural—and, perhaps, no safety from it.

Great Supernatural Stories features 101 horrifying tales of the supernatural that are sure to make you fearful of the dark corners of the room and to curdle your dreams into nightmares. Selections include:
 
The Bus-Conductor—E. F. Benson. The bus driver looked just like the hearse driver—and what did he mean when he said, “Just room for one inside, sir”?
 
The Damned Thing—Ambrose Bierce. The being shredded flesh as easily as it flattened grass, but it couldn’t be evaded because no one could see it.
 
The Ghost of Mohammed Din—Clark Ashton Smith. They say that dead men tell no tales, but the ghost in the haunted house had more in mind than just frightening those who stayed in it.
 
Jumbee—Henry S. Whitehead. On the island of St. Croix death brings all manner of supernatural marvels out at night, including ghosts, were-dogs, and hanging jumbees.
 
The Masque of the Red Death—Edgar Allan Poe. When Prince Prospero sealed off his castle in the hope of cheating the Red Death, he didn’t realize that it was just as easy to lock something in as to lock it out.
 
The Mezzotint—M. R. James. The scene in the framed picture appeared to be changing gradually, and the story it told was a horrifying account of revenge from beyond the grave.
 
The Terrible Old Man—H. P. Lovecraft. To the three robbers the old man seemed feeble and helpless, but they underestimated the wild talents that he had developed during his years at sea.
 
Was It a Dream?—Guy de Maupassant. The man had gone to the cemetery to honor the memory of his dead lover, unaware that it was the night that the dead rose to write their true epitaphs on their tombstones.
 
 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fall River Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781435166219

Book preview

Introduction

In the concluding paragraphs of his landmark essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, first published in its entirety in 1939, horror master H. P. Lovecraft offered the following observations regarding the tale of supernatural horror:

For those who relish speculation regarding the future, the tale of supernatural horror provides an interesting field. Combated by a mounting wave of plodding realism, cynical flippancy, and sophisticated disillusionment, it is yet encouraged by a parallel tide of growing mysticism, as developed both through the fatigued reaction of occultists and religious fundamentalists against materialistic discovery and through the stimulation of wonder and fancy by such enlarged vistas and broken barriers as modern science has given us with its intra-atomic chemistry, advancing astrophysics, doctrines of relativity, and probings into biology and human thought. At the present moment the favoring forces would appear to have somewhat of an advantage; since there is unquestionably more cordiality shewn toward weird writing than when, thirty years ago, the best of Arthur Machen’s work fell on the stony ground of the smart and cocksure ’nineties. Ambrose Bierce, almost unknown in his own time, has now reached something like general recognition.

At the time Lovecraft wrote these words, supernatural horror fiction was establishing itself as a popular fiction genre in the pulp fiction magazines that flourished in the first half of the twentieth century. The authors whom he mentions by name, Arthur Machen and Ambrose Bierce—both of whom are represented in Great Supernatural Stories, along with Lovecraft himself—wrote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at a time when the idea of supernatural fiction as a fiction genre was only beginning to gain traction. Consequently, these authors’ tales of the supernatural were looked on in their day as no different from their non-supernatural stories.

Lovecraft, who died in 1937, clearly anticipated the burgeoning popularity of the tale of the supernatural, but he surely could not have imagined that by the end of the twentieth century supernatural horror fiction would be a robust and thriving literary genre, and that several of its best writers would be charting regularly on the bestseller lists with books that appealed to readers beyond the genre’s traditional niche audience. Great Supernatural Stories represents a selection of tales published in the watershed period just prior to the tide of tales that Lovecraft saw flood and eventually alter the topography of the popular fiction landscape. It contents span nearly a century and include the work of well-known literary writers—Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Robert S. Hichens, and H. G. Wells, to name but a few—and writers such as Lovecraft himself, for whom the tale of the supernatural was a specialty. This volume also includes stories by relatively unknown writers whose contribution represents one of a handful of stories they published in their lifetime.

The selections for Great Supernatural Stories feature all of the most common figures in the pantheon of supernatural beings: ghosts, vampires, witches, shapeshifters, and zombies. By definition, though, the supernatural has a much broader scope than these entities alone embody, and that is virtually limitless in its expression. This is evident in the book’s oldest story, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, whose palace setting is haunted by a phantom—not a ghost, but a being who incarnates an inescapable pestilence ravaging the surrounding countryside. William Hope Hodgson’s Demons of the Sea, written nearly three-quarters of a century later, takes the tale of the supernatural in a direction opposite to that of Poe’s story. Do its sea-spawned monsters represent a natural species hitherto overlooked by science or an expression of the stimulation of wonder and fancy by such enlarged vistas and broken barriers as modern science has given us?

It’s safe to say that all of the stories in this volume fall somewhere between the extremes of the familiar and the previously unimagined possibilities in supernatural literature. You, the reader, may feel that some of the selections range even farther afield. To that extent, Great Supernatural Stories features some of the most imaginatively conceived representations of the tale of supernatural horror. These stories have helped to shape a literary tradition that still exerts its influence today.

—Stefan Dziemianowicz

New York, 2017

Accessory Before the Fact

Algernon Blackwood

At the moorland cross-roads Martin stood examining the sign-post for several minutes in some bewilderment. The names on the four arms were not what he expected, distances were not given, and his map, he concluded with impatience, must be hopelessly out of date. Spreading it against the post, he stooped to study it more closely. The wind blew the corners flapping against his face. The small print was almost indecipherable in the fading light. It appeared, however—as well as he could make out—that two miles back he must have taken the wrong turning.

He remembered that turning. The path had looked inviting; he had hesitated a moment, then followed it, caught by the usual lure of walkers that it might prove a short cut.

The short-cut snare is old as human nature. For some minutes he studied the sign-post and the map alternately. Dusk was falling, and his knapsack had grown heavy. He could not make the two guides tally, however, and a feeling of uncertainty crept over his mind. He felt oddly baffled, frustrated. His thought grew thick. Decision was most difficult. I’m muddled, he thought; I must be tired, as at length he chose the most likely arm. Sooner or later it will bring me to an inn, though not the one I intended. He accepted his walker’s luck, and started briskly. The arm read, Over Litacy Hill in small, fine letters that danced and shifted every time he looked at them; but the name was not discoverable on the map. It was, however, inviting like the short cut. A similar impulse again directed his choice. Only this time it seemed more insistent, almost urgent.

And he became aware, then, of the exceeding loneliness of the country about him. The road for a hundred yards went straight, then curved like a white river running into space; the deep blue-green of heather lined the banks, spreading upwards through the twilight; and occasional small pines stood solitary here and there, all unexplained. The curious adjective, having made its appearance, haunted him. So many things that afternoon were similarly unexplained: the short cut, the darkened map, the names on the sign-post, his own erratic impulses, and the growing strange confusion that crept upon his spirit. The entire country-side needed explanation, though perhaps interpretation was the truer word. Those little lonely trees had made him see it. Why had he lost his way so easily? Why did he suffer vague impressions to influence his direction? Why was he here—exactly here? And why did he go now over Litacy Hill?

Then, by a green field that shone like a thought of daylight amid the darkness of the moor, he saw a figure lying in the grass. It was a blot upon the landscape, a mere huddled patch of dirty rags, yet with a certain horrid picturesqueness too; and his mind—though his German was of the schoolroom order—at once picked out the German equivalents as against the English. Lump and Lumpen flashed across his brain most oddly. They seemed in that moment right, and so expressive, almost like onomatopoeic words, if that were possible of sight. Neither rags nor rascal would have fitted what he saw. The adequate description was in German.

Here was a clue tossed up by the part of him that did not reason. But it seems he missed it. And the next minute the tramp rose to a sitting posture and asked the time of evening. In German he asked it. And Martin, answering without a second’s hesitation, gave it, also in German, "halb sieben—half-past six. The instinctive guess was accurate. A glance at his watch when he looked a moment later proved it. He heard the man say, with the covert insolence of tramps, T’ank you; much opliged." For Martin had not shown his watch—another intuition subconsciously obeyed.

He quickened his pace along that lonely road, a curious jumble of thoughts and feelings surging through him. He had somehow known the question would come, and come in German. Yet it flustered and dismayed him. Another thing had also flustered and dismayed him. He had expected it in the same queer fashion: it was right. For when the ragged brown thing rose to ask the question, a part of it remained lying on the grass—another brown, dirty thing. There were two tramps. And he saw both faces clearly. Behind the untidy beards, and below the old slouch hats, he caught the look of unpleasant, clever faces that watched him closely while he passed. The eyes followed him. For a second he looked straight into those eyes, so that he could not fail to know them. And he understood, quite horridly, that both faces were too sleek, refined, and cunning for those of ordinary tramps. The men were not really tramps at all. They were disguised.

How covertly they watched me! was his thought, as he hurried along the darkening road, aware in dead earnestness now of the loneliness and desolation of the moorland all about him.

Uneasy and distressed, he increased his pace. Midway in thinking what an unnecessarily clanking noise his nailed boots made upon the hard white road, there came upon him with a rush together the company of these things that haunted him as unexplained. They brought a single definite message: That all this business was not really meant for him at all, and hence his confusion and bewilderment; that he had intruded into someone else’s scenery, and was trespassing upon another’s map of life. By some wrong inner turning he had interpolated his person into a group of foreign forces which operated in the little world of someone else. Unwittingly, somewhere, he had crossed the threshold, and now was fairly in—a trespasser, an eavesdropper, a Peeping Tom. He was listening, peeping; overbearing things he had no right to know, because they were intended for another. Like a ship at sea he was intercepting wireless messages he could not properly interpret, because his Receiver was not accurately tuned to their reception. And more—these messages were warnings!

Then fear dropped upon him like the night. He was caught in a net of delicate, deep forces he could not manage, knowing neither their origin nor purpose. He had walked into some huge psychic trap elaborately planned and baited, yet calculated for another than himself. Something had lured him in, something in the landscape, the time of day, his mood. Owing to some undiscovered weakness in himself he had been easily caught. His fear slipped easily into terror.

What happened next happened with such speed and concentration that it all seemed crammed into a moment. At once and in a heap it happened. It was quite inevitable. Down the white road to meet him a man came swaying from side to side in drunkenness quite obviously feigned—a tramp; and while Martin made room for him to pass, the lurch changed in a second to attack, and the fellow was upon him. The blow was sudden and terrific, yet even while it fell Martin was aware that behind him rushed a second man, who caught his legs from under him and bore him with a thud and crash to the ground. Blows rained then; he saw a gleam of something shining; a sudden deadly nausea plunged him into utter weakness where resistance was impossible. Something of fire entered his throat, and from his mouth poured a thick sweet thing that choked him. The world sank far away into darkness. . . . Yet through all the horror and confusion ran the trail of two clear thoughts: he realised that the first tramp had sneaked at a fast double through the heather and so come down to meet him; and that something heavy was torn from fastenings that clipped it tight and close beneath his clothes against his body. . .

Abruptly then the darkness lifted, passed utterly away. He found himself peering into the map against the sign-post. The wind was flapping the corners against his cheek, and he was poring over names that now he saw quite clear. Upon the arms of the sign-post above were those he had expected to find, and the map recorded them quite faithfully. All was accurate again and as it should be. He read the name of the village he had meant to make—it was plainly visible in the dusk, two miles the distance given. Bewildered, shaken, unable to think of anything, he studied the map into his pocket unfolded, and hurried forward like a man who has just wakened from an awful dream that had compressed into a single second all the detailed misery of some prolonged, oppressive nightmare.

He broke into a steady trot that soon became a run; the perspiration poured from him; his legs felt weak, and his breath was difficult to manage. He was only conscious of the overpowering desire to get away as fast as possible from the sign-post at the cross-roads where the dreadful vision had flashed upon him. For Martin, accountant on a holiday, had never dreamed of any world of psychic possibilities. The entire thing was torture. It was worse than a cooked balance of the books that some conspiracy of clerks and directors proved at his innocent door. He raced as though the country-side ran crying at his heels. And always still ran with him the incredible conviction that none of this was really meant for himself at all. He had overheard the secrets of another. He had taken the warning for another into himself, and so altered its direction. He had thereby prevented its right delivery. It all shocked him beyond words. It dislocated the machinery of his just and accurate soul. The warning was intended for another, who could not—would not—now receive it.

The physical exertion, however, brought at length a more comfortable reaction and some measure of composure. With the lights in sight, he slowed down and entered the village at a reasonable pace. The inn was reached, a bedroom inspected and engaged, and supper ordered with the solid comfort of a large Bass to satisfy an unholy thirst and complete the restoration of balance. The unusual sensations largely passed away, and the odd feeling that anything in his simple, wholesome world required explanation was no longer present. Still with a vague uneasiness about him, though actual fear quite gone, he went into the bar to smoke an after-supper pipe and chat with the natives, as his pleasure was upon a holiday, and so saw two men leaning upon the counter at the far end with their backs towards him. He saw their faces instantly in the glass, and the pipe nearly slipped from between his teeth.

Clean-shaven, sleek, clever faces—and he caught a word or two as they talked over their drinks—German words. Well dressed they were, both men, with nothing about them calling for particular attention; they might have been two tourists holiday-making like himself in tweeds and walking-boots. And they presently paid for their drinks and went out. He never saw them face to face at all; but the sweat broke out afresh all over him, a feverish rush of heat and ice together ran about his body; beyond question he recognised the two tramps, this time not disguised—not yet disguised.

He remained in his corner without moving, puffing violently at an extinguished pipe, gripped helplessly by the return of that first vile terror. It came again to him with an absolute clarity of certainty that it was not with himself they had to do, these men, and, further, that he had no right in the world to interfere. He had no locus standi at all; it would be immoral . . . even if the opportunity came. And the opportunity, he felt, would come. He had been an eavesdropper, and had come upon private in—formation of a secret kind that he had no right to make use of, even that good might come—even to save life. He sat on in his corner, terrified and silent, waiting for the thing that should happen next.

But night came without explanation. Nothing happened. He slept soundly. There was no other guest at the inn but an elderly man, apparently a tourist like himself. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, and in the morning Martin overheard him asking the landlord what direction he should take for Litacy Hill. His teeth began then to chatter and a weakness came into his knees. You turn to the left at the cross-roads, Martin broke in before the landlord could reply; you’ll see the sign-post about two miles from here, and after that it’s a matter of four miles more. How in the world did he know, flashed horribly through him. I’m going that way myself, he was saying next; I’ll go with you for a bit—if you don’t mind! The words came out impulsively and ill-considered; of their own accord they came. For his own direction was exactly opposite. He did not want the man to go alone. The stranger, however, easily evaded his offer of companionship. He thanked him with the remark that he was starting later in the day. . . . They were standing, all three, beside the horse-trough in front of the inn, when at that very moment a tramp, slouching along the road, looked up and asked the time of day. And it was the man with the gold-rimmed glasses who told him.

T’ank you; much opliged, the tramp replied, passing on with his slow, slouching gait, while the landlord, a talkative fellow, proceeded to remark upon the number of Germans that lived in England and were ready to swell the Teutonic invasion which he, for his part, deemed imminent.

But Martin heard it not. Before he had gone a mile upon his way he went into the woods to fight his conscience all alone. His feebleness, his cowardice, were surely criminal. Real anguish tortured him. A dozen times he decided to go back upon his steps, and a dozen times the singular authority that whispered he had no right to interfere prevented him. How could he act upon knowledge gained by eavesdropping? How interfere in the private business of another’s hidden life merely because he had overheard, as at the telephone, its secret dangers? Some inner confusion prevented straight thinking altogether. The stranger would merely think him mad. He had no fact to go upon. . . . He smothered a hundred impulses . . . and finally went on his way with a shaking, troubled heart.

The last two days of his holiday were ruined by doubts and questions and alarms—all justified later when he read of the murder of a tourist upon Litacy Hill. The man wore gold-rimmed glasses, and carried in a belt about his person a large sum of money. His throat was cut. And the police were hard upon the trail of a mysterious pair of tramps, said to be—Germans.

Aidu

Hero Despard

In the early fall of 1880 I was in Dahbol, India, having run down from Bombay, upon a sister who had set up a little bungalow there.

Dahbol is charmingly situated between the sea and the wooded heights of the Western Ghauts, and as nothing pressed me at the time, I remained there, spending my time rambling about the place and sometimes running into a chance adventure. Thus it happened that the following strange experience befell me.

One evening, in the cool of the late twilight, I was strolling about through the sea-end of the town, and, stopping before a small temple which was a little removed from the houses around, stood studying out the lines of the usual grotesque figures cut upon its face. Dense shadows cast by the rising moon threw the entrance into such obscurity that nothing could be seen within. In fact, I thought the place deserted for the time, and was about to obey an impulse to step up into the shadows banked in the doorway, when, suddenly, a human figure hurled itself upon me from out the darkness with such force that I staggered back and almost lost my footing. I had instinctively thrown out my arms and clasped the figure for support, and now, as I recovered my balance and looked down, it was into the face of the fairest woman I have ever seen in any land.

The marvelousness of her beauty served to steady my faculties where ordinarily I should have felt bewildered, and, still holding her close, for she trembled as if she would fall from my arms, I said in such Hindustani as I was capable of:

Something has frightened you. You are fleeing from danger?

Sir, she answered, in a voice soft and rich, though broken by low gasps, I must hasten; and she pulled against my arms for release.

From my knowledge of the country, I felt sure no woman like the one who stood before me could safely venture into the streets at this hour, and, having an Anglo-Saxon’s feelings for all womankind, I acted on a quickly formed resolve.

I do not know what sends you out into the night, nor what pursuit you fear, but I am ready to take you where you wish to go, I said.

I must go far from this place,—and alone, she answered, speaking agitatedly.

We will go, I said reassuringly. I will take you to your own people.

Upon this her slender body trembled anew, and replying, I have no people. I cannot stay here, she turned from me and began to walk quickly away.

I as quickly followed, walking behind her through street after street, she choosing the deserted by-ways, until we came out through some suburban orchards, and finally reached the edge of a stretch of thick forest which belts the eastern side of the town. Here she stopped suddenly, and, turning to me, said entreatingly:

Leave me! You cannot help.

I looked at the town behind, at the forest in front, and felt it a moral impossibility to obey.

I think I can, I ventured, if you will confide in me. I have a sister here in whose care I can place you, and if anything is threatening you I can hide you with her. She is an English doctor, and is devoting her life to work among your countrywomen.

It would be impossible to describe the changes of expression which flashed over her face at this. Relief, questioning, consent, and doubt arose from the depths of her dark eyes and looked out at me. For some time she stood thus, inwardly debating, and at last answered:

Yes, if I may come out alone once in seven days.

You shall have perfect liberty, of course, I eagerly assured her.

This promise seemed so completely to allay any lurking feeling of fear or doubt that at once she laid her hand upon mine, saying, I will go with you.

Now, I had no hesitation whatever in taking this girl to my sister, who, as I had said, lived in India for the purpose of dealing with the conditions of life surrounding the Oriental women. Indeed, no sooner had she seen Aidu and heard her story than she insisted upon taking this beautiful waif into our household as one of ourselves; and as time passed and the lovableness of her nature was fully revealed to us, we found that we had rescued one of the rarest of pearls from the depths of the human sea around us.

She was pathetically gentle, and when the first constraint of the situation wore off showed herself possessed of a brilliant though unformed mind.

My sister built many hopes upon Aidu—for that was the name of our waif—as a future coadjutor in her chosen work; though I may as well confess at once that I had other intentions about her.

After only a few weeks spent in her society, I found myself deeply in love, and but for one singular, inexplicable circumstance would have begged her then and there to become my wife.

The mystery was this:

While she looked the perfection of sweet and elastic health and possessed an unusually pure vitality, no one ever saw Aidu partake of food. At first we thought that perhaps she shrank from burdening us, and believed that in some way she secretly procured cheap food outside. To all questions on the subject she returned a jesting reply, or else remained pleadingly silent. Once only, during each week, was she seen to leave the house, when she went upon those twilight walks for which she had stipulated. And the mystery of her sustenance, puzzling at first, grew darker and denser every day, the more so as Aidu steadily became more radiant in health and tinted like a ripe pomegranate from a fountain of rich vitality. Indeed, she seemed the incarnation of some flawless vital force consciously masking itself in human form.

But there came a day when I could restrain my love no longer.

My jealousy of those walks, during which she went I knew not where nor whom to see, became at last unbearable, and I determined to push my misgivings to a conclusion by questioning her outright.

Late in the afternoon of one of these seventh days of the week, on which she never failed of her twilight walk, I sought her where she sat in the shade of a trellised veranda, and, seating myself beside her, took her hands in my own.

Aidu, you must know how I love you! I said impetuously. I could wipe out the fact of my own soul sooner than I could forget the measureless depth and meaning of the look she gave me, straight from her lifted eyes! Oh, cold and reasonable Westerner! Never, even through eternity, will you know the infinity of meaning hidden in the lotus-heart of love, never having looked into the eyes of Aidu raised in a pure and perfect confession!

I love you! she murmured. Echo of my own words only, but enough.

You will not go out alone again, now, Aidu? I questioned pleadingly.

"I would try to do what you ask, even that which I cannot," she said wistfully.

Having gained so much, I was in a measure satisfied; but I determined, in virtue of my now undoubted right, to follow her should she again go on her secret errand. This I hoped she would not do; but later I saw her steal out from the house and walk away, not briskly, as was usual, but with a certain languor, as if pulling against her will. It was an easy matter to follow her at a little distance, for she went straight forward, as to a well-known goal, never once looking back. On she went, past the houses of the town, out into a stretch of the suburban orchards, until we stood again upon the edge of the same tangled forest where we had stopped on the evening I first found her. Surely, it could not be that Aidu would venture within those dense shadows!

Yes, even here she did not hesitate, but forced her way through the gloomy thicket, deftly stepping over obstructions and pushing away the drooping vines as if the path were a clear and familiar one. And all the while I followed, possessed by an intensity of curiosity and feeling which must have given me the eyes of a night animal, for I never for a moment lost sight of her; but, while she walked easily and swiftly, I rushed on, panting through excitement, until when, at hut, she halted and leaned back against a tree in an attitude of expectation, I stopped, trembling and weak from agitation.

And now that happened which is burnt into my memory forever.

As she stood there, motionless, her slight figure in its snowy garments dully outlined against the dark tree trunk, I noted that Aidu’s eyes were fixed upon a certain spot in the ground before her, whither mine followed. At first I saw only a faint glow in the grass at her feet, like the light of two phosphorescent insects side by side, but as this rapidly grew and widened, the shape of a dark head was outlined within the rays. Brighter and brighter the light grew until—yes, a cobra’s hooded head appeared! and from the glowing eyes streamed the rapidly increasing light in a coruscating flood.

Horror-stricken, I looked at Aidu! She was gazing down into those burning, venomous eyes, whose radiance was momentarily intensified until her rapt face and figure, the coiled length of the serpent, and even the grass and trees around were illuminated as by the shining of two small suns.

Under this compelling gaze Aidu’s languor melted. Her form dilated and changed in my sight as if the very crucible of vital life were there, purging away the particles of mortality and building her form anew out of imperishable materials. Her glowing beauty was indescribable; it was a revelation.

And now the monster slowly raised himself, stretching up out of his coils, until his scintillating, fiery orbs were on a level with the smiling, dewy eyes of the woman whom I loved. She leaned gently forward and softly stroked the mottled neck. A tremor shook my whole body. In that moment I was overwhelmed by the horrible certainty that here I beheld the rites of the ancient mystic serpent worship still practised in certain parts of India; and that Aidu, my Aidu, served as the unwilling instrument of the priests of the temple, from whose fearful power she had vainly attempted to escape on the night of our first meeting.

Crazed by a fury of conflicting emotions, I seized a stone that lay near and hurled it upon the erect serpent. It struck his neck just below the level of Aidu’s matchless chin, and as the ugly head dropped suddenly down upon the coils of his body, slowly settling to the ground, the wonderful light faded, and a heartrending shriek from Aidu rang through the woods. I sprang to her side, and lifted her in my arms!

Aidu! my love! I cried, speak to me.

But the exquisite form hung relaxed in my embrace, and the white lids slowly shut down over the eyes of my love. The fearful spell had been broken, but at what cost! By arresting too suddenly that strange, magnetic current, I had checked the fountain from which her life was fed.

Aidu was dead!

The Armless Man

W. G. Litt

I first met Bob Masters in the hotel at a place called Fourteen Streams, not very far from Kimberley.

I had for some months been trying to find gold or diamonds by digging holes in the veldt. But since this has little or nothing to do with the story, I pass by my mining adventures and come back to the hotel. I came to it very readily that afternoon, for I was very thirsty.

A tall man standing at the bar turned his head as I entered and said Good-day to me. I returned the compliment, but took no particular notice of him at first.

Suddenly I heard the man say to the barman:

I’m ready for another drink.

That surprised me, because his glass was still three-quarters full. But I was still more startled by the action of the barman who lifted up the glass and held it whilst the man drank.

Then I saw the reason. The man had no arms.

You know the easy way in which Englishmen chum together anywhere out of England, whilst in their native country nothing save a formal introduction will make them acquainted? I made some remark to Masters which led to another from him, and in five minutes’ time we were chatting on all sorts of topics.

I learnt that Masters, bound for England, had come in to Fourteen Streams to catch the train from Kimberley, and, having a few hours to wait, had strolled up to the collection of tin huts calling itself a town.

I was going down to Kimberley too, so of course we went together, and were quite old friends by the time we reached that city.

We had a wash and something to eat, and then we walked round to the post-office. I used to have my letters addressed there, poste restante, and call in for them when I happened to be in Kimberley.

I found several letters, one of which altered the whole course of my life. This was from Messrs. Harvey, Filson, and Harvey, solicitors, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It informed me that the sudden death of my cousin had so affected my uncle’s health that he had followed his only son within the month. The senior branch of the family being thus extinct the whole of the entailed estate had devolved on me.

The first thing I did was to send off two cablegrams to say that I was coming home by the first available boat, one to the solicitors, the other to Nancy Milward.

Masters and I arranged to come home together and eventually reached Cape Town. There we had considerable trouble at the shipping office. It was just about the time of year when people who live in Africa to make money, come over to England to spend it, and in consequence the boats were very crowded. Masters demanded a cabin to himself, a luxury which was not to be had, though there was one that he and I could share. He made a tremendous fuss about doing this, and I thought it very strange, because I had assisted him in many ways which his mutilation rendered necessary. However, he had to give way in the end, and we embarked on the Castle liner.

On the voyage he told me how he had lost his arms. It seemed that he had been sent up country on some Government job or other, and had had the ill-fortune to be captured by the natives. They treated him quite well at first, but gave him to understand that he must not try to escape. I suppose that to most men such a warning would be a direct incitement to make the attempt. Masters made it and failed. They cut off his right arm as a punishment. He waited until the wound was healed and tried again. Again he failed. This time they cut off his other arm.

Good Lord, I cried. What devils!

Weren’t they! he said. "And yet, you know, they were quite good-tempered chaps when you didn’t cross them. I wasn’t going to be beaten by a lot of naked natives though, and I made a third attempt.

I succeeded all right that time, though, of course, it was much more difficult. I really don’t know at all how I managed to worry through. You see, I could only eat plants and leaves and such fruit as I came across; but I’d learnt as much as I could of the local botany in the intervals.

Was it worth while? I asked. I think the first failure and its result would have satisfied me.

Yes, he said slowly, it was worth while. You see, my wife was waiting for me at home, and I wanted to see her again very badly—you don’t know how badly.

I think I can imagine, I said. Because there is a girl waiting for me too at home.

I saw her before she died, he continued.

Died? I said.

Yes, he answered. She was dying when I reached home at last, but I was with her at the end. That was something, wasn’t it?

I do hate people to tell me this sort of thing. Not because I do not feel sorry for them; on the contrary, I feel so sorry that I absolutely fail to find words to express my sympathy. I tried, however, to show it in other ways, by the attentions I paid him and by anticipating his every wish.

Yet there were many things that were astonishing about his actions, things that I wonder now I did not realise must have been impossible for him to do for himself, and that yet were done. But he was so surprisingly dexterous with his lips, and feet too, when he was in his cabin that I suppose I put them down to that.

I remember waking up one night and looking out of my bunk to see him standing on the floor. The cabin was only faintly lit by a moonbeam which found its way through the porthole. I could not see clearly, but I fancied that he walked to the door and opened it, and closed it behind him. He did it all very quickly, as quickly as I could have done it. As I say, I was very sleepy, but the sight of the door opening and shutting like that woke me thoroughly. Sitting up I shouted at him.

He heard me and opened the door again, easily, too, much more easily than he seemed to be able to shut it when he saw me looking at him.

Hullo! Awake, old chap? he said. What is it?

Er—nothing, I said. Or rather I suppose I was only half awake; but you seemed to open that door so easily that it quite startled me.

One does not always like to let others see the shifts to which one has to resort, was all the answer he gave me.

But I worried over it. The thing bothered me, because he had made no attempt to explain.

That was not the only thing I noticed.

Two or three days later we were sitting together on deck. I had offered to read to him. I noticed that he got up out of his chair. Suddenly I saw the chair move. It gave me a great shock, for the chair twisted apparently of its own volition, so that when he sat down again the sunlight was at his back and not in his eyes, as I knew it had been previously. But I reasoned with myself and managed to satisfy myself that he must have turned the chair round with his foot. It was just possible that he could have done so, for it had one of those light wicker-work seats.

We had a lovely voyage for three-quarters of the way, and the sea was as calm as any duckpond. But that was all altered when we passed Cape Finisterre. I have done a lot of knocking about on the ocean one way and another, but I never saw the Bay of Biscay deserve its reputation better.

I’d much rather see what is going on than be cooped up below, and after lunch I told Bob I was going up on deck.

I’ll only stay there for a bit, I said. You make yourself comfortable down here.

I filled his pipe, put it in his mouth, and gave him a match; then I left him.

I made my way up and down the deck for a time, clutching hold of everything handy, and rather enjoyed it, though the waves drenched me to the skin.

Presently I saw Masters come out of the companion-way and make his way very skilfully towards me. Of course it was fearfully dangerous for him.

I staggered towards him, and, putting my lips to his ear, shouted to him to go below at once.

Oh, I shall be all right! he said, and laughed.

You’ll be drowned—drowned, I screamed. There was a wave just now that well, if I hadn’t been able to cling on with both hands like grim death, I should have gone overboard. Go below.

He laughed again and shook his head.

And then what I dreaded happened. A vast mountain of green water lifted up its bulk and fell upon us in a ravening cataract. I clutched at Masters, but trying to save him and myself handicapped me badly. The strength of that mass of water was terrible. It seemed to snatch at everything with giant hands, and drag all with it. It tossed a hen-coop high, and carried it through the rails.

I felt the grip of my right hand loosen, and the next instant was carried, still clutching Masters with my left, towards that gap in the bulwark.

I managed to seize the end of the broken rail.

It held us for a moment, then gave, and for a moment I hung sheer over the vessel’s side.

In that instant I felt fingers tighten on my arm, tighten till they bit into the flesh, and I was pulled back into safety.

Together we staggered back, and got below somehow. I was trembling like a leaf, and the sweat dripped from me. I almost screamed aloud.

It was not that I was frightened of death. I’ve seen too much of that in many parts of the earth to dread it greatly. It was the thought of those fingers tightening on me where no fingers were.

Masters did not speak a word, nor did I, until we found ourselves in the cabin.

I tore the wet clothes off me and turned my arm to the mirror. I knew I could not have been mistaken when I felt them.

There on the upper arm, above the line of sunburn that one gets from working with sleeves rolled up, there on the white skin showed the red marks of four slender fingers and a thumb! I sat down suddenly at sight of them, and pulling open a drawer, found a flask of neat brandy, and gulped it down, emptied it in one gulp.

Then I turned to him and pointed to the marks.

In God’s name, how came these here? I said. What—what happened up there on deck?

He looked at me very gravely.

I saved you, he said, "or rather I didn’t, for I could not. But she did."

What do you mean? I stammered.

Let me get these clothes off, he said, and some dry ones on; and I’ll tell you.

Words fail to describe my feelings as I watched the clothes come off him and dry ones go on just as if hands were arranging them.

I sat and shuddered. I tried to close my eyes, but the weird, unnatural sight drew them as a lodestone.

I’m sorry that you should have had this shock, he said. I know what it must have been like, though it was not so bad for me when they seemed to come, for they came gradually as time went on.

What came gradually? I asked.

Why, these arms! They’re what I’m telling you about. You asked me to tell you, I thought?

Did I? I said. I don’t know what I’m saying or asking. I think I’m going mad, quite mad.

No, he said, "you’re as sane as I am, only when you come across something strange, unique for that matter, you are naturally terrified. Well, it was like this. I told you about my adventures with the natives up country. That was quite true. They cut off both my arms—you can see the stumps for that matter. And I told you that I came home to find my wife dying. Her heart had always been weak, I’d known that, and it had gradually grown more feeble. There must have been, indeed there was, a strange sort of telepathy between us. She had had fearful attacks of heart failure on both occasions when the natives had mutilated me, I learnt on comparing notes.

"But I had known too, somehow, that I must escape at all costs. It was the knowledge that made me try again after each failure. I should have gone on trying to escape as long as I had lived, or rather as long as she had lived. I knelt beside her bed and she put out her arms and laid them round my neck.

"‘So you have come back to me before I go,’ she said. ‘I knew you must, because I called you so. But you have been long in coming, almost too long. But I knew I had to see you again before I died.’

"I broke down then. I was sorely tried. No arms even to put round her!

"‘Darling, stay with me for a little, only for a little while!’ I sobbed.

"She shook her head feebly. ‘It is no use, my dear,’ she said, ‘I must go.’

"‘I’ll come with you,’ I said, ‘I’ll not live without you.’

"She shook her head again.

"‘You must be brave, Bob. I shall be watching you afterwards just as much as if I still lived on earth. If only I could give you my arms! A poor, weak woman’s arms, but better than none, dear.’

"She died some weeks later. I spent all the time at her bedside, I hardly left her. Her arms were round me when she died. Shall I ever feel them round me again? I wonder! You see, they are mine now.

"They came to me gradually. It was very strange at first to have arms and hands which one couldn’t see. I used to keep my eyes shut as much as possible, and try to fancy that I had never lost my arms.

I got used to them in time. But I have always been careful not to let people see me do things that they would know to be impossible for an armless man. That was what took me to Africa again, because I could get lost there and do things for myself with these hands.

‘And they twain shall be one flesh,’ I muttered.

Yes, he said, I think the explanation must be something of that sort. There’s more than that in it, though; these arms are other than flesh.

He sat silent for a time with his head bowed on his chest. Then he spoke again:

"I got sick of being alone at last, and was coming back when I met you at Fourteen Streams. I don’t know what I shall do when I do get home. I can never rest. I have—what do they call it—Wanderlust?"

Does she ever speak to you from that other world? I asked him.

He shook his head sadly.

No, never. But I know she lives some where beyond this world of ours. She must, because these arms live. So I try always to act as if she watches everything. I always try to do the right thing, but, anyway, these arms and hands would do good of their own accord. Just now up on the deck I was very frightened. I’d have saved myself at any cost almost, and let you go. But I could not do that. The hands clutched you. It is her will, so much stronger and purer than mine, that still persists. It is only when she does not exert it that I control these arms.

That was how I learnt the strangest tale that ever a man was told, and knew the miracle to which I owed my life.

It may be that Bob Masters was a coward. He always said that he was. Personally I do not believe it, for he had the sweetest nature I ever met.

He had nowhere to go to in England and seemed to have no friends. So I made him come down with me to Englehart, that dear old country seat of my family in the Western shires which was now mine.

Nancy lived in that country, too.

There was no reason why we should not get married at once. We had waited long enough.

I can see again the old, ivy-grown church where Nancy and I were wed, and Bob Masters standing by my side as best man.

I remember feeling in his pocket for the ring, and as I did so, I felt a hand grasp mine for a moment.

Then there was the reception afterwards, and speech-making—the usual sort of thing.

Later Nancy and I drove off to the station.

We had not said good-bye to Bob, for he’d insisted on driving to the station with the luggage; said he was going to see the last of us there.

He was waiting for us in the yard when we reached it, and walked with us on to the platform.

We stood there chatting about one thing and another, when I noticed that Nancy was not talking much and seemed rather pale. I was just going to remark on it when we heard the whistle of the train. There is a sharp curve in the permanent way outside the station, so that a train is on you all of a sudden.

Suddenly to my horror I saw Nancy sway backwards towards the edge of the platform. I tried vainly to catch her as she reeled and fell—right in front of the oncoming train. I sprang forward to leap after her, but hands grasped me and flung me back so violently that I fell down on the platform.

It was Bob Masters who took the place that should have been mine, and leapt upon the metals.

I could not see what happened then. The station-master says he saw Nancy lifted from before the engine when it was right upon her. He says it was as if she was lifted by the wind. She was quite close to Masters. Near enough for him to have lifted her, sir, if he’d had arms. The two of them staggered for a moment, and together fell clear of the train.

Nancy was little the worse for the awful accident, bruised, of course, but poor Masters was unconscious.

We carried him into the waiting-room, laid him on the cushions there, and sent hot-foot for the doctor.

He was a good country practitioner, and, I suppose, knew the ordinary routine of his work quite well. He fussed about, hummed and hawed a lot.

Yes, yes, he said, as if he were trying to persuade himself. Shock, you know. He’ll be better presently. Lucky, though, that he had no arms.

I noticed then, for the first time, that the sleeves of the coat had been shorn away.

Doctor, I said, how is he? Surely, if he isn’t hurt he would not look like that. What exactly do you mean by shock?

Hum—er, he hesitated, and applied his stethoscope to Master’s heart again.

The heart is very weak, he said at length.

Very weak. He’s always very anæmic, I suppose?

No, I answered. He’s anything but that. He’s—Good Lord, he’s bleeding to death! Put ligatures on his arms. Put ligatures on his arms.

Please keep quiet, Mr. Riverston, the doctor said. It must have been a dreadful experience for you, and you are naturally very upset.

I raved and cursed at him. I think I should have struck him, but the others held me. They said they would take me away if I did not keep quiet.

Bob Masters opened his eyes presently, and saw them holding me.

Please let him go, he said. It’s all right, old man. It’s no use your arguing with them, they would not understand. I could never explain to them now, and they would never believe you. Besides, it’s all for the best. Yes, the train went over them and I’m armless for the second time. But—not for long!

I knelt by his side and sobbed. It all seemed so dreadful, and yet, I don’t think that then I would have tried to stay his passing. I knew it was best for him.

He looked at me very affectionately.

I’m so sorry that this should happen on your wedding-day, he said. But it would have been so much worse for you if she had not helped.

His voice grew fainter and died away.

There was a pause for a time, and his breath came in great sighing sobs.

Then suddenly he raised himself on the cushions until he stood upright on his feet, and a smile broke over his face a smile so sweet that I think the angels in Paradise must look like that.

His voice came strong and loud from his lips.

Darling! he cried. Darling, your arms are round me once again! I come! I come!

One of the most extraordinary cases I have ever met with, the doctor told the coroner at the inquest. He seemed to have all the symptoms of excessive hæmorrhage.

As It Was Written

Ulric Daubeny

Millicent could never listen to the howling of a dog with equanimity. To use her own expression, it poured cold water down her back, and never failed to move her to take instant action, partly from compassion for the author of the outcry, but primarily to remove the cause.

The lament on this particular occasion was so insistent that she halted in mid-pace, and turned her head enquiringly in the direction from whence it came. The only habitation visible from the lane was creeper grown, and apparently unoccupied, but a repetition of the uncanny call dispelled all doubts, so she hurried towards a break in the line of hedge, which marked the entrance drive. The gate, bearing in faded characters a name, The Hermitage, pushed open stiffly, creaking upon hinges long disused, its expostulation finding an immediate echo in a further long-drawn-howl. The sound was eerie when heard at fall of day, with the drive already plunged in half-light by a tangled, overhanging growth, and as the girl stepped forward, she felt increasingly uncomfortable.

A curious silence had now fallen, broken only by the patter of feminine heels upon the moss-grown gravel. Millicent began to think her errand was to be a fool’s one, when a turn of path brought into view the house, and with it a half-bred collie, waiting at the foot of the front steps.

What’s the matter, boy? she hailed in soothing tones, to be met with a response as strange as it was unexpected. The dog had moved towards her, tail commencing to wave to and fro, when suddenly he turned again, and with the utmost savagery, bounded up the steps, and hackles bristling, tore at the woodwork of the door with fangs a-drip, pausing ever and again to take deep-drawn sniffs, before giving vent to a paroxysm of frenzied scratching.

Millicent, though not a coward with strange dogs, felt rather frightened. She watched awhile in doubt, then moved to retrace her footsteps along the drive, but another melancholy howl arrested her. The dismal utterance, again so unexpected, caused her very flesh to creep.

My dear dog, what is the matter? she beseeched, advancing tentatively, with open hand. The collie had now left the immediate doorway, and came to meet her, with troubled eyes. Want to be let in? Come on, then! The animal gave an understanding whine, so lightly tripping up the steps, she seized the knocker, and gave it a resounding tap.

The sound echoed cavernously, surprising Millicent into questioning why she should be knocking at an obviously empty house, for a heap of withered leaves had accumulated against the door, which itself was scaled and dusty. Then, glancing at the dog, whose beseeching eyes asked plainly to enter, she recalled the probability of a caretaker, and knocked again.

A mass of leaden clouds began to engulf the setting sun, and a sudden perceptible tremor in the still air spoke of distant thunder; the collie’s tail was drooping, his whole attitude suggestive that a further howl was imminent. Meanwhile, all within kept silent.

The atmosphere of heavy omen, together with the deserted aspect of the house and grounds so acted upon her nerves, that the girl felt she should scream, if she remained there any longer. Still hesitating, she made as if to descend the steps, when once again the behaviour of the dog restrained her. He was staring, as if fascinated, towards the door, hackles slowly raising, and eyes ablaze. Millicent likewise turned, and in obedience to an impulse, bent to the level of the letter-box, and peered within. In this position she remained for several seconds, every muscle tense, until a sudden relaxation left her staggering backwards, and next moment she was tearing down the drive, face blanched, and eyes luminous with horror. Fortunately, the entrance gate had remained ajar, and through this she projected, her wild stampede meeting with no interruption until she voluntarily slackened pace, after the first, straggling houses of the village had been passed.

Once dropped to a walk, she soon recovered self-possession, though her breath came in long, unsteady gasps, and her heart throbbed painfully. She forged ahead until the Police Station was at hand, then, with an excited gesture, hailed the shirt-sleeved sergeant, who was working in his garden. In a miraculously short space of time he presented himself clad in faultless uniform and startled her as she leant with outstretched arm against the doorpost.

Anything the matter, Miss? he queried sharply, apprizing her with searching look. She stared stupidly for a time; then the reply was uttered in a dry, hard whisper—

Yes. Murder at The Hermitage!

The sergeant goggled at her in astonishment. He made as if to speak, but failing, swallowed awkwardly, and without comment, led the way into the office.

A steaming cup of tea, proffered by the sergeant’s kindly wife, did much to restore Millicent’s equilibrium, and after a short interval, she found herself commencing to recount the adventure with unanticipated calm. But as the story advanced she became increasingly flustered by the peculiar attitude of the sergeant. He seemed obviously distrait, and more than once she surprised in him a look of introspective wonder suggesting an incredulity of what she aid. The position grew more and more intolerable until finally she hesitated, and broke off.

Well, Miss? the sergeant prompted, after a short pause. His tone was almost what one would use in speaking to a child—or idiot. Well, Miss, what was it you saw inside the letter-box?

Making an effort she pulled herself together, and the words continued breathlessly.

As I was about to tell, something prompted me to bend until my eyes were level with the opening, when I found myself looking into an entrance hall with staircase ascending slightly to one side. At the bottom, crumpled in a horrible position lay the body of an old lady—dead. But it was not that which held me terror-stricken. Feet were approaching into view, stockinged feet creeping softly down the carpeted stairs. Step by step they advanced, tip-toeing cautiously, then trousered legs appeared, then a man’s body. Ah, the memory of that cruel face, and those dreadful, gloating eyes!

The girl paused for a moment to regain her breath. Her voice was hoarse, when once again she took up the narrative.

The murderer’s gaze was shifting, shifting towards the door, towards the letter-box. . . . I noticed that his hand was wet with blood; blood trickled onto the linoleum in the hall. . . . . Then I ran—

She broke off finally, and with an unsteady hand, reached for the remainder of the cup of tea. The sergeant continued motionless, idly fingering a pencil, and without making any attempt to move. His listless attitude astonished Millicent. To her excited fancy, the interview was assuming all the unreal horror of a nightmare.

Why do you stare like that? she flashed impatiently. Are you not going to-to do something?

Certainly, Miss, I’ll go up and see about it, if you wish, he replied civilly. "But it’s like this. There can have been no murder at The Hermitage, because the house