“Oh, Baba is awake—naughty child—and she will disturb her brother,” replied the mother, selecting a fresh tack. “The ayah is there. Don’t go.”
“But it had such an odd, uncanny sound,” I protested.
“Dear old Liz! how nervous you are! Baba’s scream is something between a whistle of an express and a fog-horn. She has abnormal lung power—and to-day she is restless and upset by her birthday—and her teeth. Your fears——”
Then she stopped abruptly, for a loud, frantic shriek, the shriek of extreme mortal terror, now rose high above her voice, and, throwing the hammer from her, Netta fled into the drawing-room, overturning chairs in her route, dashed across the drawing-room, and burst into the nursery, from whence came these most appalling cries. There, huddled together, we discovered the two children on the table which stood in the middle of the apartment. Guy had evidently climbed up by a chair, and dragged his sister along with him. It was a beautiful afternoon, the sun streamed in upon them, and the room, as far as we could see, was empty. Yes, but not empty to the trembling little creatures on the table, for with wide, mad eyes they seemed to follow the motion of a something that was creeping round the room close to the wall, and I noticed that their gaze went up and down, as they accompanied its progress with starting pupils and gasping breaths.
“Oh! what is it, my darling?” cried Netta, seizing Guy, whilst I snatched at Baba.
He stretched himself stiffly in her arms, and, pointing with a trembling finger to a certain spot, gasped, “Oh, Mummy! look, look, look!” and with the last word, which was a shriek of horror, he fell into violent convulsions.
But look as we might, we could see nothing, save the bare matting and the bare wall. What frightful object had made itself visible to these innocent children has never been discovered to the present day.
Little Guy, in spite of superhuman efforts to save him, died of brain fever, unintelligible to the last; the only words we could distinguish among his ravings were, “Look, look, look! Oh, Mummy! look, look, look!” and as for Baba, whatever was seen by her is locked within her lips, for she remains dumb to the present day.
The ayah had nothing to disclose; she could only beat her head upon the ground and scream, and declare that she had just left the children for a moment to speak to the milkman.
But other servants confessed that the ayah had been gossiping in the cook-house for more than half an hour. The sole living creature that had been with the children when “It” had appeared to them, was Guy’s little pet monkey, which was subsequently found under the table quite dead.