“My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was without cloth or cover—an old mahogany round table) there rose a hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person—lean, wrinkled, small too—a woman’s hand. That hand very softly closed on the two letters that lay on the table; hand and letters both vanished. Then there came the same three loud, measured knocks I had heard on the bed-head before this extraordinary drama commenced.
“As these sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly; and at the far end there rose, from the floor, sparks or globules, like globules of light, many colored—green, yellow, fire-red, azure. Up and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny Will o’ the Wisps, the sparks moved, slow and swift, each at its own caprice. A chair (as in the drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as forth from the air, there grew a shape, a woman’s shape. It was distinct as a shape of life—ghastly as the shape of death. The face was that of youth, with a strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare; the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white. It began sleeking its long, yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were not turned towards me, but to the floor; it seemed listening, watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew darker; and again I thought I saw the eyes gleaming out from the summit of the shadow—eyes fixed upon that shape.
“As if from the door, though it did not open, there grew out another shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly—a man’s shape—a young man’s. It was in the dress of the last century, or rather the likeness to such dress (for both the male and the female, though defined, were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable, simulacra, phantasms), and there was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful in the contrast between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpse-like aspect and ghost-like stillness of the flitting wearer. Just as the male shape approached the female, the dark shadow started from the wall, and all three for a moment were wrapped in darkness. When the pale light returned, the two phantasms were as if in the grasp of the shadow, that towered between them, and there was a blood stain on the breast of the female; and the phantom male was leaning on its phantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate Shadow swallowed them up—they were gone. And again the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.
“The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the aperture there came the form of an aged woman. In her hand she held letters—the very letters over which I had seen the hand close; and behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and then she opened her letters and seemed to read; and over her shoulder I saw a livid face, the face of a man long drowned—bloated, bleached—seaweed tangled in its dripping hair, and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse, and beside the corpse there towered a child, a miserable, squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. And as I looked in the old woman’s face, the wrinkles and lines vanished; and it became the face of youth—hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the Shadow darted forth and darkened over these phantoms as it had darkened over the last.
“Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow—malignant, serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvæ so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before the eyes in a drop of water—things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other—forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round; thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil things. Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch of cold, soft fingers at my throat, I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the Shadow—above all, from those strange serpent eyes—eyes that had now become distinctly visible. For there, though in nought else round me, I was aware that there was a WILL, and a will of intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.
“The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live on fire. Again the room vibrated; again I heard the three measured knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark shadow—as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness all had returned.
“As the gloom receded, the Shadow was wholly gone. Slowly, as it had been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again into the fuel in the grate....
“The room came once more calmly, healthfully into sight.
“Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night. Nor, indeed, had I long to wait before the dawn broke....”
[4] This is a common feature of haunted houses.—H.C.