Then he bared his great hairy arm and showed me a lot of ugly scars, I besought him to tell the story.
'Killed him,' he answered. 'With a gun?
'No—with my hands,' and that was all he would say of it.
He lay facing a black curtain that covered a corner. Now and then I heard a singular sound in the room—like some faint, far, night cry such as I have heard often in the deep woods. It was so weird I felt some wonder of it. Presently I could tell it came from behind the curtain where, also, I heard an odd rustle like that of wings.
I sat in a reverie, looking at the silent man before me, and in the midst of it he pulled a cord that hung near him and a bell rang.
'Luncheon!' he said to the old butler who entered immediately.
Then he rose and showed me odd things, carved out of wood, by his own hand as he told me, and with a delicate art. He looked at one tiny thing and laid it aside quickly.
'Can't bear to look at it now,' he said.
'Gibbet?' I enquired.
'Gibbet,' he answered.