By Neva's waters

by John R. Carling

And there he stood, staring at the place where he knew the hand to be, fancying he could see it looking ghastly white through the darkness. If that, outlined beside it, were really a human shape, and not merely a figure woven upon the tapestry, there could be but one solution of the mystery. The victim must be a dumb man, belonging perhaps to the class of those tongueless eunuchs often to be found in the seraglios of the East, though seldom, if ever, in the palace of a Czar.

Was he writhing in silent agony?

Wilfrid listened for any sound indicative of human presence. But there was no movement; there was not even a breath audible in the place where the handless man should be.

Recovering from his spell of fear, Wilfrid came slowly forward and passed the point of his sword along the foot of the wainscotting without lighting upon the owner of the hand. What had become of him? It was impossible to believe that the man, on receiving the sword-stroke, had risen to his feet and glided off without a sound. Where, then——?

Once more Wilfrid stooped, and, repressing the natural repugnance engendered by such a task, he began to search for the severed hand, which he was not long in finding. His gloved fingers could not tell whether the hand were warm or cold, but a touch of the mutilated member against his cheek told him that it was icy-cold. When held to his nostrils, it emitted a decaying odour, thus proving that some hours, if not some days, must have elapsed since its severance from the parent limb.

It had been lying near the door at the foot of the wall, hidden, perhaps, by the fringe of tapestry, and Wilfrid, when aiming the downward stroke of his imaginary foe, had, by a singular chance, lighted upon this dead hand, the keen edge of his blade slicing a part of the wrist. The sound mistaken by him for a stealthy human movement had perhaps been nothing more than the return of a hungry rat towards a meal that had been disturbed by the entrance of himself and Alexis.

Resisting the temptation to fling the ghastly relic from him, Wilfrid laid it upon the table, with the words:—

“This may have been the hand of a brave man.”

He had just closed the door of the supposed inner chamber and restored the lamp to its place, when his ear caught the sound of footsteps in the gallery.

“Friends or foes?” he muttered, keeping the table between himself and the door, and laying his hand upon his sword. His eyes, so long in darkness, blinked with a sudden radiance, as the door opened.