“We all assented verbally, and not a few of the company began even to joke him on his sorcery and magic, when we all started from our seats, but were instantly motioned back by an anxious frown and a commanding, magisterial wave of his right hand. The simultaneous movement on our part, was caused by a yell, for such it was, that proceeded, not, as might be anticipated, from a female, but from a Mr. Theodore Dwight, an American gentleman, hailing from Philadelphia—and at the present time still dwelling there.
“This person, as all who know him will certify, is no weak, puling, nerveless man, for a man more the opposite of all this could scarce be found in a month’s search.
“The sound which came from his lips was a shriek of terror, horror, and agony combined, as might well be fancied to come from the throats of the damned souls of the nether hell. It was, indeed, a paroxysm of deadly fright. In an instant all eyes were turned toward him. He was paler than a corpse, the very image of Death itself; his eyes protruded from their sockets, and he trembled as if he stood before the final bar; his lips refused to tell the cause of his distress, but his gaze was intently fixed, with an immovable expression of horror, upon the saucer on the floor. Instinctively our eyes followed the same direction, except Vatterale’s, who still was looking toward the open sash. With this exception, I repeat, we all looked toward the floor, when, great God! what a sight was there! The saucer was still there, but the two small rolls of paper were gone! They had disappeared, but in their stead we distinctly saw—for, recollect, there were seven full jets of gas in full blaze right over our heads—we saw, I reiterate, with our eyes—physical, bodily eyes—three horrible beings, somewhat resembling overgrown scorpions—only, that instead of claws, they had—hands and arms! for all the world like those of a newly-born negro child! These detestable things, for I dare not blaspheme the Great Eternal by calling them creatures, were about five inches broad on the back, by some eighteen in length. Their color was a deep crimson, mottled with purple, green, and yellow stripes and spots, and they were completely covered with scales, like those of an armadillo. Conceive, if you can, of a tarantula or spider so large, and which—each one of them—moved about on the very tips of twelve legs, sixteen or eighteen inches long, and all the while whirling and twirling its hands and arms (two of each), eighteen inches long and three-fourths as large as its body, and you will form a tolerable picture of the repulsive, unsightly, hideous monstrosities crawling, or rather ‘stilting,’ round that saucer on the floor.
“Each one of these loathsome things had four large, protruding eyes, closely resembling those of the monster Frog of India; but these eyes, unlike the frog’s, were not leaden-hued; instead of this being the case, I think no spark of fire ever shone brighter—in fact, they fairly gleamed with what I can indicate by no other term than infernal redness; for it seemed that at every flash they emitted the concentrated venom of a gorgon; and beneath the fearful spell we all sat perfectly immovable with fear.
“What our agony would have been had the accursed things ventured to move toward us, I dare not even imagine, but they still and ever kept in the one track, moving with orderly march around that saucer on the floor. We felt and knew that they were living, actual realities, a genuine and horrid trinity of facts, and not a mere optical illusion, or the result of a play upon our fancies, mesmeric or otherwise. This opinion was confirmed by the most positive and blasting testimony, for, as they solemnly, demoniacally marched about the centre of that symbolic chart, they left a trailing streak of greenish—dead, hard, greenish ichor or pus, behind them at each revolution, and a few drops of this fell upon the Baron’s carpet. Some months afterward he and I exchanged letters on the events of that night, and he assured me that not a single chemical amongst the hundreds applied for the purpose had been of the least effect toward removing the stain. ‘The carpet has been discharged of its colors and re-dyed, yet no dye will cover those spots!’ This was not all, for on one of their rounds they nearly quitted the chart, and the Baron struck at them with his foot, whereupon one of them spirted forth a fetid liquid, which fell upon his boot, and made a mark there as if the leather had been seared with hot iron!
“ ‘Talk not to me of legerdemain after this! Speak not to me of optical illusion, or deceptive appearances, in the face of such facts as these, for here are marks,’ wrote the Baron to me, ‘here are palpable evidences that defy contradiction. They were made on that night, and there they yet remain, and, albeit I cry, “Out, damned spots!” they will not, but persist in remaining absolute confirmations of vivid, strange, incontrovertible facts!’
“ ‘But why did you not get up, under such circumstances, all of you, and escape from the room?’ is a very natural and perhaps not unreasonable question, that may without impropriety be asked just here, and I reply: For several reasons; among which a few shall be named. First, the doors were all securely locked, and although we had seen Mai mount a chair, and hang the keys to one of the glass pendants, yet upon looking there, we found that they, as well as the two rolls of paper, had disappeared. Secondly, the windows were fastened down, besides being many feet from the ground—at least fifteen—and to leap that distance was altogether out of the question, even had we thought of it, which we did not. Thirdly, the earnest and solemn warning given by Vatterale before anything took place; his assurance that if we obeyed his injunctions not to stir—that, although we might be frightened, yet no harm could or would befall us—acted, amidst all our terror, as a sort of stopper upon any precipitate movement, after the first shock was over.
“We could not quit the room provided even all the doors had been flung wide open. Hast never heard tell of the fascination of Danger? If so, then know that it was upon us in all its terrible force and power. We were bound, chained, rooted, riveted to the spot, by a potentiality never to be questioned, never to be despised, for its might, when once it fastens upon its victim, is merciless, gripping, stern and unrelenting. We felt that to stir, was to incur the hazard of an unknown, unguessed-at danger. All were fascinated by terror; to move was to add ten-fold to its power! It was a feeling akin to that experienced by the native of Ind, who roused from his mid-day slumber, wakes to feel the clammy folds of the cobra-capello, the dreadful hooded serpent of his clime, slowly writhing and winding beneath his garments about his naked flesh; and who realizes, as his heart stops beating and his blood runs icily with agony, and as the great big beaded drops of cold sweat ooze out from every pore, that to stir, to breathe, to even quiver under the pressure of his mortal fear, is certain, irrevocable, positive death—knowing as he does, that nor man nor beast hath ever yet lived a single hour after the fangs of the hooded snake have once opened a passage for the entrance of the King of Terrors!
“And such was the pall that rested upon the eighteen persons in that room, as the detestable trinity moved slowly around that saucer on the floor; their eyes—their great, horny, bulging eyes—all the while scintillating and flashing with the very essence of intense malignity—malignity as of a devil! The female portion of the company I fear may never recover from the shock that night received. They did not faint, or scream, or swoon, as perhaps it might have been suspected they would under such diabolic circumstances, simply, however, for the reason that the tension of soul and nerve was altogether too severe and great to permit, even for an instant, the reaction which is an absolute prerequisite to relief by or through the methods indicated.
“Probably the length of time that elapsed from the shriek of our comrade, till the final disappearance of the three monsters, did not exceed three minutes, yet in that brief space we had undergone years of terror.