The Supernatural Omnibus Part 29

'All at once he leaned forward until his eyes were not two feet away from the great crystal globe, into which he gazed with the deepest attention, as if fascinated. It is difficult to convey to you how intense and concentrated his manner became. It was as if he looked right into the heart of the globe - not at it, if you understand, but at something inside it, something beneath the surface, and that something of a compelling, absorbing nature which engrossed every fibre of his being in one act of profound attention.

'For a minute or two he sat like this in perfect silence, and I noticed the sweat beginning to stand out on his forehead, while his breath came audibly between his lips, under the strain. Then, all at once, I felt I must do something, and without stopping to deliberate I said in a loud tone, "I command you to tell me what it is you see."

'As I spoke, a kind of shiver ran through his frame, but his eyes never moved from the crystal ball. Then his lips moved, and after some seconds came a faint whisper, uttered as if with extreme difficulty, and what he said was something like this: '"There is a low, flat arch, with a kind of slab beneath it, and a picture at the back. There is a cloth on the slab, and on the cloth a tall gold cup, and lying in front of it is a thin white disc. By the side is a monster, like a huge toad," and he shuddered, "but it is much too big to be a toad. It glistens, and its eyes have a cruel light in them. Oh, it is horrible!" Then all at once the voice leaped to a shrill note, and he spoke very rapidly, as if the scene were changing quicker than he could describe it.

'"The man in front - the one with a cross on the back of his cloak - is holding a dagger in his hand. He raises it and strikes at the white disc. He has pierced it with the dagger. It bleeds! The white cloth beneath it is all red with blood. But the monster - some of the blood has fallen upon it as it spurted out, and the toad is writhing now as if in agony. Ah! it leaps down from the slab, it is gone. All present rise up in confusion; there is a tumult. They rush away down the dark pa.s.sages. Only one remains, the man with the cross on his back. He is lying insensible upon the ground. On the slab still stands the gold cup and white disc with the bloodstained cloth, and the picture behind and the voice sank to an inaudible whisper, as if the speaker were exhausted.

'Almost without thinking, I put a question to him before the sight should fade entirely. "The picture, what is it like?" But instead of answering he merely whispered "Irene, da calda," and fell back as if exhausted in his chair.'

There was silence for a few moments.

'And your friend, the spiritualist,' began Father Bertrand, 'could he tell you nothing more of what he saw?'

'I did not ask him,' answered the old priest, 'for, when he came to himself, he seemed quite ignorant of what he had told me during his trance. But, some years afterwards, I got some further light on the incident, and that in quite an unexpected way. Just wait a minute, and I will show you what I believe to be the picture he saw at the back of the niche!' And the old man walked to one of the bookcases and selected a large folio volume.

'The picture I am going to show you is an exact copy of one of the frescoes in the catacombs of SS. Peter and Marcellinus, where I came upon it, quite unexpectedly, during my period in Rome as a student; it has been reproduced since by Lanciani in one of his books. Ah, here it is,' and he laid the alb.u.m on the table.

There, before us, was a copy of an undeniable catacomb fresco depicting an 'agape' or love-feast! a group of figures symbolical both of the Last Supper and the communion of the elect. Above it were the contemporary inscriptions, 'irene da calda' and 'agape misce mi', while round about were scrawled, in characters evidently much more recent, a number of names: 'POMPONIUS, FABIa.n.u.s, RUFFUS, LETUS, VOLSCUS, FABIUS' and others, all of them members of the notorious Academy. There they had written them in charcoal, and there they still remain today, as evidence how the innermost recesses of a Christian catacomb were profaned, and the cult of Satan practised there, by the neo-pagans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

We sat looking at the picture in silence for a minute or so, and then Herr Aufrecht turned to the Dominican.

'Fra Bertrand,' he said, 'you are Master in Theologia, what is your opinion of all this? '

The friar hesitated for a moment before he answered.

'Well, Herr Aufrecht,' he said at length, 'the Church has never ceased to teach the possibility of diabolical possession, and for my part I see no reason why a thing,' and he pointed to the crystal, 'should not become "possessed" in much the same way as a person can. But if you ask my opinion on the practical side of the question, I should say that, since Father Philip here cannot legally part with his heirloom, he certainly acts wisely in keeping it under lock and key.'

Amelia B. Edwards: My Brother's Ghost Story

from ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 1860 ***

Mine is my brother's Ghost Story. It happened to my brother about thirty years ago, while he was wandering, sketch-book in hand, among the High Alps, picking up subjects for an ill.u.s.trated work on Switzerland. Having entered the Oberland by the Brunig Pa.s.s, and filled his portfolio with what he used to call 'bits' from the neighbourhood of Meyringen, he went over the Great Scheideck to Grindlewald, where he arrived one dusky September evening, about three quarters of an hour after sunset. There had been a fair that day, and the place was crowded. In the best inn there was not an inch of s.p.a.ce to spare - there were only two inns at Grindlewald, thirty years ago - so my brother went to one at the end of the covered bridge next the church, and there, with some difficulty, obtained the promise of a pile of rugs and a mattress, in a room which was already occupied by three other travellers.

The Adler was a primitive hostelry, half farm, half inn, with great rambling galleries outside, and a huge general room, like a barn. At the upper end of this room stood long stoves, like metal counters, laden with steaming-pans, and glowing underneath like furnaces. At the lower end, smoking, supping, and chatting, were congregated some thirty or forty guests, chiefly mountaineers, char drivers, and guides. Among these my brother took his seat, and was served, like the rest, with a bowl of soup, a platter of beef, a flagon of country wine, and a loaf made of Indian corn. Presently, a huge St Bernard dog came and laid his nose upon my brother's arm. In the meantime he fell into conversation with two Italian youths, bronzed and dark-eyed, near whom he happened to be seated. They were Florentines. Their names, they told him, were Stefano and Battisto. They had been travelling for some months on commission, selling cameos, mosaics, sulphur casts, and the like pretty Italian trifles, and were now oh their way to Interlaken and Geneva. Weary of the cold North, they longed, like children, for the moment which should take them back to their own blue hills and grey-green olives; to their workshop on the Ponte Vecchio, and their home down by the Arno.

It was quite a relief to my brother, on going up to bed, to find that these youths were to be two of his fellow-lodgers. The third was already there, and sound asleep, with his face to the wall. They scarcely looked at this third. They were all tired, and all anxious to rise at daybreak, having agreed to walk together over the Wengern Alp as far as Lauterbrunnen. So, my brother and the two youths exchanged a brief good night, and, before many minutes, were all as far away in the land of dreams as their unknown companion.

My brother slept profoundly - so profoundly that, being roused in the morning by a clamour of merry voices, he sat up dreamily in his rugs, and wondered where he was.

'Good day, signor,' cried Battisto. 'Here is a fellow-traveller going the same way as ourselves.'

'Christien Baumann, native of Kandersteg, musical-box maker by trade, stands five feet eleven in his shoes, and is at monsieur's service to command,' said the sleeper of the night before.

He was as fine a young fellow as one would wish to see. Light, and strong, and well proportioned, with curling brown hair, and bright, honest eyes that seemed to dance at every word he uttered.

'Good morning,' said my brother. 'You were asleep last night when we came up.'

'Asleep! I should think so, after being all day in the fair, and walking from Meyringen the evening before. What a capital fair it was!'

'Capital, indeed,' said Battisto. 'We sold cameos and mosaics yesterday, for nearly fifty francs.'

'Oh, you sell cameos and mosaics, you two! Show me your cameos, and I will show you my musical boxes. I have such pretty ones, with coloured views of Geneva and Chillon on the lids, playing two, four, six and even eight tunes. Bah! I will give you a concert '

And with this he unstrapped his pack, displayed his little boxes on the table, and wound them up, one after the other, to the delight of the Italians.

'I helped to make them myself, every one,' said he, proudly. 'Is it not pretty music? I sometimes set one of them when I g0 to bed at night, and fall asleep listening to it. I am sure, then, to have pleasant dreams ! But let us see your cameos. Perhaps I may buy one for Marie, if they are not too dear. Marie is my sweetheart, and we are to be married next week.'

'Next week!' exclaimed Stefano. 'That is very soon. Battisto has a sweetheart also, up at Impruneta; but they will have to wait a long time before they can buy the ring.'

Battis...o...b..ushed like a girl.

'Hush, brother! ' said he. 'Show the cameos to Christien, and give your tongue a holiday! '

But Christien was not so to be put off.

'What is her name?' said he. 'Tush! Battisto, you must tell me her name! Is she pretty? Is she dark, or fair? Do you often see her when you are at home? Is she very fond of you? Is she as fond of you as Marie is of me?'

'Nay, how should I know that?' asked the soberer Battisto. 'She loves me, and I love her - that is all.'

'And her name?'

'Margherita.'

'A charming name! And she is herself as pretty as her name, I'll engage. Did you say she was fair?'

'I said nothing about it one way or the other,' said Battisto, unlocking a green box clamped with iron, and taking out tray after tray of his pretty wares. 'There! Those pictures all inlaid in little bits are Roman mosaics - these flowers on a black ground are Florentine. The ground is of hard dark stone, and the flowers are made of thin slices of jasper, onyx, cornelian, and so forth. Those forget-me-nots, for instance, are bits of turquoise, and that poppy is cut from a piece of coral.'

'I like the Roman ones best,' said Christien. 'What place is that with all the arches?'

'This is the Coliseum, and the one next to it is St Peter's. But we Florentines care little for the Roman work. It is not half so fine or so valuable as ours. The Romans make their mosaics of composition.'

'Composition or no, I like the little landscapes best,' said Christien. 'There is a lovely one, with a pointed building, and a tree, and mountains at the back. How I should like that one for Marie!'

'You may have it for eight francs,' replied Battisto; 'we sold two of them yesterday for ten each. It represents the tomb of Caius Cestius, near Rome.'

'A tomb!' echoed Christien, considerably dismayed. 'Diable! That would be a dismal present to one's bride.'

'She would never guess that it was a tomb, if you did not tell her,' suggested Stefano.

Christien shook his head.

'That would be next door to deceiving her,' said he.

'Nay,' interposed my brother, 'the owner of that tomb has been dead these eighteen or nineteen hundred years. One almost forgets that he was ever buried in it.'

'Eighteen or nineteen hundred years? Then he was a heathen? ' 'Undoubtedly, if by that you mean that he lived before Christ.' Christien's face lighted up immediately.

'Oh, that settles the question,' said he, pulling out his little canvas purse, and paying his money down at once. 'A heathen's tomb is as good as no tomb at all. I'll have it made into a brooch for her, at Interlaken. Tell me, Battisto, what shall you take home to Italy for your Margherita? '

Battisto laughed, and c.h.i.n.ked his eight francs. 'That depends on trade,' said he; 'if we make good profits between this and Christmas, I may take her a Swiss muslin from Berne; but we have already been away seven months, and we have hardly made a hundred francs over and above our expenses.'

And with this, the talk turned upon general matters, the Florentines locked away their treasures, Christien restrapped his pack, and my brother and all went down together, and breakfasted in the open air outside the inn.

It was a magnificent morning: cloudless and sunny, with a cool breeze that rustled in the vine upon the porch, and flecked the table with shifting shadows of green leaves. All around and about them stood the great mountains, with their blue-white glaciers bristling down to the verge of the pastures, and the pine- woods creeping darkly up their sides. To the left, the Wetter- horn; to the right, the Eiger; straight before them, dazzling and imperishable, like an obelisk of frosted silver, the Schreckhorn, or Peak of Terror. Breakfast over, they bade farewell to their hostess, and, mountain-staff in hand, took the path to the Wen- gern Alp. Half in light, half in shadow, lay the quiet valley, dotted over with farms, and traversed by a torrent that rushed, milk-white, from its prison in the glacier. The three lads walked briskly in advance, their voices chiming together every now and then in chorus of laughter. Somehow my brother felt sad. He lingered behind, and, plucking a little red flower from the bank, watched it hurry away with the torrent, like a life on the stream of time. Why was his heart so heavy, and why were their hearts so light?

As the day went on, my brother's melancholy, and the mirth of the young men, seemed to increase. Full of youth and hope, they talked of the joyous future, and built up pleasant castles in the air. Battisto, grown more communicative, admitted that to marry Margherita, and become a master mosaicist, would fulfil the dearest dream of his life. Stefano, not being in love, preferred to travel. Christien, who seemed to be the most prosperous, declared that it was his darling ambition to rent a farm in his native Kander Valley, and lead the patriarchal life of his fathers. As for the musical-box trade,- he said, one should live in Geneva to make it answer; and, for his part, he loved the pine-forests and the snow-peaks, better than all the towns in Europe. Marie, too, had been born among the mountains, and it would break her heart, if she thought she were to live in Geneva all her life, and never see the Kander Thai again. Chatting thus, the morning wore on to noon, and the party rested awhile in the shade of a clump of gigantic firs festooned with trailing banners of grey- green moss.

Here they ate their lunch, to the silvery music of one of Christien's little boxes, and by-and-by heard the sullen echo of an avalanche far away on the shoulder of the Jungfrau.

Then they went on again in the burning afternoon, to heights where the Alp-rose fails from the sterile steep, and the brown lichen grows more and more scantily among the stones. Here, only the bleached and barren skeletons of a forest of dead pines varied the desolate monotony; and high on the summit of the pa.s.s, stood a little solitary inn, between them and the sky.

At this inn they rested again, and drank to the health of Christien and his bride, in a jug of country wine. He was in uncontrollable spirits, and shook hands with them all, over and over again.

'By nightfall tomorrow,' said he, 'I shall hold her once more in my arms ! It is now nearly two years since I came home to see her, at the end of my apprenticeship. Now I am foreman, with a salary of thirty francs a week, and well able to marry.' f 'Thirty francs a week! ' echoed Battisto. 'Corpo di Baccol that is a little fortune.'

Christien's face beamed.

'Yes,' said he, 'we shall be very happy; and, by-and-by - who knows? - we may end our days in the Kander Thai, and bring up our children to succeed us. Ah! If Marie knew that I should be there tomorrow night, how delighted she would be!'

'How so, Christien?' said my brother. 'Does she not expect you?'

'Not a bit of it. She has no idea that I can be there till the day after tomorrow - nor could I, if I took the road all round by Unterseen and Friitigen. I mean to sleep tonight at Lauterbrunnen, and tomorrow morning shall strike across the Tschlingel glacier to Kandersteg. If I rise a little before daybreak, I shall be at home by sunset.'

At this moment the path took a sudden turn, and began to descend in sight of an immense perspective of very distant valleys. Christien flung his cap into the air, and uttered a great shout.

'Look!' said he, stretching out his arms as if to embrace all the dear familiar scene: 'O! Look! There are the hills and woods of Interlaken, and here, below the precipices on which we stand, lies Lauterbrunnen! G.o.d be praised, who has made our native land so beautiful!'

The Italians smiled at each other, thinking their own Arno valley far more fair; but my brother's heart warmed to the boy, and echoed his thanksgiving in that spirit which accepts all beauty as a birthright and an inheritance. And now their course lay across an immense plateau, all rich with corn-fields and meadows, and studded with substantial homesteads built of old brown wood, with huge sheltering eaves, and strings of Indian corn hanging like golden ingots along the carven balconies. Blue whortleberries grew beside the footway, and now and then they came upon a wild gentian, or a star-shaped immortelle. Then the path became a mere zigzag on the face of the precipice, and in less than half an hour they reached the lowest level of the valley. The glowing afternoon had not yet faded from the uppermost pines, when they were all dining together in the parlour of a little inn looking to the Jungfrau. In the evening my brother wrote letters, while the three lads strolled about the village. At nine o'clock they bade each other good night, and went to their several rooms.

Weary as he was, my brother found it impossible to sleep. The same unaccountable melancholy still possessed him, and when at last he dropped into an uneasy slumber, it was but to start over and over again from frightful dreams, faint with a nameless terror. Towards morning, he fell into a profound sleep, and never woke until the day was fast advancing towards noon. He then found, to his regret, that Christien had long since gone. He had risen before daybreak, breakfasted by candlelight, and started off in the grey dawn - 'as merry', said the host, 'as a fiddler at a fair'.

Stefano and Battisto were still waiting to see my brother, being charged by Christien with a friendly farewell message to him, and an invitation to the wedding. They, too, were asked, and meant to go; so, my brother agreed to meet them at Interlaken on the following Tuesday, whence they might walk to Kandersteg by easy stages, reaching their destination on the Thursday morning, in time to go to church with the bridal party. My brother then bought some of the little Florentine cameos, wished the two boys every good fortune, and watched them down the road till he could see them no longer.

Left now to himself, he wandered out with his sketch-book, and spent the day in the upper valley; at sunset, he dined alone in his chamber, by the light of a single lamp. This meal despatched, he drew nearer to the fire, took out a pocket edition of Goethe's Essays on Art, and promised himself some hours of K pleasant reading. (Ah, how well I know that very book, in its faded cover, and how often I have heard him describe that lonely evening!) The night had by this time set in cold and wet. The damp logs spluttered on the hearth, and a wailing wind swept down the valley, bearing the rain in sudden gusts against the panes. My brother soon found that to read was impossible. His attention wandered incessantly. He read the same sentence f over and over again, unconscious of its meaning, and fell into long trains of thought leading far into the dim past.

Thus the hours went by, and at eleven o'clock he heard the doors closing below, and the household retiring to rest. He determined to yield no longer to this dreaming apathy. He threw on fresh logs, trimmed the lamp, and took several turns about the room. Then he opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, and suffered the rain to beat against his face, and the wind to ruffle his hair, as it ruffled the acacia leaves in the garden below. Some minutes pa.s.sed thus, and when, at length, he closed the window and came back into the room, his face and hair and all the front of his shirt were thoroughly saturated. To unstrap his knapsack and take out a dry shirt was, of course, his first impulse - to drop the garment, listen eagerly, and start to his feet, breathless and bewildered, was the next.

For, borne fitfully upon the outer breeze, now sweeping past the window, now dying in the distance, he heard a well- M remembered strain of melody, subtle and silvery as the 'sweet airs' of Prospero's isle, and proceeding unmistakably from the A musical-box which had, the day before, accompanied the lunch under the fir-trees of the Wengern Alp!

Had Christien come back, and was it thus that he announced his return? If so, where was he? Under the window? Outside in the corridor? Sheltering in the porch, and waiting for admittance? My brother threw open the cas.e.m.e.nt again, and called him by his name.

'Christien! Is that you?'

All without was intensely silent. He could hear the last gust of wind and rain moaning farther and farther away upon its wild course down the valley, and the pine-trees shivering, like living things.

'Christien!' he said again, and his own voice seemed to echo strangely on his ear. 'Speak! Is it you? '

Still no one answered. He leaned out into the dark night; but could see nothing - not even the outline of the porch below. He began to think that his imagination had deceived him, when suddenly the strain burst forth again; - this time, apparently in his own chamber.

As he turned, expecting to find Christien at his elbow, the sounds broke off abruptly, and a sensation of intensest cold seized him in every limb - not the mere chill of nervous terror, not the mere physical result of exposure to wind and rain, but a deadly freezing of every vein, a paralysis of every nerve, an appalling consciousness that in a few moments more the lungs must cease to play, and the heart to beat! Powerless to speak or stir, he closed his eyes, and believed that he was dying.

This strange faintness lasted but a few seconds. Gradually the vital warmth returned, and, with it, strength to close the window, and stagger to a chair. As he did so, he found the breast of his shirt all stiff and frozen, and the rain clinging in solid icicles upon his hair.

He looked at his watch. It had stopped at twenty minutes before twelve. He took his thermometer from the chimney-piece, and found the mercury at sixty-eight. Heavenly powers! How were these things possible in a temperature of sixty-eight degrees, and with a large fire blazing on the hearth?

He poured out half a tumbler of cognac, and drank it at a draught. Going to bed was out of the question. He felt that he dared not sleep - that he scarcely dared to think. All he could do, was, to change his linen, pile on more logs, wrap himself in his blankets, and sit all night in an easy-chair before the fire.

My brother had not long sat thus, however, before the warmth, and probably the nervous reaction, drew him off to sleep. In the morning he found himself lying on the bed, without being able to remember in the least how or when he reached it.

It was again a glorious day. The rain and wind were gone, and the Silverhorn at the end of the valley lifted its head into an unclouded sky. Looking out upon the sunshine, he almost doubted the events of the night, and, but for the evidence of his watch, which still pointed to twenty minutes before twelve, would have been disposed to treat the whole matter as a dream. As it was, he attributed more than half his terrors to the prompting of an over- active and over-wearied brain. For all this, he still felt depressed and uneasy, and so very unwilling to pa.s.s another night at Lauterbrunnen, that he made up his mind to proceed that morning to Interlaken. While he was yet loitering over his breakfast, and considering whether he should walk the seven miles of road, or hire a vehicle, a char came rapidly up to the inn door, and a young man jumped out.

'Why, Battisto!' exclaimed my brother, in astonishment, as he came into the room; 'what brings you here today? Where is Stefano?'

'I have left him at Interlaken, signor,' replied the Italian.

Something there was in his voice, something in his face, both strange and startling.

'What is the matter?' asked my brother, breathlessly. 'He is not ill? No accident has happened?'

Battisto shook his head, glanced furtively up and down the pa.s.sage, and closed the door.

'Stefano is well, signor; but - but a circ.u.mstance has occurred - a circ.u.mstance so strange! - Signor, do you believe in spirits? '

'In spirits, Battisto?'

'Ay, signor; for if ever the spirit of any man, dead or living, appealed to human ears, the spirit of Christien came to me last night, at twenty minutes before twelve o'clock.'

'At twenty minutes before twelve o'clock!' repeated my brother.

'I was in bed, signor, and Stefano was sleeping in the same room. I had gone up quite warm, and had fallen asleep, full of pleasant thoughts. By-and-by, although I had plenty of bedclothes, and a rug over me as well, I woke, frozen with cold and scarcely able to breathe. I tried to call to Stefano; but I had no power to utter the slightest sound. I thought my last moment was come. All at once, I heard a sound under the window - a sound which I knew to be Christien's musical-box; and it played as it played when we lunched under the fir-trees, except that it was more wild and strange and melancholy and most solemn to hear - awful to hear! Then, signor, it grew fainter and fainter - and then it seemed to float past upon the wind, and die away. When it ceased, my frozen blood grew warm again, and I cfied out to Stefano. When I told him what had happened, he declared I had been only dreaming. I made him strike a light, that I might look at my watch. It pointed to twenty minutes before twelve, and had stopped there; and - stranger still - Stefano's watch had done the very same. Now tell me, signor, do you believe that there is any meaning in this, or do you think, as Stefano persists in thinking, that it was all a dream?'

'What is your own conclusion, Battisto?'

'My conclusion, signor, is that some harm has happened to poor Christien on the glacier, and that his spirit came to me last night.'

'Battisto, he shall have help if living, or rescue for his poor corpse if dead; for I, too, believe that all is not well.'

And with this, my brother told him briefly what had occurred to himself in the night; despatched messengers for the three best guides in Lauterbrunnen; and prepared ropes, ice-hatchets, alpenstocks, and all such matters necessary for a glacier expedition. Hasten as he would, however, it was nearly midday before the party started.

Arriving in about half an hour at a place called Stechelberg, they left the char, in which they had travelled so far, at a chalet, and ascended a steep path in full view of the Breithorn glacier, which rose up to the left, like a battlemented wall of solid ice. The way now lay for some time among pastures and pine-forests. Then they came to a; little colony of chalets, called Steinberg, where they filled their water-bottles, got their ropes in readiness, and prepared for the Tschlingel glacier. A few minutes more, and they were on the ice.