Byways of Ghost-Land Part 4

"A cat!" I gasped. "A cat--and a cat in mid-air!"

The stranger swore. "D---- it!" he cried, das.h.i.+ng his fist on the table with such force that the match-box flew a dozen or so feet up the room--"Cuss! the infernal thing! I guessed it was near me, I could feel its icy breath!" He glanced sharply round as he spoke, and hurled his tobacco pouch at the shape. It pa.s.sed right through it and fell with a soft squash on the ground. Gallaher picked it up with an oath. "I will tell you the history of that cat," he went on, as he resumed his seat, "and a d----d queer history it is."

Pouring himself out a b.u.mper of whisky and refilling his pipe, he cleared his throat and began: "As a boy I always hated cats--G.o.d knows why--but the sight of a cat made me sick. I could not stand their soft, sleek fur; nor their silly, senseless faces; nor their smell--the smell of their skins, which most people don't seem able to detect. I could, however; I could recognise that d----d scent a mile off, and could always tell, without seeing it, when there was a cat in the house. If any of the boys at school wanted to play me a trick they let loose half a dozen mangy tabbies in our yard, or sent me a hideous 'Tom' trussed up like a fowl in a hamper, or made cats' noises in the dead of night under my window. Everyone in the village, from the baker to the bone-setter, knew of my hatred of cats, and, consequently, I had many enemies--chiefly amongst the old ladies. I must tell you, however, much as I loathed and abominated cats, I never killed one. I threw stones and sticks at them; I emptied jugs, and cans, and many pails of water on them; I pelted them with turnips; I hurled cus.h.i.+ons, bolsters, pillows, anything I could first lay my hands on, at them; and"--here he cast a furtive look at the shadow--"I have pinched and trodden on their tails; but I have never killed one. When I grew up, my att.i.tude towards them remained the same, and wherever I went I won the reputation for being the inveterate, the most poignantly inveterate, enemy of cats.

"When I was about twenty-five, I settled in a part of Texas where there were no cats. It was on a ranch in the upper valley of the Colorado. I was cattle ranching, and having had a pretty shrewd knowledge of the business before I left home, I soon made headway, and--between ourselves, mate, for there are mighty 'tough uns' in these town hotels--a good pile of dollars. I never had any of the adventures that befall most men out West, never but once, and I am coming to that right away.

"I had been selling some hundred head of cattle and about the same number of hogs, at a town some twenty or so miles from my ranch, and feeling I would like a bit of excitement, after so many months of monotony--the monotony of the desert life--I turned into the theatre--a wooden shanty--where a company of touring players, mostly Yankees, were performing. Sitting next to me was a fellow who speedily got into conversation with me and a.s.sured me he was an Australian. I did not believe him, for he had not the cut of an Australian,--until he mentioned one or two of the streets I knew in Adelaide, and that settled me. We drank to each other's health straight away, and he invited me to supper at his hotel. I accepted; and as soon as the performance was over, and we had exchanged greetings with some half-dozen of the performers, in whisky, he slipped his arm through mine and we strolled off together. Of course it was very foolish of me, seeing that I had a belt full of money; but then I had not had an outing for a long time, and I thirsted for adventure as I thirsted for whisky, and G.o.d alone knows how much of THAT I had already drunk. We arrived at the hotel. It was a poor-looking place in a sinister neighbourhood, abounding with evil-eyed Dagos and cut-throats of all kinds. Still I was young and strong, and well armed, for I never left home in those days without a six-shooter. My companion escorted me into a low room in the rear of the premises, smelling villainously of foul tobacco and equally foul alcohol. Some half-cooked slices of bacon and suspicious-looking fried eggs were placed before us, which, with huge hunks of bread and a bottle of very much belabelled--too much belabelled--Highland whisky, completed the repast. But it was too unsavoury even for my companion, whose hungry eyes and lantern jaws proclaimed he had a ravenous appet.i.te. However, he ate the bacon and I the bread; the eggs we emptied into a flower-pot.

The supper--the supper of which he had led me to think so much--over, we filled our gla.s.ses, or at least he poured out for both, for his hands were steadier--even in my condition of semi-intoxication I noticed they were steadier--than mine. Then he brought me a cigar and took me to his bedroom, a bare, grimy apartment overhead. There was no furniture, saving a bed showing unmistakable signs that someone had been lying on it in dirty boots, a small rectangular deal table, and one chair.

"In a stupefied condition I was hesitating which of the alternatives to choose--the chair or the table, for, oddly enough, I never thought of the bed, when my host settled the question by leading me forcibly forward and flinging me down on the mattress. He then took a wooden wedge out of his pocket, and, going to the door, thrust it in the crack, giving the handle a violent tug to see whether the door stood the test.

'There now, mate,' he said with a grin--a grin that seemed to suggest something my tipsy brain could not grasp, 'I have just shut us in snug and secure so that we can chat away without fear of interruption. Let us drink to a comfortable night's sleep. You will sleep sound enough here, I can tell you!' He handed me a gla.s.s as he spoke. 'Drink!' he said with a leer. 'You are not half an Australian if you cannot hold that! See!'

and pouring himself out a tumbler of spirits and water he was about to gulp it down, when I uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of horror. The light from the single gas jet over his head, falling on his face as he lifted it up to drink the whisky, revealed in his wide open, protruding pupils, the reflection of a cat--I can swear it was a cat. Instantly my intoxication evaporated and I scented danger. How was it I had not noticed before that the man was a typical ruffian--a regular street-corner loiterer, waiting, hawklike, to pounce upon and fleece the first well-to-do looking stranger he saw. Of course I saw it all now like a flash of lightning: he had seen me about the town during the earlier part of the day, had found out I was there on business, that I was an Australian, and one or two other things--it is surprising how soon one's affairs get mooted in a small town,--and guessing I had the receipts of my sales on my person, had decided to rob me. Accordingly, with this end in view, he had followed me into the theatre, and, securing the seat next me, had broken the ice by pretending he was an Australian. He had then plied me with drink and brought me, already more than half drunk, to this cut-throat den. And I owed the discovery to a cat! My first thought was to feel for my revolver. I did, and found it was--gone. My hopes sank to zero; for though I might have been more than a match for the wiry framed stranger had we both been unarmed, I had not the slightest chance with him were he armed, as he undoubtedly was, with my revolver as well as his own. Though it takes some time to explain this, it all pa.s.sed through my mind in a few seconds--before he had finished drinking. 'Now, mate!' he said, putting down his gla.s.s, the first WHOLE gla.s.s even of whisky and water he had taken that night, 'that's my share, now for yours.'

"'Wait a bit!' I stammered, pretending to hiccough, 'wait a bit. I don't feel that I can drink any more just yet! Maybe I will in a few minutes.'

We sat down, and I saw protruding from his hip pocket the b.u.t.t end of a revolver. If only I could get it! Determined to try, I edged slightly towards him. He immediately drew away, a curious, furtive, b.e.s.t.i.a.l smile lurking in the corner of his lips. I casually repeated the manoeuvre, and he just as casually repeated his. Then I glanced at the window--the door I knew was hopeless,--and it was iron barred. I gazed again at the man, and his eyes grinned evilly as they met mine. Without a doubt he meant to murder me. The ghastliness of my position stunned me. Even if I shrieked for help, who would hear me save desperadoes, in all probability every whit as ready as my companion to kill me.

"A hideous stupor now began to a.s.sert itself, and as I strained to keep my lids from closing, I watched with a thrill of terror a fiendish look of expectancy creep into the white, gleaming face of the stranger. I realised, only too acutely, that he was waiting for me to fall asleep so as the more conveniently to rob and murder me. The man was a murderer by instinct--his whole air suggested it--his very breath was impregnated with the sickly desire to kill. Physically, he was the ideal a.s.sa.s.sin.

It was strange that I had not observed it before; but in this light, this yellow, piercing glare, all the criminality of his features was revealed with d.a.m.ning clearness: the high cheek-bones, the light, protruding eyes, the abnormally developed forehead and temporal regions, the small, weak chin, the grossly irregular teeth, the poisonous breath, the club-shaped finger-tips and thick palms. Where could one find a greater combination of typically criminal characteristics? The man was made for destroying his fellow creatures. When would he begin his job and how?

"I am not narrow minded, I can recognise merit even in my enemies; and though I was so soon to be his victim, I could not but admire the thoroughly professional manner, indicative of past masters.h.i.+p, with which he set about his business. So far all his plans, generated with meteor-like quickness, had been successful; he was now showing how devoted he was to his vocation, and how richly he appreciated the situation, by abandoning himself to a short period of greedy, voluptuous antic.i.p.ation, fully expressed in his staring eyes and thinly lipped mouth, before experiencing the delicious sensation of slitting my windpipe and dismembering me. My drowsiness, which I verily believe was in a great measure due to the peculiar fascination he had for me, steadily increased, and it was only with the most desperate efforts, egged on by the knowledge that my very existence depended on it, that I could keep my eyelids from actually coming together and sticking fast.

At last they closed so nearly as to deceive my companion, who, rising stealthily to his feet, showed his teeth in a broad grin of satisfaction, and whipping from his coat pocket a glittering, horn-handled knife, ran his dirty, spatulate thumb over the blade to see if it was sharp. Grinning still more, he now tiptoed to the window, pulled the blind as far down as it would go, and, after placing his ear against the panel of the door to make sure no one was about, gaily spat on his palms, and, with a soft, sardonic chuckle, crept slowly towards me. Had he advanced with a war-whoop it would have made little or no difference--the man and his atmosphere paralysed me--I was held in the chair by iron bonds that swathed themselves round hands, and feet, and tongue. I could neither stir nor utter a sound,--only look, look with all the pent-up agonies of my soul through my burning, quivering eye-lashes. A yard, a foot, an inch, and the perspiring fingers of his left hand dexterously loosened the gaudy coloured scarf that hid my throat. A second later and I felt them smartly transferred to my long, curly hair. They tightened, and my neck was on the very verge of being jerked back, when between my quivering eyelids I saw on the sheeny surface of his bulging eye-b.a.l.l.s,--the cat--the d.a.m.nable, hated cat. The effect was magical. A wave of the most terrific, the most ungovernable fury surged through me. I struck out blindly, and one of my fists alighting on the would-be murderer's face made him stagger back and drop the knife. In an instant the weapon was mine, and ere he could draw his six-shooter--for the suddenness of the encounter and my blow had considerably dazed him--I had hurled myself upon him, and brought him to the ground.

"The force with which I had thrown him, together with my blow, had stunned him, and I would have left him in that condition had it not been for the cat--the accursed cat--that, peeping up at me from every particle of his prostrate body, egged me on to kill him. My intense admiration for his genius now manifested itself in the way in which I imitated all his movements, from the visit to the door and window, to the spitting on his palms; and with a grin--the nearest counterpart that I could get, after prodigious efforts, to the one that so fascinated me--I approached his rec.u.mbent figure, and, bending over it, removed his neckerchief. I sat and admired the gently throbbing whiteness of his throat for some seconds, and then, with a volley of execrations at the cat, commenced my novel and by no means uninteresting work. I am afraid I bungled it sadly, for I was disturbed when in the midst of it, by the sound of scratching, the violent and frantic scratching, of some animal on the upper panels of the door. The sound fl.u.s.tered me, and, my hand shaking in consequence, I did not make such a neat job of it as I should have liked. However, I did my best, and at all events I killed him; and I enjoyed the supreme satisfaction of knowing that I had killed him--killed the cat. But my joy was of short duration, and I now bitterly regret my rash deed. Wherever I go in the daytime, the shadowy figure of the cat accompanies me, and at night, crouching on my bedclothes, it watches--watches me with the expression in its eyes and mouth of my would-be murderer on that memorable night."

As he concluded, for an instant, only for an instant, the shadow by his side grew clearer, and I saw the cat, saw it watching him with murder, ghastly murder lurking in its eyes. I struck a match, and, as I had antic.i.p.ated, the phenomenon vanished.

"It will return," the Australian said gloomily; "it always does. I shall never get rid of it!" And as I fully concurred with this statement, and had no suggestions to offer, I thanked him for his story, and wished him good night. But I did not leave him alone. He still had his cat. I saw it return to him as I pa.s.sed through the doorway. Of course, I had no means of verifying his story; it might have been true, or it might not.

But there was the cat!--thoroughly objective and as perfect a specimen of a feline, occult b.e.s.t.i.a.lity as I have ever seen or wish to see again.

That a spirit should appear in the form of a pig need not seem remarkable when we remember that those who live foul lives, _i.e._ the sensual and greedy, must, after death, a.s.sume the shape that is most appropriate to them; indeed, in these circ.u.mstances, one might rather be surprised that a phantasm in the shape of a hog is not a more frequent occurrence.

There are numerous instances of hauntings by phenomena of this kind, in some cases the phantasms being wholly animal, and in other cases semi-animal.

What I have said with regard to the phantasms of dogs--namely, the difficulty, practically the impossibility, of deciding whether the manifestation is due to an elemental or to a spirit of the dead--holds good in the case of "pig" as well as every other kind of b.e.s.t.i.a.l phenomenon.

The phantasm in the shape of a horse I am inclined to attribute to the once actually material horse and not to elementals.

With regard to phantom birds--and there are innumerable cases of occult bird phenomena--I fancy it is otherwise, and that the majority of bird hauntings are caused either by the spirits of dead people, or by vicious forms of elementals.

Though one hears of few cases of occult b.e.s.t.i.a.lities in the shape of tigers, lions, or any other wild animal--saving bears and wolves, phantasms of which appear to be common--I nevertheless believe, from hearsay evidence, that they are to be met with in certain of the jungles and deserts in the East, and that for the most part they are the phantasms of the dead animals themselves, still hankering to be cruel--still hankering to kill.

CHAPTER VII

VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC.

_Vampires_

According to a work by Jos. Ennemoser, ent.i.tled _The Phantom World_, Hungary was at one time full of vampires. Between the river Theiss and Transylvania, were (and still are, I believe) a people called Heyducs, who were much pestered with this particularly noxious kind of phantasm.

About 1732, a Heyduc called Arnauld Paul was crushed to death by a waggon. Thirty days after his burial a great number of people began to die, and it was then remembered that Paul had said he was tormented by a vampire. A consultation was held and it was decided to exhume him. On digging up his body, it was found to be red all over and literally bursting with blood, some of which had forced a pa.s.sage out and wetted his winding sheet. Moreover, his hair, nails, and beard had grown considerably. These being sure signs that the corpse was possessed by a vampire, the local bailie was fetched and the usual proceedings for the expulsion of the undesirable phantasm began. A stake, sharply pointed at one end, was handed to the bailie, who, raising it above his head, drove it with all his might into the heart of the corpse. There then issued from the body the most fearful screams, whereupon it was at once thrown into a fire that had been specially prepared for it, and burned to ashes. But, though this was the end of that particular vampire, it was by no means the end of the hauntings; for the deaths, far from decreasing in number, continued in rapid succession, and no less than seventeen people in the village died within a period of three months.

The question now arose as to which of the other bodies in the cemetery were "possessed," it being very evident that more than one vampire lay buried there. Whilst the matter was at the height of discussion, the solution to the problem was brought about thus. A girl, of the name of Stanoska, awoke in the middle of the night, uttering the most heartrending screams, and declaring that the son of a man called Millo (who had been dead nine weeks) had nearly strangled her. A rush was at once made to the cemetery, and a general disinterment taking place, seventeen out of the forty corpses (including that of the son of Millo) showed unmistakable signs of vampirism. They were all treated according to the mode described, and their ashes cast into the adjacent river. A committee of inquiry concluded that the spread of vampirism had been due to the eating of certain cattle, of which Paul had been the first to partake. The disturbances ceased with the death of the girl and the destruction of her body, and the full account of the hauntings, attested to by officers of the local garrison, the chief surgeons, and most influential of the inhabitants of the district, was sent to the Imperial Council of War at Venice, which caused a strict inquiry to be made into the matter, and were subsequently, according to Ennemoser, satisfied that all was _bona fide_.

In another work, _A History of Magic_, Ennemoser also refers to a case in the village of Kisilova, in Hungary, where the body of an old man, three days after his death, appeared to his son on two consecutive nights, demanding something to eat, and, being given some meat, ate it ravenously. The third night the son died, and the succeeding day witnessed the deaths of some five or six others. The matter was reported to the Tribunal of Belgrade, which promptly sent two officers to inquire into the case. On their arrival the old man's grave was opened, and his body found to be full of blood and natural respiration. A stake was then driven through its heart, and the hauntings ceased.

Though far fewer in number than they were, and more than ever confined to certain localities, I am quite sure that vampires are by no means extinct. Their modes and habits--they are no longer gregarious--have changed with the modes and habits of their victims, but they are none the less vampires. Have I seen them? No! but my not having been thus fortunate, or rather unfortunate, does not make me so discourteous as to disbelieve those who tell me that they have seen a vampire--that peculiar, indefinably peculiar shape that, wriggling along the ground from one tombstone to another, crawls up and over the churchyard wall, and making for the nearest house, disappears through one of its upper windows. Indeed, I have no doubt that had I watched that house some few days afterwards, I should have seen a pale, anaemic looking creature, with projecting teeth and a thoroughly imbecile expression, come out of it. I believe a large percentage of idiots and imbecile epileptics owe their pitiable plight to vampires which, in their infancy, they had the misfortune to attract. I do not think that, as of old, the vampires come to their prey installed in stolen bodies, but that they visit people wholly in spirit form, and, with their superphysical mouths, suck the brain cells dry of intellect. The baby, who is thus the victim of a vampire, grows up into something on a far lower scale of intelligence than dumb animals, more b.e.s.t.i.a.l than monkeys, and more dangerous (far more dangerous, if the public only realised it) than tigers; for, whereas the tiger is content with one square meal a day, the hunger of vampirism is never satisfied, and the half-starved, mal-shaped brain cells, the prey of vampirism, are in a constant state of suction, ever trying to draw in mental sustenance from the healthy brain cells around them. Idiots and epileptics are the cephalopoda of the land--only, if anything, fouler, more voracious, and more insatiable than their aquatic prototypes. They never ought to be at large. If not destroyed in their early infancy (which one cannot help thinking would be the most merciful plan both for the idiot and the community in general), those polyp brains ought to be kept in some isolated place where they would have only each other to feed upon. When I see an idiot walking in the streets, I always take very good care to give him a wide berth, as I have no desire that the vampire buried in his withered brain cells should derive any nutrition at my expense. From the fact that some towns which are close to cromlechs, ancient burial-grounds, woods, or moors are full of idiots, leads me to suppose that vampires often frequent the same spots as barrowvians, vagrarians and other types of elementals.

Whilst, on the other hand, since many densely crowded centres have fully their share of idiots, I am led to believe that vampires are equally attracted by populous districts, and that, in short, unlike barrowvians and vagrarians, they can be met with pretty nearly everywhere. And now for examples.

A man I know, who spends most of his time in Germany, once had a strange experience when staying in the neighbourhood of the Hartz mountains. One sultry evening in August he was walking in the country, and noticed a perambulator with a white figure, which he took to be that of a remarkably tall nursemaid, bending over it. As he drew nearer, however, he found that he had been mistaken. The figure was nothing human; it had no limbs; it was cylindrical. A faint, sickly sound of sucking caused my friend to start forward with an exclamation of horror, and as he did so, the phantasm glided away from the perambulator and disappeared among the trees. The baby, my friend a.s.sured me, was a mere bag of bones, with a ghastly, grinning anaemic face. Again, when touring in Hungary, he had a similar experience. He was walking down a back street in a large, thickly populated town, when he beheld a baby lying on the hot and sticky pavement with a queer-looking object stooping over it. Wondering what on earth the thing was, he advanced rapidly, and saw, to his unmitigated horror, that it was a phantasm with a limbless, cylindrical body, a huge flat, pulpy head, and protruding, luminous lips, which were tightly glued to the infant's ears; and again my friend heard a faint, sickly sound of sucking, and a sound more hideously nauseating, he informed me, could not be imagined. He was too dumbfounded to act; he could only stare; and the phantasm, after continuing its loathsome occupation for some seconds, leisurely arose, and moving away with a gliding motion, vanished in the yard of an adjacent house. The child did not appear to be human, but a concoction of half a dozen diminutive b.e.s.t.i.a.lities, and as my friend gazed at it, too fascinated for the moment to tear himself away, it smiled up at him with the hungry, leering smile of vampirism and idiocy.

So much for vampires in the country and in crowded cities, but, as I have already remarked, they are ubiquitous. As an ill.u.s.tration, there is said to be a maritime town in a remote part of England, which, besides being full of quaintness (of a kind not invariably pleasant) and of foul smells, is also full of more than half-savage fishermen and idiots; idiots that often come out at dusk, and greatly alarm strangers by running after them.

Some years ago, one of these idiots went into a stranger's house, took a noisy baby out of its cot, and after tubbing it well (which I think showed that the idiot possessed certain powers of observation), cut off its head, throwing the offending member into the fire. The parents were naturally indignant, and so were some of the inhabitants; but the affair was speedily forgotten, and although the murderer was confined to a lunatic asylum, nothing was done to rid the town of other idiots who were, collectively, doing mischief of a nature far more serious than that of the recently perpetrated murder.

The wild and rugged coast upon which the town is situated was formerly the hunting-ground of wreckers, and I fear the present breed of fishermen, in spite of their hypocritical pretensions to religion, prove only too plainly by their abominable cruelty to birds and inhospitable treatment of strangers, that they are in reality no better than their forbears. This inherited strain of cruelty in the fishermen would alone account for the presence of vampires and every other kind of vicious elemental; but the town has still another attraction--namely, a prehistoric burial-ground, on a wide expanse of thinly populated moorland--in its rear.

_a propos_ of vampires, my friend Mrs South writes to me as follows (I quote her letter _ad verb.u.m_): "The other night, I was dining with a very old friend of mine whom I had not seen for years, and, during a pause in the conversation, he suddenly said, 'Do you believe in vampires?' I wondered for a moment if he had gone mad, and I think, in my matter-of-fact way, I blurted out something of the sort; but I saw in a moment, from the expression in his eyes, that he had something to tell me, and that he was not at all in the mood to be laughed at or misunderstood, 'Tell me,' I said, 'I am listening.' 'Well,' he replied, 'I had an extraordinary experience a few months ago, and not a word of it have I breathed to any living soul. But sometimes the horror of it so overpowers me that I feel I must share my secret with someone; and you--well, you and I have always been such pals.' I answered nothing, but gently pressed his hand.

"After lighting a cigarette, he commenced his story, which I will give you as nearly as possible in his own words:--

"'It is about six months ago since I returned from my travels. Up to that time I had been away from England for nearly three years, as you know. About a couple of nights after my return, I was dining at my Club, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round, I saw my old friend S----.

"'As I had no idea he was in London, you may imagine my delight. He joined me at dinner and we went over old times together. He asked me if I had heard anything of our mutual friend G----, to whom we were both very much attached. I said I had had a few lines from him about six months previously, announcing his marriage, but that I had never heard from him nor seen him since. He had settled, I believe, in the heart of the country. S---- then told me that he had not seen G---- since his engagement, neither had he heard from him; in fact he had written to him once or twice, but his letters had received no answer. There were whispered rumours that he was looking ill and unhappy. Hearing this, I got G----'s address from S----, and made up my mind I would run down and see him as soon as I could get away from town.

"'About a week afterwards I found myself, after driving an interminable distance, so it seemed to me, through Devons.h.i.+re lanes, stopping outside a beautiful house which appeared to be entirely isolated from any other dwelling.

"'A few more minutes and I was standing before a blazing log fire in a fine old hall, eagerly awaiting the welcome I knew my old friend would give me. I did not antic.i.p.ate long; in less time than it takes to tell G---- appeared, and with slow, painfully slow steps, crossed the hall to greet me. He was wasted to a shadow, and I felt a lump rise in my throat as I thought of the splendid, athletic boy I used to know. He made no excuse for his wife, who did not accompany him; and though I was naturally anxious to see her, I was glad that Jack and I were alone. We chatted together utterly regardless of the time, and it was not until the first gong had sounded that I thought of dressing for dinner. After performing a somewhat hurried toilette, I was hastening downstairs, when I suddenly became conscious that I was being watched. I looked all round and could see no one. I then heard a low, musical laugh just above my head, and looking up, I saw a figure leaning over the banisters. The beauty of the face dazzled me for a moment, and the loveliness of the eyes, which looked into mine and seemed to s.h.i.+ne a red gold, held me spellbound. Presently a voice, every whit as lovely as the face, said: "So you are Jack's chum?" The most beautiful woman I have ever seen then came slowly down the stairs, and slipping her arm through mine, led me to the dining-room. As her hand rested on my coat-sleeve, I remember noticing that the fingers were long, and thin, and pointed, and the nails so polished that they almost shone red. Indeed, I could not help feeling somewhat puzzled by the fact that everything about her shone red with the exception of her skin, which, with an equal brilliancy, shone white. At dinner she was lively, but she ate and drank very sparingly, and as though food was loathsome to her.

"'Soon after dinner I felt so exceedingly tired and sleepy, a most unusual thing for me, that I found it absolutely impossible to keep awake, and consequently asked my host and hostess to excuse me. I woke next morning feeling languid and giddy, and, while shaving, I noticed a curious red mark at the base of my neck. I imagined I must have cut myself shaving hurriedly the evening before, and thought nothing more about it.

"'The following night, after dinner, I experienced the same sensation of sleepiness, and felt almost as if I had been drugged. It was impossible for me to keep awake, so I again asked to be excused! On this occasion, after I had retired, a curious thing happened. I dreamed--or at least I suppose I dreamed--that I saw my door slowly open, and the figure of a woman carrying a candle in one hand, and with the other carefully shading the flame, glide noiselessly into my room. She was clad in a loose red gown, and a great rope of hair hung over one shoulder. Again those red-gold eyes looked into mine; again I heard that low musical laugh; and this time I felt powerless either to speak or to move. She leaned down, nearer and nearer to me; her eyes gradually a.s.sumed a fiendish and terrible expression; and with a sucking noise, which was horrible to hear, she fastened her crimson lips to the little wound in my neck. I remembered nothing more until the morning. The place on my neck, I thought, looked more inflamed, and as I looked at it, my dream came vividly back to me and I began to wonder if after all it was only a dream. I felt frightfully rotten, so rotten that I decided to return to town that day; and yet I yielded to some strange fascination, and determined, after all, to stay another night. At dinner I drank sparingly; and, making the same excuse as on the previous nights, I retired to bed at an early hour. I lay awake until midnight, waiting for I know not what; and was just thinking what a mad fool I was, when suddenly the door gently opened and again I saw Jack's wife. Slowly she came towards me, gliding as stealthily and noiselessly as a snake. I waited until she leaned over me, until I felt her breath on my cheek, and then--then flung my arms round her. I had just time to see the mad terror in her eyes as she realised I was awake, and the next instant, like an eel, she had slipped from my grasp, and was gone. I never saw her again. I left early the next morning, and I shall never forget dear old Jack's face when I said good-bye to him. It is only a few days since I heard of his death.'"

_Were-wolves_

Closely allied to the vampire is the were-wolf, which, however, instead of devouring the intellect of human beings, feeds only on their flesh.

Like the vampire, the were-wolf belongs to the order of elementals; but, unlike the vampire, it is confined to a very limited sphere--the wilds of Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and only appears in two guises, that of a human being in the daytime and a wolf at night. I have closely questioned many people who have travelled in those regions, but very few of them--one or two at the most--have actually come in contact with those to whom the existence of the were-wolf is not a fable but a fact.

One of these travellers, a mere acquaintance whom I met in an hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris, a.s.sured me that the authenticity of a story he would tell me, relating to the were-wolf, was, in the neighbourhood through which he travelled, never for a single moment doubted.

My informant, a highly cultured Russian, spoke English, French, German, and Italian with as great fluency as I spoke my native tongue, and I believed him to be perfectly genuine. The incident he told me, to which unanimous belief was accredited, happened to two young men (whom I will call Hans and Carl), who were travelling to Nijni Novgorod, a city in the province of Tobolsk. The route they took was off the beaten track, and led them through a singularly wild and desolate tract of country.

One evening, when they were trotting mechanically along, their horses suddenly came to a standstill and appeared to be very much frightened.

They inquired of the driver the reason of such strange behaviour, and he pointed with his whip to a spot on the ice--they were then crossing a frozen lake--a few feet ahead of them. They got out of the sleigh, and, approaching the spot indicated, found the body of a peasant lying on his back, his throat gnawed away and all his entrails gone. "A wolf without a doubt," they said, and getting back into the sleigh, they drove on, taking good care to see that their rifles were ready for instant action.

They had barely gone a mile when the horses again halted, and a second corpse was discovered, the corpse of a child with its face and thighs entirely eaten away. Again they drove on, and had progressed a few more miles when the horses stopped so abruptly that the driver was pitched bodily out; and before Carl and Hans could dismount, the brutes started off at a wild gallop. They were eventually got under control, but it was with the greatest difficulty that they were forced to turn round and go back, in order to pick up the unfortunate driver. The farther they went, the more restless they became, and when, at length, they approached the place where the driver had been thrown, they came to a sudden and resolute standstill. As no amount of whipping would now make them go on, Hans got out, and advancing a few steps, espied something lying across the track some little distance ahead of them. Gun in hand, he advanced a few more steps, when he suddenly stopped. To his utter amazement he saw, bending over a body, which he at once identified as that of their driver, the figure of a woman. She started as he approached, and, hastily springing up, turned towards him. The strange beauty of her face, her long, lithe limbs (she stood fully six feet high) and slender body,--the beauty of the latter enhanced by the white woollen costume in which she was clad,--had an extraordinary effect upon Hans. Her s.h.i.+ning ma.s.ses of golden hair, that curled in thick cl.u.s.ters over her forehead and about her ears; the perfect regularity of her features, and the l.u.s.trous blue of her eyes, enraptured him; whilst the expression both in her face and figure--in her sparkling eyes and firmly modelled mouth; in her red lips, and even in her pearly teeth, repulsed and almost frightened him. He gazed steadily at her, and, as he did so, the hold on his rifle involuntarily tightened. He then glanced from her face to her hands, and noticed with a spasm of horror that the tips of her long and beautifully shaped nails were dripping with blood, and that there was blood, too, on her knees and feet, blood all over her. He then looked at the driver and saw the wretched man's clothes had been partially stripped off, and that there were great gory holes in his throat and abdomen.

"Oh, I am so glad you have come!" the woman cried, addressing him in a strangely peculiar voice, that thrilled him to the marrow of his bones.

"It is the wolves. Do come and see what they have done. I saw them, from a distance, attack this poor man, and leaving my sleigh, for my horses came to a dead halt, and nothing I could do would induce them to move, I ran to his a.s.sistance. But, alas! I was too late!" Then, looking at her dress, from which Hans could scarcely remove his eyes, she cried out: "Ugh! How disgusting--blood! My hands and clothes are covered with it. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was no use"; and she proceeded to wipe her fingers on the snow.