The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

by Wardon Allan Curtis

  _The Pleasant Adventures of Dr. McDill._

  It was twelve o'clock on a blustery winter night and Dr. James McDillwas where a married man of forty ought to be at such an hour in thatseason, sleeping soundly by the side of his beloved wife. But his wifewas not sleeping. At the stroke of the hour, she had suddenly awokefrom refreshing slumber and become aware of sounds as of personsmoving softly about the room, and after a little, seeing against thewindows faintly illuminated by a distant street light, two darkfigures, she perceived her ears had not deceived her. Shaking herhusband unavailingly for a considerable time, in her terror shefinally cast discretion to the winds and shouted:

  "Burglars, Jim, burglars!"

  Hardly had these words ceased, when the electric lights were turned onand Dr. McDill sat up in bed to find himself staring into the muzzlesof three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over thefootboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with tworevolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the otherbegan to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if noteloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitousconditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed toobtain by force, if they obtained at all, any share in the privilegesand riches of the wealthy. As he discoursed, at times carried away byhis theme, he gave over his search and paused to enforce his pointswith earnest gestures. This caused the other robber some disquietudeand he cursed his compatriot and the doctor and his wife with a use ofepithets that will not bear repeating and which showed him to be noneother than a low ruffian. At last all the treasure in the room beingtaken and the doctor being forced to accompany them and disclose therepository of other valuables, the robbers took their departure.

  Some weeks after this, two persons suspected of being responsible forcertain robberies were taken into custody and the doctor called intocourt to identify them if possible.

  "I noticed," said he, "that the shorter of the two masked men wasprone to gesticulation and that he had a fashion of holding his armsclose to his body, as if tied at the elbows, and with hands fullyopen, fingers apart, thumbs extended, and palms upward, waving hisforearms----"

  At this juncture, the smile on the face of the defendant's counsel,occasioned by thus putting his client upon his guard, was dispelled byan angry exclamation from the person in question, and denying withsome loquacity and even more vociferation that he ever made such agesture, at the close of his statement, behold, he made the gesture!

  By the doctor's testimony was a chain of incriminating evidenceestablished that led to a sentence of ten years' imprisonment beingimposed upon the robbers. When he had heard the sentence, he of thegestures turned fiercely toward the doctor and cried:

  "You'll be killed for this, like other dogs before you for the samecause. If you're not killed before I am discharged or escape, I'llkill you. But I am only one of many, a tried band who avenge;" andhereupon he smote the rail in front of him, "Knock, knock--knock;knock, knock--knock." And from several parts of the silent room cameanswers, faint, but distinct, two quick taps, a pause, and a third,then all repeated. "Tap, tap--tap; tap, tap--tap."

  The evidence of confederates, the quick response to the appeal oftheir comrade, the taps that came from everywhere and nowhere,manifestation of the desperate men surrounding him, might well havedaunted the soul of any man. Three sentences had been pronounced thatday, a term of years upon Jerry McGuire and Barry O'Toole, but deathupon James McDill. You may depend upon it that the doctor was none themore reassured when on the morrow he learned that McGuire and O'Toolehad escaped. With their anger and resentment yet hot within them,these men would doubtless at once set about to encompass hisdestruction, and he knew that when once one of these societies haddecreed the death of a person who balked or incensed them, everyendeavor was used to put the decree into effect. But, after a little,he took courage from the very fact that was most threatening. If thesemen, these desperate and despicable scoundrels, could escape from thebarriers of stone and steel and the guardians that surrounded them,why might not he fight for his life and win in the struggle which bothreason and instinct told him was inevitable?

  That those he loved most might not be involved in the perils he feltcertain he was about to encounter and that his resolution and hismovements might not be hampered by their presence and their fears, hefound means to persuade his wife to take the children for a visit totheir grandfather, and setting his affairs in order and providinghimself with two revolvers, a bowie knife, and an Italian stiletto, heeven began to look forward to the approaching struggle with somethingof that pleasure which man experiences in the anticipation of anycontest; and there is indeed a certain keen zest in playing the gamewhere one's stake is one's life.

  On the evening of the day of his wife's departure, he was called toassist in an operation at a hospital with which he had once beenconnected, and unexpected complications arising, it was not until twoin the morning that he started away. His man and carriage, that he hadordered to await him, had gone. The night was mild and it must havebeen weariness or restiveness, that had caused the departure. Althoughsome distance lay between the hospital and his home, he started afoot.Not a soul was to been seen in the street, which, thanks to the lightof the moon late rising in its last quarter, lay visible to his sight.As he passed an alleyway, shortly after leaving the hospital, hisattention was attracted by the sound of snores, and he discovered aman whose features were well shrouded in the upturned collar of anulster, seated with his back against a house wall, asleep. The manstirred uneasily as he bent over him, but thinking it best not todisturb him, the doctor passed on. As he did so, he became consciousthat the snores had ceased, and looking back, he beheld the man walkdrowsily across the sidewalk and finally stand gazing in the directionof the hospital. The doctor began to hasten his steps, but ever andanon glancing back, and presently he saw the man was now looking afterhim, that he leaned to the right and leaned to the left, and stoopeddown in his scrutinizing. Suddenly the man reached forward with acane, smote the sidewalk, "rap, rap--rap; rap, rap--rap," and taken upon either side of the way, louder and louder as it came up the streettoward the now fleeing doctor, from sequestered nooks betweenbuildings, ran the fateful, hurrying volley of "rap, rap--rap; rap,rap--rap." The last raps came right behind the doctor's heels at themouth of an alley he was clearing at a bound, and glancing back, hesaw a succession of men hurrying silently after him at all speed. Hewas encumbered with a long ulster, while his pursuers, if they hadworn overcoats, had now cast them aside. The man just behind,apparently did not wish to close in alone, preferring to allow othersto catch up and assist him, and at the second block the doctor couldhear two pairs of heels behind him and a third pair just beyond. Thepursuers were gaining. Though he would have to pause to do it, he mustthrow off his overcoat. At the third corner, he tore at the longgarment, it swung under his feet, and he pitched headlong----. Heheard a cry of savage joy and a rush of feet, a sudden great softwhirr, and he arose to see an automobile halted between him and hispursuers. A gentleman of a rotund person, clothed in correct eveningdress and whose speech was of a thickness to indicate recentindulgence in intoxicating liquors, alighted from the carriage.

  "I do not believe thish ish the place. No, thish ish not the place Itold you to come to, driver. I'm glad it isn't anyway, as I'm afraidwe're too drunk to sing a serenade. Here's another man as's drunk,too. So drunk he fell down on hisself. Couldn't leave him here. Nevergo back on a man as is drunk. Get in brother. Take you home with us.Get in."

  It is needless to say that Dr. McDill responded to his invitation withthe greatest alacrity and gratitude. For the first time did the rotundgentleman become aware that there were other persons present. Somefour of the doctor's pursuers had now gathered at the curb of thecrossing and the rest were coming thither, though with no great haste,for they were gentry to whom caution was second nature and it was byno means certain what the arrival of the automobile might portend. Thefour at the curb, deterred from retreat by that sen
se of shame whichis not entirely absent even in the lowest and most depraved, were nowinsistently giving their rap to incite their comrades to hasten. Therotund gentleman walked around to that side of the carriage and gazedat them with some degree of interest and curiosity. "Rap, rap--rap;rap, rap--rap," went the sticks of the four and down the street cameanswering raps and soon the four were joined by two more.

  "Don't let him go now, we've almost got him. We'd had him, if Redhadn't gone to sleep and let him get by. Come on, come on."

  The six rushed at the carriage, whereat the rotund gentleman, with anagility not to be looked for in one of his contour and condition,received the foremost with smash, smash--smash, in each eye and on thenose, and the second likewise, when bidding the driver be off, heleaped into the carriage with his comrades. A single bullet whistledafter them as they whirled away.

  "Rap, rap--rap. I rapped 'em," said the rotund gentleman. "I alwaysdid hate a knocker."

  With your permission I will here interpolate the remark that thefurther adventures of the eminent surgeon with the mysteriousconfederacy that sought his life, bore evidence that these depravedand ruffianly men were not without a certain rude artistic temperamentas well as a tinge of romance, and a dramatic sense that many whowrite for the stage might well envy them.

  The elation of the doctor over his escape from the toils of thethieves was not of long duration. His breakfast was interrupted by acall to the telephone and over the wires came to his startled ears ahollow "knock, knock--knock; knock, knock--knock." At his office doordown town softly came "tap, tap--tap; tap, tap--tap," and snatch thedoor open as hastily as he might, he saw nothing, heard nothing, heardnothing but the electric bells on the floors above and floors belowcalling for the elevator: "buzz, buzz--buzz; buzz, buzz--buzz." Hewalked along State Street at the busy hour of noon and all about himin the throngs was the dull impact of canes upon the pavement, "thud,thud--thud; thud, thud--thud." As he rode home in the street car atnightfall, back of him in the train at street corner after corner heheard passengers jingle the bell for stopping, "ding, ding--ding;ding, ding--ding."

  Although Dr. McDill was a man of great native resolution and intrepidin the face of known and seen dangers, the horrors of the invisibleforces of death everywhere surrounding him so wore at his soul that hereturned down town and spent the night at a hotel. On the morrow, heseverely condemned himself for this yielding to fear, for on the frontsteps of his house lay the dead form of his great watch dog, Jacques.There were evidences of a struggle in which the assailants had notbeen unscathed. Bits of cloth lay about and examining the stains ofblood that plentifully blotched the walk, he discovered that some ofit was human blood.

  "Ah," he said, in deep self-reproach, "if I had stayed here as Ishould, I would have been able to fight with poor Jacques and broughtlow some of my enemies. How easily I could have fired from the upperwindows as Jacques made their presence known. It is evident that thenoise of the struggle was so great that the fiends were afraid tocontinue the attack and ran away."

  Philosophers and poets have found a theme for dissertation in the factthat the dog leaves his own kindred to dwell with man and fights themin behalf of his master. It has ever seemed to me that this were buthalf of the tale, for full many a man loves his dog better than therest of mankind, and so the devotion of the race of dogs finds returnand recompense. Outside his own family, there was no living thing inthe city of Chicago which had so dwelt in the affections of Dr. McDillas the dog Jacques. Of the truth of this, he had had but dimrealization until now and he was like to burst with sorrow and withhatred of the vile beings who had marked him and his for slaughter.Lifting the stiff form of his humble comrade, for the first time didhe observe a poniard thrust in the poor beast's throat. The bladeimpaled a piece of paper and upon it was written the word "Knock."

  "Knock!" cried the doctor: "but henceforth it shall be I that knock.Hasten the time when we may meet, malignant knaves. Never again shallI avoid you. Henceforth, I go about my business as before, for it isthus that I may expect the sooner to encounter you."

  An urgent matter would require the doctor's presence in themunicipality of Evanston that night. He could not expect to returnbefore twelve o'clock in the morning and of this informing the cook,who in the temporary reduction of the family carried on the householdwithout the aid of a second girl, he departed northward. It was pastthe hour of one when he let himself in the front door of hisresidence. A pleasant savor of various viands saluted his nostrils andin the drawing-room he observed that the chairs and tables had allbeen thrust against the wall as if to clear the floor for dancing. Inthe dining-room, the evidence of recent festivity was complete, forthe table was covered with the remnants of a sumptuous repast. Nowords were needed to tell him that Olga Blomgren, the cook, had takenadvantage of the foreknowledge of his absence to entertain a widecircle of friends; but here indeed was a mystery. Why had she not seteverything in order and removed all traces of the entertainment? Hemoved toward the kitchen in wonder and--his heart stood still. Thebeams of the lamp held above his head were shot back by the gleam ofblue and white satin, his wife's favorite ball dress on the kitchenfloor. But it was not his wife's fair hair and snowy shoulders that,rising out of the glistening blue and white, were striped with aglistening red, but the snowy shoulders and fair hair of poor OlgaBlomgren. Thus had she paid for her hour of magnificence. Thus haddeath cut her down because the maid's form was of the same statuesquebeauty as her mistress's. Tenderly the doctor stooped to lift up thedead girl, stricken in her mistress's stead. There was a poniard inher throat, and it impaled a piece of paper upon which was written"Knock."

  "Knock, knock--" the next knock would be upon his own heart.

  Whatever design the doctor had held of not appealing to the police forprotection against his invisible foes, his affairs had now reached apoint where the intervention of the officers of the law could nolonger be avoided. Poor Jacques could be consigned to earth withoutthe intervention of priest or police, but the murder of Olga was amatter for official investigation. With that crafty and subtle way theastute sleuths of the Chicago constabulary have of informing thepublic through the intermediary of the press of all measures projectedagainst evil-doers, of moves to be made, of arrests to be attempted,all citizens were in possession of the fact that owing to thestartling plot just brought to light, all gatherings and coteries ofmen, especially at late hours, were to be watched, investigated, andmade to give accounts of themselves. Dr. McDill fumed at the turnaffairs had taken. That the confederacy of thieves would abandon theirattempts upon his life, was not to be dreamed of. But they wouldforego the pleasure of witnessing his death in the presence of allassembled together. They would now delegate the attack to a singleindividual, and in event of his death, he could hope to carry with himbut one of his enemies.

  Again was Dr. McDill called to the hospital for a night operation.Leaving his driver without, he cautioned him.

  "August, I don't want you to be fooled the way you were before. If anyman comes out of the hospital and says I send word for you to drivehome without waiting for me, pay no attention to him. Take no ordersfrom anybody but me."

  "All right. They can't fool me vonce again already."

  But when a cab drove up and let out a tall gentleman in a silk hat,who went into the hospital, and after a little the cab driver, afriendly and talkative person of Irish extraction, offered August aflask full of a beverage also of Irish extraction, August took adrink.

  "He told me not to take no orders yet already from nobody but him. Buthe didn't say nothin' about takin' a drink vonce."

  "Take a drink twice, then, Hans," said the person of Irish extraction,"already, yet, and by and by, too."

  It was all of four hours later that Dr. McDill stepped out of thehospital door. He paused under the light of the globe over the porchand examining a large bag of water-proof silk, he thrust therein asponge upon which he poured the contents of a small phial, afterwhich, seeing that a noose of string that closed the mouth
of the bagwas not entangled, he strode briskly toward his buggy. The sidecurtains were on and consequently the interior was in a dark shadow.Pausing a moment on the step, as if to arrange his overcoat, he made aquick, dexterous movement toward the person in the carriage and,throwing the bag over his head, pulled the noose. A terrific blowstruck the doctor in the breast, but the arm that struck it fellpowerless before it could be repeated and the striker lurched forwardon the dashboard in the utter limpness of complete insensibility.

  "It is not August," said the doctor, straightening up the hoodedfigure and taking the reins. "How well was my precaution taken! Ibelieve that was the last knock that any member of that band ofdiabolical assassins will ever strike."

  In the private laboratory of his own home, the doctor sat facing hiscaptive, whom, after binding hand and foot, he had restored to hissenses. The outlaw was the first to break the silence.

  "You've got me and you think you'll do me," said the outlaw, with asuccession of oaths and vile epithets it would be needless as well asimproper for me to repeat. "But if you harm me, my friends will morethan pay you up for it, just as they have everybody that crossedthem."

  "Your friends are of a mind to kill me, whatever befall. Sparing orkilling you, will in nowise affect their purpose. Whatever may cometo-morrow, to-night you must obey my commands."

  "I won't do a thing you tell me to. I don't have to, see? My friendswill look for you just as soon as I don't turn up, and it will go hardwith you."

  "Just as soon as you do not turn up with the news you have killed me.We'll see whether you will do what I tell you to."

  "You dassen't kill me. You're afraid to kill me. My friends would fixyou and the law would get you, if they did not."

  "Your profession relies upon the forbearance and softheartedness ofthe public. You know that those you rob hesitate to shoot. No suchhesitation hampers you. It is part of your stock in trade to keep thepublic terrorized. You kill all who disobey your orders, for if peoplebegan to resist you successfully you must needs go out of business.Did all put aside their repugnance to shed blood and kill your kind asthey would wolves, we would have no more of you."

  "You dassen't kill me, you dassen't kill me," cried the robber. It wasthe snarl of the wild beast, hopelessly held in the toils.

  "It is true that I hesitate to kill. I am not proud of thishesitation, for the trend of the best medical and sociological thoughtis now toward the execution of all degenerates and criminals, thatthey may not contaminate the race with descendants. However, my officeis to save life and I cannot do otherwise. But I am a surgeon, andevery day I do things in the effort to save and prolong life that to alayman are repulsive and awful, more revolting to him than the sightof bloodless death itself. From the taking of human life I draw back.But no repugnance, no horror, unsteadies my hand elsewhere. The end ofthe crimes of your devilish confederacy has come. The law has notrestrained you, could not. Your own unparalleled wickedness hasdelivered you into my hands. Many a man have you brought low, many afamily have you desolated. Widows and orphans cry out against you, andnot in vain. I shall so knock your gang that never again shall one ofyou harm even the weakest. You shall all live, but it shall be yourprayer, if you black hearts can utter prayer, that you be dead."

  The outlaw's tongue moved thickly in a mouth that dried suddenly atthese solemn words of the doctor. "You can't do it, you can't do it,you can't do it, you duffer----" and his voice rumbled on in a longstring of imprecations.

  The doctor seized him and carrying him to the cellar, lay him againstthe coal bin. Then the captive heard him in a room above engaged uponsome sort of carpentry, and whether it was the captive's imagination,or design of the doctor, or whether unconsciously the doctor's mindhad become possessed, the sounds of the hammer as it drove nails andstruck pieces of wood into place echoed in the cellar; "knock,knock--knock; knock, knock--knock." Soon the stairs groaned under theweight of the doctor carrying some great contrivance, and the outlawfound himself lying stretched out upon some sort of operating chair,his ankles held in a pair of stocks below, his outstretched arms heldby the wrists in a pair of stocks above. All was black in the cellar,all but where a single blood red bar of light from the open door ofthe furnace fell upon the doctor turning at the winch of the bed oftorture upon which lay the robber.

  Hardly ten turns did he make, for at the first little twinges of pain,premonishing the agonies to come, the caitiff chattered in terrorpromises to do all the doctor should order, and so was released.Cringing and fawning, the outlaw heard what he was required to do. Hewas to write a letter. In this, he was to tell of the method of hiscapture. He was to say he was confined in a second-story room, feetand hands shackled, and that he was also chained to a staple in thefloor. (That this all might be true, the doctor took him to asecond-story room and so fettered him.) He found himself able to usehis hands to write, and, happily, discovered writing material andstamps upon a table. He would write a letter and throw it on the porchbelow, where perhaps the postman would find it and send it to itsdestination. He asked help. His friends must come that night. Thedoctor would be on guard, and who could say he would not call inothers? The doors and windows were all well secured, all but a cellarwindow on the east side. (Of this, the doctor informed him, that he,the doctor, might not be guilty of instigating the writing of anythingthat was false in any particular.) They must enter by this window. Thedoor leading above stairs from the cellar could be easily forced andthe noise thus occasioned could not be heard outside of the house.They must come at two in the morning. Come before another dawn, as thedoctor was going to hold him one day before turning him over to thepolice, hoping the gang would do something to involve themselves insome way they would not if the police were after them with a hue andcry.

  The outlaw wrote the letter as ordered, addressed it to Barry O'Toole,and threw it out of the window. It fell beyond the porch, on theground. But this the doctor remedied by hiring a small boy for tencents to pick it up and put it in a mail box. After which, the doctorbetook himself to the nearest extensive hardware establishment.

  At two o'clock the next morning, the beams of a dark lantern shoneathwart the darkness of the cellar of Dr. McDill's residence.

  "It's all right, boys. I can smell escaping gas, but it's all right.There's nobody in there. Now for the doctor. We'll kill him and allwho are in there with him, and burn the house," said a voice behindthe lantern, and one after another, eleven burly men dropped into thecellar through the narrow east window high in the wall. As the feet ofthe last man struck the ground, there was a sound as of a rope jerkedby some one in the orifice by which they had just entered, and theyheard two succeeding crashes within the cellar, followed by the slamof an iron shutter over the window. There was a sound of a spasmodicrush upon the cellar stairs and a beating upon the door, and then asuccession of softer sounds, as of men rolling down stairs, and thensilence.

  A match was struck upon the outside of the iron shutter. It revealedthe face of Dr. McDill, lighting a cigar.

  "The gas alone would have been almost sufficient. But when all thosebottles of ether and chloroform broke---- I had better open the windowso it will work off and I can get them out. I will write to my wife tostay away two months longer. Olga is dead and Kate is gone. I'lldischarge August to-morrow, as he deserves. The field is clear."

  One morning, as Hans Olson, cook of the King Olaf Magnus, staunchschooner engaged in the shingle trade between Chicago and the city ofManistee, state of Michigan, on this particular morning lying in theChicago River--on this morning, as Mr. Olson was pouring overboardsome dishwater, preparing the breakfast for the yet sleeping crew, hewas horrified to see floating in the current that would eventuallycarry them past the great city of St. Louis, twelve naked human arms.Despite his horror and alarm at this grewsome array of severedmembers, he noted that so far as he could observe, they were all leftarms, forearms, disjointed at the elbows. Subsequent examination butadded to the mystery. It was no trick of medical students intended toset the t
own agog. They were not dissecting subjects, but limbs latelytaken from living bodies, and they were detached with the highestskill known to the art of chirurgery. The town talked and it was aday's wonder, but the solving of the mystery proving impossible, itwas passing into tradition when all were horrified anew to hear thatJohannes Klubertanz, a member of the great and honest German-Americanelement, while walking through Lincoln Park early one morning,stumbled over some objects which, upon examination, proved to betwelve human forearms, _right forearms_!

  Again were the wisest baffled in even guessing at this riddle, as theywere a third time, when one Prosper B. Shaw came with the story thatwhile rowing down in the drainage canal, he had come upon, floatinggently along, dissevered at the knee joint, _twelve human legs_!

  The whole community shuddered at the dark secret hidden in theirmidst, but at last came the answer, yet not the answer. Of all strangecrews that mortal sight has gazed upon, that was the strangest, thatdozen men who out of nowhere appeared suddenly in the streets onemorning, armless all, all with wooden left legs. Their story you wouldask in vain, for just the little chord by which the tongue formsintelligible words was gone. Their babblings came just to the borderof articulate speech, but not beyond. Torrents of half-formed wordsthey poured forth, but only half-formed, and to their mouthed jabberthe crowd listened without understanding. Did you thrust a pencil intheir jaws and bid them write their tale? Gone was some little musclethat grips the jaws and the pencils lolled between teeth that couldnot nip them. And as for their lips, oh, their mouths, their mouths!Such an example of the chirurgery that has to do with the altering ofthe human face had never before been witnessed, for nature had nevermade those faces. One such countenance she might have made in cruelsport, but never twelve, and twelve altogether, as like as peas in apod, twelve human jack o'lanterns, twelve travesties upon humanity'sfront. Howsoever they might once have looked, not even their ownmothers could know them now. Around each eye the same wrinkles ledaway. On each face was a bulbous nose. But the mouths, oh, the mouths!Each was drawn back over the teeth in a perpetual grin, each wasupturned at corners which ended well nigh in the middle of the cheek.Here were the victims of the horrors that had made the city shudder,but dumb and unrecognizable. In all the thousands that looked at them,not one could say he had ever seen them before. In all thesethousands, there was not one to whom they could speak. There weretheir stiff faces, frozen into that terrible perpetual grin, so manyidols of wood, save for their eyes, and they were the only things thatlived in their dead faces.

  Such rudimentary human beings it would be hard to conceive, and soafter a while it occurred to some one that the same scientific methodsthat discover and disclose to us the modes of life, the habits, andeven thoughts of primitive and rudimentary man, might be devoted toestablishing a means of communication with them and unveil the secretthe whole world was eager to know. Accordingly, they were taken to theUniversity of Chicago and turned over to the department ofanthropology. The learned expounders of this science were not long indevising a simple means of communication. The twelve unfortunates wereseated upon a recitation bench and a doctor of philosophy wrote out analphabet upon the blackboard.

  "One rap of your foot will be A," said the doctor of philosophy. "Twowill be B. Two raps, a pause, and one will be C. We will soon learnyour story."

  At this moment, the reverberations of a prodigious blow upon the dooroutside echoed through the room, "bang, bang--bang, bang, bang--bang."

  Unaccountably startled, as if at the hearing of some portent, theprofessor stood rooted to the spot for a moment, and then was about toleap to the door, when the simulacrums before him sprang to their feetand with a tremendous stamping, smote their wooden legs upon thefloor, "stamp, stamp--stamp, stamp, stamp--stamp."

  The professor stared at the twelve mutes. There were their immobilefaces, as wooden as their wooden legs, wearing their perpetual grin,but the westering sun shone on their eyes and there he saw an abject,grovelling fear, dreadful to behold, the master passion of twelvesouls, slaves to some mysterious will which had just made itselfmanifest out of the unseen. By what means the will had gained thisascendancy, the terrible disfigurements of their remnants of bodiestold only too well, and he who ran could read the utter prostrationbefore the power which in their lives had been the greatest and mostterrible in the universe. Again, far off in a distant corridor of thebuilding, slowly rumbled to them: "knock, knock--knock; knock,knock--knock," and the twelve unfortunates, like so many automatons,gave token of their obedience. They had been warned to keep thesecret.

  And so was foiled the attempts of the learned anthropologists to holdconverse with these rudimentary beings. The alphabet of such elaboratedevisings went for naught. Never did the twelve persons in the stateof primitive culture get further than the letter C: "knock,knock--knock; knock, knock--knock."