A feeling of intense awe, not in the least akin to fear, took possession of the younger brother. He attempted to speak, but could not produce a sound. Then he turned and buried his head in the clothes to calm and collect his disturbed mind. The jocular request of his letter never once crossed his brain, and he came to the conclusion that the vision must be merely an effect of fancy, or perhaps the reflection of the moonlight.
Having arrived at this decision, and by this time being, if possible, more thoroughly awake than ever, he looked again.
There still knelt the figure, but now the face was turned from the window and the gaze fixed with an indescribably sad, loving, and piteous expression directly on him.
Again he strove to speak, and again his tongue failed him. Then he sprang out of bed, went to the window, and looked out.
There was no moon, the night was black, and the rain beat heavily against the window-panes. He turned, and there still the figure of his brother knelt, with gaze fixed upon him. He shut his eyes firmly, and walked through it to the door.
He grasped the door-handle and looked back again: The back of the kneeling apparition was now toward him, and as he looked the head slowly turned and once more the eyes cast upon him that loving, mournful gaze, and there upon the temple, on the side which, until now, had been partly turned from him, he saw a red wound, with the blood streaming down over the check and ear.
He forced himself through the door, and shut it. Then he sought the room of a friend who was staying at the house, and explaining to him the reason of his agitation, spent the remainder of the night on a sofa with which the room was supplied.
In the morning he described the event of the night to several persons, and among them to his father, who, however, forbade him to repeat it — more especially to his mother — for fear of exciting groundless alarms.
But he did not know what had been going forward before Sebastopol that day. On the 8th of September the Malakhoff was stormed, and the last attack made on the Redan.
The final bombardment of Sebastopol began at daylight on the 5th of September, the guns of the allies opening with one stupendous crash, belching forth a line of fire three miles long, and pouring into the city and its defences the thickest hail of shot and shell that the war of men had ever seen, crashing through and beating down everything in its path — massive banks of solid granite, earthworks, houses, barracks, churches — everything. With scarcely a cessation to cool the guns, this went on all day, and all night a continual musketry fire was kept up to prevent the Russians repairing the damage done, Renewed in the morning, this fearful bombardment went on almost continuously day and night until the morning of the 8th, when the English and French armies began to form for the assault.
The morning was dull, cold, and cheerless; a cloud of black smoke hung low over the doomed city, and leaping up toward it in many places were the lurid flames from burning buildings. Still the fearful cannonade went on, and its smoke hid from one another the movements of the besiegers.
Thirty-five thousand men were forming up to attack the Malakhoff, the planting of the French flag upon the summit of this great work having been agreed upon as the signal for the assault upon the two Redans — the English to attack the Great and the French the Little Redan.
The company of the 7th Fusiliers to which Lieutenant Colt was attached, was to form part of the attacking party, and recovered as he was, to some extent, from his illness, the prospect of a sharp action thoroughly raised his spirits. Like a devout soldier, he received the sacrament from the chaplain, showing him at the time the letter which had only that morning arrived with news from home and the odd request of his brother. Then he joined his company and advanced to the entrenchments.
The cannonade somewhat slackened as the time for the attack approached. At five minutes to twelve the French rushed from their trenches, scaled the walls of the Malakhoff with loud shouts, and poured through the embrasures, men dropping right and left by scores. At the point of the bayonet they drove the grey Russians before them, and in a few minutes the French standard was fixed on the Korniloff bastion. But again and again the Russians returned to the attack, and it was not until after seven in the evening that they were finally driven out.
Through the dust and black smoke the tricolour was with difficulty seen at Chapman’s battery, and rockets were sent up as a signal for the Redan attack. Then, with a rush, a hundred British riflemen, carrying ladders, made for the ditch surrounding the great Redan, followed by the stormers, with a roar of shouts. The Russian shot tore through them, making furrows in their companies, and leaving ridges of dead and wounded in its trail.
Colt’s company, with the light division, went for the salient angle of the defence. The ditch here was at its deepest, fifteen feet, and on placing their six or seven ladders they were found to be too short. Scrambling up these, however, and over the parapet, as best they right, the captain of the company fell dead, and Colt, already more than once wounded, took his place before the men, and led them over the parapet within the walls, into a tearing hail of shot which dropped them in heaps.
And that was his end. A bullet crashed through his temple, and he fell among a dozen of his followers.
Still the hard fight went on. Furious flat-capped swarms from the lost Malakhoff poured in to reinforce the defenders at the Redan, and still the English fought in at the openings, falling everywhere in the cross fire of countless guns. Again and again the little band, largely composed of young recruits, and in many places without officers, were driven over the parapet by the sheer weight of the solid Russian masses, and again and again they returned to the struggle, or, lying in the outer ditch, or the slope beyond it, continued firing as long as there were cartridges to fire.
For nearly two hours this unequal struggle went on, when the gabions upon the parapet gave way and fell into the ditch below with all upon them, many being buried in the falling earth; and those who could regained their trenches. Two thousand five hundred Englishmen were killed or wounded that day, but not without a much greater loss to the enemy.
The attack on both the Great and Little Redan (the French also having made only a partial impression upon the latter), was to have been resumed before daybreak the next morning; but the Russians fled during the night, leaving Sebastopol in flames, its magazines blowing up, the ships in its harbour sinking, and the Redan little more than a heap of smoking ruins. Sebastopol was down.
The next day and night was devoted to recovering the bodies of the dead, which lay in heaps, English and Muscovite commingled all over the Redan works. Again and again a red-coated soldier would be found actually still clinging and hanging on to the face of the parapet and glacis, with arms and fingers rigid in death, shot through and through. A captain of rifles was found shot through the breast, firmly gripping a prostrate Russian by the throat, and everything visible gave evidence of the fearful struggle.
Graves were dug, and hour after hour for days the work of burial went on. Among the heaps of slain comrade found comrade, and brother recognised brother, mangled and torn.
In the early morning of the second day after the attack, a party came upon a pile of dead just within the walls, and there, in the middle of it, and kept in the position by the heaped-up slain around him, knelt the body of Lieutenant Colt, his sword still firmly gripped, his face toward the enemy, and on his temple a red wound, with the stain and clot of the dried blood where it had streamed down over his cheek and ear.
Reverently they raised him, and carried him out beyond the trenches. And the chaplain sent home to his brother his prayer-book and the letter, found in his pocket, in which he was bidden to the tryst he so strangely kept.
THE STRANGE CASE OF ESTHER T ——
INSTANCES of what has been called “possession” are not at all uncommon among stories of the unaccountable which may be fairly classed as authentic; that is to say, cases in which a departed spirit enters or seems to enter, the body of a person still living, using it in its own way, s
peaking with its mouth, hearing with its ears, and so forth. Many of these cases are no doubt nothing but the result of some unusual derangement of mind on the part of the person said to be “possessed,” or even impositions in which that person takes the leading, or, perhaps, the sole part. But still there remain many others to which such explanations are quite inapplicable.
The case of Barbara Rieger, of Steinbach, which was carefully investigated and reported upon by several eminent German medical authorities, is one of these. Barbara Rieger was a child of ten years of age, who was subject to fits of trance, in which she remained with her eyes closed, and from which she recovered without the least knowledge of what had happened or what she had been doing or saying in the meantime. At these times two distinct and different male voices proceeded from her, each talking in a different dialect of German. One of these voices declared its possessor to have been, during his lifetime, a mason of Wurzburg, and the other the steward of a monastery. In these characters the voices, each with its own peculiarities, described things which could not possibly have been known to the child and mentioned correctly persons living many miles away and quite unknown at Steinbach. The voice of the mason cried often for brandy, and if this were refused the body of the child became most violently-convulsed and contorted. When the liquor was brought great quantities were swallowed without in the least intoxicating the child, whose consciousness would often return shortly afterwards quite unimpaired by the drink. Brandy, even in its smell, was an object of the greatest aversion to the child in her normal condition. The case of Mary Jobson, of Bishopwearmouth, is another well-known one of the same class, as is also that of Johann Schmidt. The following case is a most striking instance of this extraordinary phenomenon.
In 1853 the F —— family lived at Reading, Massachusetts — a town not to be confounded with Reading, Pennsylvania — and included three sisters, Cecilia, Esther, and Anne. The first of these was married and living at Reading with her husband, Mr. J —— , her sister Anne, who was still unmarried, frequently staying with her.
Toward the end of that year’s summer Esther’s wedding took place. Horace T —— , with Esther, his wife, set out almost immediately for California, where he intended seeking his fortune as a settler. Letters reached the sisters remaining in Reading fairly regularly, considering the incomplete postal arrangements of California at that time, and all full of hope and good cheer, until early in November, when a letter became overdue.
Mrs. J —— wondered at this delay, but felt no anxiety beyond a hope that Esther was not so soon, under the influence of her new ties and changed surroundings, beginning to forget her sisters. A week or more had passed beyond the day upon which a letter should have arrived, when Mrs. J —— experienced what she described as a dream.
It was on the night of Monday, 7th November, 1853, that this happened. Mrs. J —— had gone to bed in a perfectly serene frame of mind, nothing having occurred to disturb her brain or nerves during the day. She dreamed that her sister Esther came into the room and stood at her bedside. She was perfectly conscious of being asleep and in bed at the time of this vision, but, in the manner which is usual in dreams, was not struck by any singularity in the presence of Esther, although she had perfectly in her mind the fact that she was living in California, more than two thousand miles away.
“Cissy,” her sister seemed to say, “you must get up and come with me to California.”
Mrs. J — — ‘s reply was that she could not possibly leave her family for so long a journey, occupying so much time.
“It will not be far for us,” was the response of the dream. “You shall be back before the morning.”
Whereupon Mrs. J —— arose in her dream, and giving her sister her hand, was led by it out through the house, into an immensity of space in which the two seemed to float. Through this mysterious expanse, peopled only with shadowy, shapeless; moving images, silent, and without the feel of air against their faces, the sisters passed, hand in hand. Of distance and substance she felt and knew nothing until, with a sensation as of descent; there came in view a small rough log-hut, standing in a rugged place. It was such a dwelling as she had never seen before, and she particularly noticed its peculiarities, more especially its possession of a well-polished door-knocker, which presented an odd contrast to the primitive roughness of the structure.
Arriving at the door, they entered. How, she could never explain, for the door was certainly not opened. Indeed, through all her movements while hand in hand with her sister material objects seemed to be passed through without any sensation of contact.
Horace T —— stood inside, dressed in rough clothes. Without looking up he bent sorrowfully over an object laid upon a bench. It was a coffin — a rough one — and in it was visible from amid the white cerements the pale dead face of her sister Esther — her sister Esther, who had brought her there, and who stood at her side, holding her hand! She shrank back and looked questioningly toward her companion.
“Yes, Cissy,” said her sister with a sad smile, “that was once my body, but cholera has destroyed it, and I have come to another world. What I have shown you will prepare you for the news. Do not grieve; it will make me less happy.”
And still Horace bent sadly over the coffin, and when he looked up did not see them. And the log hut was gone, and again, hand in hand, the sisters passed through the shadowy abyss until Mrs. J —— was again asleep and at her husband’s side.
With a start of terror she forced herself to awake. The dream, with all its vividness, in all its circumstances, filled her brain. Her sudden movement aroused Mr. J —— , who was concerned to know the cause of her agitation.
A dream, she told him, only a dream, but a terrible dream. He made light of the matter, with some slight reference to late supper, and wished to know why the dream was so fearful. But more she would not tell him, confessing herself foolish and excitable, and settling herself again to sleep. Sleep was, however, impossible again that night.
Mr. J —— thought little more of the matter; and his wife, troubled internally by it as she was, related her dream to nobody, going about her household duties on the following day as usual. Her sister Anne was at the house, and toward the evening the three sat down to a game of whist. Little inclined for amusement as Mrs. J felt, she nevertheless readily embraced the opportunity of diverting her thoughts from gloomy forebodings.
Mr. J —— made the first deal, Mrs. J —— the second. Anne F —— then took the cards, and, after they had been shuffled and cut, was about to deal, when suddenly she sat back rigidly in her chair, her-eyes fixed intently on those of her sister, and her whole body violently convulsed, while the hand which held the cards assumed a rapid gyratory motion scattering them broadcast.
“Anne! What are you doing? Don’t be so stupid — you’ll lose the cards.”
No answer; the spasmodic movement continued.
“Are you ill, Anne? What is it? Come and lie on the sofa,” and Mrs. J —— rose to assist her.
Then from Anne’s mouth, in a strangely hollow but still a familiar voice — certainly not Anne’s — came the words:
“I am not Anne, Cissy. I am Esther!”
A fearful awe seized Cecilia’s heart. The remembrance of her dream came to her again like a blow. Still she tried to persuade herself that it was only a sudden fit of hysterical illness which had seized Anne.
‘“You are not well, Anne,” said the husband. “You must lie down a little while I will go for Doctor S —— .”
“I am Esther, I am Esther! I say to you that I am Esther!”
Mrs. J —— grasped for support a chair. Her husband’s only fear was that Anne had been seized with some kind of temporary insanity.
“Anne, Anne!”
“Anne cannot hear you — it is I, Esther, who speak; remember what I told you last night, Cissy, and what you saw!”
Mrs. J —— fainted and fell to the floor.
Doctor S —— arrived, and Mrs. J —— was removed fr
om the room. Still Anne remained in a strange state of trance. They attempted to carry her to the sofa, but she remained perfectly rigid and straight from head to heel, no matter in what position she might be placed; and for hours there issued from her mouth at intervals that awfully familiar voice:
“Cissy, Cissy! Where is Cissy? I must tell her something.”
Midnight was rapidly approaching, and Mrs. J —— , in her bed-room, had become fairly composed after an hour or two’s rest. The doctor, who could only attribute Anne’s condition to some extraordinary hysterical attack, represented that it might be advisable, since she called for her so earnestly, for Mrs. J —— to go to her sister.
She did so.
There still lay Anne, motionless, save for intermittent twitchings of the limbs.
“Cissy, Cissy, I must whisper!”
Mrs. J —— , much agitated, approached her sister and bent down to listen.
For twenty or thirty seconds she stood so, and then, turning away with a look of dazed abstraction, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, she made her way from the room.
Whether she had heard any whisper, and, if so, what it was, nobody but herself ever knew.
Soon Anne lay perfectly motionless, and her breath “came easily and regularly. It was nearly ten minutes more than four hours since her first seizure when she slowly opened her eyes, and, starting up, cried in her natural voice:
“Dear, dear! Have I been asleep? What is it? Is there anything wrong?”
And Dr. S —— could find nothing in her condition indicative of anything but an awakening from a healthy sleep.
The shock and agitation caused by the events of these two nights left their effects upon Mrs. J —— for many days.
On Monday, December 5, a letter arrived, addressed to Mr. J —— . It was from California, and it had a heavy black border.
Horace T —— had written to his friend rather than to his sister-in-law, in order that the mournful news might be broken to her gently by those about her. An outbreak of cholera had occurred in California, and one of the first whom it attacked had been his young wife, Esther. Her illness did not last long, and on Monday, the 7th November, she died, leaving her husband hopelessly distracted with grief. He had no heart for more work, the letter went on, among strangers, and could not stay in the place. He should sell up his shanty and his few articles of furniture — everything, in fact, except one or two little treasures of his dead wife’s, and come back to Massachusetts; and then — he didn’t know what he should do — didn’t care.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 151