by M. P. Shiel
nine months. The mind of Adam Jeffsonis adaptable.
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I sat a long time thinking such things by my bed that night, tillfinally I was disposed to sleep there. But I had no considerable numberof candle-sticks, nor was even sure of candles. I remembered, however,that Peter Peters, three doors away on the other side of the street,had had four handsome silver candelabra in his drawing-room, eachcontaining six stems; and I said to myself: 'I will search for candlesin the kitchen, and if I find any, I will go and get Peter Peters'candelabra, and sleep here.'
I took then the two lights which I had, my good God; went down to thepassage; then down to the basement; and there had no difficulty infinding three packets of large candles, the fact being, I suppose, thatthe cessation of gas-lighting had compelled everyone to providethemselves in this way, for there were a great many wherever I looked.With these I re-ascended, went into a little alcove on the second-floorwhere I had kept some drugs, got a bottle of carbolic oil, and for tenminutes went dashing all the corpses in the house. I then left the twolighted bits of candle on the waiting-room table, and, with thecar-lamp, passed along the passage to the front-door, which was veryviolently banging. I stepped out to find that the storm had increased toa mighty turbulence (though it was dry), which at once caught myclothes, and whirled them into a flapping cloud about and above me;also, I had not crossed the street when my lamp was out. I persisted,however, half blinded, to Peters door. It was locked: but immediatelynear the pavement was a window, the lower sash up, into which, withlittle trouble, I lifted myself and passed. My foot, as I lowered it,stood on a body: and this made me angry and restless. I hissed a curse,and passed on, scraping the carpet with my soles, that I might hurt noone: for I did not wish to hurt any one. Even in the almost darkness ofthe room I recognised Peters' furniture, as I expected: for the housewas his on a long lease, and I knew that his mother had had theintention to occupy it after his death. But as I passed into thepassage, all was mere blank darkness, and I, depending upon the lamp,had left the matches in the other house. I groped my way to the stairs,and had my foot on the first step, when I was stopped by a viciousshaking of the front-door, which someone seemed to be at with hustlingsand the most urgent poundings: I stood with peering stern brows two orthree minutes, for I knew that if I once yielded to the flinching at myheart, no mercy would be shown me in this house of tragedy, andthrilling shrieks would of themselves arise and ring through its hauntedchambers. The rattling continued an inordinate time, and so instant andimperative, that it seemed as if it could not fail to force the door.But, though horrified, I whispered to my heart that it could only be thestorm which was struggling at it like the grasp of a man, and after atime went on, feeling my way by the broad rail, in my brain somehow thethought of a dream which I had had in the _Boreal_ of the woman Clodagh,how she let drop a fluid like pomegranate-seeds into water, and tenderedit to Peter Peters: and it was a mortal purging draught; but I would notstop, but step by step went up, though I suffered very much, my browspeering at the utter darkness, and my heart shocked at its own rashness.I got to the first landing, and as I turned to ascend the second part ofthe stair, my left hand touched something icily cold: I made some quickinstinctive movement of terror, and, doing so, my foot struck againstsomething, and I stumbled, half falling over what seemed a small tablethere. Immediately a horrible row followed, for something fell to theground: and at that instant, ah, I heard something--a voice--a humanvoice, which uttered words close to my ear--the voice of Clodagh, for Iknew it: yet not the voice of Clodagh in the flesh, but her voiceclogged with clay and worms, and full of effort, and thick-tongued: andin that ghastly speech of the grave I distinctly heard the words:
'_Things being as they are in the matter of the death of Peter ..._'
And there it stopped dead, leaving me so sick, my God, so sick, that Icould hardly snatch my robes about me to fly, fly, fly, soft-footed,murmuring in pain, down the steps, down like a sneaking thief, butquick, snatching myself away, then wrestling with the cruel catch of thedoor which she would not let me open, feeling her all the time behindme, watching me. And when I did get out, I was away up the length of thestreet, trailing my long _jubbah_, glancing backward, panting, for Ithought that she might dare to follow, with her daring evil will. Andall that night I lay on a common bench in the wind-tossed and dismalPark.
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The first thing which I did when the sun was up was to return to thatplace: and I returned with hard and masterful brow.
Approaching Peters' house I saw now, what the darkness had hidden fromme, that on his balcony was someone--quite alone there. The balcony is aslight open-work wrought-iron structure, connected to a small roof bythree slender voluted pillars, two at the ends, one in the middle: andat the middle one I saw someone, a woman--kneeling--her arms claspedtight about the pillar, and her face rather upward-looking. Never did Isee aught more horrid: there were the gracious curves of the woman'sbust and hips still well preserved in a clinging dress of red cloth,very faded now; and her reddish hair floated loose in a large flimsycloud about her; but her face, in that exposed position, had been quiteeaten away by the winds to a noseless skeleton, which grinned from earto ear, with slightly-dropped under-jaw--most horrid in contrast withthe body, and frame of hair. I meditated upon her a long time thatmorning from the opposite pavement. An oval locket at her throatcontained, I knew, my likeness: for eight years previously I had givenit her. It was Clodagh, the poisoner.
I thought that I would go into that house, and walk through it from topto bottom, and sit in it, and spit in it, and stamp in it, in spite ofany one: for the sun was now high. I accordingly went in again, and upthe stairs to the spot where I had been frightened, and had heard thewords. And here a great rage took me, for I at once saw that I had beenmade the dupe of the malign wills that beset me, and the laughing-stockof Those for whom I care not a fig. From a little mahogany table there Ihad knocked sideways to the ground, in my stumble, a small phonographwith a great 25-inch japanned-tin horn, which, the moment that I nownoticed it, I took and flung with a great racket down the stairs: forthat this it was which had addressed me I did not doubt; it being indeedevident that its clock-work mechanism had been stopped by the volcanicscoriae in the midst of the delivery of a record, but had been startedinto a few fresh oscillations by the shock of the fall, making it utterthose thirteen words, and stop. I was sufficiently indignant at themoment, but have since been glad, for I was thereby put upon the notionof collecting a number of cylinders with records, and have been touchedwith indescribable sensations, sometimes thrilled, at hearing thesilence of this Eternity broken by those singing and speaking voices, solife-like, yet most ghostly, of the old dead.
* * * * *
Well, the most of that same day I spent in a high chamber at Woolwich,dusting out, and sometimes oiling, time-fuses: a work in which Iacquired such facility in some hours, that each finally occupied me nomore than ninety to a hundred seconds, so that by evening I had, withthe previous day's work, close on 600. The construction of these littlethings is very simple, and, I believe, effective, so that I should haveno difficulty in making them myself in large numbers, if it werenecessary. Most contain a tiny dry battery, which sends a current alonga bell or copper wire at the running-down moment, the clocks beingcontrived to be set for so many days, hours, and minutes, while othersignite by striking. I arranged in rows in the covered van those which Ihad prepared, and passed the night in an inn near the Barracks. I hadbrought candle-sticks from London in the morning, and arranged thefurniture--a settee, chest-of-drawers, basin-stand, table, and a numberof chairs--in three-quarter-circle round the bed, so getting atriple-row altar of lights, mixed with vases of the house containingsmall palms and evergreens; with this I mingled a smell of ambergrisfrom the scattered contents of some Turkish sachets which I had; in thebed a bottle of sweet Chypre-wine, with _bonbons_, nuts, and Havannas.As I lay me down, I could
not but reflect, with a smile which I knew tobe evil, upon that steady, strong, smouldering lust within me which wasurging me through all those pains at the Arsenal, I who shirked everylabour as unkingly. So, however, it was: and the next morning I was atit again after an early breakfast, my fingers at first quite stiff withcold, for it blew a keen and January gale. By nine I had 820 fuses; andjudging those sufficient to commence with, got into the motor, and tookit round to a place called the East Laboratory, a series of detachedbuildings, where I knew that I should find whatever I wanted: and Iprepared my mind for a day's labour. In this place I found incrediblestores: mountains of percussion-caps, more chambers of fuses, small-armcartridges, shells, and all those murderous explosive mixtures, a-makingand made, with which modern savagery occupied its leisure inexterminating itself: or, at least, savagery civilised in its top-storyonly: for civilisation was apparently from the head downwards, and