Gaslit Horror

by Lamb, Hugh; Hearn, Lafcadio ; Capes, Bernard

  Meanwhile Mrs. Walcot, blessedly obtuse, prepared to give a grand ball before the rainy season should set in, with one matchmaking eye for Laura and another for William, who had set both his on a lovely orphan heiress, then the ward of the Rev. John Fulton.

  Vainly Matthias, with due regard to appearances, urged that it was “too soon.” Madam was wilful, and issued her invitations to the cream of Barbadian society, with a select few of her former Bridgetown friends, whom she hoped to overpower with her grandeur.

  Mourning was all but discarded: a gauzy black scarf for herself, a black sash for Miss Walcot, were all that memory could spare for the late master of the mansion whose family diamonds they wore. The coloured attendants were arrayed in the gayest of tints: brilliant turbans, kerchiefs, and petticoats, flashing striped trousers and light jackets, fluttered everywhere, like swarms of black-bodied butterflies, to which every guest-bringing phaeton added its quota, either in driver or lackey.

  Odour of fruits and flowers and wines, flash of glass and gilding, wax-lights and mirrors, sparkle of eyes and jewellery, flutter of satins, gauzes, and hearts, patter of feet and tongues, melody of piano, guitar and song within.

  Banjo and beating feet, the rollicking song and the dance, a babel of laughter and gabble without; and Cuffy and Dinah sullenly aloof in the shadow of a manchineel-tree—the only two to whom Mrs. Walcot’s magnificent ball had brought neither pleasure nor occupation. The hooting owls in the sandbox trees were scarcely such birds of ill-omen to the Walcots as were these two, brooding over that festival as being an indignity to the memory of their dead master.

  Song, and dance, and rippling laughter, flushing cheeks and fluttering fans! A shrill scream, like that of the Shunammite’s son—“My head, my head!”—and with one hand spasmodically raised to her brow, Laura Walcot fell back into the arms of her partner in the quadrille, speechless and gasping!

  In vain ladies proffered scent bottles and vinaigrettes, and gentlemen darting through the open casements brought back clusters of soft sandbox leaves to bind on her throbbing forehead, as antidotes to pain. The dark green but served to show how deathly was her pallor; and Dr. Hawley, brushing in through the crowd from the card-room, could do little more than shake his head gravely, and say “No use, no use! Too much excitement!”

  Mrs. Walcot shrieked in hysterics; Matthias sat with bowed head like one stupefied; the haughty brows of William and Stephen lowered in presence of the grim intruder—Death.

  Startled visitors departed, or remained for the ceremonial of the morrow. An awful hush fell over and around the mansion. The negroes, strangely unlike themselves, indulged in no noisy demonstrations of grief. They were silent, save when whispers of “Doom” and “Judgement” passed from mouth to mouth in stifled undertones.

  As the white coffin of the maiden was being carried into the house, Cuffy, standing under the piazza, heard William Walcot give Dan instructions for the opening of the Corbyn mausoleum. Uplifting his head and his bony hands in superstitious horror, he ejaculated: “There! Berry young Missy Walcot in Corbyn grabe! Nebber. Old massa’s flesh creep in him shroud if dat blue-nailed missy laid inside there!”

  The tall old man, venerable with the greyness of his hundred years, drew a long breath, then stalked unbidden into the presence of Matthias and Dr. Hawley, and stood before them erect, with fiery eyes, much as Elijah must have stood before usurping Ahab.

  “Massa Walcot better not berry him dead with the Corbyn dead. Sure’s you live, Massa Arch’bald nebber ’low it!”

  “Not allow it, Cuffy! What do you mean?” said Mr. Walcot testily, looking up amazed and annoyed.

  “Massa Corbyn leave him hall, leave him plantation, leave him money to him friend; but him keep de Corbyn maus’lum for de Corbyn only. IF”—and undaunted Cuffy laid special emphasis on the “if”—“If no heir, an Massa Arch’bald be last ob de Corbyns, den dat maus’lum be closed till Judgement-day!”

  “Cuffy, you presume on your grey hairs. I shall lay my poor child where I think fit. I do not suffer my slaves to dictate to me. Your mind is wandering. Quit the room; this is no season for intrusion.”

  Dr. Hawley listened in silence. Cufty still maintained his ground.

  “Massa Walcot, de ’mighty God above send Cuffy to warn you. Dere am doom on dis house till Corbyn heir be found, and de first thun’erbolt fell last night. For own sake, Massa Walcot” (Cuffy never said “massa” only), “berry pretty missy in de churchyard!”

  A similar scene was enacted upstairs.

  Dinah, arranging the folds of the fine muslin shroud, and the fan-shaped face cover to stand stiffly up until the last moment, made way for the bereaved mother to kiss the pallid lips ere it was folded down. She ventured to ask the place of interment.

  Being told, she bent her aged knees, and implored her mistress to change her plans, or evil would be sure to come of it.

  Mr. and Mrs. Walcot were alike obdurate and indignant. Cuffy and Dinah were declared crazy and superstitious, and cautioned to make less free in future.

  But though they laid their daughter’s corpse in the Corbyn mausoleum, in spite of premonition, for some innate reason they did not place it in any one of the unfilled niches; it was left on the floor in the centre of the sepulchre.

  And then the Corbyn vault closed for the first time on one of another name and another caste.

  III. THE MYSTERY OF THE MAUSOLEUM

  It is not customary for Barbadians to court the heavy noxious dews and the bloodthirsty mosquitoes by being abroad after nightfall; but the unwonted events of ball and burial on two consecutive days had brought to that lonely plantation a concourse of people, some of whom were detained by the claims of friendship, others of business, to a late hour.

  It was close upon midnight when Dr. Hawley and another friend shook hands with Mr. Walcot under the portico of the Corbyn mansion; and stepping into his light cane phaeton, he bade his black Jehu “Tear away home.”

  Once clear of the sombre avenue, where accommodating fireflies hung out their tiny lamps, the white marly road shone like a streak of silver in the bright moonlight. They spun along rapidly, to the drowsy music of their own wheels, in concert with the droning trumpet of obsequious mosquitoes, and the thin metallic pipe of an occasional cicada, to which their pony’s hoof beat time. Otherwise the stillness was unbroken, save by Sambo’s involuntary ejaculations to the steed.

  As they neared the point where the road branched off to the sea-coast, passing the mausoleum on its way through Corbyn Hall Wood, a shrill scream was borne up the bye-road on the clear midnight air.

  The pony stopped involuntarily, quivering in every limb.

  “Golla, massa! what am dat?” cried Sambo in a fright.

  Before Dr. Hawley or his friend could reply, a second scream, louder and more piercing, smote upon the ear, and was followed by a succession of unearthly yells.

  “Quick, Sambo! Turn to the left. There is some foul play going on down this road. Quick! or we may be too late to prevent a tragedy.”

  But Sambo’s white teeth chattered, all the more because the pony obstinately refused to obey the rein—willing to bolt down the road home, but determined not to turn to the left for either man or master. As he snorted, reared, and plunged, threatening the slight vehicle with destruction, and the shrieks still continued, the doctor and his companion leapt out, and ran at full speed down the road, athwart which sparsely set palmetto, or cocoa-nut trees cast spectral shadows.

  A faint sea-breeze met them, laden with the mingled perfumes of fruit and flower, but with it came more hideously the strange discordant noise. Then two or three wild dogs darted past them, howling as they went. Then with garments flying loose and eyeballs glaring, a negro woman, blind with terror, ran against the doctor. A man, little less excited, was close at her heels.

  “Hallo! what is the meaning of this outcry?” demanded the doctor, grasping the man by the arm, under the impression the negress was escaping from ill-usage.

 
The man—who proved to be the undertaker’s foreman—could only gasp between his chattering teeth, “Dre’ful! Dre’ful, doctor; dre’ful!”

  The woman—a seamstress whom the foreman was gallantly escorting home—had continued her flight.

  “You black scoundrel, what have you been doing?” cried the doctor, giving him a shake.

  The man’s protest was drowned by a fresh outbreak of the same appalling cries.

  Dr. Hawley, exclaiming, “Again! What is that?” released his arm, convinced that he at least was not the peace breaker.

  “O! doctor, dre’ful down dere! Dead man’s fight.”

  “Pish!” “Rubbish!” from the doctor and his friend; and they rushed forward, drawing reluctant Cicero back with them.

  But they too stood aghast as they approached the mausoleum. The noise—a demoniac compound of blows, groans, shrieks, and howls—evidently issued from the bricked-up sepulchre!

  It seemed, indeed, as though a desperate combat raged within the closed-up tomb; and the blood of the spectators curdled as they listened.

  They were not the only auditors. A neighbouring planter and a sturdy sea-captain, named Hudson, on their way inland, had been arrested on their journey likewise, and seemed rooted to the spot with a mysterious dread.

  Could anyone imagine a scene more terrible! The mausoleum, worn with age and weather, overgrown with moss and lichens, sentinelled by sandbox trees and blighted cocoa palms, whose shroud-like drapery of creepers gave them the aspect of ghosts of dead trees keeping watch for ghosts of dead men; and scared by the unearthly din, owls and monkeys screeched and chattered, to make if possible a greater pandemonium.

  “I have seen the ocean in its fury, heard the winds break loose, and the artillery of heaven rattle, but never did I hear anything so terrific as this. It makes my very flesh creep,” said the captain, addressing Dr. Hawley. “Can you, sir, offer any solution of this mystery?”

  What Dr. Hawley might have said was interrupted by a final burst of triumphant yells, followed by a peal of still more discordant laughter, which died away in feeble cachinnations, till silence scarcely less awful fell on all around.

  A harmless snake then uncoiled itself on the mausoleum steps and dragged itself across the road, a pair of green lizards crawled over the dome of the mausoleum to bask in the moonlight; and the unaccountable noises having ceased entirely, the party drawn together so singularly moved away in a body.

  As a natural sequence, conversation turned on the place they had just quitted, Archibald Corbyn’s funeral, and that of Laura Walcot; and so much was Captain Hudson interested, that when they shook hands and separated at the fork of the roads, he had promised to call on Dr. Hawley at his house near Kissing Bridge before sailing for England.

  Seven persons (including Sambo) went their several ways surcharged with the story of a horrible mystery.

  What wonder that the succeeding midnight brought a crowd to the spot, to test, verify, or ridicule, as might be? Notwithstanding the previous shock to his nerves, Dr. Hawley made one. With him was Stephen Walcot, much concerned by this commotion over his sister’s grave; and on the extreme verge of the assembly they saw a group of old Corbyn servants huddled together like a flock of timid sheep, with Cuffy and aunt Dinah at their head.

  The doctor had lost no time in making Mr. Walcot acquainted with his nocturnal experience. Matthias had only curled his lip, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Were I you, doctor, I would not repeat this nonsense. Your patients will not care to consult a medico who takes too much wine.” He had spoken to the sons. William laughed outright. Steve, subdued by his sister’s loss, gave their informant a more respectful hearing, and, in spite of his brother’s banter, volunteered to watch the tomb that night with the doctor, little surmising how many would share that watch.

  Twelve by Dr. Hawley’s repeater! The silent expectant crowd shrank back with affright as, without one moment’s premonition, the air was rent with a volley of shrieks and yells, which wakened the echoes of the hills, and a chorus from owls and monkeys drove the raccoon from his bed, the pigeons from their nests, and sent batwings from the shadows to flutter in the moonlight.

  For one whole hour the noises were unceasing. If superstition drew the crowd together, fear dispersed it. Only the most daring of the auditors remained, and amongst these were Cuffy and Dinah, who stood apart with hands upraised, as if invoking unseen protection.

  Bearing Cuffy’s adjuration and previsions in mind, Dr. Hawley—well acquainted with negro subtlety, and anxious to find a natural solution for the phenomena—drew the centenarian apart, and, with Stephen by his side, subjected him to a fire of cross-questions.

  “Know nuffink ’bout it, doctor; ’cept Massa Corbyn not rest. Him angry; all him dead family angry,” was all they could elicit.

  Yet, in spite of his genuine trepidation—for every nerve seemed to quiver—there appeared some reservation, of which the doctor took a mental note for question at a fitter time.

  Mrs. Walcot was frantic. Sorrow for her daughter’s loss was reduplicated by this scandal over her very grave. Mr. Walcot and William repudiated all notion of the supernatural, and ascribed the strange phenomena to a plot between Cuffy and his colleagues. Stringent orders were left with the overseers that no slave should quit the plantation after sundown, or approach within a given distance of the mausoleum, under penalty of a flogging.

  But that did not quell the nocturnal riot. Matthias brought his own eyes and ears to the test, had the place examined by day, placed a cordon of military around, but all to no purpose.

  For five nights the supernatural warfare continued. Trafalgar Square and the Bridgetown ice-houses were thronged with thirsty gossips, and Barbados throbbed with superstitious fear to its very finger-tips.

  Then it ceased. The excitement gradually died out, business resumed its sway, the Walcots were condoled with, and the dead reposed in peace.

  Still superstition held the haunted mausoleum in dread; and urgent must be the business and hardy must be the man that should travel that road by night.

  Even over the Corbyn mansion crept a sort of eerie atmosphere. There was less laughter, and more whispering in secret corners. Every figure in mourning robes seemed to cast a shadow of death on the hearth. A cloud deeper than that of grief rested on the brows of Matthias and his wife; and the infection spread to the white tenantry on the estate.

  IV. OBEAH!

  A fortnight later Dr. Hawley rode out to the Hall. It was purely a friendly visit, so he said; but ere he went away he asked his host how he was progressing in his search for a legitimate heir, adding that a friend of his, a Captain Hudson, of the barque Adelaide, would readily undertake any commission in furtherance of that end in the mother country.

  Mrs. Walcot bridled up, and Matthias, reddening, answered stiffly, “Thank you, doctor, but I can manage my own business without the intervention of strangers. I need no reminder of my duty. A sea captain is scarcely the person to institute inquiries of this nature.”

  “Perhaps not,” assented the doctor dryly, with a peculiar smile, as he took his departure, much like one who has but done half his errand.

  Had their voices wafted to Cuffy through the open casement, that he should quit the jasmine he was pruning by the portico to hurry to the avenue? Whether or not, he stopped the pony under shadow of the large trees, and whispered earnestly and mysteriously:

  “Dr. Hawley, you good man; you lub ole massa. Him spirit angry; all de Corbyn spirits angry. Last night Dinah dream—dream of Massa Charlie. He wet an’ white upon the steps; he ask to come in, and Massa Walcot shut the door—an’ Death come in instead! Doctor, dere be nudder Corbyn somewhere, an’ Massa Walcot no try to find him; an’ spirits berry angry. Cuffy work Obeah charm to-night, to keep de evil doom from de black boys and girls dat lub ole Massa Corbyn!”

  “I would advise you to have nothing to do with Obeah, Cuffy. It may breed ill-feeling and do mischief,” said the doctor, as Cuffy loosened his hold of t
he reins, and Sambo cracked his whip.

  In Corbyn Hall Wood, remote from the Hall itself, close by a mountain streamlet which ran down to join the river, was a bubbling boiling spring. The spot was lonely and sequestered, shadowed by the palmetto and the machineel. Gourds and squashes trailed along the ground and hid the iguana, the green lizard, and the spotted toad. No pineapple or banana grew beside it; no seaside grape spread its branches low to the ground, hanging thick and ruddy clusters under every branch, glossy with leaves of green; but all that was dark or rank grew there.

  It was a dismal spot. Yet hither dusky forms came stealthily in the middle of the night to watch and share with Cuffy in the dread rites of Obeah incantation. To his fellows he was known as a Mandingo priest, and the hold he had on their superstitious souls was strong and terrible. His hut was near at hand, and in this weird corner of the plantation had he been wont to concoct healing balms, philtres, and the yet more potent Obeah, whose spell, wrought in secret, was supposed to work in secret, and set human skill and precaution at defiance.

  Dinah was there—a fitting priestess of these mysteries—and Dan and Scipio, and Chloe and Cassy, with others whose names are unrecorded.

  There was a fissure in the ground close to the boiling spring. To this Cuffy applied a light, and instantly a jet of flame shot up, and the poor dupes bowed down to the fire-spirit. From a hollow tree was produced an iron pot. Half filling this from the boiling spring, it was suspended on a triangle of sticks over the natural naphtha flame, and the weird rites began.

  There was a low monotonous chant in a strange tongue, a dance around the seething pot, which in the lurid light was half demoniac; and Cuffy, swaying to and fro, muttered words unknown even to his confederates, as one by one he threw into the pot snake-wood from the trumpet-tree, sap from the deadly manchineel, a snake cucumber, the poisonous sandbox leaves and rings, a living lizard and a toad, a turtle’s egg, the root of the cat’s-blood plant, a bat, a young owlet, a dead man’s hair, pernicious scum from Long Pond, and other venomous ingredients with and without a name.