Page:Weird Tales Volume 2 Number 2 (1923-09).djvu/32

 My last remaining fuel was reduced to a tiny heap of glowing embers, and I knew these would soon be gone—a matter of a half hour at most. Already the room was shrouded in murky gloom in which visible objects became faint, fantastic outlines.

I saw, or fancied I saw, a slight movement among the draperies of the laird's canopied bed. At the same instant a sound, apparently from a point directly behind me, caused me to whirl like an animal at bay, with every hair on my scalp bristling. It sounded like someone sliding or crawling across the floor, and was obviously in the chamber, yet I saw only the paneled wall and the dusty carpet at the point from which the sound emanated.

I tried to pull myself together.

"Must be rats or some other vermin rummaging in the chests," I thought. "Buck up, old boy. Remember, there is no such thing as a—"

My soliloquy was here interrupted by another sound—a sound that chilled the very marrow in my bones. It was distinctly human in character, a deep-drawn, sobbing sigh, as of a person just awakened from a bad dream or coming out from under the anaesthetic after an operation. I seized the rusted fire-tongs and waited breathlessly for someone or something to appear.

The tongs gave me a feeling of security, and I boldly explored the room, peering behind the tapestries and around and under the furniture. With the firm conviction that I had been suffering from an hallucination brought on by auto-suggestion, I went back to the canvas and unrolled my blanket, being by this time completely exhausted and sadly in need of sleep.

From early boyhood it has been my custom to wind my watch each evening before retiring. Automatically, I twirled the little burr between thumb and forefinger, and glanced at the dial as I did so. It lacked just one minute of eleven. Instantly recollections of old Sandy's reference to the hour of eleven flooded my mind. With them came the old feeling of dread, and a persistent, intuitive conviction that I was not alone in the room. I watched the little hand swiftly ticking off the seconds, with bated breath.

Eleven o'clock came and went without incident. I began to breathe more freely at eleven-fifteen, and was about to remove my boots, at the same time chiding myself for my groundless superstitious fear, when it came—a quivering, blood-curdling cry, half moan, half shriek, followed by low, pitiful groans. as of someone in extreme pain or anguish.

Then I heard the sliding sound again, and loud knocks which seemed to come from the walls and ceiling of the chamber. At the same time my fire went out and I was left in total darkness.

The feeling that gripped me at that moment is difficult to describe. Those who have suffered from nightmare will know what I mean. Briefly, and as nearly as I can explain it, it is as if one were tightly bound with invisible, unyielding bands of the strength of tempered steel. Added to this there is a sensation of deadly fear, more terrible by far than is experienced when facing a tangible, visible danger.

I seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move even a finger. As the unearthly noises continued it seemed that the invisible bands about my chest tightened until breathing was next to impossible.

I made a supreme effort to break the spell, to move, to cry out. The result was a gurgling, inarticulate sound that I would never have recognized as coming from my own throat, a momentary vision of a thousand, scintillating, flashing sparks, and a merciful snapping of the thread of consciousness.

I am certain, as I pen these lines, that there are those who will condemn me for a coward and a fool, but I have resolved to tell no half-truths and to add no embellishments of my own that might serve to play me up as a hero. Comparatively few people have faced the inexplicable alone in the dark, consequently there are but few who can sympathize with me—few who would fully understand the horror of that moment.

To me, there is no fear so terrible as the fear of the unknown. I believe a positive knowledge of immediate death would be mild in comparison to it, and mind you, I had never been superstitious—never admitted, even to myself, the existence of supernatural benigsbeeings [sic].

The fact that I lay in a cataleptic stupor in that room until dawn possibly saved my life. I am sure that it at least saved my reason.

When I awakened, the roseate glow of dawn from the two windows shed its soft radiance about the room. The fearsome noises had fled with the darkness. I remembered them as one might remember a bad dream. In fact, when I reviewed them in the light of day it seemed unreasonable to suppose that they had been anything more than a dream.

I was chilled to the bone and resolved first to build a fire in the grate, then renew my search for my lost companion. I knew the wood in the courtyard would be too damp for my purpose, so I searched some of the nearby rooms, all of which were provided with fireplaces, and found enough dry fuel.

With the fire kindled and my back to the blaze, I stood planning my next move, when I heard a faint, metallic tapping noise at my right. Startled and mystified by this new development, I listened breathlessly while the sound continued. Then, suddenly, I recognized the Morse code! Those raps were spelling "A-R-T H-E-L-P, A-R-T H-E-L-P."

In a flash, I realized that Anderson was in distress and trying to communicate with me.

I quickly traced the sounds to the paneled wall at my right.

"Jack!" I shouted. "Where are you, Jack?"

There was a faint, inarticulate whisper. Then the tapping continued: "B-R-E-A-K D-O-W-N T-H-E W-A-L-L," it spelled.

SEIZED the heavy andiron and swung it against the wall, thinking to smash the panel at a single blow, but discovered, to my surprise, that the panel was of steel, painted to resemble wood. It was badly rusted, however, and soon gave way admitting me to a dark chamber in which I found my companion lying in a semi-stupor, more dead than alive. As I bent to pick him up, I stumbled on the bones of a mouldy skeleton, and noticed that it lay across a narrow dais on which was stretched a second skeleton at full length.

Without stopping to examine the ghastly contents of that grisly chamber I carried my chum to where my blanket was spread before the fire.

"Where are you hurt?" I asked. He answered with great difficulty in a faint, hoarse whisper.

"Leg's broken—don't know what else. Get me a drink—something hot— and a doctor."

"I'll have some coffee for you in a jiffy," I replied, and, seizing the coffee-pot, hurried through the familiar halls and corridors and across the drawbridge to the spring.

After scouring the char from the interior of the pot with a handful of sand and rinsing it thoroughly, I filled it with water and started back, when a familiar rumble greeted my ears, followed by the appearance of Sandy Magruder in his jaunting-cart. He tied the horse to a small sapling and came toward me with a basket on his arm.

"Thought ye might like some fresh eggs for breakfast," he said kindly. "And hoo did ye rest, the nicht?" I thanked him for the gift, and explained the predicament of Anderson.