Page:Weird Tales volume 02 number 03.djvu/23

22 behind the clearing an owl hooted mournfully, as if to say, "Beware, beware!" and the wind soughing through the black pine boughs echoed the refrain ceaselessly.

Three mounds, sunken and weedgrown, lay in the unkempt thicket behind the corncrib. I paused beside them, throwing off my cap and adjusting my stole hastily. Thumbing the pages to the committal service, I held the book close, that I might see the print through the morning shadows, and commenced: "I know that my redeemer liveth"

Almost beside me, under the branches of the pines, there rose such a chorus of howls and yelps I nearly dropped my book. Like all the hounds in the kennels of hell, the sheep-killers clamored at me, rage and fear and mortal hatred in their cries. Through the bestial cadences, too, there seemed to run a human note; the sound of voices heard before beneath these very trees. Deep and throaty, and raging mad, two of the voices came to me, and, like the tremolo of a violin lightly played in an orchestra of brass, the shriller cry of a third beast sounded.

As the infernal hubbub rose at my back, I half turned to fly. Next instant I grasped my book more firmly and resumed my office, for like a beacon in the dark, Mildred’s words flashed on my memory : "Look back for nothing; heed no sound behind you."

Strangely, too, the din approached no nearer; but as though held by an invisible bar, stayed at the boundary of the clearing.

"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery deliver us from all our offenses O, Lord, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death" and to such an accompaniment, surely, as no priest ever before chanted the office, I pressed through the brief service to the final Amen.

Tiny grouts of moisture stood out on my forehead, my breath struggled in my throat as I gasped out the last word. My nerves were frayed to shreds and my strength nearly gone as I let fall my book, and turned upon the beasts among the trees.

They were gone. Abruptly as it had begun, their clamor stopped, and only the rotting pine needles, lightly gilded by the morning sun, met my gaze. A light touch fell in the palm of my open hand, as if a pair of cool, sweet lips had laid a kiss there.

A vapor like swamp-fog enveloped me. The outbuildings, the old, stone-curbed well where I had drunk the night I first saw Mildred, the house itself—all seemed fading into mist and swirling away in the morning breeze.

H, EH, EH; but M’sieur will do himself an injury, sleeping on the wet earth!" Old Geronte bent over me, his arm beneath my shoulders. Behind him, great Boris, the mastiff, stood wagging his tail, regarding me with doggish good humor.

"Pierre," I muttered thickly, "how came you here?"

"This morning, going to my tasks, I saw M’sieur run down the road like a thing pursued. I followed quickly, for the woods hold terrors in the dark, M’sieur."

I looked toward the farmhouse. Only a pair of chimneys, rising stark and bare from a crumbling foundation were there. Fence, well, barn—all were gone, and in their place a thicket of sumac and briars, tangled and overgrown as though undisturbed for thirty years.

"The house, Pierre! Where is the house?" I croaked, sinking my fingers into his withered arm.

ouse?" he echoed. "Oh, but of course. There is no ’ouse here, M’sieur; nor has there been for years. This is an evil place, M’sieur; it is best we quit it, and that quickly. There be evil things that run by night—"

"No more," I answered, staggering toward the road, leaning heavily on him. "I brought them peace, Pierre."

He looked dubiously at the English prayer book I held. A Protestant clergyman is a thing of doubtful usefulness to the orthodox French-Canadian. Something of the heartsick misery in my face must have touched his kind old heart, for at last he relented, shaking his head pityingly and patting my shoulder gently, as one would soothe a sorrowing child.

"Per’aps, M’sieur," he conceded. "Per’aps; who shall say no? Love and sorrow are the purchase price of peace. Yes. Did not le bon Dieu so buy the peace of the world?"

FRENCH scientist named Louis Farigoule says that human beings have latent within them the power to see without eyes. This alleged power is termed paroptic vision.

After exhaustive experiments, Farigoule has written a book on the subject in which he states that man has a "paroptic sense" that is capable of communicating to the brain cognizance of the existence of surrounding objects practically identical with the effect of ordinary vision. His claim is that any part of the bodily exterior may be capable of paroptic vision under certain conditions.

Other experimenters who have taken up the work claim to have attained similar results. They state their belief that paroptic vision is a natural faculty and that light is the agent that produces paroptic vision. They also claim that variations in the intensity of light produce the same effects as they do in ordinary vision and that neither touch nor any of the other senses has anything to do with paroptic vision.

When the tests were made, precautions were taken which eliminated all possibility of any use of the eyes, yet the subjects were able to perceive and name objects with absolute precision.

GIGANTIC waterspout struck the Genoese Riviera a short time ago, injuring many people and doing untold damage. Sestri, Pegli, Gornigliano and San Pier d'Arena were the principal places affected. The storm, which lasted nearly an hour, unroofed the Ansaldo Pig Iron Works at Pegli and many persons were injured by falling tiles. The damage to the Ansalado Depot at San Pier d’Arena was estimated at 100,000 lire and many victims of the storm were taken to hospitals. Electric power lines were torn down and bathing establishments and trees for a half mile along the coast were cut away. It is said that, at one point, a brick house was leveled to the ground.