Tales of terror
certainly be vacant to-night. I shall find a bed in the village, and
Evan sleeps near you with some of the guests in the barn. But, before I
go, if my question be not unwelcome and intrusive, tell me who you are,
and whither you are bound.’
‘I was ever somewhat of a subscriber to the old man’s creed of
fatalism,’ said the stranger, smiling, ‘and I believe I am more
confirmed in it by the singular events of this day. My father was of
a certain rank in society, but of selfish and disorderly habits. A
course of extravagance and idleness was succeeded by difficulties and
distress. Instead of exertion, he had recourse to flight, and left
us to face the difficulties from which he shrunk. He was absent for
years, while his family toiled and struggled with success. Suddenly
we heard that he was concealed in this part of the coast. The cause
which made that concealment necessary I forbear to mention; but he
suddenly disappeared from the eyes of men, though we never could trace
him beyond this part of the country. I have always believed that I
should one day find my father, and have lately, though with difficulty,
prevailed upon my mother to allow me to make my residence in this
neighbourhood. But my search is at an end to-day. I believe that I have
found my father. Roaming along the beach, I penetrated into several
of those dark caverns. Through the fissures of one I discovered, in
the interior, a light. Surprised, I penetrated to its concealment,
and discovered a man sleeping on the ground. I advanced to awake him,
and found but a fleshless skeleton, cased in tattered and decaying
garments. He had probably met his death by accident, for exactly over
the corpse I observed, at a great height, the daylight, as if streaming
down from an aperture above. Thus the wretched man must have fallen,
but how long since, or who had discovered his body, and left the light
which I beheld, I knew not, though I cannot help cherishing a strong
conviction that it was the body of William Morgan that I saw.’
‘Who talks of William Morgan?’ demanded a stern voice near the coffin,
‘and of the cave where the outcast rots?’ They turned quickly at the
sound, and beheld Ruth Tudor standing up, as if she had been intently
listening to the story.
‘It was I who spoke,’ said the stranger, gently, ‘and I spoke of my
father--of William Morgan. I am Owen, his son.’
‘Son! Owen Morgan!’ said the bewildered Ruth, passing her hand over
her forehead, as if to enable her to recover the combination of these
names. ‘Why speak you of living things as pertaining to the dead?
Father! He is father to nought save sin, and murder is his only
begotten!’
She advanced to the traveller as she spoke, and again caught a view of
his face. Again he saw the wild look of recognition, and an unearthly
shriek followed the convulsive horror of her face. ‘There! there!’ she
said, ‘I knew it must be. Once before to-night have I beheld you. Yet
what can your coming bode? Back with you, ruffian, for is not your dark
work done!’
‘Let us leave her,’ said the good pastor, ‘to the care of her
attendant. Do not continue to meet her gaze. Your presence may
increase, but cannot allay her malady. Go up to your bed and rest.’
He retired as he spoke, and Owen, in compliance with his wish, ascended
the rickety stair which led to his chamber, after he had beheld Ruth
Tudor quietly place herself in her seat at the open coffin’s head. The
room to which he mounted was not of the most cheering aspect, yet he
felt he had often slept soundly in a worse. It was a gloomy, unfinished
chamber, and the wind was whistling coldly and drearily through the
uncovered rafters above his head. Like many of the cottages in that
part of the country, it appeared to have grown old and ruinous before
it had been finished, for the flooring was so crazy as scarcely to
support the huge wooden bedstead, and in many instances the boards were
entirely separated from each other; and in the centre, time, or the
rot, had so completely devoured the larger half of one that through the
gaping aperture Owen had an entire command of the room and the party
below, looking down immediately above the coffin. Ruth was in the same
attitude as when he left her. Owen threw himself upon his hard couch,
and endeavoured to compose himself to rest for the night. His thoughts,
however, still wandered to the events of the day, and he felt there was
some strange connection between the scene he had just witnessed and
the darker one of the secret cave. He grew restless, and watched, and
amidst the tossings of impatient anxiety fatigue overpowered him, and
he sunk into a perturbed and heated sleep. His slumber was broken by
dreams that might well be the shadows of his waking reveries. He was
alone--as in reality--upon his humble bed, when imagination brought to
his ear the sound of many voices again singing the slow and monotonous
psalm. It was interrupted by the outcries of some unseen things who
attempted to enter his chamber, and, amid yells of fear and execrations
of anger, bade him ‘Arise, and come forth, and aid.’ Then the coffined
form which slept so quietly below stood by his side, and, in beseeching
accents, bade him ‘Arise and save her.’ In his sleep he attempted to
spring up, but a horrid fear restrained him, a fear that he should be
too late. Then he crouched like a coward beneath his coverings, to
hide from the reproaches of the spectre, while shouts of laughter and
shrieks of agony were poured like a tempest around him. He sprung from
his bed, and awoke.
It was some moments before he could recover himself, or shake off the
horror which had seized upon his soul. He listened, and with infinite
satisfaction observed an unbroken silence throughout the house. He
smiled at his own terrors, attributed them to the events of the day or
the presence of the corpse, and determined not to look down into the
lower room till he should be summoned thither in the morning. He walked
to the casement, and peered through at the night. The clouds were many,
black, and lowering, and the face of the sky looked angry, while the
wind moaned with a strange and eerie sound. He turned from the window,
with the intention of again trying to sleep, but the light from below
attracted his eye, and he could not pass the aperture without taking
one glance at the coffin and its lonely watcher.
Ruth was earnestly gazing at the lower end of the room upon something
without the sight of Owen. His attention was next fixed upon the
corpse, and he thought he had never seen any living thing so lovely;
and so calm was the aspect of her repose that it more resembled a
temporary suspension of the faculties than the eternal stupor of death.
Her features were pale, but not distorted, and there was none of the
livid hue of death in her beautiful mouth and lips; but the flowers
in her hand gave stronger demonstration of the presence of the power
before whose potency their little strength was fading--drooping with a
mortal sickness, they bowed down their heads in submission, as one by
one they dropped from her pale and perishing fingers. Owen gazed till
he thought he saw the grasp of her hand relapse, and a convulsive smile
pass over her cold and rigid features. He looked again. The eyelids
shook and vibrated like the string of some fine-strung instrument; the
hair rose, and the head cloth moved. He started up ashamed.
‘Does the madness of this woman affect all who would sleep beneath her
roof?’ he thought. ‘What is this that disturbs me, or am I yet in a
dream? Hark!’ he muttered aloud, ‘What is that?’
It was the voice of Ruth. She had risen from her seat, and was standing
near the coffin, apparently addressing someone who stood at the lower
end of the room.
‘To what purpose is your coming now?’ she asked in a low and melancholy
voice, ‘and at what do you laugh and gibe? Lo! behold. She is here, and
the sin you know of cannot be. How can I take the life which another
has already withdrawn? Go, go, hence, to your cave of night, for this
is no place of safety for you.’ Her thoughts now took another turn.
She seemed as if trying to hide someone from the pursuit of others.
‘Lie still! Lie still!’ she whispered. ‘Put out your light! So, so,
they pass by, and do not see you. You are safe; good-night, good-night.
Now will I home to sleep,’ and she seated herself in her chair, as if
composing her senses to rest.
Owen was again bewildered in the chaos of thought, but for the time
he determined to subdue his imagination, and, throwing himself upon
his bed, again gave himself up to sleep. But the images of his former
dreams still haunted him, and their hideous phantasms were more
powerfully renewed. Again he heard the solemn psalm of death, but
unsung by mortals. It was pealed through earth up to the high heaven by
myriads of the viewless and the mighty. Again he heard the execrations
of millions for some unremembered sin, and the wrath and hatred of a
world was rushing upon him.
‘Come forth! Come forth!’ was the cry, and amid yells and howls they
were darting upon him, when the pale form of the beautiful dead arose
between them and shielded him from their malice. But he heard her say
aloud:
‘It is for this that thou wilt not save me. Arise, arise, and help!’
He sprang up as he was commanded. Sleeping or waking he never knew,
but he started from his bed to look down into the chamber, as he heard
the voice of Ruth loud in terrific denunciation. He looked. She was
standing, uttering yells of madness and rage, and close to her was a
well-known form of appalling recollection--his father, as he had seen
him last. He darted to the door.
‘I am mad!’ said he. ‘I am surely mad, or this is still a continuation
of my dream.’
Some strange and unholy fascination drew him back again to the
aperture, and he looked down once more. Ruth was still there, though
alone.
But though no visible form stood by the maniac, some fiend had entered
her soul and mastered her spirit. She had armed herself with an axe,
and, shouting:
‘Liar! liar! hence!’ pursued an imaginary foe to the darker side of
the cottage. Owen strove hard to trace her motions, but as she had
retreated to the space occupied by his bed he could no longer see her,
and his eyes involuntarily fastened themselves upon the coffin. There
a new horror met them. The corpse had risen, and with wild and glaring
eyes was watching the scene before her. Owen distrusted his senses till
he heard the terrific voice of Ruth, as she marked the miracle he had
witnessed.
‘The fiend, the robber!’ she yelled, ‘it is he who hath entered the
pure body of my child. Back to your cave of blood, you lost one! Back
to your own dark hell!’
Owen flew to the door. It was too late. He heard the shriek, the blow.
He rushed into the room, but only in time to hear the second blow, and
see the cleft head of the hapless Rachel fall back upon its bloody
pillow. His terrible cries brought in the sleepers from the barn,
headed by the wretched Evan, and for a time the roar of the storm
was drowned in the clamorous grief of those present. No one dared to
approach the miserable Ruth, who now, in utter frenzy, strode round
the room, brandishing, with diabolical laughter, the bloody axe. Then
she broke into a wild song of triumph and fierce joy. All fell back,
appalled with horror, and the wild screeching of the wind was like the
exultant cry of the damned. Then an extraordinary thing happened--a
blinding flash of lightning, as if the heavens themselves had burst
into flame, illuminated every nook and cranny, and imparted an awful,
ghastly, and weird effect to the dramatic scene. In a few seconds the
lightning was followed by a terrific peal of thunder. The house seemed
to rock to its foundations. The inmates were blinded and stunned, and,