The picture in the house
when I questioned him. He seemed to be in an aboundingly good humor,
yet to possess those eccentricities which one might guess from
his grooming. For some time he rambled on with an almost feverish
geniality, when it struck me to ask him how he came by so rare a book
as Pigafetta's "Regnum Congo." The effect of this volume had not left
me, and I felt a certain hesitancy in speaking of it; but curiosity
overmastered all the vague fears which had steadily accumulated since
my first glimpse of the house. To my relief, the question did not seem
an awkward one; for the old man answered freely and volubly.
"Oh, thet Afriky book? Cap'n Ebenezer Holt traded me thet in
'sixty-eight--him as was kilt in the war.".
Something about the name of Ebenezer Holt caused me to look up sharply.
I had encountered it in my genealogical work, but not in any record
since the Revolution. I wondered if my host could help me in the task
at which I was laboring, and resolved to ask him about it later on. He
continued:
"Ebenezer was on a Salem merchantman fer years, an' picked up a sight
o' queer stuff in every port. He got this in London, I guess--he uster
like ter buy things at the shops. I was up ta his haouse onct on the
hill, tradin' hosses, when I see this book. I relished the picters, so
he give it in on a swap. 'Tis a queer book--here, leave me git on my
spectacles--"
The old man fumbled among his rags, producing a pair of dirty and
amazingly antique glasses with small octagonal lenses and steel bows.
Donning these, he reached for the volume on the table and turned the
pages lovingly.
* * * * *
"Ebenezer cud read a leetle o' this--'tis Latin--but I can't. I hed two
er three schoolmasters read me a bit, an' Passon Clark, him they say
got draownded in the pond--kin yew make anything outen it?"
I told him that I could, and translated for his benefit a paragraph
near the beginning. If I erred, he was not scholar enough to correct
me; for he seemed childishly pleased at my English version. His
proximity was becoming rather obnoxious, yet I saw no way to escape
without offending him. I was amused at the childish fondness of this
ignorant old man for the pictures in a book he could not read, and
wondered how much better he could read the few books in English which
adorned the room. This revelation of simplicity removed much of the
ill-defined apprehension I had felt, and I smiled as my host rambled on:
"Queer haow picters kin set a body thinkin'. Take this un here near the
front. Hev yew ever seed trees like thet, with big leaves a-floppin'
over an' daown? And them men--them can't be niggers--they dew beat all!
Kinder like Injuns, I guess, even ef they be in Afriky. Some o' these
here critters looks like monkeys, or half monkeys an' half men, but I
never heerd o' nothin' like this un." Here he pointed to a fabulous
creature of the artist, which one might describe as a sort of dragon
with the head of an Alligator.
"But naow I'll show ye the best un--over here nigh the middle--" The
old man's speech grew a trifle thicker and his eyes assumed a brighter
glow; but his fumbling hands, though seemingly clumsier than before
were entirely adequate to their mission. The book fell open, almost
of its own accord and as if from frequent consultation at this place,
to the repellent twelfth plate showing a butcher's shop amongst the
Anzique cannibals. My sense of restlessness returned, though I did not
exhibit it. The especially bizarre thing was that the artist had made
his Africans look like white men--the limbs and quarters hanging about
the walls of the shop were ghastly, while the butcher with his axe was
hideously incongruous. But my host seemed to relish the view as much as
I disliked it.
"What d'ye think o' this--ain't never see the like hereabouts, eh? When
I see this I telled Eb Holt, 'Thar's suthin' ta stir ye up an' make
yer blood tickle!' When I read in Scripter about slayin'--like them
Midianites was slew--I kinder think things, but I ain't got a picter
of it. Here a body kin see all they is to it--I s'pose 'tis sinful,
but ain't we all born an' livin' in sin?--Thet feller bein' chopped up
gives me a tickle every time I look at 'im--I hev ta keep lookin' at
'im--see whar the butcher cut off his feet? Thar's his head on thet
bench, with one arm side of it, an' t'oter arm's on the graound side o'
the meat block."
As the man mumbled on in his shocking ecstasy the expression on his
hairy, spectacled face became indescribable, but his voice sank rather
than mounted. My own sensations can scarcely be recorded. All the
terror I had dimly felt before rushed upon me actively and vividly,
and I knew that I loathed the ancient and abhorrent creature so near
me with an infinite intensity. His madness, or at least his partial
perversion, seemed beyond dispute. He was almost whispering now, with a
huskiness more terrible than a scream, and I trembled as I listened.
"As I says, 'tis queer haow picters sets ye thinkin'. D'ye know, young
Sir, I'm right sot on this un here. Arter I got the book off Eb I uster
look at it a lot, especial when I'd heerd Passon Clark rant o' Sundays
in his big wig. Onct I tried suthin' funny--here, young Sir, don't git
skeert--all I done was ter look at the picter afore I kilt the sheep
for market--killin' sheep was kinder more fun arter lookin' at it--"
The tone of the old man now sank very low, sometimes becoming so faint
that his words were hardly audible. I listened to the rain, and to the
rattling of the bleared, small-paned windows, and marked a rumbling of
approaching thunder quite unusual for the season. Once a terrific flash
and peal shook the frail house to its foundations, but the whisperer
seemed not to notice it.
"Killin' sheep was kinder more fun--but d'ye know, 'twan't quite
_satisfyin'_. Queer haow a _cravin'_ gits a holt on ye---As ye love the
Almighty, young man don't tell nobody, but I swar ter Gawd thet picter
begun ta make me _hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy_--here
set still, what's ailin' ye?--I didn't do nothin', only I wondered haow
'twud be ef I _did_--They say meat makes blood an' flesh, an' gives ye
new life, so I wondered ef 'twudn't make a man live longer an' longer
ef 'twas _more the same_--"
But the whisperer never continued. The interruption was not due to my
fright, nor to the rapidly increasing storm amidst whose fury I was
presently to open my eyes on a smoky solitude of blackened ruins. It
was due to a very simple though somewhat unusual happening.
The open book lay flat between us with the picture staring repulsively
upward. As the old man whispered the words "_more the same_" a tiny
spattering impact was heard, and something showed on the yellowed
paper of the upturned volume. I thought of the ruin and of a leaky
roof, but rain is not red. On the butcher's shop of the Anzique
cannibals a small red spattering glistened picturesquely, lending
vividness to the horror of the engraving. The old man saw it, and
stopped whispering even before my expression of horror made it
necessary; saw it and glanced quickly toward the floor of the room he
had left an hour before. I followed his glance, and beheld just above
us on the loose plaster of the ancient ceiling a large irregular spot
of wet crimson which seemed to spread even as I viewed it. I did not
shriek or move, but merely shut my eyes.
A moment later came the titanic thunderbolt of thunderbolts, striking
the accursed house of unutterable secrets and bringing the oblivion
which alone saved my mind.