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Some huge thing hurtled against us in the darkness, rearing, stamping,smashing, springing, snorting. The table was splintered. We werescattered in every direction. It clattered and scrambled amongst us,rushing with horrible energy from one corner of the room to another. Wewere all screaming with fear, grovelling upon our hands and knees to getaway from it. Something trod upon my left hand, and I felt the bonessplinter under the weight.
“A light! A light!” someone yelled.
“Moir, you have matches, matches!”
“No, I have none. Deacon, where are the matches? For God’s sake, thematches!”
“I can’t find them. Here, you Frenchman, stop it!”
“It is beyond me. Oh, _mon Dieu_, I cannot stop it. The door! Where isthe door?”
My hand, by good luck, lit upon the handle as I groped about in thedarkness. The hard-breathing, snorting, rushing creature tore past meand butted with a fearful crash against the oaken partition. The instantthat it had passed I turned the handle, and next moment we were alloutside and the door shut behind us. From within came a horriblecrashing and rending and stamping.
“What is it? In Heaven’s name, what is it?”
“A horse. I saw it when the door opened. But Mrs. Delamere——?”
“We must fetch her out. Come on, Markham; the longer we wait the less weshall like it.”
He flung open the door and we rushed in. She was there on the groundamidst the splinters of her chair. We seized her and dragged her swiftlyout, and as we gained the door I looked over my shoulder into thedarkness. There were two strange eyes glowing at us, a rattle of hoofs,and I had just time to slam the door when there came a crash upon itwhich split it from top to bottom.
“It’s coming through! It’s coming!”
“Run, run for your lives!” cried the Frenchman.
Another crash, and something shot through the riven door. It was a longwhite spike, gleaming in the lamplight. For a moment it shone before us,and then with a snap it disappeared again.
“Quick! Quick! This way!” Harvey Deacon shouted. “Carry her in! Here!Q
uick!”
We had taken refuge in the dining-room, and shut the heavy oak door. Welaid the senseless woman upon the sofa, and as we did so, Moir, the hardman of business, drooped and fainted across the hearthrug. Harvey Deaconwas as white as a corpse, jerking and twitching like an epileptic. Witha crash we heard the studio door fly to pieces, and the snorting andstamping were in the passage, up and down, up and down, shaking thehouse with their fury. The Frenchman had sunk his face on his hands, andsobbed like a frightened child.
“What shall we do?” I shook him roughly by the shoulder. “Is a gun anyuse?”
“No, no. The power will pass. Then it will end.”
“You might have killed us all—you unspeakable fool—with your infernalexperiments.”
“I did not know. How could I tell that it would be frightened? It is madwith terror. It was his fault. He struck it.”
Harvey Deacon sprang up. “Good heavens!” he cried.
A terrible scream sounded through the house.
“It’s my wife! Here, I’m going out. If it’s the Evil One himself I amgoing out!”
He had thrown open the door and rushed out into the passage. At the endof it, at the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Deacon was lying senseless,struck down by the sight which she had seen. But there was nothing else.
With eyes of horror we looked about us, but all was perfectly quiet andstill. I approached the black square of the studio door, expecting withevery slow step that some atrocious shape would hurl itself out of it.But nothing came, and all was silent inside the room. Peeping andpeering, our hearts in our mouths, we came to the very threshold, andstared into the darkness. There was still no sound, but in one directionthere was also no darkness. A luminous, glowing cloud, with anincandescent centre, hovered in the corner of the room. Slowly it dimmedand faded, growing thinner and fainter, until at last the same dense,velvety blackness filled the whole studio. And with the last flickeringgleam of that baleful light the Frenchman broke into a shout of joy.
“What a fun!” he cried. “No one is hurt, and only the door broken, andthe ladies frightened. But, my friends, we have done what has never beendone before.”
“And as far as I can help it,” said Harvey Deacon, “it will certainlynever be done again.”
And that was what befell on the 14th of April last at No. 17, BadderlyGardens. I began by saying that it would seem too grotesque to dogmatizeas to what it was which actually did occur; but I give my impressions,_our_ impressions (since they are corroborated by Harvey Deacon and JohnMoir), for what they are worth. You may, if it pleases you, imagine thatwe were the victims of an elaborate and extraordinary hoax. Or you maythink with us that we underwent a very real and a very terribleexperience. Or perhaps you may know more than we do of such occultmatters, and can inform us of some similar occurrence. In this lattercase a letter to William Markham, 146M, The Albany, would help to throwa light upon that which is very dark to us.
THE JEW’S BREASTPLATE
