J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 | Page 9

he goes!"
She pointed towards the door of the inner room, and Schalken thought
he saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into that apartment. He
drew his sword, and, raising the candle so as to throw its light with
increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the
chamber into which the shadow had glided. No figure was
there--nothing but the furniture which belonged to the room, and yet he
could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before
them into the chamber. A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold
perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he
more composed, when he heard the increased urgency and agony of
entreaty, with which Rose implored them not to leave her for a
moment.
"I saw him," said she; "he's here. I cannot be deceived; I know him;
he's by me; he is with me; he's in the room. Then, for God's sake, as
you would save me, do not stir from beside me."
They at length prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she
continued to urge them to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent
sentences, repeating, again and again, "the dead and the living cannot
be one: God has forbidden it." And then again, "Rest to the
wakeful--sleep to the sleep-walkers." These and such mysterious and
broken sentences, she continued to utter until the clergyman arrived.
Gerard Douw began to fear, naturally enough, that terror or
ill-treatment, had unsettled the poor girl's intellect, and he half
suspected, by the suddenness of her appearance, the unseasonableness
of the hour, and above all, from the wildness and terror of her manner,
that she had made her escape from some place of confinement for

lunatics, and was in imminent fear of pursuit. He resolved to summon
medical advice as soon as the mind of his niece had been in some
measure set at rest by the offices of the clergyman whose attendance
she had so earnestly desired; and until this object had been attained, he
did not venture to put any questions to her, which might possibly, by
reviving painful or horrible recollections, increase her agitation. The
clergyman soon arrived--a man of ascetic countenance and venerable
age--one whom Gerard Douw respected very much, forasmuch as he
was a veteran polemic, though one perhaps more dreaded as a
combatant than beloved as a Christian--of pure morality, subtle brain,
and frozen heart. He entered the chamber which communicated with
that in which Rose reclined and immediately on his arrival, she
requested him to pray for her, as for one who lay in the hands of Satan,
and who could hope for deliverance only from heaven.
That you may distinctly understand all the circumstances of the event
which I am going to describe, it is necessary to state the relative
position of the parties who were engaged in it. The old clergyman and
Schalken were in the anteroom of which I have already spoken; Rose
lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side
of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her guardian; a candle burned in
the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. The old
man now cleared his voice as if about to commence, but before he had
time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to
illuminate the room in which the poor girl lay, and she, with hurried
alarm, exclaimed:----
"Godfrey, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe."
Gerard Douw forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions, in the
immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in
order to supply what she desired.
"Oh God! do not go, dear uncle," shrieked the unhappy girl--and at the
same time she sprung from the bed, and darted after him, in order, by
her grasp, to detain him. But the warning came too late, for scarcely
had he passed the threshold, and hardly had his niece had time to utter
the startling exclamation, when the door which divided the two rooms

closed violently after him, as if swung by a strong blast of wind.
Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate
efforts could not avail so much as to shake it. Shriek after shriek burst
from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing
terror. Schalken and Douw applied every nerve to force open the door;
but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling from within, but the
screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they
heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself
grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One