Prince Zaleski | Page 6

the village was instructed
to collect his companions for a science lecture the same evening at
eight o'clock. And so the eventful day wore on.

'We arrive now at this hour of eight P.M. on this 10th day of January.
The night is dark and windy; some snow has been falling, but has now
ceased. In an upper room is Randolph engaged in expounding the
elements of dynamics; in the room under that is Hester Dyett--for
Hester has somehow obtained a key that opens the door of Randolph's
room, and takes advantage of his absence upstairs to explore it. Under
her is Lord Pharanx, certainly in bed, probably asleep. Hester,
trembling all over in a fever of fear and excitement, holds a lighted
taper in one hand, which she religiously shades with the other; for the
storm is gusty, and the gusts, tearing through the crevices of the rattling
old casements, toss great flickering shadows on the hangings, which
frighten her to death. She has just time to see that the whole room is in
the wildest confusion, when suddenly a rougher puff blows out the
flame, and she is left in what to her, standing as she was on that
forbidden ground, must have been a horror of darkness. At the same
moment, clear and sharp from right beneath her, a pistol-shot rings out
on her ear. For an instant she stands in stone, incapable of motion. Then
on her dazed senses there supervenes--so she swore--the consciousness
that some object is moving in the room--moving apparently of its own
accord--moving in direct opposition to all the laws of nature as she
knows them. She imagines that she perceives a phantasm--a strange
something--globular-white--looking, as she says, "like a good-sized
ball of cotton"--rise directly from the floor before her, ascending slowly
upward, as if driven aloft by some invisible force. A sharp shock of the
sense of the supernatural deprives her of ordered reason. Throwing
forward her arms, and uttering a shrill scream, she rushes towards the
door. But she never reaches it: midway she falls prostrate over some
object, and knows no more; and when, an hour later, she is borne out of
the room in the arms of Randolph himself, the blood is dripping from a
fracture of her right tibia.
'Meantime, in the upper chamber the pistol-shot and the scream of the
woman have been heard. All eyes turn to Randolph. He stands in the
shadow of the mechanical contrivance on which he has been illustrating
his points; leans for support on it. He essays to speak, the muscles of
his face work, but no sound comes. Only after a time is he able to gasp:
"Did you hear something--from below?" They answer "yes" in chorus;

then one of the lads takes a lighted candle, and together they troop out,
Randolph behind them. A terrified servant rushes up with the news that
something dreadful has happened in the house. They proceed for some
distance, but there is an open window on the stairs, and the light is
blown out. They have to wait some minutes till another is obtained, and
then the procession moves forward once more. Arrived at Lord
Pharanx's door, and finding it locked, a lantern is procured, and
Randolph leads them through the house and out on the lawn. But
having nearly reached the balcony, a lad observes a track of small
woman's-feet in the snow; a halt is called, and then Randolph points out
another track of feet, half obliterated by the snow, extending from a
coppice close by up to the balcony, and forming an angle with the first
track. These latter are great big feet, made by ponderous labourers'
boots. He holds the lantern over the flower-beds, and shows how they
have been trampled down. Some one finds a common scarf, such as
workmen wear; and a ring and a locket, dropped by the burglars in their
flight, are also found by Randolph half buried in the snow. And now
the foremost reach the window. Randolph, from behind, calls to them
to enter. They cry back that they cannot, the window being closed. At
this reply he seems to be overcome by surprise, by terror. Some one
hears him murmur the words, "My God, what can have happened
now?" His horror is increased when one of the lads bears to him a
revolting trophy, which has been found just outside the window; it is
the front phalanges of three fingers of a human hand. Again he utters
the agonised moan, "My God!" and then, mastering his agitation,
makes for the window; he finds that the catch of the sash has been
roughly wrenched off, and that the sash can be opened by merely
pushing it up: does so, and enters. The room is in