The Monkeys Paw | Page 5

wish," cried his wife, quivering with excitement.
The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has
been dead ten days, and besides he--I would not tell you else, but--I
could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you

to see then, how now?"
"Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the
door. "Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?"
He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then
to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear
that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he
could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath
as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold
with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall
until he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing
in his hand.
Even his wife's face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was
white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look
upon it. He was afraid of her.
"Wish!" she cried, in a strong voice.
"It is foolish and wicked," he faltered.
"Wish!" repeated his wife.
He raised his hand. "I wish my son alive again."
The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank
trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked to
the window and raised the blind.
He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the
figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end,
which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing
pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger
than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of
relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a minute
or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically beside
him.

Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A
stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall.
The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing
up his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went
downstairs for a candle.
At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike
another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be
scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood
motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he
turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind
him. A third knock sounded through the house.
"What's that?" cried the old woman, starting up.
"A rat," said the old man in shaking tones--"a rat. It passed me on the
stairs."
His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the
house.
"It's Herbert!" she screamed. "It's Herbert!"
She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her
by the arm, held her tightly.
"What are you going to do?" he whispered hoarsely.
"It's my boy; it's Herbert!" she cried, struggling mechanically. "I forgot
it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I must
open the door.
"For God's sake don't let it in," cried the old man, trembling.
"You're afraid of your own son," she cried, struggling. "Let me go. I'm
coming, Herbert; I'm coming."

There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden
wrench broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the
landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He
heard the chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly
from the socket. Then the old woman's voice, strained and panting.
"The bolt," she cried, loudly. "Come down. I can't reach it."
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the
floor in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing
outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the
house, and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in
the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it
came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkey's paw,
and frantically breathed his third and last wish.
The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in
the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the