The Damned Thing by Ambrose biers One. By the light of a tallow candle
which had been placed on one end of a rough table, a man was
reading something written in a book. It was an old account book, greatly
worn, and the writing was not apparently very legible, for the man sometimes
held the page close to the flame of the candle to get a stronger light
upon it. The shadow of the book would then throw into obscurity a half
of the room, darkening a number of faces and figures. For besides the
reader, eight other men were present. Seven of them sat against the rough
log walls, silent and motionless, and the room, being small, not
very far from the table. By extending an arm, any one of them
could have touched the eighth man, who lay on the table, face upward,
partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was
dead. The man of the book was not reading aloud, and no one
spoke. All seemed to be waiting for something to occur. The dead man
only was without expectation from the blank darkness outside came in through the aperture that
served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness.
The long nameless note of a distant coyote, the stilly, pulsing thrill
of tireless insects and trees, strange cries of night birds so different from those
of the birds of day, the drone of great blundering beadles, and all
that mysterious chorus of small sounds that seemed always to have been but half heard
when they have suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing
of all this was noted in that company. Its members were not over much
addicted to idle interest in matters of no practical importance. That was obvious in
every line of their rugged faces, obvious even in the dim light of the
single candle. They were evidently men of the vicinity, farmers and woodmen.
The person reading was a trifle different. One would have said of him that
he was of the world worldly, albeit there was that in his attire which
attested a certain fellowship with the organisms of his environment. His coat would hardly
have passed muster in San Francisco, his foot gear was not of urban origin,
and the hat that lay by him on the floor he was the only
one uncovered, was such that, if one had considered it as an article
of mere personal adornment, he would have missed its meaning. In countenance,
the man was rather prepossessing, with just a hint of sternness, though that
he may have assumed or cultivated as appropriate to one in authority. For he
was a coroner. It was by virtue of his office that he had possession
of the book in which he was reading. It had been found among the
dead man's effects in his cabin, where the inquest was now taking place.
When the coroner had finished reading, he put the book into his breast pocket.
At that moment, the door was pushed open and a young man entered.
He clearly was not of mountain birth and breeding. He was clad as
those who dwell in cities. His clothing was dusty, however, as from
travel. He had in fact been riding hard to attend the inquest. The
coroner nodded. No one else greeted him. We have waited for you,
said the coroner. It is necessary to have done with this business tonight.
The young man smiled. I am sorry to have kept you, he said.
I went away not to evade your summons, but to post to my
newspaper an account of what I suppose I am called back to relate. The
coroner smiled. The account that you posted to your newspaper, he said,
differs probably from that which you will give here under oath. That replied the
other, rather hotly and with a visible flush, is as you choose.
I used manifold paper and have a copy of what I sent. It was
not written news, for it is incredible, but as fiction it may go
as part of my testimony under oath. But you say it is incredible,
that is nothing to you, sir, if I also swear that it is
true. The coroner was apparently not greatly affected by the young man's manifest resentment.
She was silent for some moments, his eyes upon the floor. The
men about the sides of the cabin talked in whispers, but seldom withdrew their
gaze from the face of the corpse. Presently, the coroner lifted his eyes
and said, we will resume the inquest. The men removed their hats.
The witness was sworn. What is your name, the coroner asked, William
Harker, age twenty seven. He knew the deceased Hugh Morgan. Yes,
you were with him when he died near him? How did that happen your
presence. I mean, I was visiting him at this place to shoot and
fish. A part of my purpose, however, was to study him and
his odd, solid hair, a way of life. He seemed a good
model for a character in fiction. I sometimes write stories. I sometimes read
them. Thank you stories in general, not yours. Some of the jurors
laughed against a somber background. Humor shows high lights, soldiers in the intervals
of battle laugh easily, and a jest in the death chamber. It conquers
by surprise. Relate the circumstances of this man's death, said the coroner.
You may use any notes or memoranda that you please. The witness understood,
Pulling a manuscript from his breast pocket, he held it near the candle and
turning the leaves until he found the passage that he wanted. Began to read.
Two. The sun had hardly risen when we left the house. We
were looking for quail, each with a shotgun, but we had only one
dog. Morgan said that our best ground was beyond a certain ridge that he
pointed out, and we crossed it by a trail through the chaparral on the
other side was comparatively level ground thickly covered with wild oats. As we emerged
from the chaparral, Morgan was but a few yards in advance. Suddenly we
heard, at a little distance to our right and partly in front, a
noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could see
were violently agitated. We started a deer. I said, I wish we
had brought a rifle. Morgan, who had stopped and was intently watching the
agitated chapparal, said nothing, but he had cocked both barrels of his gun
and was holding it in readiness to aim. I thought him a trifle excited,
which surprised me, for he had a reputation for exceptional coolness, even
in moments of sudden and imminent peril. Oh come, I said, you
are not going to fill up a deer with quailshawe? Are you still?
He did not reply, but catching a sight of his face as he turned
it slightly toward me, I was struck by the pallor of it. Then
I understood that we had serious business on hand, and my first conjecture was
that we had jumped grizzly. I advanced to Morgan's side, cocking my peas
as I moved. The bushes were now quiet and the sounds had ceased.
But Morgan was as attentive to the place as before. What is it?
What the devil is it? I asked, that damned thing? He replied
without turning his head. His voice was husky and unnatural. He trembled visibly.
I was about to speak further when I observed the wild oats near the
place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way I could hardly describe it.
It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind which not only bent
it, but pressed it down, crushed it so that it did not rise.
And this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us. Nothing that I
had ever seen had affected me so strangely as this unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon.
Yet I am unable to recall any sense of fear I remember until it here,
because singularly enough I recollected it. Then that once, in looking carelessly
out of an open window, I momentarily mistook a small tree close at hand
for one of a group of larger trees at a little distance away. It
looked the same size as the others, but being more distinctly and sharply defined
and mass in detail, seemed out of harmony with them. It was a
mere falsification of the law of aerial perspective, but it startled, almost terrified
me. We so rely upon the orderly operation of familiar natural laws that any
seeming suspension of them is noted as a menace to our safety, a warning
of unthinkable calamity. So now the apparently causeless movement of the herbage and the
slow, undeviating approach of the line of disturbance were distinctly disquieting. My companion
appeared actually frightened, and I could hardly credit my senses when I saw him
suddenly throw his gun to his shoulders and fire both barrels at the agitated grass.
Before the smoke of the discharge had cleared away. I heard a loud,
savage cry, a scream like that of a wild animal, and flinging
his gun upon the ground, Morgan sprang away and ran swiftly from the spot.
At the same instant, I was thrown violently to the ground by the
impact of something unseen in the smoke, some soft, heavy substance that seemed
thrown against me with great force. Before I could get upon my feet and
recover my gun, which seemed to have been struck from my hands, I
heard Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries
were such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified,
I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat,
and my Heaven and mercy spare me from another sight like that. At a
distance of less than thirty yards, was my friend down upon one knee,
his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair and
disorder, and its whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward
and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand,
at least I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times,
as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a
part of his body. It was as if he had been partly blotted out.
I cannot otherwise express it than a shifting of its position would bring it
all into view again. All this must have occurred within a few seconds.
Yet In that time, Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler,
vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him,
not always distinctly. During the entire incident. His shouts and curses were
heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury
as I had never heard from the throe of a man or brute. For
a moment only I stood irresolute. Then, throwing down my gun, I
ran forward to my friend's assistance. I had a vague belief that he was
suffering from a fit or some form of convulsion. Before I could reach his
side, he was down and quiet. All sounds had ceased. But with
a feeling of such terror as even these awful events had not inspired. I
now saw the same mysterious movement of the wild oats prolonging itself from the trampled
area about the prostrate man, toward the edge of a wood. It was
only when it had reached the wood that I was able to withdraw my eyes
and look at my companion. He was dead. Three The coroner rose from
his seat and stood beside the dead man. Lifting an edge of the sheet,
he pulled it away, exposing the entire body altogether naked and showing in
the candle light a clay like yellow. It had, however, broad maculations
of bluish black, obviously caused by extravasated blood from contusions. The chest and
sides looked as if they had been beaten with a bludgeon. There were dreadful
lacerations. The skin was torn in strips and shreds. The coroner moved round
to the end of the table and undid a silk handkerchief which had been passed
under the chin and knotted on the top of the head. When the handkerchief
was drawn away, it exposed what had been the throat. Some of the
jurors, who had risen to get a better view, repented their curiosity and
turned away their faces. Witness Harker went to the open window and leaned out
across the sill, faint and sick, dropping the handkerchief upon the dead man's
neck. The coroner stepped to an angle of the room, and from a
pile of clothing produced one garment after another, each of which he held up
a moment for inspection. All were torn and stiff with blood. The jurors
did not make a closer inspection. They seemed rather unintrusted. They had,
in truth, seen all this before, the only thing that was new to
them being Harker's testimony. Gentlemen, the coroner said, we have no more
evidence. I think your duty has been already explained to you. If there
is nothing you wish to ask, you may go outside and consider your verdict.
The foreman rose, a tall, bearded man of sixty coarsely clad.
I should like to ask one question, mister coroner. He said, what
asylum did this your last witness escape from? Mister Harker said the coroner,
gravely and tranquility from What asylum did you last escape? Harker flushed Crimson again,
but said nothing, And the seven jurors rose and solemnly filed out of
the cabin. If you have done insulting me, sir, said Harker,
as soon as he and the officer were left alone with a dead man,
I suppose I am at liberty to go. Yes. Harker started to leave,
but paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit of
his profession was strong in him, stronger than his sense of personal dignity.
He turned about and said the book that you have there, I recognize it
as Morgan's diary. He seemed greatly interested in it. You read in it
while I was testifying. May I see it? The public would like the
book? Will cut no figure in this matter, replied the fishal, slipping
it into his coat pocket. All the entrees in it were made before the
writer's death. As Harker passed out of the house, the jury re entered
and stood about the table on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet
with sharp definition. The four men seated himself near the candle, produced from
his breast pocket as pencil and scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the
following verdict, which, with various degrees of effort, all signed. We
the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands
of a mountain lion. But some of us thinks all the same they had
fits four in the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries,
having possibly a scientific value, as suggestions at the inquest upon his body,
the book was not put in evidence. Possibly the coroner thought it not worth
while to confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned
cannot be ascertained. The upper part of the leaf is torn away. The
part of the entry remaining is as follows would run in a half circle,
keeping its head turned always toward the center, and again he would stand still,
barking furiously. At last he ran away into the brush as fast as
he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but
on returning to the house, found no other alteration in his manner than what
was obviously due to fear of punishment. Can a dog see with his nose
do odors impress some olfactory center with images of the thing emitting them? September
two, Looking at the stars last night, as they rose above the crest
of the ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappear from left
to right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at
the same time. But along the entire length of the ridge, all that
were within a degree or two of the crest were blotted out. It was
as if something had passed along between me and them, but I could not
see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its outline.
I don't like this. Several weeks, as entries are missing, three leaves
being torn from the book. September twenty seven. It has been about here
I find evidences of its presence every day. I watched again all of last
night in the same cover, gun in hand, double charged with a buckshot.
In the morning, the fresh footprints were there as before. Yet I
would have sworn that I did not sleep, indeed, are hardly sleep at
all. It is terrible, insupportable. If these amazing experiences are real,
I shall go mad. If they are fanciful, I am mad already.
October three. I shall not go. It shall not drive me away.
No, this is my house, my land. God hates a coward.
October five. I can stand it no longer. I have invited Harker to
pass a few weeks with me. He has a level head. I can
judge from his manner if he thinks me mad. October seven. I have
the solution of the problem. It came to me last night suddenly, as
by revelation. How simple, how terribly simple. There are sounds that we
cannot hear. At either end of the scale are notes that stir no chord
of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too high or too
grave, I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire tree top,
the tops of several trees, and all in full song. Suddenly, in
a moment that absolutely the same instant, all spring into the air and fly
away. How they could not all see one another, whole tree tops intervened.
At no point could a leader have been visible to all. There must
have been a signal of warning or command, high and shrill above the din,
but by me unheard. I have observed too the same simultaneous flight when
all were silent, among not only blackbirds, but other birds, quail,
for example, widely separated by bushes, even on opposite sides of a hill.
It is known to see men that a school of whales basking or sporting
on the surface of the ocean, miles apart, with a convexity of the
earth between them, will sometimes dive at the same instant, all gone out
of sight in a moment. The signal has been sounded too grave for the
ear of the sailor at the mast head and its comrades on the deck,
who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship. As the stones of a cathedral
are stirred by the base of the organ. As with sounds, so with
colors. At each end of the solar spectrum. The chemists can detect the
presence of what are known as actinic rays. They represent colors, integral colors
in the composition of light, which we are unable to discern. The human
eye is an imperfect instrument. Its range is but a few octaves of the
real chromatic scale. I am not mad. They are colors that we cannot
see, and God help me, the damned things of such a color,
end of the damned thing