Speaker 1: 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 one
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 beetles, and all that mysterious
chorus of small sounds that seem 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 berth 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 as 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. He 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. You knew the deceased Hugh Morgan, Yes, you
are 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
solitaire 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 adjust 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 chapparal
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 chapparral,
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 eminent peril. Oh come, I said, you are
not going to fill up a deer with quail shot,
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 grisly. I advanced
to Morgan's side, cocking my piece 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 his unfamiliar and unaccountable phenomenon. Yet
I am unable to recall any sense of fear. I
remember and til 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 in 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 may 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, and 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 z 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 couldnot otherwise express it. Then
a shifting of his position would bring it all into
view again. All this must have occurred within a few seconds,
Yet in that time Morgan assuemed 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 throat
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 uninterrusted. 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 official,
slipping it into his coat pocket. All the entries 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 worthwhile
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 again. 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, I 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
cord 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 seamen that a school of whales
basking or sporting on the surface of the ocean, miles apart,
with the 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 his 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. There are colors that we cannot see, and
God help me, the damned things of such a color,
end of the damned thing