The Last Tenant. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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СКАЧАТЬ exclaimed my wife. "No wonder the landlord was indignant with the last tenant."

      In due course we found ourselves on the second floor, and we stood in a large room, the windows of which faced the garden in the rear. I had opened the door of this room with difficulty, and the moment we entered it slammed to, which I ascribed to the wind blowing through some broken panes. By this time I perceived plainly that my wife's spirits were down to zero, and I was comforted by the reflection that looking over a house so wretched, so forlorn, so woe-begone, would, after all we had gone through, be the last straw that would break the back of her determination to move. We had been in the house about half an hour, and nothing but her indomitable spirit had sustained her in the trying ordeal.

      In the room in which we were now standing there were two bell-pulls; one was broken, the other appeared to be in workable condition. It was not to prove this, but out of an idle humor as I thought at the time-though I was afterward inclined to change my opinion, and to ascribe the action to a spiritual impulse-that I stepped to the unbroken bell-pull, and gave it a jerk. It is not easy to describe what followed. Bells jangled and tolled and clanged as though I had set in motion a host in of infernal and discordant tongues of metal, and had raised the dead from their graves to take part in the harsh concert, for indeed there seemed to be something horribly fiendish, in the discord, which was at once hoarse, strident, shrill, and sepulchral, and finally resolved itself into a low, muffled wail which ran through the house like a funereal peal. With the exception of our own voices and footsteps and the slamming of the doors we had opened and shut, these were the only sounds we had heard, and they brought a chill to our hearts.

      "How awful!" whispered my wife.

      I nodded, and held up my hand. The last echo of the bells had died away, and now there came another sound, so startling and appalling that my wife clutched me in terror.

      "My God!" she cried; "someone is coming upstairs!"

      CHAPTER VI.

      THE ANSWER TO THE BELL

      We stood transfixed with fear.

      As I have said, we were on the second floor, and the sound which now filled us with apprehension proceeded from the lower part of the house. It was very faint, and I judged-though in such circumstances but small reliance could be placed upon any judgment I may have formed-that if human feet produced it they must have been encased in soft shoes or slippers. It has ever since been to me a matter for wonder how a sound so fine could have reached our ears from that distance. It must have been that our senses, refined instead of dulled by the despair which held us spellbound, were preternaturally sharpened to catch the note of warning which at any other time would have been inaudible.

      At the moment, therefore, of my wife's frenzied exclamation I inferred that the feet had left the kitchen and were on the stairs leading from the basement to the hall. If my surmise was correct there were still two flights of stairs to ascend before the full horror of the incident would be revealed to us.

      I have described the impression produced upon me when we first turned into Lamb's Terrace, of being, as it were, cut off from the world. There was not an inhabited house near us. We had not seen a human being in the thoroughfare, and, as the prospect, from the windows of the room in which we now stood, stretched across a bare and desolate waste of ground, there was absolutely no hope of any helpful response being made to our appeals for assistance.

      The possibilities of the peril in which we had placed ourselves presented themselves vividly to my agitated mind. The house, having been for so many years deserted by its proper tenant, might have become the haunt of desperate characters who would shrink from no deed, however ruthless, to secure their safety; who might even hail with satisfaction the intrusion of respectable persons who had unconsciously put themselves in their power. Supposing that these evil-doers were concealed in the lower rooms when we entered, they could rob and murder us with little fear of discovery. But there was also the consoling reflection that they might be in the house with no sinister designs, and that their only anxiety now was to escape from a building into which they had made an unlawful entrance. This would soon be put to the proof. If, when they were on the landing of the ground floor, we heard the street door open and shut, the fears which oppressed us would be dispelled, and we should be able to breathe freely.

      I perceived that my wife was animated by a similar hope, and we both strained our ears in the endeavor to follow with our terrified senses the progress of the sound.

      It ceased awhile on the ground floor, and we listened in agonized suspense for the click of a latch and the harsh creak of rusty hinges, but no such comforting sounds reached our ears, and presently the dead silence was broken by the soft pit-pat of footsteps on the stairs leading to the first floor. My wife's hold upon me tightened.

      "We are lost!" she moaned. "What shall we do-oh, what shall we do?"

      I had no weapon about me with the exception of a small penknife, which was practically useless in such an encounter as that in which I expected soon to be engaged. A peaceful citizen like myself had no need to carry weapons. I looked around the room for one. There was not an article of furniture in it-not a stick. I would have given the world for an ax or a piece of iron with which I could have made some kind of defense. We were absolutely helpless and powerless, and it was my terror that made me certain that we were threatened by more than one enemy. To go from the room and meet the persons who were advancing toward us would be an act of madness, and would in all probability but hasten our fate. We must remain where we were, and wait for events; no reasonable alternative was open to us.

      Pat, pat, pat, came the sound to our ears; nearer, nearer, nearer; not boldly, as if those from whom it proceeded were engaged upon an open and honest mission, but stealthily and covertly, as though they desired all knowledge of their movements to be concealed from their victims.

      The footsteps had now reached the landing of the first floor and, after another deathlike pause, commenced to ascend the stairs which led directly to us.

      "Can't you do something, Edward?" whispered my agonized wife, wringing her hands. "Can't you lock the door?"

      It is strange that the fact of the door being unlocked had not occurred to me before. I rushed to it instantly, and a sigh of intense relief escaped me at finding the key in the lock. I turned it like lightning, and we were so far safe. Then my wife flew to the window, and, throwing it open, began to scream for help-that is to say, she would have screamed if she had had the power, but her voice was almost frozen in her throat, and the sounds that issued from her were of a ravenlike hoarseness, and could have traveled but a few yards; too short a distance in our lonely situation to be of any practical value. Soon I added my shouts to her hoarse scream. They were sent forth to a dead world; to our frantic appeals no answer was made.

      Meanwhile, occupied as I was, I could still pay some attention to what was passing on the stairs that led to the room. I had indulged in a faint hope that our cries would alarm those without, and would induce them to forego their murderous attack upon us, but the stealthy pat, pat, pat of the footsteps continued, and were now in the middle of the staircase; there could be but a few more stairs to ascend. Still another hope remained-that when the footsteps reached the second landing they would proceed onward to the top of the house. This last hope, like those which had preceded it, was not fulfilled. Nearer, nearer, nearer they approached, until they were close to the door; then there was another pause; no further sounds were heard.

      My impression now was that the villains who had a design against us-for by this time I entertained no doubt of their diabolical purpose, and that we were in the direst peril-were making preparations to carry it into effect. Presently they would try the handle of the door, and, discovering that it was locked, would burst it open and spring upon us.

      A long and awful silence СКАЧАТЬ