The First Algernon Blackwood MEGAPACK ®. Algernon Blackwood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ at the end of the passage, the porter managed to find and produce the key in question. Neither he nor the girl knew clearly what this excited Englishman was up to, or why he was so passionately intent upon opening the cupboard at two o’clock in the morning. They watched him with an air of wondering what was going to happen next. But something of his curious earnestness, even of his late fear, communicated itself to them, and the sound of the key grating in the lock made them both jump.

      They held their breath as the creaking door swung slowly open. All heard the clatter of that other key as it fell against the wooden floor within. the cupboard had been locked from the inside. “But it was the scared housemaid, from her position in the corridor, who first saw and with a wild scream fell crashing against the bannisters.

      The porter made no attempt to save her. the schoolmaster and himself made a simultaneous rush towards the door, now wide open. They, too, had seen.

      There were no clothes, skirts or blouses on the pegs, but, all by itself, from an iron hook in the center, they saw the body of the Englishwoman hanging by the neck, the head bent horribly forwards, the tongue protruding. Jarred by the movement of unlocking, the body swung slowly round to face them.… Pinned upon the inside of the door was a hotel envelope with the following words pencilled in straggling writing:

      “Tired—unhappy—hopelessly depressed.… I cannot face life any longer.… All is black. I must put an end to it.… I meant to do it on the mountains, but was afraid. I slipped back to my room unobserved. This way is easiest and best.…”

      A HAUNTED ISLAND

      The following events occurred on a small island of isolated position in a large Canadian lake, to whose cool waters the inhabitants of Montreal and Toronto flee for rest and recreation in the hot months. It is only to be regretted that events of such peculiar interest to the genuine student of the psychical should be entirely uncorroborated. Such unfortunately, however, is the case.

      Our own party of nearly twenty had returned to Montreal that very day, and I was left in solitary possession for a week or two longer, in order to accomplish some important “reading” for the law which I had foolishly neglected during the summer.

      It was late in September, and the big trout and maskinonge were stirring themselves in the depths of the lake, and beginning slowly to move up to the surface waters as the north winds and early frosts lowered their temperature. Already the maples were crimson and gold, and the wild laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that never knew their strange cry in the summer.

      With a whole island to oneself, a two-storey cottage, a canoe, and only the chipmunks, and the farmer’s weekly visit with eggs and bread, to disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading might be very great. It all depends!

      The rest of the party had gone off with many warnings to beware of Indians, and not to stay late enough to be the victim of a frost that thinks nothing of forty below zero. After they had gone, the loneliness of the situation made itself unpleasantly felt. There were no other islands within six or seven miles, and though the mainland forests lay a couple of miles behind me, they stretched for a very great distance unbroken by any signs of human habitation. But, though the island was completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees that had echoed human laughter and voices almost every hour of the day for two months could not fail to retain some memories of it all; and I was not surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as I passed from rock to rock, and more than once to imagine that I heard my own name called aloud.

      In the cottage there were six tiny little bedrooms divided from one another by plain unvarnished partitions of pine. A wooden bedstead, a mattress, and a chair, stood in each room, but I only found two mirrors, and one of these was broken.

      The boards creaked a good deal as I moved about, and the signs of occupation were so recent that I could hardly believe I was alone. I half expected to find someone left behind, still trying to crowd into a box more than it would hold. the door of one room was stiff, and refused for a moment to open, and it required very little persuasion to imagine someone was holding the handle on the inside, and that when it opened I should meet a pair of human eyes.

      A thorough search of the floor led me to select as my own sleeping quarters a little room with a diminutive balcony over the verandah roof. the room was very small, but the bed was large, and had the best mattress of them all. It was situated directly over the sitting-room where I should live and do my “reading,” and the miniature window looked out to the rising sun. With the exception of a narrow path which led from the front door and verandah through the trees to the boat-landing, the island was densely covered with maples, hemlocks, and cedars. the trees gathered in round the cottage so closely that the slightest wind made the branches scrape the roof and tap the wooden walls. A few moments after sunset the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards beyond the glare of the lamps that shone through the sitting-room windows—of which there were four—you could not see an inch before your nose, nor move a step without running up against a tree.

      The rest of that day I spent moving my belongings from my tent to the sitting-room, taking stock of the contents of the larder, and chopping enough wood for the stove to last me for a week. After that, just before sunset, I went round the island a couple of times in my canoe for precaution’s sake. I had never dreamed of doing this before, but when a man is alone he does things that never occur to him when he is one of a large party.

      How lonely the island seemed when I landed again! the sun was down, and twilight is unknown in these northern regions. the darkness comes up at once. the canoe safely pulled up and turned over on her face, I groped my way up the little narrow pathway to the verandah. the six lamps were soon burning merrily in the front room; but in the kitchen, where I “dined,” the shadows were so gloomy, and the lamplight was so inadequate, that the stars could be seen peeping through the cracks between the rafters.

      I turned in early that night. Though it was calm and there was no wind, the creaking of my bedstead and the musical gurgle of the water over the rocks below were not the only sounds that reached my ears. As I lay awake, the appalling emptiness of the house grew upon me. the corridors and vacant rooms seemed to echo innumerable footsteps, shufflings, the rustle of skirts, and a constant undertone of whispering. When sleep at length overtook me, the breathings and noises, however, passed gently to mingle with the voices of my dreams.

      A week passed by, and the “reading” progressed favorably. On the tenth day of my solitude, a strange thing happened. I awoke after a good night’s sleep to find myself possessed with a marked repugnance for my room. the air seemed to stifle me. the more I tried to define the cause of this dislike, the more unreasonable it appeared. There was something about the room that made me afraid. Absurd as it seems, this feeling clung to me obstinately while dressing, and more than once I caught myself shivering, and conscious of an inclination to get out of the room as quickly as possible. the more I tried to laugh it away, the more real it became; and when at last I was dressed, and went out into the passage, and downstairs into the kitchen, it was with feelings of relief, such as I might imagine would accompany one’s escape from the presence of a dangerous contagious disease.

      While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled every night spent in the room, in the hope that I might in some way connect the dislike I now felt with some disagreeable incident that had occurred in it. But the only thing I could recall was one stormy night when I suddenly awoke and heard the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that I was convinced there were people in the house. So certain was I of this, that I had descended the stairs, gun in hand, only to find the doors and windows securely fastened, and the mice and black-beetles in sole possession of the floor. This was certainly not sufficient to account for the strength of my feelings.

      The morning hours I spent in steady reading; and when I broke off in the middle of the day for a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised, if not a little СКАЧАТЬ