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Full text of "Can such things be?"

CAN SUCH 
THINGS BE? 



BY 



AMBROSE BIERCE 




BONI & LIVERIGHT 
NEW YORK 1918 



$ 

c. 



COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 



CAN SUCH THINGS BE? 



I o 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CAN SUCH THINGS BE? 
THE DEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER . . . .13 

THE SECRET OF MACARGER S GULCH .... 44 

ONE SUMMER NIGHT ....... 58 

THE MOONLIT ROAD . . ..... 6z 

A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH ...... 81 

MOXON S MASTER ....... 88 

A TOUGH TUSSLE ....... 106 

ONE OF TWINS . ...... 112 

THE HAUNTED VALLEY ...... 134 

A JUG OF SIRUP . . ...... 155 

STALEY FLEMING S HALLUCINATION . . . .169 

A RESUMED IDENTITY ........ 174 

A BABY TRAMP ........ 185 

THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT " DEADMAN S " . . . . 194 

BEYOND THE WALL . . ..... 210 

A PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK ..... 227 

THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT FOOT . . .235 
JOHN MORTONSON S FUNERAL ..... 252 

THE REALM OF THE UNREAL ..... 255 

JOHN BARTINE S WATCH ...... 268 

THE DAMNED THING ....... 280 

HAITI THE SHEPHERD . . . . . .297 

AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA ..... 308 

THE STRANGER ........ 315 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE WAYS OF GHOSTS 

PRESENT AT A HANGING . . . . . 327 

A COLD GREETING 331 

A WIRELESS- MESSAGE 335 

AN ARREST 340 

SOLDIER-FOLK 

A MAN WITH Two LIVES 345 

THREE AND ONE ARE ONE . . , . . .350 

A BAFFLED AMBUSCADE 356 

Two MILITARY EXECUTIONS 361 

SOME HAUNTED HOUSES 

THE ISLE OF PINES 369 

A FRUITLESS ASSIGNMENT 377 

A VINE ON A HOUSE 383 

AT OLD MAN ECKERT S 389 

THE SPOOK HOUSE ....... 393 

THE OTHER LODGERS . 400 

THE THING AT NOLAN 405 

THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD . . .415 

AN UNFINISHED RACE 419 

CHARLES ASHMORE S TRAIL 421 



CAN SUCH THINGS BE? 



THE DEATH OF HALPIN FRAYSER 



For by death is wrought greater change than hath been 
shown. Whereas in general the spirit that removed 
cometh back upon occasion, and is sometimes seen of those 
in flesh (appearing in the form of the body it bore) yet 
it hath happened that the veritable body without the 
spirit hath walked. And it is attested of those encounter 
ing who have lived to speak thereon that a lich so raised 
up hath no natural affection, nor remembrance thereof, 
but only hate. Also, it is known that some spirits which 
in life were benign become by death evil altogether. 
Hall 

ONE dark night in midsummer a 
man waking from a dreamless 
sleep in a forest lifted his head 
from the earth, and staring a few 
moments into the blackness, said: " Catherine 
Larue." He said nothing more; no reason 
was known to him why he should have said 
so much. 

The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived 
in St. Helena, but where he lives now is un 
certain, for he is dead. One who practices 



14 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

sleeping in the woods with nothing under 
him but the dry leaves and the damp earth, 
and nothing over him but the branches from 
which the leaves have fallen and the sky from 
which the earth has fallen, cannot hope for 
great longevity, and Frayser had already at 
tained the age of thirty-two. There are per 
sons in this world, millions of persons, and 
far and away the best persons, who regard 
that as a very advanced age. They are the 
children. To those who view the voyage of 
life from the port of departure the bark that 
has accomplished any considerable distance 
appears already in close approach to the far 
ther shore. However, it is not certain that 
Halpin Frayser came to his death by expos 
ure. 

He had been all day in the hills west of 
the Napa Valley, looking for doves and such 
small game as was in season. Late in the aft 
ernoon it had come on to be cloudy, and he 
had lost his bearings; and although he had 
only to go always downhill everywhere the 
way to safety when one is lost the absence of 
trails had so impeded him that he was over 
taken by night while still in the forest. Un 
able in the darkness to penetrate the thickets 
of manzanita and other undergrowth, utterly 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 17 

gers; it was blood! Blood, he then observed, 
was about him everywhere. The weeds grow 
ing rankly by the roadside showed it in blots 
and splashes on their big, broad leaves. 
Patches of dry dust between the wheelways 
were pitted and spattered as with a red rain. 
Defiling the trunks of the trees were broad 
maculations of crimson, and blood dripped 
like dew from their foliage. 

All this he observed with a terror which 
seemed not incompatible with the fulfillment 
of a natural expectation. It seemed to him 
that it was all in expiation of some crime 
which, though conscious of his guilt, he could 
not rightly remember. To the menaces and 
mysteries of his surroundings the conscious 
ness was an added horror. Vainly he sought 
by tracing life backward in memory, to re 
produce the moment of his sin; scenes and in 
cidents came crowding tumultuously into his 
mind, one picture effacing another, or com 
mingling with it in confusion and obscurity, 
but nowhere could he catch a glimpse of what 
he sought. The failure augmented his terror; 
he felt as one who has murdered in the dark, 
not knowing whom nor why. So frightful was 
the situation the mysterious light burned 
with so silent and awful a menace; the noxious 



18 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

plants, the trees that by common consent are 
invested with a melancholy or baleful char 
acter, so openly in his sight conspired against 
his peace; from overhead and all about came 
so audible and startling whispers and the 
sighs of creatures so obviously not of earth- 
that he could endure it no longer, and with a 
great effort to break some malign spell that 
bound his faculties to silence and inaction, he 
shouted with the full strength of his lungs! 
His voice broken, it seemed, into an infinite 
multitude of unfamiliar sounds, went bab 
bling and stammering away into the distant 
reaches of the forest, died into silence, and all 
was as before. But he had made a beginning 
at resistance and was encouraged. He said: 

" I will not submit unheard. There may 
be powers that are not malignant traveling 
this accursed road. I shall leave them a rec 
ord and an appeal. I shall relate my wrongs, 
the persecutions that I endure I, a helpless 
mortal, a penitent, an unoffending poet!" 
Halpin Frayser was a poet only as he was a 
penitent: in his dream. 

Taking from his clothing a small red- 
leather pocketbook, one-half of which was 
leaved for memoranda, he discovered that he 
was without a pencil. He broke a twig from a 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 19 

bush, dipped it into a pool of blood and wrote 
rapidly. He had hardly touched the paper 
with the point of his twig when a low, wild 
peal of laughter broke out at a measureless 
distance away, and growing ever louder, 
seemed approaching ever nearer; a soulless, 
heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of 
the loon, solitary by the lakeside at midnight; 
a laugh which culminated in an unearthly 
shout close at hand, then died away by slow 
gradations, as if the accursed being that ut 
tered it had withdrawn over the verge of the 
world whence it had come. But the man felt 
that this was not so that it was near by and 
had not moved. 

A strange sensation began slowly to take 
possession of his body and his mind. He 
could not have said which, if any, of his 
senses was affected ; he felt it rather as a con 
sciousness a mysterious mental assurance of 
some overpowering presence some supernat 
ural malevolence different in kind from the 
invisible existences that swarmed about him, 
and superior to them in power. He knew 
that it had uttered that hideous laugh. And 
now it seemed to be approaching him; from 
what direction he did not know dared not 
conjecture. All his former fears were for- 



20 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

gotten or merged in the gigantic tenor that 
now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he 
had but one thought: to complete his written 
appeal to the benign powers who, traversing 
the haunted wood, might some time rescue 
him if he should be denied the blessing of 
annihilation. He wrote with terrible rapid 
ity, the twig in his fingers rilling blood with 
out renewal; but in the middle of a sentence 
his hands denied their service to his will, his 
arms fell to his sides, the book to the earth ; 
and powerless to move or cry out, he found 
himself staring into the sharply drawn face 
and blank, dead eyes of his own mother, stand 
ing white and silent in the garments of the 
grave! 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 21 



II 

IN his youth Halpin Frayser had lived 
with his parents in Nashville, Tennes 
see. The Fraysers were well-to-do, 
having a good position in such society 
as had survived the wreck wrought by civil 
war. Their children had the social and edu 
cational opportunities of their time and place, 
and had responded to good associations and 
instruction with agreeable manners and culti 
vated minds. Halpin being the youngest and 
not over robust was perhaps a trifle " spoiled." 
He had the double disadvantage of a 
mother s assiduity and a father s neglect. 
Frayser pere was what no Southern man of 
means is not a politician. His country, or 
rather his section and State, made demands 
upon his time and attention so exacting that 
to those of his family he was compelled to 
turn an ear partly deafened by the thunder 
of the political captains and the shouting, his 
own included. 

Young Halpin was of a dreamy, indolent 
and rather romantic turn, somewhat more 



22 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

addicted to literature than law, the profession 
to which he was bred. Among those of his 
relations who professed the modern faith of 
heredity it was well understood that in him 
the character of the late Myron Bayne, a ma 
ternal great-grandfather, had revisited the 
glimpses of the moon by which orb Bayne 
had in his lifetime been sufficiently affected 
to be a poet of no small Colonial distinction. 
If not specially observed, it was observable 
that while a Frayser who was not the proud 
possessor of a sumptuous copy of the ances 
tral "poetical works" (printed at the family 
expense, and long ago withdrawn from an in 
hospitable market) was a rare Frayser in 
deed, there was an illogical indisposition to 
honor the great deceased in the person of his 
spiritual successor. Halpin was pretty gen 
erally deprecated as an intellectual black sheep 
who was likely at any moment to disgrace the 
flock by bleating in meter. The Tennessee 
Fraysers were a practical folk not practical 
in the popular sense of devotion to sordid pur 
suits, but having a robust contempt for any 
qualities unfitting a man for the wholesome 
vocation of politics. 

In justice to young Halpin it should be said 
that while in him were pretty faithfully re- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 23 

produced most of the mental and moral char 
acteristics ascribed by history and family tra 
dition to the famous Colonial bard, his suc 
cession to the gift and faculty divine was 
purely inferential. Not only had he never 
been known to court the muse, but in truth he 
could not have written correctly a line of 
verse to save himself from the Killer of the 
Wise. Still, there was no knowing when 
the dormant faculty might wake and smite 
the lyre. 

In the meantime the young man was rather 
a loose fish, anyhow. Between him and his 
mother was the most perfect sympathy, for 
secretly the lady was herself a devout disciple 
of the late and great Myron Bayne, though 
with the tact so generally and justly admired 
in her sex (despite the hardy calumniators 
who insist that it is essentially the same thing 
as cunning) she had always taken care to con 
ceal her weakness from all eyes but those of 
him who shared it. Their common guilt in 
respect of that w r as an added tie between them. 
If in Halpin s youth his mother had 
"spoiled" him, he had assuredly done his 
part toward being spoiled. As he grew to 
such manhood as is attainable by a Southerner 
who does not care which way elections go 



24 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the attachment between him and his beautiful 
mother whom from early childhood he had 
called Katy became yearly stronger and 
more tender. In these two romantic natures 
was manifest in a signal way that neglected 
phenomenon, the dominance of the sexual ele 
ment in all the relations of life, strengthening, 
softening, and beautifying even those of con 
sanguinity. The two were nearly inseparable, 
and by strangers observing their manner were 
not infrequently mistaken for lovers. 

Entering his mother s boudoir one day Hal- 
pin Frayser kissed her upon the forehead, 
toyed for a moment with a lock of her dark 
hair which had escaped from its confining 
pins, and said, with an obvious effort at calm 
ness: 

"Would you greatly mind, Katy, if I were 
called away to California for a few weeks?" 

It was hardly needful for Katy to answer 
with her lips a question to which her telltale 
cheeks had made instant reply. Evidently 
she would greatly mind; and the tears, too, 
sprang into her large brown eyes as corrobor 
ative testimony. 

" Ah, my son," she said, looking up into his 
face with infinite tenderness, " I should have 
known that this was coming. Did I not 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 25 

lie awake a half of the night weeping 
because, during the other half, Grand 
father Bayne had come to me in a dream, 
and standing by his portrait young, too, 
and handsome as that pointed to yours 
on the same wall? And when I looked it 
seemed that I could not see the features; 
you had been painted with a face cloth, such 
as we put upon the dead. Your father has 
laughed at me, but you and I, dear, know that 
such things are not for nothing. And I saw 
below the edge of the cloth the marks of hands 
on your throat forgive me, but we have not 
been used to keep such things from each 
other. Perhaps you have another interpre 
tation. Perhaps it does not mean that you 
will go to California. Or maybe you will 
take me with you?" 

It must be confessed that this ingenious in 
terpretation of the dream in the light of newly 
discovered evidence did not wholly commend 
itself to the son s more logical mind; he had, 
for the moment at least, a conviction that it 
foreshadowed a more simple and immediate, 
if less tragic, disaster than a visit to the Pa 
cific Coast. It was Halpin Frayser s impres 
sion that he was to be garroted on his native 
heath. 



26 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"Are there not medicinal springs in Cali 
fornia?" Mrs. Frayser resumed before he 
had time to give her the true reading of the 
dream "places where one recovers from 
rheumatism and neuralgia? Look my fin 
gers feel so stiff; and I am almost sure they 
have been giving me great pain while I 
slept." 

She held out her hands for his inspection. 
What diagnosis of her case the young man 
may have thought it best to conceal with a 
smile the historian is unable to state, but for 
himself he feels bound to say that fingers 
looking less stiff, and showing fewer evidences 
of even insensible pain, have seldom been 
submitted for medical inspection by even the 
fairest patient desiring a prescription of un 
familiar scenes. 

The outcome of it was that of these two odd 
persons having equally odd notions of duty, 
the one went to California, as the interest of 
his client required, and the other remained 
at home in compliance with a wish that her 
husband was scarcely conscious of entertain 
ing. 

While in San Francisco Halpin Frayser 
was walking one dark night along the water 
front of the city, when, with a suddenness 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 27 

that surprised and disconcerted him, he be 
came a sailor. He was in fact "shanghaied" 
aboard a gallant, gallant ship, and sailed for 
a far countree. Nor did his misfortunes 
end with the voyage; for the ship was cast 
ashore on an island of the South Pacific, and 
it was six years afterward when the survivors 
were taken off by a venturesome trading 
schooner and brought back to San Francisco. 
Though poor in purse, Frayser was no less 
proud in spirit than he had been in the years 
that seemed ages and ages ago. He would 
accept no assistance from strangers, and it was 
while living with a fellow survivor near the 
town of St. Helena, awaiting news and remitt 
ances from home, that he had gone gunning 
and dreaming. 



28 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



III 

THE apparition confronting the 
dreamer in the haunted wood 
the thing so like, yet so unlike his 
mother was horrible! It stirred 
no love nor longing in his heart; it came un 
attended with pleasant memories of a golden 
past inspired no sentiment of any kind ; all 
the finer emotions were swallowed up in fear. 
He tried to turn and run from before it, but 
his legs were as lead; he was unable to lift 
his feet from the ground. His arms hung 
helpless at his sides; of his eyes only he re 
tained control, and these he dared not remove 
from the lusterless orbs of the apparition, 
which he knew was not a soul without a body, 
but that most dreadful of all existences infest 
ing that haunted wood a body without a 
soul! In its blank stare was neither love, nor 
pity, nor intelligence nothing to which to 
address an appeal for mercy. "An appeal 
will not lie," he thought, with an absurd re 
version to professional slang, making the sit 
uation more horrible, as the fire of a cigar 
might light up a tomb. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 29 

For a time, which seemed so long that the 
world grew gray with age and sin, and the 
haunted forest, having fulfilled its purpose in 
this monstrous culmination of its terrors, van 
ished out of his consciousness with all its 
sights and sounds, the apparition stood within 
a pace, regarding him with the mindless 
malevolence of a wild brute; then thrust its 
hands forward and sprang upon him with ap 
palling ferocity! The act released his phys 
ical energies without unfettering his will ; his 
mind was still spellbound, but his powerful 
body and agile limbs, endowed with a blind, 
insensate life of their own, resisted stoutly and 
well. For an instant he seemed to see this un 
natural contest between a dead intelligence 
and a breathing mechanism only as a spect 
ator such fancies are in dreams; then he 
regained his identity almost as if by a leap 
forward into his body, and the straining auto 
maton had a directing will as alert and fierce 
as that of its hideous antagonist. 

But what mortal can cope with a creature 
of his dream? The imagination creating the 
enemy is already vanquished; the combat s 
result is the combat s cause. Despite his strug 
gles despite his strength and activity, which 
seemed wasted in a void, he felt the cold fin- 



30 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

gers close upon his throat. Borne backward 
to the earth, he saw above him the dead and 
drawn face within a hand s breadth of his 
own, and then all was black. A sound as of 
the beating of distant drums a murmur of 
swarming voices, a sharp, far cry signing all 
to silerice, and Halpin Frayser dreamed that 
he was dead. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 31 



IV 

A "ARM, clear night had been fol 
lowed by a morning of drenching 
fog. At about the middle of the 
afternoon of the preceding day a 
little whiff of light vapor a mere thickening 
of the atmosphere, the ghost of a cloud had 
been observed clinging to the western side of 
Mount St. Helena, away up along the barren 
altitudes near the summit. It was so thin, so 
diaphanous, so like a fancy made visible, that 
one would have said: "Look quickly! in a 
moment it will be gone." 

In a moment it was visibly larger and 
denser. While with one edge it clung to the 
mountain, with the other it reached farther 
and farther out into the air above the lower 
slopes. At the same time it extended itself to 
north and south, joining small patches of mist 
that appeared to come out of the mountain 
side on exactly the same level, with an intel 
ligent design to be absorbed. And so it grew 
and grew until the summit was shut out of 



32 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

view from the valley, and over the valley it 
self was an ever-extending canopy, opaque 
and gray. At Calistoga, which lies near the 
head of the valley and the foot of the mount 
ain, there were a starless night and a sunless 
morning. The fog, sinking into the valley, 
had reached southward, swallowing up ranch 
after ranch, until it had blotted out the town 
of St. Helena, nine miles away. The dust in 
the road was laid; trees were adrip with 
moisture; birds sat silent in their coverts; the 
morning light was wan and ghastly, with 
neither color nor fire. 

Two men left the town of St. Helena at 
the first glimmer of dawn, and walked along 
the road northward up the valley toward 
Calistoga. They carried guns on their shoul 
ders, yet no one having knowledge of such 
matters could have mistaken them for hunters 
of bird or beast. They were a deputy sheriff 
from Napa and a detective from San Fran 
cisco Holker and Jaralson, respectively. 
Their business was man-hunting. 

" How far is it? " inquired Holker, as they 
strode along, their feet stirring white the dust 
beneath the damp surface of the road. 

"The White Church? Only a half mile 
farther," the other answered. " By the way," 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 33 

he added, " it is neither white nor a church ; it 
is an abandoned schoolhouse, gray with age 
and neglect. Religious services were once 
held in it when it was white, and there is a 
graveyard that would delight a poet. Can 
you guess why I sent for you, and told you 
to come heeled ?" 

" Oh, I never have bothered you about 
things of that kind. Fve always found you 
communicative when the time came. But if 
I may hazard a guess, you want me to help 
you arrest one of the corpses in the grave 
yard." 

"You remember Branscom?" said Jaral- 
son, treating his companion s wit with the in 
attention that it deserved. 

"The chap who cut his wife s throat? "I 
ought; I wasted a week s work on him and 
had my expenses for my trouble. There is a 
reward of five hundred dollars, but none of 
us ever got a sight of him. You don t mean 
to say " 

"Yes, I do. He has been under the noses 
of you fellows all the time. He comes by 
night to the old graveyard at the White 
Church." 

" The devil! That s where they buried his 
wife." 



34 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"Well, you fellows might have had sense 
enough to suspect that he would return to her 
grave some time." 

"The very last place that anyone would 
have expected him to return to." 

"But you had exhausted all the other 
places. Learning your failure at them, I 
Maid for him there." 

"And you found him?" 

"Damn it! he found me. The rascal got 
the drop on me regularly held me up and 
made me travel. It s God s mercy that he 
didn t go through me. Oh, he s a good one, 
and I fancy the half of that reward is enough 
for me if you re needy." 

Holker laughed good humoredly, and ex 
plained that his creditors were never more 
importunate. * 

" I wanted merely to show you the ground, 
and arrange a plan with you," the detective 
explained. " I thought it as well for us to be 
heeled, even in daylight." 

" The man must be insane," said the deputy 
sheriff. "The reward is for his capture and 
conviction. If he s mad he won t be con 
victed." 

Mr. Holker was so profoundly affected by 
that possible failure of justice that he involunt- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 35 

arily stopped in the middle of the road, then 
resumed his walk with abated zeal. 

"Well, he looks it," assented Jaralson. 
"I m bound to admit that a more unshaven, 
unshorn, unkempt, and uneverything wretch I 
never saw outside the ancient and honorable 
order of tramps. But I ve gone in for him, 
and can t make up my mind to let go. There s 
glory in it for us, anyhow. Not another soul 
knows that he is this side of the Mountains 
of the Moon." 

" All right," Holker said; "we will go and 
view the ground," and he added, in the words 
of a once favorite inscription for tombstones : 
" where you must shortly lie I mean, if 
old Branscom ever gets tired of you and your 
impertinent intrusion. By the way, I heard 
the other day that Branscom was not his 
real name." 

"What is?" 

" I can t recall it. I had lost all interest in 
the wretch, and it did not fix itself in my 
memory something like Pardee. The wo 
man whose throat he had the bad taste to cut 
was a widow when he met her. She had 
come to California to look up some relatives 
there are persons who will do that some 
times. But you know all that." 



36 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Naturally." 

" But not knowing the right name, by what 
happy inspiration did you find the right 
grave? The man who told me what the name 
was said it had been cut on the headboard." 

" I don t know the right grave." Jaralson 
was apparently a trifle reluctant to admit his 
ignorance of so important a point of his plan. 
" I have been watching about the place gen 
erally. A part of our work this morning will 
be to identify that grave. Here is the White 
Church." 

For a long distance the road had been bor 
dered by fields on both sides, but now on the 
left there was a forest of oaks, madronos, and 
gigantic spruces whose lower parts only could 
be seen, dim and ghostly in the fog. The un 
dergrowth was, in places, thick, but nowhere 
impenetrable. For some moments Holker 
saw nothing of the building, but as they 
turned into the woods it revealed itself in 
faint gray outline through the fog, looking 
huge and far away. A few steps more, and it 
was within an arm s length, distinct, dark 
with moisture, and insignificant in size. It 
had the usual country-schoolhouse form be 
longed to the packing-box order of architect 
ure; had an underpinning of stones, a moss- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 37 

grown roof, and blank window spaces, 
whence both glass and sash had long de 
parted. It was ruined, but not a ruin a 
typical Californian substitute for what are 
known to guide-bookers abroad as "monu 
ments of the past." With scarcely a glance at 
this uninteresting structure Jaralson moved 
on into the dripping undergrowth beyond. 

" I will show you where he held me up," 
he said. " This is the graveyard." 

Here and there among tne oushes were 
small inclosures containing graves, sometimes 
no more than one. They were recognized as 
graves by the discolored stones or rotting 
boards at head and foot, leaning at all angles, 
some prostrate; by the ruined picket fences 
surrounding them; or, infrequently, by the 
mound itself showing its gravel through the 
fallen leaves. In many instances nothing 
marked the spot where lay the vestiges of some 
poor mortal who, leaving " a large circle of 
sorrowing friends," had been left by them in 
turn except a depression in the earth, more 
lasting than that in the spirits of the mourners. 
The paths, if any paths had been, were long 
obliterated; trees of a considerable size had 
been permitted to grow up from the graves 
and thrust aside with root or branch the in- 



88 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

closing fences. Over all was that air of aban 
donment and decay which seems nowhere so 
fit and significant as in a village of the for 
gotten dead. 

As the two men, Jaralson leading, pushed 
their way through the growth of young trees, 
that enterprising man suddenly stopped and 
brought up his shotgun to the height of his 
breast, uttered a low note of warning, and 
stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon some 
thing ahead. As well as he could, obstructed 
by brush, his companion, though seeing 
nothing, imitated the posture and so stood, 
prepared for what might ensue. A moment 
later Jaralson moved cautiously forward, the 
other following. 

Under the branches of an enormous spruce 
lay the dead body of a man. Standing silent 
above it they noted such particulars as first 
strike the attention the face, the attitude, the 
clothing; whatever most promptly and plainly 
answers the unspoken question of a sympa 
thetic curiosity. 

The body lay upon its back, the legs wide 
apart. One arm was thrust upward, the other 
outward ; but the latter was bent acutely, and 
the hand was near the throat. Both hands 
were tightly clenched. The whole attitude 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 39 

was that of desperate but ineffectual resistance 
to what? 

Near by lay a shotgun and a game bag 
through the meshes of which was seen the 
plumage of shot birds. All about were evid 
ences of a furious struggle; small sprouts of 
poison-oak were bent and denuded of leaf 
and bark; dead and rotting leaves had been 
pushed into heaps and ridges on both sides 
of the legs by the action of other feet than 
theirs; alongside the hips were unmistakable 
impressions of human knees. 

The nature of the struggle was made clear 
by a glance at the dead man s throat and face. 
While breast and hands were white, those 
were purple almost black. The shoulders 
lay upon a low mound, and the head was 
turned back at an angle otherwise impossible, 
the expanded eyes staring blankly backward 
in a direction opposite to that of the feet. 
From the froth filling the open mouth the 
tongue protruded, black and swollen. The 
throat showed horrible contusions; not mere 
finger-marks, but bruises and lacerations 
wrought by two strong hands that must have 
buried themselves in the yielding flesh, main 
taining their terrible grasp until long after 
death. Breast, throat, face, were wet; the 



40 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

clothing was saturated; drops of water, con 
densed from the fog, studded the hair and 
mustache. 

All this the two men observed without 
speaking almost at a glance. Then Holker 
said: 

"Poor devil! he had a rough deal." 

Jaralson was making a vigilant circumspec 
tion of the forest, his shotgun held in both 
hands and at full cock, his finger upon the 
trigger. 

" The work of a maniac," he said, without 
withdrawing his eyes from the inclosing 
wood. " It was done by Branscom Pardee." 

Something half hidden by the disturbed 
leaves on the earth caught Holker s attention. 
It was a red-leather pocketbook. He picked 
it up and opened it. It contained leaves of 
white paper for memoranda, and upon the 
first leaf was the name " Halpin Frayser." 
Written in red on several succeeding leaves 
scrawled as if in haste and barely legible 
were the following lines, which Holker read 
aloud, while his companion continued scann 
ing the dim gray confines of their narrow 
world and hearing matter of apprehension in 
the drip of water from every burdened 
branch: 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 41 

" Enthralled by some mysterious spell, I stood 
In the lit gloom of an enchanted wood. 

The cypress there and myrtle twined their boughs, 
Significant, in baleful brotherhood. 

" The brooding willow whispered to the yew ; 
Beneath, the deadly nightshade and the rue, 
With immortelles self-woven into strange 
Funereal shapes, and horrid nettles grew. 

" No song of bird nor any drone of bees, 
Nor light leaf lifted by the wholesome breeze: 
The air was stagnant all, and Silence was 
A living thing that breathed among the trees. 

" Conspiring spirits whispered in the gloom, 
Half-heard, the stilly secrets of the tomb. 

With blood the trees were all adrip ; the leaves 
Shone in the witch-light with a ruddy bloom. 

" I cried aloud ! the spell, unbroken still, 
Rested upon my spirit and my will. 

Unsouled, unhearted, hopeless and forlorn, 
I strove with monstrous presages of ill! 

" At last the viewless " 

Holker ceased reading; there was no more 
to read. The manuscript broke off in the 
middle of a line. 

"That sounds like Bayne," said Jaralson, 
who was something of a scholar in his way. 



42 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

He had abated his vigilance and stood look 
ing down at the body. 

"Who s Bayne?" Holker asked rather in 
curiously. 

" Myron Bayne, a chap who flourished in 
the early years of the nation more than a 
century ago. Wrote mighty dismal stuff; I 
have his collected works. That poem is not 
among them, but it must have been omitted 
by mistake." 

"It is cold," said Holker; "let us leave 
here; we must have up the coroner from 
Napa." 

jaralson said nothing, but made a move 
ment in compliance. Passing the end of the 
slight elevation of earth upon which the dead 
man s head and shoulders lay, his foot struck 
some hard substance under the rotting forest 
leaves, and he took the trouble to kick it into 
view. It was a fallen headboard, and painted 
on it were the hardly decipherable words, 
" Catharine Larue." 

" Larue, Larue!" exclaimed Holker, with 
sudden animation. "Why, that is the real 
name of Branscom not Pardee. And bless 
my soul! how it all comes to me the mur 
dered woman s name had been Frayser!" 

"There is some rascally mystery here," said 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 43 

Detective Jaralson. " I hate anything of 
that kind." 

There came to them out of the fog seem 
ingly from a great distance the sound of a 
laugh, a low, deliberate, soulless laugh, which 
had no more of joy than that of a hyena night- 
prowling in the desert; a laugh that rose by 
slow gradation, louder and louder, clearer, 
more distinct and terrible, until it seemed 
barely outside the narrow circle of their vis 
ion; a laugh so unnatural, so unhuman, so 
devilish, that it filled those hardy man-hunters 
with a sense of dread unspeakable! They did 
not move their weapons nor think of them; 
the menace of that horrible sound was not of 
the kind to be met with arms. As it had 
grown out of silence, so now it died away; 
from a culminating shout which had seemed 
almost in their ears, it drew itself away into 
the distance, until its failing notes, joyless and 
mechanical to the last, sank to silence at a 
measureless remove. 



44 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THE SECRET OF MACARGER S 
GULCH 

NORTHWESTWARDLY from In 
dian Hill, about nine miles as the 
crow flies, is Macarger s Gulch. It 
is not much of a gulch a mere 
depression between two wooded ridges of in 
considerable height. From its mouth up to 
its head for gulches, like rivers, have an 
anatomy of their own the distance does not 
exceed two miles, and the width at bottom is 
at only one place more than a dozen yards; 
for most of the distance on either side of the 
little brook which drains it in winter, and 
goes dry in the early spring, there is no level 
ground at all; the steep slopes of the hills, 
covered with an almost impenetrable growth 
of manzanita and chemisal, are parted by 
nothing but the width of the water course. 
No one but an occasional enterprising hunter 
of the vicinity ever goes into Macarger s 
Gulch, and five miles away it is unknown, 
even by name. Within that distance in any 
direction are far more conspicuous topograph 
ical features without names, and one might 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 45 

try in vain to ascertain by local inquiry the 
origin of the name of this one. 

About midway between the head and the 
mouth of Macarger s Gulch, the hill on the 
right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, 
a short dry one, and at the junction of the two 
is a level space of two or three acres, and there 
a few years ago stood an old board house con 
taining one small room. How the component 
parts of the house, few and simple as they 
were, had been assembled at that almost in 
accessible point is a problem in the solution 
of which there would be greater satisfaction 
than advantage. Possibly the creek bed is 
a reformed road. It is certain that the gulch 
was at one time pretty thoroughly prospected 
by miners, who must have had some means 
of getting in with at least pack animals carry 
ing tools and supplies; their profits, appar 
ently, were not such as would have justified 
any considerable outlay to connect Macarger s 
Gulch with any center of civilization enjoy 
ing the distinction of a sawmill. The house, 
however, was there, most of it. It lacked a 
door and a window frame, and the chimney 
of mud and stones had fallen into an unlovely 
heap, overgrown with rank weeds. Such 
humble furniture as there may once have been 



46 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

and much of the lower weatherboarding, had 
served as fuel in the camp fires of hunters; 
as had also, probably, the curbing of an old 
well, which at the time I write of existed in 
the form of a rather wide but not very deep 
depression near by. 

One afternoon in the summer of 1874, I 
passed up Macarger s Gulch from the narrow 
valley into which it opens, by following the 
dry bed of the brook. I was quail-shooting 
and had made a bag of about a dozen birds 
by the time I had reached the house described, 
of whose existence I was until then unaware. 
After rather carelessly inspecting the ruin I 
resumed my sport, and having fairly good 
success prolonged it until near sunset, when 
it occurred to me that I was a long way from 
any human habitation too far to reach one 
by nightfall. But in my game bag was food, 
and the old house would afford shelter, if 
shelter were needed on a warm and dewless 
night in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, 
where one may sleep in comfort on the pine 
needles, without covering. I am fond of soli 
tude and love the night, so my resolution to 
"camp out" was soon taken, and by the time 
that it was dark I had made my bed of boughs 
and grasses in a corner of the room and was 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 47 

roasting a quail at a fire that I had kindled 
on the hearth. The smoke escaped out of the 
ruined chimney, the light illuminated the 
room with a kindly glow, and as I ate my 
simple meal of plain bird and drank the re 
mains of a bottle of red wine which had served 
me all the afternoon in place of the water, 
which the region did not supply, I experienced 
a sense of comfort which better fare and ac 
commodations do not always give. 

Nevertheless, there was something lacking, 
I had a sense of comfort, but not of security. 
I detected myself staring more frequently at 
the open doorway and blank window than 
I could find warrant for doing. Outside these 
apertures all was black, and I was unable to 
repress a certain feeling of apprehension as 
my fancy pictured the outer world and filled 
it with unfriendly entities, natural and super 
natural chief among which, in their respect 
ive classes, were the grizzly bear, which I 
knew was occasionally still seen in that region, 
and the ghost, which I had reason to think 
was not. Unfortunately, our feelings do not 
always respect the law of probabilities, and 
to me that evening, the possible and the im 
possible were equally disquieting. 

Everyone who has had experience in the 



48 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

matter must have observed that one confronts 
the actual and imaginary perils of the night 1 
with far less apprehension in the open air 
than in a house with an open doorway. I felt 
this now as I lay on my leafy couch in a cor 
ner of the room next to the chimney and per 
mitted my fire to die out. So strong became 
my sense of the presence of something malign 
and menacing in the place, that I found my 
self almost unable to withdraw my eyes from 
the opening, as in the deepening darkness it 
became more and more indistinct. And 
when the last little flame flickered and went 
out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid 
at my side and actually turned the muzzle in 
the direction of the now invisible entrance, 
my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to 
cock the piece, my breath suspended, my 
muscles rigid and tense. But later I laid 
down the weapon with a sense of shame and 
mortification. What did I fear, and why? 
I, to whom the night had been 

a more familiar face 
Than that of man 

I, in whom that element of hereditary super 
stition from which none of us is altogether 
free had given to solitude and darkness and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 49 

silence only a more alluring interest and 
charm! I was unable to comprehend my 
folly, and losing in the conjecture the thing 
conjectured of, I fell asleep. And then I 
dreamed. 

I was in a great city in a foreign land a 
city whose people were of my own race, with 
minor differences of speech and costume; yet 
precisely what these were I could not say; my 
sense of them was indistinct. The city was 
dominated by a great castle upon an over 
looking height whose name I knew, but could 
not speak. I walked through many streets, 
some broad and straight with high, modern 
buildings, some narrow, gloomy, and tortuous, 
between the gables of quaint old houses whose 
overhanging stories, elaborately ornamented 
with carvings in wood and stone, almost met 
above my head. 

I sought someone whom I had never seen, 
yet knew that I should recognize when found. 
My quest was not aimless and fortuitous; it 
had a definite method. I turned from one 
street into another without hesitation and 
threaded a maze of intricate passages, devoid 
of the fear of losing my way. 

Presently I stopped before a low door in 
a plain stone house which might have been 



50 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the dwelling of an artisan of the better sort, 
and without announcing myself, entered. 
The room, rather sparely furnished, and 
lighted by a single window with small dia 
mond-shaped panes, had but two occupants; 
a man and a woman. They took no notice of 
my intrusion, a circumstance which, in the 
manner of dreams, appeared entirely natural. 
They were not conversing; they sat apart, un 
occupied and sullen. 

The woman was young and rather stout, 
with fine large eyes and a certain grave 
beauty; my memory of her expression is ex 
ceedingly vivid, but in dreams one does not 
observe the details of faces. About her shoul 
ders was a plaid shawl. The man was older, 
dark, with an evil face made more forbidding 
by a long scar extending from near the left 
temple diagonally downward into the black 
mustache; though in my dreams it seemed 
rather to haunt the face as a thing apart I 
can express it no otherwise than to belong 
to it. The moment that I found the man and 
woman I knew them to be husband and wife. 

What followed, I remember indistinctly; 
all was confused and inconsistent made so, 
I think, by gleams of consciousness. It was 
as if two pictures, the scene of my dream, and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 51 

my actual surroundings, had been blended, 
one overlying the other, until the former, 
gradually fading, disappeared, and I was 
broad awake in the deserted cabin, entirely 
and tranquilly conscious of my situation. 

My foolish fear was gone, and opening my 
eyes I saw that my fire, not altogether burned 
out, had revived by the falling of a stick and 
was again lighting the room. I had probably 
slept only a few minutes, but my common 
place dream had somehow so strongly im 
pressed me that I was no longer drowsy; and 
after a little while I rose, pushed the embers 
of my fire together, and lighting my pipe pro 
ceeded in a rather ludicrously methodical way 
to meditate upon my vision. 

It would have puzzled me then to say in 
what respect it was worth attention. In the 
first moment of serious thought that I gave to 
the matter I recognized the city of my dream 
as Edinburgh, where I had never been ; so if 
the dream was a memory it was a memory of 
pictures and description. The recognition 
somehow deeply impressed me; it was as if 
something in my mind insisted rebelliously 
against will and reason on the importance of 
all this. And that faculty, whatever it was, 
asserted also a control of my speech. " Surely," 



52 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

I said aloud, quite involuntarily, " the Mac- 
Gregors must have come here from Edin 
burgh." 

At the moment, neither the substance of 
this remark nor the fact of my making it, 
surprised me in the least; it seemed entirely 
natural that I should know the name of my 
dreamfolk and something of their history. 
But the absurdity of it all soon dawned upon 
me: I laughed aloud, knocked the ashes from 
my pipe and again stretched myself upon my 
bed of boughs and grass, where I lay staring 
absently into my failing fire, with no further 
thought of either my dream or my surround 
ings. Suddenly the single remaining flame 
crouched for a moment, then, springing up 
ward, lifted itself clear of its embers and ex 
pired in air. The darkness was absolute. 

At that instant almost, it seemed, before 
the gleam of the blaze had faded from my 
eyes there was a dull, dead sound, as of some 
heavy body falling upon the floor, which 
shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitt 
ing posture and groped at my side for my 
gun; my notion was that some wild beast 
had leaped in through the open window. 
While the flimsy structure was still shaking 
from the impact I heard the sound of blows, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 53 

the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then 
it seemed to come from almost within reach 
of my hand, the sharp shrieking of a woman 
in mortal agony. So horrible a cry I had 
never heard nor conceived ; it utterly unnerved 
me ; I was conscious for a moment of nothing 
but my own terror! Fortunately my hand 
now found the weapon of which it was in 
search, and the familiar touch somewhat re 
stored me. I leaped to my feet, straining my 
eyes to pierce the darkness. The violent 
sounds had ceased, but more terrible than 
these, I heard, at what seemed long intervals, 
the faint intermittent gasping of some living, 
dying thing I 

As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim 
light of the coals in the fireplace, I saw first 
the shapes of the door and window, looking 
blacker than the black of the walls. Next, 
the distinction between wall and floor became 
discernible, and at last I was sensible to the 
form and full expanse of the floor from end 
to end and side to side. Nothing was visible 
and the silence was unbroken. 

With a hand that shook a little, the other 
still grasping my gun, I restored my fire and 
made a critical examination of the place. 
There was nowhere any sign that the cabin 



54 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

had been entered. My own tracks were vis 
ible in the dust covering the floor, but there 
were no others. I relit my pipe, provided 
fresh fuel by ripping a thin board or two 
from the inside of the house I did not care 
to go into the darkness out of doors and 
passed the rest of the night smoking and think 
ing, and feeding my fire; not for added years 
of life would I have permitted that little flame 
to expire again. 

Some years afterward I met in Sacramento 
a man named Morgan, to whom I had a note 
of introduction from a friend in San Fran 
cisco. Dining with him one evening at his 
home I observed various " trophies " upon the 
wall, indicating that he was fond of shooting. 
It turned out that he was, and in relating 
some of his feats he mentioned having been 
in the region of my adventure. 

"Mr. Morgan," I asked abruptly, "do you 
know a place up there called Macarger s 
Gulch?" 

" I have good reason to," he replied ; " it 
was I who gave to the newspapers, last year, 
the accounts of the finding of the skeleton 
there." 

I had not heard of it; the accounts had been 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 55 

published, it appeared, while I was absent in 
the East. 

" By the way," said Morgan, " the name of 
the gulch is a corruption; it should have been 
called MacGregor s. My dear," he added, 
speaking to his wife, " Mr. Elderson has up 
set his wine." 

That was hardly accurate I had simply 
dropped it, glass and all. 

"There was an old shanty once in the 
gulch," Morgan resumed when the ruin 
wrought by my awkwardness had been re 
paired, " but just previously to my visit it had 
been blown down, or rather blown away, for 
its debris was scattered all about, the very floor 
being parted, plank from plank. Between 
two of the sleepers still in position I and my 
companion observed the remnant of a plaid 
shawl, and examining it found that it was 
wrapped about the shoulders of the body of a 
woman, of which but little remained besides 
the bones, partly covered with fragments of 
clothing, and brown dry skin. But we will 
spare Mrs. Morgan," he added with a smile. 
The lady had indeed exhibited signs of dis 
gust rather than sympathy. 

" It is necessary to say, however," he went 
on, "that the skull was fractured in several 



56 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

% 

places, as by blows of some blunt instrument; 
and that instrument itself a pick-handle, still 
stained with blood lay under the boards near 
by." 

Mr. Morgan turned to his wife. " Pardon 
me, my dear," he said with affected solem 
nity, " for mentioning these disagreeable part 
iculars, the natural though regrettable in 
cidents of a conjugal quarrel resulting, 
doubtless, from the luckless wife s insubord 



ination." 



"I ought to be able to overlook it," the 
lady replied with composure; "you have so 
many times asked me to in those very words." 

I thought he seemed rather glad to go on 
with his story. 

" From these and other circumstances," he 
said, "the coroner s jury found that the de 
ceased, Janet MacGregor, came to her death 
from blows inflicted by some person to the 
jury unknown; but it was added that the 
evidence pointed strongly to her husband, 
Thomas MacGregor, as the guilty person. 
(But Thomas MacGregor has never been 
found nor heard of. It was learned that the 
couple came from Edinburgh, but not my 
dear, do you not observe that Mr. Elderson s 
boneplate has water in it?" 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 57 

I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger 
bowl. 

" In a little cupboard I found a photograph 
of MacGregor, but it did not lead to his 
capture." 

"Will you let me see it?" I said. 

The picture showed a dark man with an 
evil face made more forbidding by a long 
scar extending from near the temple diagon 
ally downward into the black mustache. 

"By the way, Mr. Elderson," said my aff 
able host, " may I know why you asked about 
Macarger s Gulch ?" 

"I lost a mule near there once," I replied, 
" and the mischance has has quite upset 
me." 

" My dear," said Mr. Morgan, with the 
mechanical intonation of an interpreter trans 
lating, "the loss of Mr. Elderson s mule has 
peppered his coffee." 



58 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



ONE SUMMER NIGHT 



i 



fact that Henry Armstrong was 
buried did not seem to him to 
prove that he was dead: he had al 
ways been a hard man to convince. 
That he really was buried, the testimony of 
his senses compelled him to admit. "His post 
ure flat upon his back, with his hands 
crossed upon his stomach and tied with some 
thing that he easily broke without profitably 
altering the situation the strict confinement 
of his entire person, the black darkness and 
profound silence, made a body of evidence 
impossible to controvert and he accepted it 
without cavil. 

But dead no; he was only very, very ill. 
He had, withal, the invalid s apathy and did 
not greatly concern himself about the uncom 
mon fate that had been allotted to him. No 
philosopher was he just a plain, common 
place person gifted, for the time being, with 
a pathological indifference: the organ that he 
feared consequences with was torpid. So, 
with no particular apprehension for his ini- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 59 

mediate future, he fell asleep and all was 
peace with Henry Armstrong. 

But something was going on overhead. It 
was a dark summer night, shot through with 
infrequent shimmers of lightning silently 
firing a cloud lying low in the west and por 
tending a storm. These brief, stammering il 
luminations brought out with ghastly distinct 
ness the monuments and headstones of the 
cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. 
It was not a night in which any credible wit 
ness was likely to be straying about a ceme 
tery, so the three men who were there, digg 
ing into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt 
reasonably secure. 

Two of them were young students from 
a medical college a few miles away; the third 
was a gigantic negro known as Jess. For 
many years Jess had been employed about the 
cemetery as a man-of-all-work and it was his 
favorite pleasantry that he knew " every soul 
in the place." From the nature of what he 
was now doing it was inferable that the place 
was not so populous as its register may have 
shown it to be. 

Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds 
farthest from the public road, were a horse 
( and a light wagon, waiting. 



60 THE: COLLECTED WORKS 

The work of excavation was not difficult: 
the earth with which the grave had been 
loosely filled a few hours before offered lit 
tle resistance and was soon thrown out. Re 
moval of the casket from its box was less easy, 
but it was taken out, for it was a perquisite of 
Jess, who carefully unscrewed the cover and 
laid it aside, exposing the body in black 
trousers and white shirt. At that instant the 
air sprang to flame, a cracking shock of thun 
der shook the stunned world and Henry Arm 
strong tranquilly sat up. With inarticulate 
cries the men fled in terror, each in a different 
direction. For nothing on earth could two 
of them have been persuaded to return. But 
Jess was of another breed. 

In the gray of the morning the two stud 
ents, pallid and haggard from anxiety and 
with the terror of their adventure still beating 
tumultuously in their blood, met at the medi 
cal college. 

"You saw it?" cried one. 

"God! yes what are we to do?" 

They went around to the rear of the build 
ing, where they saw a horse, attached to a light 
wagon, hitched to a gatepost near the door of 
the dissecting-room. Mechanically they en 
tered the room. On a bench in the obscurity 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 61 

sat the negro Jess. He rose, grinning, all 
eyes and teeth. 

" I m waiting for my pay," he said. 

Stretched naked on a long table lay the 
body of Henry Armstrong;; 1 the head defiled 
with blood and clay from a blow with a spade. 



62 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THE MOONLIT ROAD 
I 

STATEMENT OF JOEL HETMAN, JR. 

1AM the most unfortunate of men. Rich, 
respected, fairly well educated and of 
sound health with many other advant 
ages usually valued by those having 
them and coveted by those who have them 
not I sometimes think that I should be less 
unhappy if they had been denied me, for then 
the contrast between my outer and my inner 
life would not be continually demanding a 
painful attention. In the stress of privation 
and the need of effort I might sometimes for 
get the somber secret ever baffling the con 
jecture that it compels. 

I am the only child of Joel and Julia Her 
man. The one was a well-to-do country gen 
tleman, the other a beautiful and accomp 
lished woman to whom he was passionately 
attached with what I now know to have been 
a jealous and exacting devotion. The family 
home wa : s a few miles from Nashville, Ten- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 63 

nessee, a large, irregularly built dwelling of 
no particular order of architecture, a little 
way off the road, in a park of trees and 
shrubbery* 

At the time of which I write I was nine 
teen years old, a student at Yale. One day 
I received a telegram from my father of such 
urgency that in compliance with its unex 
plained demand I left at once for home. At 
the railway station in Nashville a distant relat 
ive awaited me to apprise me of the reason 
for my recall: my mother had been barbar 
ously murdered why and by whom none 
could conjecture, but the circumstances were 
these : 

My father had gone to Nashville, intend 
ing to return the next afternoon. Something 
prevented his accomplishing the business in 
hand, so he returned on the same night, arriv 
ing just before the dawn. In his testimony 
before the coroner he explained that having 
no latchkey and not caring to disturb the 
sleeping servants, he had, with no clearly de 
fined intention, gone round to the rear of the 
house. As he turned an angle of the building, 
he heard a sound as of a door gently closed, 
and saw in the darkness, indistinctly, the fig 
ure of a man, w T hich instantly disappeared 



64 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pur 
suit and brief search of the grounds in the 
belief that the trespasser was some one. se 
cretly visiting a servant proving fruitless, 
he entered at the unlocked door and mounted 
the stairs to my mother s chamber. Its door 
was open, and stepping into black darkness 
he fell headlong over some heavy object on 
the floor. I may spare myself the details; it 
was my poor mother, dead of strangulation 
by human hands! 

Nothing had been taken from the house, 
the servants had heard no sound, and ex 
cepting those terrible finger-marks upon the 
dead woman s throat dear God! that I might 
forget them! no trace of the assassin was 
ever found. 

I gave up my studies and remained with my 
father, who, naturally, was greatly changed. 
Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he 
now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing 
could hpld his attention, yet anything a foot 
fall, the sudden closing of a door aroused 
in him a fitful interest; one might have called 
it an apprehension. At any small surprise of 
the senses he would start visibly and some 
times turn pale, then relapse into a melan 
choly apathy deeper than before. I suppose 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 65 

he was what is called a "nervous wreck." 
As to me, I was younger then than now 
there is" much in that. Youth is Gilead, in 
;which is balm for every wound. Ah, that I 
might again dwell in that enchanted land! 
Unacquainted with grief, I knew not how 
to appraise my bereavement; I could not 
rightly estimate the strength of the stroke. 

One night, a few months after the dread 
ful event, my father and I walked home from 
the city. The full moon was about three 
hours above the eastern horizon; the entire 
countryside had the s.olemn stillness of a sum 
mer night; our footfalls and the ceaseless song 
of the katydids were the only sound aloof. 
Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart 
the road, which, in the short reaches between, 
gleamed a ghostly white. As we approached 
the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in 
shadow, and in which no light shone, my 
father suddenly stopped and clutched my 
arm, saying, hardly above his breath: 

"God! God! what is that?" 

"I hear nothing," I replied. 

"But see see!" he said, pointing along 
the road, directly ahead, 
v I said : " Nothing is there. Come, father, 
let us go in you are ill." 



66 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

He had released my arm and was standing 
rigid and motionless in the center of the il 
luminated roadway, staring like one bereft 
of sense. His face in the moonlight showed 
a pallor and fixity inexpressibly distressing. 
I pulled gently at his sleeve, but he had for 
gotten my existence. Presently he began to 
retire backward, step by step, never for an in 
stant removing his eyes from what he saw, 
or thought he saw. I turned half round to 
follow, but stood irresolute. I do not recall 
any feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was 
its physical manifestation. It seemed as if an 
icy wind had touched my face and enfolded 
my body from head to foot; I could feel the 
stir of it in my hair. 

At that moment my attention was drawn 
to a light that suddenly streamed from an 
upper window of the house : one of the serv 
ants, awakened by what mysterious premoni 
tion of evil who can say, and in obedience to 
an impulse that she was never able to name, 
had lit a lamp. When I turned to look for 
my father he was gone, and in all the years 
that have passed no whisper of his fate has 
come across the borderland of conjecture from 
the realm of the unknown. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 67 

II 

-STATEMENT OF CASPAR GRATTAN 

To-day I am said to live; to-morrow, here 
in this room, will lie a senseless shape of clay 
that all too long was I. If anyone lift the 
cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing 
it will be in gratification of a mere morbid 
curiosity. Some, doubtless, will go further 
and inquire, "Who was he?" In this writ 
ing I supply the only answer that I am able 
to make Caspar Grattan. Surely, that 
should be enough. The name has served my 
small need for more than twenty years of a 
life of unknown length. True, I gave it to 
myself, but lacking another I had the right. 
In this world one must have a name; it pre 
vents confusion, even when it does not estab 
lish identity. Some, though, are known by 
numbers, which also seem inadequate distinc 
tions. 

One day, for illustration, I was passing 
along a street of a city, far from here, when 
I met two men in uniform, one of whom, half 
pausing and looking curiously into my face, 



68 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

said to his companion, "That man looks like 
767." Something in the number seemed 
familiar and horrible. Moved by an uncon 
trollable impulse, I sprang into a side street 
and ran until I fell exhausted in a country 
lane. 

I have never forgotten that number, and al 
ways it comes to memory attended by gib 
bering obscenity, peals of joyless laughter, the 
clang of iron doors. So I say a name, even 
if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In 
the register of the potter s field I shall soon 
have both. What wealth! 

Of him who shall find this paper I must 
beg a little consideration. It is not the hist 
ory of my life; the knowledge to write that 
is denied me. This is only a record of broken 
and apparently unrelated memories, some of 
them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads 
upon a thread, others remote and strange, hav 
ing the character of crimson dreams with in 
terspaces blank and black witch-fires glow 
ing still and red in a great desolation. 

Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn 
for a last look landward over the course by 
which I came. There are twenty years of 
footprints fairly distinct, the impressions of 
bleeding feet. They lead through poverty 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 69 

and pain, devious and unsure, as of one stag 
gering beneath a burden- 
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow. 

Ah, the poet s prophecy of Me how ad 
mirable, how dreadfully admirable! 

Backward beyond the beginning of this 
via dolorosa this epic of suffering with epi 
sodes of sin I see nothing clearly; it comes 
out of a cloud. I know that it spans only 
twenty years, yet I am an old man. 

One does not remember one s birth one 
has to be told. But with me it was different; 
life came to me full-handed and dowered me 
with all my faculties and powers. Of a pre 
vious existence I know no more than others, 
for all have stammering intimations that may 
be memories and may be dreams. I know 
only that my first consciousness was of ma 
turity in body and mind a consciousness ac 
cepted without surprise or conjecture. I 
merely found myself walking in a forest, half- 
*lad, footsore, unutterably weary and hungry. 
Seeing a farmhouse, I approached and asked 
for food, which was given me by one who in 
quired my name. I did not know, yet knew 
that all had names. Greatly embarrassed, I 



70 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

retreated, and night coming on, lay down in 
the forest and slept. 

The next day I entered a large town which 
I shall not name. Nor shall I recount further 
incidents of the life that is now to end a life 
of wandering, always and everywhere haunted 
by an overmastering sense of crime in punish 
ment of wrong and of terror in punishment of 
crime. Let me see if I can reduce it to nar 
rative. 

I seem once to have lived near a great 
city, a prosperous planter, married to a woman 
whom I loved and distrusted. We had, it 
sometimes seems, one child, a youth of bril 
liant parts and promise. He is at all times 
a vague figure, never clearly drawn, fre 
quently altogether out of the picture. 

One luckless evening it occurred to me to 
test my wife s fidelity in a vulgar, common 
place way familiar to everyone who has ac 
quaintance with the literature of fact and 
fiction. I went to the city, telling my wife 
that I should be absent until the following 
afternoon. But I returned before daybreak 
and went to the rear of the house, purposing 
to enter by a door with which I had secretly 
so tampered that it would seem to lock, yet 
not actually fasten. As I approached it, I 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 71 

heard it gently open and close, and saw a man 
steal away into the darkness. With murder 
in my heart, I sprang after him, but he had 
vanished without even the bad luck of ident 
ification. Sometimes now I cannot even per 
suade myself that it was a human being. 

Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and 
bestial with all the elemental passions of in 
sulted manhood, I entered the house and 
sprang up the stairs to the door of my wife s 
chamber. It was closed, but having tampered 
with its lock also, I easily entered and despite 
the black darkness soon stood by the side of 
her bed. My groping hands told me that al 
though disarranged it was unoccupied. 

" She is below," I thought, " and terrified 
by my entrance has evaded me in the darkness 
of the hall." 

With the purpose of seeking her I turned 
to leave the room, but took a wrong direction 
the right one! My foot struck her, cower 
ing in a corner of the room. Instantly my 
hands were at her throat, stifling a shriek, my 
knees were upon her struggling body; and 
there in the darkness, without a word of ac 
cusation or reproach, I strangled her till she 
died! 

There ends the dream. I have related it 



72 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

in the past tense, but the present would be the 
fitter form, for again and again the somber 
tragedy reenacts itself in my consciousness 
over and over I lay the plan, I suffer the con 
firmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is 
blank; and afterward the rains beat against 
the grimy window-panes, or the snows fall up 
on my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the 
squalid streets where my life lies in poverty 
and mean employment. If there is ever sun 
shine I do not recall it; if there are birds they 
do not sing. 

There is another dream, another vision of 
the night. I stand among the shadows in a 
moonlit road. I am aware of another pres 
ence, but whose I cannot rightly determine. 
In the shadow of a great dwelling I catch the 
gleam of white garments; then the figure of 
a woman confronts me in the road my mur 
dered wife ! There is death in the face ; there 
are marks upon the throat. The eyes are 
fixed on mine with an infinite gravity which 
is not reproach, nor hate, nor menace, nor any 
thing less terrible than recognition. Before 
this awful apparition I retreat in terror a 
terror that is upon me as I write. I can no 
longer rightly shape the words. See! they 

Now I am calm, but truly there is no more 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 73 

to tell: the incident ends where it began 
in darkness and in doubt. 

Yes, I am again in control of myself: "the 
captain of my soul." But that is not respite; 
it is another stage and phase of expiation. 
My penance, constant in degree, is mutable 
in kind: one of its variants is tranquillity. 
After all, it is only a life-sentence. "To Hell 
for life" that is a foolish penalty: the cul 
prit chooses the duration of his punishment. 
To-day my term expires. 

To each and all, the peace that was not 
mine. 



74 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



III 



STATEMENT OF THE LATE JULIA HETMAN, 
THROUGH THE MEDIUM BAYROLLES 

I had retired early and fallen almost im 
mediately into a peaceful sleep, from which 
I awoke with that indefinable sense of peril 
which is, I think, a common experience in that 
other, earlier life. Of its unmeaning charac 
ter, too, I was entirely persuaded, yet that did 
not banish it. My husband, Joel Hetman, 
was away from home; the servants slept in 
another part of the house. But these were 
familiar conditions; they had never before 
distressed me. Nevertheless, the strange ter 
ror grew so insupportable that conquering my 
reluctance to move I sat up and lit the lamp 
at my bedside. Contrary to my expectation 
this gave me no relief ; the light seemed rather 
an added danger, for I reflected that it would 
shine out under the door, disclosing my pres 
ence to whatever evil thing might lurk out 
side. You that are still in the flesh, subject 
to horrors of the imagination, think what a 
monstrous fear that must be which seeks in 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 75 

darkness security from malevolent existences \ 
of the night. That is to spring to close quar 
ters with an unseen enemy the strategy of 
despair! 

Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed- 
clothing about my head and lay trembling 
and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. 
In this pitiable state I must have lain for what 
you call hours with us there are no hours, 
there is no time. 

At last it came a soft, irregular sound of 
footfalls on the stairs! They were slow, hesit 
ant, uncertain, as of something that did not 
see its way; to my disordered reason all the 
more terrifying for that, as the approach of 
some blind and mindless malevolence to which 
is no appeal. I even thought that I must have 
left the hall lamp burning and the groping 
of this creature proved it a monster of the 
night. This was foolish and inconsistent with 
my previous dread of the light, but what 
would you have? Fear has no brains; it is 
aji-Jdiot. The dismal witness that it bears 
and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are 
unrelated. We know this well, we who have 
passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk 
in eternal dusk among the scenes of our form 
er lives, invisible even to ourselves and one 



76 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places; 
yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet 
dumb, and as fearful of them as they of us. 
Sometimes the disability is removed, the law 
suspended : by the deathless power of love or 
hate we break the spell we are seen by those 
whom we would warn, console, or punish. 
What form we seem to them to bear we know 
not; we know only that we terrify even those 
whom we most wish to comfort, and from 
whom we most crave tenderness and sym 
pathy. 

Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent di 
gression by what was once a woman. You 
who consult us in this imperfect way you 
do not understand. You ask foolish questions 
about things unknown and things forbidden. 
Much that we know and could impart in our 
speech is meaningless in yours. We must 
communicate with you through a stammer 
ing intelligence in that small fraction of our 
language that you yourselves can speak. You 
think that we are of another world. No, we 
have knowledge of no world but yours, though 
for us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no 
music, no laughter, no song of birds, nor any 
companionship. O God! what a thing it is 
to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 77 

altered world, a prey to apprehension and de 
spair! 

No, I did not die of fright: the Thing 
turned and went away. I heard it go down 
the stairs, hurriedly, I thought, as if itself in 
sudden fear. Then I rose to call for help. 
Hardly had my shaking hand found the door 
knob when merciful heaven! I heard it re 
turning. Its footfalls as it remounted the 
stairs were rapid, heavy and loud; they shook 
the house. I fled to an angle of the wall and 
crouched upon the floor. I tried to pray. I 
tried to call the name of my dear husband. 
Then I heard the door thrown open. There 
was an interval of unconsciousness, and when 
I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my 
throat felt my arms feebly beating against 
something that bore me backward felt my 
tongue thrusting itself from between my teeth! 
And then I passed into this life. 

No, I have no knowledge of what it was. 
The sum of what we knew at death is the 
measure of what we know afterward of all 
that went before. Of this existence we know 
many things, but no new light falls upon any 
page of that; in memory is written all of it 
that we can read. Here are no heights of 
truth overlooking the confused landscape of 



78 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

that dubitable domain. We still dwell in the 
Valley of the Shadow, lurk in its desolate 
places, peering from brambles and thickets 
at its mad, malign inhabitants. How should 
we have new knowledge of that fading past? 

What I am about to relate happened on a 
night. We know when it is night, for then 
you retire to your houses and we can venture 
from our places of concealment to move un 
afraid about our old homes, to look in at the 
windows, even to enter and gaze upon your 
faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near 
the dwelling where I had been so cruelly 
changed to what I am, as we do while any 
that we love or hate remain. Vainly I had 
sought some method of manifestation, some 
way to make my continued existence and my 
great love and poignant pity understood by 
my husband and son. Always if they slept 
they would wake, or if in my desperation I 
dared approach them when they were awake, 
would turn toward me the terrible eyes of the 
living, frightening me by the glances that I 
sought from the purpose that I held. 

On this night I had searched for them with 
out success, fearing to find them; they were 
nowhere in the house, nor about the moon 
lit lawn. For, although the sun is lost to us 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 79 

forever, the moon, full-orbed or slender, re 
mains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, 
sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, 
as in that other life. 

I left the lawn and moved in the white light 
and silence along the road, aimless and sor 
rowing. Suddenly I heard the voice of my 
poor husband in exclamations of astonish 
ment, with that of my son in reassurance and 
dissuasion ; and there by the shadow of a group 
of trees they stood near, so near! Their 
faces were toward me, the eyes of the elder 
man fixed upon mine. He saw me at last, 
at last, he saw me! In the consciousness of 
that, my terror fled as a cruel dream. The 
death-spell was broken: Love had conquered 
Law! Mad with exultation I shouted I 
must have shouted, " He sees, he sees : he will 
understand!" Then, controlling myself, I 
moved forward, smiling and consciously beau 
tiful, to offer myself to his arms, to comfort 
him with endearments, and, with my son s 
hand in mine, to speak words that should 
restore the broken bonds between the living 
and the dead. 

Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, 
his eyes were as those of a hunted animal. 
He backed away from me, as I advanced, and 



80 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

at last turned and fled into the wood whither, 
it is not given to me to know. 

To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I 
have never been able to impart a sense of my 
presence. Soon he, too, must pass to this Life 
Invisible and be lost to me forever. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 81 



A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH 

1AM not so superstitious as some of 
your physicians men of science, as 
you are pleased to be called," said 
Hawver, replying to an accusation 
that had not been made. "Some of you 
only a few, I confess believe in the immort 
ality of the soul, and in apparitions which 
you have not the honesty to call ghosts. I 
go no further than a conviction that the liv 
ing are sometimes seen where they are not, 
but have been where they have lived so long, 
perhaps so intensely, as to have left their im 
press on everything about them. I know,| 
indeed, that one s environment may be so 
affected by one s personality as to yield, longj 
afterward, an image of one s self to the eyes! 
of another. Doubtless the impressing per 
sonality has to be the right kind of personality 
as the perceiving eyes have to be the right 
kind of eyes mine, for example." 

"Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying 
sensations to the wrong kind of brairi," said 
Dr. Frayley, smiling. 



82 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"Than you; one likes to have an expect 
ation gratified; that is about the reply that 
I supposed you would have the civility to 
make." 

" Pardon me. But you say that you know. 
That is a good deal to say, don t you think? 
Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of say 
ing how you learned." 

"You will call it an hallucination," Haw- 
ver said, "but that does not matter." And 
he told the story. 

" Last summer I went, as you know, to pass 
the hot weather term in the town of Meridian. 
The relative at whose house I had intended 
to stay was ill, so I sought other quarters. 
After some difficulty I succeeded in renting 
a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by 
an eccentric doctor of the name of Manner- 
ing, who had gone away years before, no one 
knew where, not even his agent. He had 
built the house himself and had lived in it 
with an old servant for about ten years. His 
practice, never very extensive, had after a 
few years been given up entirely. Not only 
so, but he had withdrawn himself almost al 
together from social life and become a re 
cluse. I was told by the village doctor, about 
the only person with whom he held any re- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 83 

lations, that during his retirement he had de 
voted himself to a single line of study, the 
result of which he had expounded in a book 
that did not commend itself to the approval of 
his professional brethren, who, indeed, con 
sidered him not entirely sane. I have not 
seen the book and cannot now recall the title 
of it, but I am told that it expounded a rather 
startling theory. He held that it was possible 
in the case of many a person in good health 
to forecast his death with precision, several 
months in advance of the event. The limit, 
I think, was eighteen months. There were 
local tales of his having exerted his powers of 
prognosis, or perhaps you would say diagno 
sis; and it was said that in every instance the 
person whose friends he had warned had died 
suddenly at the appointed time, and from no 
assignable cause. All this, however, has 
nothing to do with what I have to tell; I 
thought it might amuse a physician. 

"The house was furnished, just as he had 
lived in it. It was a rather gloomy dwelling 
for one who was neither a recluse nor a stud 
ent, and I think it gave something of its 
character to me perhaps some of its former 
occupant s character; for always I felt in it a 
certain melancholy that was not in my natural 



84 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

disposition, nor, I think, due to loneliness. 
I had no servants that slept in the house, but 
I have always been, as you know, rather fond 
of my own society, being much addicted to 
reading, though little to study. Whatever 
was the cause, the effect was dejection and a 
sense of impending evil; this was especially 
so in Dr. Mannering s study, although that 
room was the lightest and most airy in the 
house. The doctor s life-size portrait in oil 
hung in that room, and seemed completely to 
dominate it. There was nothing unusual in 
the picture; the man was evidently rather 
good looking, about fifty years old, with iron- 
gray hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, 
serious eyes. Something in the picture al 
ways drew and held my attention. The man s 
appearance became familiar to me, and rather 
haunted me. 

"One evening I was passing through this 
room to my bedroom, with a lamp there is 
no gas in Meridian. I stopped as usual be 
fore the portrait, which seemed in the lamp 
light to have a new expression, not easily 
named, but distinctly uncanny. It interested 
but did not disturb me. I moved the lamp 
from one side to the other and observed the 
effects of the altered light. While so engaged 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 85 

I felt an impulse to turn round. As I did so 
I saw a man moving across the room directly 
toward me I As soon as he came near enough 
for the lamplight to illuminate the face I saw 
that it was Dr. Mannering himself; it was as 
if the portrait were walking! 

" I beg your pardon, I said, somewhat 
coldly, but if you knocked I did not hear. 

" He passed me, within an arm s length, 
lifted his right forefinger, as in warning, and 
without a word went on out of the room, 
though I observed his exit no more than I had 
observed his entrance. 

" Of course, I need not tell you that this was 
what you will call an hallucination and I call 
an apparition. That room had only two 
doors, of which one was locked; the other led 
into a bedroom, from which there was no 
exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an 
important part of the incident. 

" Doubtless this seems to you a very com 
monplace ghost story one constructed on 
the regular lines laid down by the old masters 
of the art. If that were so I should not have 
related it, even if it were true. The man was 
not dead; I met him to-day in Union street. 
He passed me in a crowd." 

Hawver had finished his story and both 



86 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

men were silent. Dr. Frayley absently 
drummed on the table with his fingers. 

"Did he say anything to-day?" he asked 
" anything from which you inferred that he 
was not dead?" 

Hawver stared and did not reply. 

"Perhaps," continued Frayley, "he made 
a sign, a gesture lifted a finger, as in warn 
ing. It s a trick he had a habit when say 
ing something serious announcing the result 
of a diagnosis, for example." 

"Yes, he did just as his apparition had 
done. But, good God! did you ever know 
him?" 

Hawver was apparently growing nervous. 

" I knew him. I have read his book, as 
will every physician some day. It is one 
of the most striking and important of the cent 
ury s contributions to medical science. Yes, 
I knew him; I attended him in an illness three 
years ago. He died." 

Hawver sprang from his chair, manifestly 
disturbed. He strode forward and back 
across the room; then approached his friend, 
and in a voice not altogether steady, said: 
"Doctor, have you anything to say to me 
as a physician?" 

"No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 87 

I ever knew. As a friend I advise you to go 
to your room. You play the violin like an 
angel. Play it; play something light and 
lively. Get this cursed bad business off your 
mind." 

The next day Hawver was found dead in 
his room, the violin at his neck, the bow up 
on the strings, his music open before him at 
Chopin s funeral march. 



88 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



MOXON S MASTER 

AE you serious? do you really be 
lieve that a machine thinks?" 
I got no immediate reply; Mox- 
on was apparently intent upon the 
coals in the grate, touching them deftly here 
and there with the fire-poker till they signified 
a sense of his attention by a brighter glow. 
For several weeks I had been observing in 
him a growing habit of delay in answering 
even the most trivial of commonplace ques 
tions. His air, however, was that of pre 
occupation rather than deliberation: one 
might have said that he had " something on 
his mind." 

Presently he said : 

"What is a ( machine ? The word has been 
variously defined. Here is one definition 
from a popular dictionary: Any instrument 
or organization by which power is applied 
and made effective, or a desired effect pro 
duced. 1 Well, then, is not a man a machine? 
And you will admit that he thinks or thinks 
he thinks." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 89 

" If you do not wish to answer my ques 
tion," I said, rather testily, "why not say so? 
all that you say is mere evasion. You know 
well enough that when I say machine I do 
not mean a man, but something that man has 
made and controls." 

"When it does not control him," he said, 
rising abruptly and looking out of a window, 
whence nothing was visible in the blackness 
of a stormy night. A moment later he turned 
about and with a smile said: "I beg your 
pardon; I had no thought of evasion. I con 
sidered the dictionary man s unconscious test 
imony suggestive and worth something in the 
discussion. I can give your question a direct 
answer easily enough: I do believe that a 
machine thinks about the work that it is do 
ing." 

That was direct enough, certainly. It was 
not altogether pleasing, for it tended to con 
firm a sad suspicion that Moxon s devotion 
to study and work in his machine-shop had 
not been good for him. I knew, for one 
thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and 
that is no light affliction. Had it affected his 
mind? His reply to my question seemed to 
me then evidence that it had; perhaps I 
should think differently about it now. I was 



90 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

younger then, and among the blessings that 
are not denied to youth is ignorance. Incited 
by that great stimulant to controversy, I said: 

"And what, pray, does it think with in 
the absence of a brain?" 

The reply, coming with less than his 
customary delay, took his favorite form of 
counter-interrogation : 

" With what does a plant think in the ab 
sence of a brain?" 

" Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher 
class! I should be pleased to know some of 
their conclusions; you may omit the pre 
mises." 

" Perhaps," he replied, apparently unaf 
fected by my foolish irony, "you may be able 
to infer their convictions from their acts. I 
will spare you the familiar examples of the 
sensitive mimosa, the several insectivorous 
flowers and those whose stamens bend down 
and shake their pollen upon the entering bee 
in order that he may fertilize their distant 
mates. But observe this. In an open spot in 
my garden I planted a climbing vine. When 
it was barely above the surface I set a stake 
into the soil a yard away. The vine at once 
made for it, but as it was about to reach it 
after several days I removed it a few feet 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 91 

The vine at once altered its course, making 
an acute angle, and again made for the stake. 
This manoeuvre was repeated several times, 
but finally, as if discouraged, the vine aban 
doned the pursuit and ignoring further at 
tempts to divert it traveled to a small tree, 
further away, which it climbed. 

" Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong them 
selves incredibly in search of moisture. A 
well-known horticulturist relates that one en 
tered an old drain pipe and followed it until 
it came to a break, where a section of the pipe 
had been removed to make way for a stone 
wall that had been built across its course. 
The root left the drain and followed the wall 
until it found an opening where a stone had 
fallen out. It crept through and following 
the other side of the wall back to the drain, 
entered the unexplored part and resumed its 
journey." 

"And all this?" 

"Can you miss the significance of it? It 
shows the consciousness of plants. It proves 
that they think." 

"Even if it did what then? We were 
speaking, not of plants, but of machines. 
They may be composed partly of wood 
wood that has no longer vitality or wholly of 



92 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

metal. Is thought an attribute also of the 
mineral kingdom?" 

" How else do you explain the phenomena, 
for example, of crystallization?" 

" I do not explain them." 

" Because you cannot without affirming 
what you wish to deny, namely, intelligent co 
operation among the constituent elements of 
the crystals. When soldiers form lines, or 
hollow squares, you call it reason. When 
wild geese in flight take the form of a letter 
V you say instinct. When the homogeneous 
atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution, 
arrange themselves into shapes mathemat 
ically perfect, or particles of frozen moisture 
into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of 
snowflakes, you have nothing to say. You 
have not even invented a name to conceal your 
heroic unreason." 

Moxon was speaking with unusual anima 
tion and earnestness. As he paused I heard 
in an adjoining room known to me as his 
"machine-shop," which no one but himself 
was permitted to enter, a singular thumping 
sound, as of some one pounding upon a table 
with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the 
same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and 
hurriedly passed into the room whence it 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 93 

came. I thought it odd that any one else 
should be in there, and my interest in my 
friend with doubtless a touch of unwarrant 
able curiosity led me to listen intently, 
though, I am happy to say, not at the key 
hole. There were confused sounds, as of a 
struggle or scuffle; the floor shook. I dis 
tinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse 
whisper which said "Damn you!" Then all 
was silent, and presently Moxon reappeared 
and said, with a rather sorry smile : 

" Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. 
I have a machine in there that lost its temper 
and cut up rough." 

Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, 
which was traversed by four parallel excori 
ations showing blood, I said: 

" How would it do to trim its nails?" 

I could have spared myself the jest; he 
gave it no attention, but seated himself in the 
chair that he had left and resumed the inter 
rupted monologue as if nothing had occurred : 

"Doubtless you do not hold with those (I 
need not name them to a man of your read 
ing) who have taught that all matter is sen 
tient, that every atom is a living, feeling, con 
scious being. / do. There is no such thing as 
dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct 



94 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

with force, actual and potential; all sensitive 
to the same forces in its environment and sus 
ceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler 
ones residing in such superior organisms as it 
may be brought into relation with, as those of 
man when he is fashioning it into an instru 
ment of his will. It absorbs something of his 
intelligence and purpose more of them in 
proportion to the complexity of the resulting 
machine and that of its work. 

" Do you happen to recall Herbert Spen 
cer s definition of Life ? I read it thirty 
years ago. He may have altered it afterward, 
for anything I know, but in all that time I 
have been unable to think of a single word 
that could profitably be changed or added or 
removed. It seems to me not only the best 
definition, but the only possible one. 

" Life, he says, * is a definite combination 
of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous 
and successive, in correspondence with ex 
ternal coexistences and sequences. 

"That defines the phenomenon," I said, 
"but gives no hint of its cause." 

"That," he replied, "is all that any defini 
tion can do. As Mill points out, we know 
nothing of cause except as an antecedent 
nothing of effect except as a consequent. Of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 95 

certain phenomena, one never occurs without 
another, which is dissimilar: the first in point 
of time we call cause, the second, effect. One 
who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by 
a dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogs 
otherwise, would think the rabbit the cause 
of the dog. 

" But I fear," he added, laughing naturally 
enough, " that my rabbit is leading me a long 
way from the track of my legitimate quarry: 
Fm indulging in the pleasure of the chase for 
its own sake. What I want you to observe is 
that in Herbert Spencer s definition of life 
the activity of a machine is included there 
is nothing in the definition that is not ap 
plicable to it. According to this sharpest of 
observers and deepest of thinkers, if a man 
during his period of activity is alive, so is a 
machine when in operation. As an inventor 
and constructor of machines I know that to be 



true." 



Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing 
absently into the fire. It was growing late 
and I thought it time to be going, but some 
how I did not like the notion of leaving him 
in that isolated house, all alone except for 
the presence of some person of whose nature 
my conjectures could go no further than that 



96 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

it was unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning 
toward him and looking earnestly into his 
eyes while making a motion with my hand 
through the door of his workshop, I said: 

" Moxon, whom have you in there?" 

Somewhat to my surprise he laughed 
lightly and answered without hesitation: 

" Nobody; the incident that you have in 
mind was caused by my folly in leaving a 
machine in action with nothing to act upon, 
while I undertook the interminable task of 
enlightening your understanding. Do you 
happen to know that Consciousness is the 
creature of Rhythm?" 

"O bother them both!" I replied, rising 
and laying hold of my overcoat. " I m going 
to wish you good night; and I ll add the hope 
that the machine which you inadvertently left 
in action will have her gloves on the next time 
you think it needful to stop her." 

Without waiting to observe the effect of my 
shot I left the house. 

Rain was falling, and the darkness was in 
tense. In the sky beyond the crest of a hill 
toward which I groped my way along pre 
carious plank sidewalks and across miry, un- 
paved streets I could see the faint glow of the 
city s lights, but behind me nothing was vis- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 97 

ible but a single window of Moxon s house. 
It glowed with what seemed to me a myster 
ious and fateful meaning. I knew it was an 
uncurtained aperture in my friend s "ma 
chine-shop," and I had little doubt that he 
had resumed the studies interrupted by his 
duties as my instructor in mechanical con 
sciousness and the fatherhood of Rhythm. 
Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his 
convictions seemed to me at that time, I could 
not wholly divest myself of the feeling that 
they had some tragic relation to his life and 
character perhaps to his destiny although 
I no longer entertained the notion that they 
were the vagaries of a disordered mind. 
Whatever might be thought of his views, his 
exposition of them was too logical for that. 
Over and over, his last words came back to 
me : " Consciousness is the creature of 
Rhythm." Bald and terse as the statement 
was, I now found it infinitely alluring. At 
each recurrence it broadened in meaning and 
deepened in suggestion. Why, here, (I 
thought) is something upon which to found 
a philosophy. If consciousness is the product 
of rhythm all things are conscious, for all 
have motion, and all motion is rhythmic. I 
wondered if Moxon knew the significance and 



98 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

breadth of his thought the scope of this mo 
mentous generalization; or had he arrived at 
his philosophic faith by the tortuous and un 
certain road of observation? 

That faith was then new to me, and all 
Moxon s expounding had failed to make me a 
convert; but now it seemed as if a great light 
shone about me, like that which fell upon 
Saul of Tarsus; and out there in the storm 
and darkness and solitude I experienced what 
Lewes calls " The endless variety and excite 
ment of philosophic thought." I exulted in 
a new sense of knowledge, a new pride of rea 
son. My feet seemed hardly to touch the 
earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne 
through the air by invisible wings. 

Yielding to an impulse to seek further light 
from him whom I now recognized as my mas 
ter and guide, I had unconsciously turned 
about, and almost before I was aware of hav 
ing done so found myself again at Moxon s 
door. I was drenched with rain, but felt no 
discomfort. Unable in my excitement to find 
the doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. 
It turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs 
to the room that I had so recently left. All 
was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had sup 
posed, was in the adjoining room the "ma- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 90 

chine-shop." Groping along the wall until 
I found the communicating door I knocked 
loudly several times, but got no response, 
which I attributed to the uproar outside, for 
the wind was blowing a gale and dashing the 
rain against the thin walls in sheets. The 
drumming upon the shingle roof spanning the 
unceiled room was loud and incessant. 

I had never been invited into the machine- 
shop had, indeed, been denied admittance, 
as had all others, with one exception, a skilled 
metal worker, of whom no one knew anything 
except that his name was Haley and his habit 
silence. But in my spiritual exaltation, dis 
cretion and civility were alike forgotten and 
I opened the door. What I saw took all phil 
osophical speculation out of me in short 
order. 

Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of 
a small table upon which a single candle made 
all the light that was in the room. Opposite 
him, his back toward me, sat another person. 
On the table between the two was a chess 
board; the men were playing. I knew little 
of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the 
board it was obvious that the game was near 
its close. Moxon was intensely interested 
not so much, it seemed to me, in the game as 



100 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

in his antagonist, upon whom he had fixed so 
intent a look that, standing though I did di 
rectly in the line of his vision, I was alto 
gether unobserved. His face was ghastly 
white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. 
Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but 
that was sufficient; I should not have cared 
to see his face. 

He was apparently not more than five feet 
in height, with proportions suggesting those 
of a gorilla a tremendous breadth of shoul 
ders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head, 
which had a tangled growth of black hair and 
was topped with a crimson fez. A tunic of 
the same color, belted tightly to the waist, 
reached the seat apparently a box upon 
which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. 
His left forearm appeared to rest in his lap ; 
he moved his pieces with his right hand, 
which seemed disproportionately long. 

I had shrunk back and now stood a little 
to one side of the doorway and in shadow. If 
Moxon had looked farther than the face of 
his opponent he could have observed nothing 
now, except that the door was open. Some 
thing forbade me either to enter or to retire, a 
feeling I know not how it came that I was 
in the presence of an imminent tragedy and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE lot 

might serve my friend by remaining. With 
a scarcely conscious rebellion against the* in 
delicacy of the act I remained. 

The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced 
at the board before making his moves, and to 
my unskilled eye seemed to move the piece 
most convenient to his hand, his motions in 
doing so being quick, nervous and lacking in 
precision. The response of his antagonist, 
while equally prompt in the inception, was 
made with a slow, uniform, mechanical and, 
I thought, somewhat theatrical movement of 
the arm, that was a sore trial to my patience. 
There was something unearthly about it all, 
and I caught myself shuddering. But I was 
wet and cold. 

Two or three times after moving a piece the 
stranger slightly inclined his head, and each 
time I observed that Moxon shifted his king. 
All at once the thought came to me that the 
man was dumb. And then that he was a ma 
chine an automaton chess-player! Then I 
remembered that Moxon had once spoken to 
me of having invented such a piece of mech 
anism, though I did not understand that it 
had actually been constructed. Was all his 
talk about the consciousness and intelligence 
of machines merely a preiuae to eventual ex- 



1-02 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

hibition of this device only a trick to in 
tensify the effect of its mechanical action upon 
me in my ignorance of its secret? 

A fine end, this, of all my intellectual trans 
ports my " endless variety and excitement of 
philosophic thought!" I was about to retire 
in disgust when something occurred to hold 
my curiosity. I observed a shrug of the 
thing s great shoulders, as if it were irritated: 
and so natural was this so entirely human 
that in my new view of the matter it startled 
me. Nor was that all, for a moment later it 
struck the table sharply with its clenched 
hand. At that gesture Moxon seemed even 
more startled than I : he pushed his chair a 
little backward, as in alarm. 

Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised 
his hand high above the board, pounced upon 
one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and 
with the exclamation "checkmate!" rose 
quickly to his feet and stepped behind his 
chair. The automaton sat motionless. 

The wind had now gone down, but I heard, 
at lessening intervals and progressively 
louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In 
the pauses between I now became conscious 
of a low humming or buzzing which, like the 
thunder, grew momentarily louder and more 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 103 

distinct. It seemed to come from the body of 
the automaton, and was unmistakably a whirr 
ing of wheels. It gave me the impression of 
a disordered mechanism which had escaped 
the repressive and regulating action of some 
controlling part an effect such as might be 
expected if a pawl should be jostled from the 
teeth of a ratchet-wheel. But before I had 
time for much conjecture as to its nature my 
attention was taken by the strange motions of 
the automaton itself. A slight but continuous 
convulsion appeared to have possession of it. 
In body and head it shook like a man with 
palsy or an ague chill, and the motion aug 
mented every moment until the entire figure 
was in violent agitation. Suddenly it sprang 
to its feet and with a movement almost too 
quick for the eye to follow shot forward across 
table and chair, with both arms thrust forth 
to their full length the posture and lunge of 
a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself back 
ward out of reach, but he was too late : I saw 
the horrible thing s hands close upon his 
throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the 
table was overturned, the candle thrown to 
the floor and extinguished, and all was black 
dark. But the noise of the struggle was dread 
fully distinct, and most terrible of all were 



104 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the raucous, squawking sounds made by the 
strangled man s efforts to breathe. Guided 
by the infernal hubbub, I sprang to the rescue 
of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in 
the darkness when the whole room blazed 
with a blinding white light that burned into 
my brain and heart and memory a vivid pict 
ure of the combatants on the floor, Moxon 
underneath, his throat still in the clutch of 
those iron hands, his head forced backward, 
his eyes protruding, his mouth wide open and 
his tongue thrust out; and horrible contrast! 
upon the painted face of his assassin an ex 
pression of tranquil and profound thought, as 
in the solution of a problem in chess! This I 
observed, then all was blackness and silence. 

Three days later I recovered consciousness 
in a hospital. As the memory of that tragic 
night slowly evolved in my ailing brain I 
recognized in my attendant Moxon s confid 
ential workman, Haley. Responding to a 
look he approached, smiling. 

"Tell me about it," I managed to say, 
faintly" all about it." 

"Certainly," he said; "you were carried 
unconscious from a burning house Moxon s. 
Nobody knows how you came to be there. 
You may have to do a little explaining. The 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 105 

origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. My 
own notion is that the house was struck by 
lightning." 

"And Moxon?" 

" Buried yesterday what was left of him." 

Apparently this reticent person could un 
fold himself on occasion. When imparting 
shocking intelligence to the sick he was affa 
ble enough. After some moments of the keen 
est mental suffering I ventured to ask another 
question : 

"Who rescued me?" 

"Well, if that interests you I did." 

"Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God 
bless you for it. Did you rescue, also, that 
charming product of your skill, the auto 
maton chess-player that murdered its in 
ventor?" 

The man was silent a long time, looking 
away from me. Presently he turned and 
gravely said : 

" Do you know that? " 

" I do," I replied; " I saw it done." 

That was many years ago. If asked to-day 
I should answer less confidently. 



106 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



A TOUGH TUSSLE 

ONE night in the autumn of 1861 a 
man sat alone in the heart of a forest 
in western Virginia. The region was 
one of the wildest on the continent 
the Cheat Mountain country. There was no 
lack of people close at hand, however; within 
a mile of where the man sat was the now 
silent camp of a whole Federal brigade. 
Somewhere about it might be still nearer 
was a force of the enemy, the numbers un 
known. It was this uncertainty as to its num 
bers and position that accounted for the man s 
presence in that lonely spot; he was a young 
officer of a Federal infantry regiment and his 
business there was to guard his sleeping com 
rades in the camp against a surprise. He was 
in command of a detachment of men constitut 
ing a picket-guard. These men he had sta 
tioned just at nightfall in an irregular line, 
determined by the nature of the ground, 
several hundred yards in front of where he 
now sat. The line ran through the forest, 
among the rocks and laurel thickets, the men 
fifteen or twenty paces apart, all in conceal- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 107 

ment and under injunction of strict silence and 
unremitting vigilance. In four hours, if 
nothing occurred, they would be relieved by 
a fresh detachment from the reserve now rest 
ing in care of its captain some distance away 
to the left and rear. Before stationing his 
men the young officer of whom we are writ 
ing had pointed out to his two sergeants the 
spot at which he would be found if it should 
be necessary to consult him, or if his presence 
at the front line should be required. 

It was a quiet enough spot the fork of an 
old wood-road, on the two branches of which, 
prolonging themselves deviously forward in 
the dim moonlight, the sergeants were them 
selves stationed, a few paces in rear of the 
line. If driven sharply back by a sudden on 
set of the enemy and pickets are not expected 
to make a stand after firing the men would 
come into the converging roads and naturally 
following them to their point of intersection 
could be rallied and " formed." In his small 
way the author of these dispositions was some 
thing of a strategist; if Napoleon had planned 
as intelligently at Waterloo he would have 
won that memorable battle and been over 
thrown later. 

Second-Lieutenant Brainerd Byring was a 



108 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

brave and efficient officer, young and com 
paratively inexperienced as he was in the busi 
ness of killing his fellow-men. He had en 
listed in the very first days of the war as a 
private, with no military knowledge what 
ever, had been made first-sergeant of his com 
pany on account of his education and engag 
ing manner, and had been lucky enough to 
lose his captain by a Confederate bullet; in the 
resulting promotions he had gained a com 
mission. He had been in several engagements, 
such as they were at Philippi, Rich Mount 
ain, Carrick s Ford and Greenbrier and had 
borne himself with such gallantry as not to 
attract the attention of his superior officers. 
The exhilaration of battle was agreeable to 
him, but the sight of the dead, with their clay 
faces, blank eyes and stiff bodies, which when 
not unnaturally shrunken were unnaturully 
swollen, had always intolerably affected him. 
He felt toward them a kind of reasonless an 
tipathy that was something more than the 
physical and spiritual repugnance common to 
us all. Doubtless this feeling was due to his 
unusually acute sensibilities his keen sense of 
the beautiful, which these hideous things out 
raged. Whatever may have been the cause, 
*>e could not look upon a dead body without 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 109 

a loathing which had in it an element of re 
sentment. What others have respected as the 
dignity of death had to him no existence was 
altogether unthinkable. Death was a thing to 
be hated. It was not picturesque, it had no 
tender and solemn side a dismal thing, hide 
ous in all its manifestations and suggestions. 
Lieutenant Byring was a braver man than 
anybody knew, for nobody knew his horror of 
that which he was ever ready to incur. 

Having posted his men, instructed his 
sergeants and retired to his station, he seated 
himself on a log, and with senses all alert be 
gan his vigil. For greater ease he loosened 
his sword-belt and taking his heavy revolver 
from his holster laid it on the log beside him. 
He felt very comfortable, though he hardly 
gave the fact a thought, so intently did he 
listen for any sound from the front which 
might have a menacing significance a shout, 
a shot, or the footfall of one of his sergeants 
coming to apprise him of something worth 
knowing. From the vast, invisible ocean of 
moonlight overhead fell, here and there, a 
slender, broken stream that seemed to plash 
against the intercepting branches and trickle 
to earth, forming small white pools among the 
clumps of laurel. (But these leaks were few 



110 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

and served only to accentuate the blackness of 
his environment, which his imagination found 
it easy to people with all manner of unfamiliar 
shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grot 
esque. 

He to whom the portentous conspiracy of 
night and solitude and silence in the heart of 
a great forest is not an unknown experience 
needs not to be told what another world it all 
is how even the most commonplace and 
familiar objects take on another character. 
The trees group themselves differently; they 
draw closer together, as if in fear. The 
very silence has another quality than the 
silence of the day. And it is full of half- 
heard whispers whispers that startle 
ghosts of sounds long dead. There are living 
sounds, too, such as are never heard under 
other conditions : notes of strange night-birds, 
the cries of small animals in sudden encounters 
with stealthy foes or in their dreams, a rust 
ling in the dead leaves it may be the leap of 
a wood-rat, it may be the footfall of a panther. 
What caused the breaking of that twig? 
what the low, alarmed twittering in that bush- 
ful of birds? There are sounds without a 
name, forms without substance, translations in 
space of objects which have not been seen to 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 111 

V move, movements wherein nothing is observed 
to change its place. Ah, children of the sun- 

j light and the gaslight, how little you know 

I of the world in which you live! 

Surrounded at a little distance by armed 
and watchful friends, Byring felt utterly 
alone. Yielding himself to the solemn and 
mysterious spirit of the time and place, he had 
forgotten the nature of his connection with the 
visible and audible aspects and phases of the 
night. The forest was boundless; men and 
the habitations of men did not exist. The 
universe was one primeval mystery of dark- ; 
ness, without form and void, himself the sole,j 
dumb questioner of its eternal secret. Abn 
sorbed in thoughts born of this mood, he suy 
fered the time to slip away unnoted. fMean- 
time the infrequent patches of white light ly 
ing amongst the tree-trunks had undergone 
changes of size, form and place. In one of 
them near by, just at the roadside, his eye fell 
upon an object that he had not previously ob 
served. It was almost before his face as he 
sat; he could have sworn that it had not before 
been there. It was partly covered in shadow, 
but he could see that it was a human figure. 
Instinctively he adjusted the clasp of his 
sword-belt and laid hold of his pistol again 



112 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

he was in a world of war, by occupation an 
assassin. 

The figure did not move. Rising, pistol in 
hand, he approached. The figure lay upon 
its back, its upper part in shadow, but stand 
ing above it and looking down upon the face, 
he saw that it was a dead body. He shud 
dered and turned from it with a feeling of 
sickness and disgust, resumed his seat upon 
the log, and forgetting military prudence 
struck a match and lit a cigar. In the sudden 
blackness that followed the extinction of the 
flame he felt a sense of relief; he could no 
longer see the object of his aversion. Never 
theless, he kept his eyes set in that direction 
until it appeared again with growing distinct 
ness. It seemed to have moved a trifle nearer. 

"Damn the thing!" he muttered. "What 
does it want? " 

It did not appear to be in need of anything 
but a soul. 

Byring turned away his eyes and began 
humming a tune, but he broke off in the 
middle of a bar and looked at the dead body. 
Its presence annoyed him, though he could 
hardly have had a quieter neighbor. He was] 
conscious, too, of a vague, indefinable feeling! 
that was new to him. It was not fear, but) 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 113 

rather a sense of the supernatural in which 
he did not at all believe. 

" I have inherited it," he said to himself. 
" I suppose it will require a thousand ages 
perhaps ten thousand for humanity to out 
grow this feeling. Where and when did it 
originate? Away back, probably, in what is 
called the cradle of the human race the 
plains of Central Asia. What we inherit as 
a superstition our barbarous ancestors must 
have held as a reasonable conviction. Doubt 
less they believed themselves justified by facts 
whose nature we cannot even conjecture in 
thinking a dead body a malign thing endowed 
with some strange power of mischief, with 
perhaps a will and a purpose to exert it. Poss 
ibly they had some awful form of religion of 
which that was one of the chief doctrines, 
sedulously taught by their priesthood, as ours 
Jeach the immortality of the soul. As the 
Aryans moved slowly on, to and through the 
Caucasus passes, and spread over Europe, new 
conditions of life must have resulted in the 
formulation of new religions. The old belief 
in the malevolence of the dead body was lost 
from the creeds and even perished from tradi 
tion, but it left its heritage of terror, which 
is transmitted from generation to generation 



114 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

is as much a part of us as are our blood and 
(bones." 

In following out his thought he had for 
gotten that which suggested it; but now his 
eye fell again upon the corpse. The shadow 
had now altogether uncovered it. He saw 
the sharp profile, the chin in the air, the 
whole face, ghastly white in the moonlight. 
The clothing was gray, the uniform of a Con 
federate soldier. The coat and waistcoat, 
unbuttoned, had fallen away on each side, ex 
posing the white shirt. The chest seemed 
unnaturally prominent, but the abdomen had 
sunk in, leaving a sharp projection at the line 
of the lower ribs. The arms were extended, 
the left knee was thrust upward. The whole 
posture impressed Byring as having been 
studied with a view to the horrible. 

" Bah!" he exclaimed; "he was an actor 
he knows how to be dead." 

He drew away his eyes, directing them 
resolutely along one of the roads leading to 
the front, and resumed his philosophizing 
where he had left off. 

" It may be that our Central Asian ancestors 
had not the custom of burial. In that case 
it is easy to understand their fear of the dead, 
who really were a menace and an evil. They 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 115 

bred pestilences. Children were taught to 
avoid the places where they lay, and to run 
away if by inadvertence they came near a 
corpse. I think, indeed, I d better go away 
from this chap." 

He half rose to do so, then remembered 
that he had told his men in front and the 
officer in the rear who was to relieve him that 
he could at any time be found at that spot. 
It was a matter of pride, too. If he aban 
doned his post he feared they would think he 
feared the corpse. He was no coward and he 
was unwilling to incur anybody s ridicule. 
So he again seated himself, and to prove his 
courage looked boldly at the body. The 
right arm the one farthest from him was 
now in shadow. He could barely see the 
hand which, he had before observed, lay at the 
root of a clump of laurel. There had been 
no change, a fact which gave him a certain 
comfort, he could not have said why. He did 
not at once remove his eyes ; that which we do 
not wish to see has a strange fascination, some 
times irresistible. Of the woman who covers 
her eyes with her hands and looks between 
the fingers let it be said that the wits have 
dealt with her not altogether justly. 

Byring suddenly became conscious of a pain 



116 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

in his right hand. He withdrew his eyes 
from his enemy and looked at it. He was 
grasping the hilt of his drawn sword so tightly 
that it hurt him. He observed, too, that he 
was leaning forward in a strained attitude 
crouching like a gladiator ready to spring at 
the throat of an antagonist. His teeth were 
clenched and he was breathing hard. This 
matter was soon set right, and as his muscles 
relaxed and he drew a long breath he felt 
keenly enough the ludicrousness of the inci 
dent. It affected him to laughter. Heavens ! 
what sound was that? what mindless devil was 
uttering an unholy glee in mockery of human 
merriment? He sprang to his feet and 
looked about him, not recognizing his own 
laugh. 

He could no longer conceal from himself 
the horrible fact of his cowardice; he was 
thoroughly frightened! He would have run 
from the spot, but his legs refused their office; 
they gave way beneath him and he sat again 
upon the log, violently trembling. His face 
was wet, his whole body bathed in a chi" 
perspiration. He could not even cry out. 
Distinctly he heard behind him a stealthy 
tread, as of some wild animal, and dared not 
look over his shoulder. Had the soulless liv- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 117 

ing joined forces with the soulless dead? was 
it an animal? Ah, if he could but be assured 
of that! But by no effort of will could he 
now unfix his gaze from the face of the dead 
man. 

I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave | 
and intelligent man. But what would you* 
have? Shall a man cope, single-handed, with 
so monstrous an alliance as that of night and 
solitude and silence and the dead, while an 
incalculable host of his own ancestors shriek 
into the ear of his spirit their coward counsel, 
sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, 
and disarm his very blood of all its iron? 
The odds are too great courage was not 
made for so rough use as that. 

One sole conviction now had the man in 
possession : that the body had moved. It lay 
nearer to the edge of its plot of light there 
could be no doubt of it. It had also moved 
its arms, for, look, they are both in the 
shadow! A breath of cold air struck Byring 
full in the face ; the boughs of trees above him 
stirred and moaned. A strongly defined 
shadow passed across the face of the dead, left 
it luminous, passed back upon it and left it 
half obscured. The horrible thing was vis 
ibly moving! At that moment a single shot 







118 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

rang out upon the picket-line a lonelier and 
louder, though more distant, shot than ever 
had been heard by mortal ear! It broke the 
spell of that enchanted man; it slew the si 
lence and the solitude, dispersed the hindering 
host from Central Asia and released his 
modern manhood. With a cry like that of 
some great bird pouncing upon its prey he 
sprang forward, hot-hearted for action! 

Shot after shot now came from the front. 
There were shoutings and confusion, hoof- 
beats and desultory cheers. Away to the rear, 
in the sleeping camp, were a singing of bugles 
and grumble of drums. Pushing through the 
thickets on either side the roads came the 
Federal pickets, in full retreat, firing back 
ward at random as they ran. A straggling 
group that had followed back one of the 
roads, as instructed, suddenly sprang away 
into the bushes as half a hundred horsemen 
thundered by them, striking wildly with their 
sabres as they passed. At headlong speed these 
mounted madmen shot past the spot where By- 
ring had sat, and vanished round an angle of 
the road, shouting and firing their pistols. A 
moment later there was a roar of musketry, 
followed by dropping shots they had en 
countered the reserve-guard in line; and back 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 119 

they came in dire confusion, with here and 
there an empty saddle and many a maddened 
horse, bullet-stung, snorting and plunging 
with pain. It was all over " an affair of 
out-posts." 

The line was reestablished with fresh men, 
the roll called, the stragglers were re-formed. 
The Federal commander with a part of his 
staff, imperfectly clad, appeared upon the 
scene, asked a few questions, looked exceed 
ingly wise and retired. After standing at 
arms for an hour the brigade in camp " swore 
a prayer or two " and went to bed. 

Early the next morning a fatigue-party, 
commanded by a captain and accompanied by 
a surgeon, searched the ground for dead and 
wounded. At the fork of the road, a little 
to one side, they found two bodies lying close 
together that of a Federal officer and that of 
a Confederate private. The officer had died 
of a sword-thrust through the heart, but not, 
apparently, until he had inflicted upon his 
enemy no fewer than five dreadful wounds. 
The dead officer lay on his face in a pool of 
blood, the weapon still in his breast. They 
turned him on his back and the surgeon re 
moved it. 

"Gad!" said the captain "It is Byring!" 



120 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

adding, with a glance at the other, " They 
had a tough tussle." 

The surgeon was examining the sword. It 
was that of a line officer of Federal infantry 
exactly like the one worn by the captain. It 
was, in fact, Byring s own. The only other 
weapon discovered was an undischarged 
revolver in the dead officer s belt. 

The surgeon laid down the sword and ap 
proached the other body. It was frightfully 
gashed and stabbed, but there was no blood. 
He took hold of the left foot and tried to 
straighten the leg. In the effort the body was 
displaced. The dead do not wish to be 
moved it protested with a faint, sickening 
odor. Where it had lain were a few mag 
gots, manifesting an imbecile activity. 

The surgeon looked at the captain. The 
captain looked at the surgeon. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 121 



ONE OF TWINS 

A LETTER FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE 
LATE MORTIMER BARR 

YOU ask me if in my experience as 
one of a pair of twins I ever ob 
served anything unaccountable by 
the natural laws with which we 
have acquaintance. As to that you shall 
judge; perhaps we have not all acquaintance 
with the same natural laws. You may know 
some that I do not, and what is to me unac 
countable may be very clear to you. 

You knew my brother John that is, you 
knew him when you knew that I was not pres 
ent; but neither you nor, I believe, any human 
being could distinguish between him and me 
if we chose to seem alike. Our parents could 
not; ours is the only instance of which I have 
any knowledge of so close resemblance as that. 
I speak of my brother John, but I am not at 
all sure that his name was not Henry and 
mine John. We were regularly christened, 
but afterward, in the very act of tattooing us 



122 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

with small distinguishing marks, the operator 
lost his reckoning; and although I bear upon 
my forearm a small " H " and he bore a "J," 
it is by no means certain that the letters ought 
not to have been transposed. During our boy 
hood our parents tried to distinguish us more 
obviously by our clothing and other simple 
devices, but we would so frequently exchange 
suits and otherwise circumvent the enemy that 
they abandoned all such ineffectual attempts, 
and during all the years that we lived to 
gether at home everybody recognized the dif 
ficulty of the situation and made the best of 
it by calling us both " Jehnry." I have often 
wondered at my father s forbearance in not 
branding us conspicuously upon our unworthy 
brows, but as we were tolerably good boys 
and used our power of embarrassment and an 
noyance with commendable moderation, we 
escaped the iron. My father was, in fact, a 
singularly good-natured man, and I think 
quietly enjoyed nature s practical joke. 

Soon after we had come to California, and 
settled at San Jose (where the only good for 
tune that awaited us was our meeting with so 
kind a friend as you) the family, as you 
know, was broken up by the death of both 
my parents in the same week. My father 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 123 

died insolvent and the homestead was sacri 
ficed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to 
relatives in the East, but owing to your kind 
ness John and I, then twenty-two years of age, 
obtained employment in San Francisco, in 
different quarters of the town. Circumstances 
did not permit us to live together, and we saw 
each other infrequently, sometimes not oft- 
ener than once a week. As we had few ac 
quaintances in common, the fact of our extra 
ordinary likeness was little known. I come 
now to the matter of your inquiry. 

One day soon after we had come to this 
city I was walking down Market street late 
in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a 
well-dressed man of middle age, who after 
greeting me cordially said: " Stevens, I know, 
of course, that you do not go out much, but 
I have told my wife about you, and she would 
be glad to see you at the house. I have a 
notion, too, that my girls are worth knowing. 
Suppose you come out to-morrow at six and 
dine with us, en famille; and then if the ladies 
can t amuse you afterward I ll stand in with a 
few games of billiards." 

This was said with so bright a smile and so 
engaging a manner that I had not the heart 
,to refuse, and although I had never seen the 



124 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

man in my life I promptly replied: " You are 
very good, sir, and it will give me great pleas 
ure to accept the invitation. Please present 
my compliments to Mrs. Margovan and ask 
her to expect me." 

With a shake of the hand and a pleasant 
parting word the man passed on. That he 
had mistaken me for my brother was plain 
enough. That was an error to which I was 
accustomed and which it was not my habit to 
rectify unless the matter seemed important. 
But how had I known that this man s name 
was Margovan? It certainly is not a name 
that one would apply to a man at random, 
with a probability that it would be right. In 
point of fact, the name was as strange to me 
as the man. 

The next morning I hastened to where my 
brother was employed and met him coming 
out of the office with a number of bills that 
he was to collect. I told him how I had 
" committed " him and added that if he didn t 
care to keep the engagement I should be de 
lighted to continue the impersonation. 

"That s queer," he said thoughtfully. 
" Margovan is the only man in the office here 
whom I know well and like. When he came 
in this morning and we had passed the usual 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 125 

greetings some singular impulse prompted 
me to say: Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Mar- 
govan, but I neglected to ask your address. 
I got the address, but what under the sun I 
was to do with it, I did not know until now. 
It s good of you to offer to take the conse 
quence of your impudence, but I ll eat that 
dinner myself, if you please." 

He ate a number of dinners at the same 
place more than were good for him, I may 
add without disparaging their quality; for 
he fell in love with Miss Margovan, pro 
posed marriage to her and was heartlessly ac 
cepted. 

Several weeks after I had been informed of 
the engagement, but before it had been con 
venient for me to make the acquaintance of 
the young woman and her family, I met one 
day on Kearney street a handsome but some 
what dissipated-looking man whom some 
thing prompted me to follow and watch, 
which I did without any scruple whatever. 
He turned up Geary street and followed it 
until he came to Union square. There he 
looked at his watch, then entered the square. 
He loitered about the paths for some time, 
evidently waiting for someone. Presently he 
was joined by a fashionably dressed and beau- 



126 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

tiful young woman and the two walked away 
up Stockton street, I following. I now felt 
the necessity of extreme caution, for although 
the girl was a stranger it seemed to me that 
she would recognize me at a glance. They 
made several turns from one street to another 
and finally, after both had taken a hasty look 
all about which I narrowly evaded by step 
ping into a doorway they entered a house of 
which I do not care to state the location. Its 
location was better than its character. 

I protest that my action in playing the spy 
upon these two strangers was without assign 
able motive. It was one of which I might 
or might not be ashamed, according to my 
estimate of the character of the person find 
ing it out. As an essential part of a narrative 
educed by your question it is related here 
without hesitancy or shame. 

A week later John took me to the house of 
his prospective father-in-law, and in Miss 
Margovan, as you have already surmised, but 
to my profound astonishment, I recognized 
the heroine of that discreditable adventure. 
A gloriously beautiful heroine of a discredit 
able adventure I must in justice admit that 
.she was; but that fact has only this import- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 127 

ance: her beauty was such a surprise to me 
that it cast a doubt upon her identity with the 
young woman I had seen before; how could 
the marvelous fascination of her face have 
failed to strike me at that time? But no 
there was no possibility of error; the differ 
ence was due to costume, light and general 
surroundings. 

John and I passed the evening at the house, 
enduring, with the fortitude of long experi 
ence, such delicate enough banter as our like 
ness naturally suggested. When the young 
lady and I were left alone for a few minutes 
I looked her squarely in the face and said 
with sudden gravity: 

"You, too, Miss Margovan, have a double: 
I saw her last Tuesday afternoon in Union 
square." 

She trained her great gray eyes upon me 
for a moment, but her glance was a trifle less 
steady than my own and she withdrew it, fix 
ing it on the tip of her shoe. 

"Was she very like me?" she asked, with 
an indifference which I thought a little over 
done. 

" So like," said I, " that I greatly admired 
her, and being unwilling to lose sight of her 



128 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

I confess that I followed her until Miss 
Margovan, are you sure that you under 
stand?" 

She was now pale, but entirely calm. She 
again raised her eyes to mine, with a look that 
did not falter. 

"What do you wish me to do?" she asked. 
"You need not fear to name your terms. I 
accept them." 

It was plain, even in the brief time given 
me for reflection, that in dealing with this 
girl ordinary methods would not do, and or 
dinary exactions were needless. 

"Miss Margovan," I said, doubtless with 
something of the compassion in my voice that 
I had in my heart, " it is impossible not to 
think you the victim of some horrible com 
pulsion. Rather than impose new embarrass 
ments upon you I would prefer to aid you to 
regain your freedom." 

She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, 
and I continued, with agitation: 

" Your beauty unnerves me. I am dis 
armed by your frankness and your distress. 
If you are free to act upon conscience you 
will, I believe, do what you conceive to be 
best; if you are not well, Heaven help us 
all! You have nothing to fear from me but 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 129 

such opposition to this marriage as I can try 
to justify on on other grounds." 

These were not my exact words, but that 
was the sense of them, as nearly as my sud 
den and conflicting emotions permitted me to 
express it. I rose and left her without an 
other look at her, met the others as they re- 
entered the room and said, as calmly as I 
could: " I have been bidding Miss Margovan 
good evening; it is later than I thought." 

John decided to go with me. In the street 
he asked if I had observed anything singular 
in Julia s manner. 

"I thought her ill," I replied; "that is 
why I left." Nothing more was said. 

The next evening I came late to my lodg 
ings. The events of the previous evening had 
made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure 
myself and attain to clear thinking by walk 
ing in the open air, but I was oppressed with 
a horrible presentiment of evil a presenti 
ment which I could not formulate. It was a 
chill, foggy night; my clothing and hair were 
damp and I shook with cold. In my dressing- 
gown and slippers before a blazing grate of 
coals I was even more uncomfortable. I no 
longer shivered but shuddered there is a 
difference. The dread of some impending 



130 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

calamity was so strong and dispiriting that I 
tried to drive it away by inviting a real sor 
row tried to dispel the conception of a terr 
ible future by substituting the memory of a 
painful past. I recalled the death of my 
parents and endeavored to fix my mind upon 
the last sad scenes at their bedsides and their 
graves. It all seemed vague and unreal, as 
having occurred ages ago and to another per 
son. Suddenly, striking through my thought 
and parting it as a tense cord is parted by the 
stroke of steel I can think of no other com 
parison I heard a sharp cry as of one in 
mortal agony! The voice was that of my 
brother and seemed to come from the street 
outside my window. I sprang to the window 
and threw it open. A street lamp directly 
opposite threw a wan and ghastly light upon 
the wet pavement and the fronts of the houses, 
A single policeman, with upturned collar, 
was leaning against a gatepost, quietly smok 
ing a cigar. No one else was in sight. I 
closed the window and pulled down the 
shade, seated myself before the fire and tried 
to fix my mind upon my surroundings. By 
way of assisting, by performance of some fam 
iliar act, I looked at my watch; it marked 
half-past eleven. Again I heard that awful 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 131 

cry! It seemed in the room at my side. I 
was frightened and for some moments had 
not the power to move. A few minutes later 
I have no recollection of the intermediate 
time I found myself hurrying along an un 
familiar street as fast as I could walk. I 
did not know where I was, nor whither I 
was going, but presently sprang up the steps 
of a house before which were two or three 
carriages and in which were moving lights 
and a subdued confusion of voices. It was 
the house of Mr. Margovan. 

You know, good friend, what had occurred 
there. In one chamber lay Julia Margovan, 
hours dead by poison; in another John Ste 
vens, bleeding from a pistol wound in the 
chest, inflicted by his own hand. As I burst 
into the room, pushed aside the physicians 
and laid my hand upon his forehead he un 
closed his eyes, stared blankly, closed them 
slowly and died without a sign. 

I knew no more until six weeks afterward, 
when I had been nursed back to life by your 
own saintly wife in your own beautiful home. 
All of that you know, but what you do not 
know is this which, however, has no bear 
ing upon the subject of your psychological 
researches at least not upon that branch of 



132 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

them in which, with a delicacy and considera 
tion all your own, you have asked for less as 
sistance than I think I have given you : 

One moonlight night several years after 
ward I was passing through Union square. 
The hour was late and the square deserted. 
Certain memories of the past naturally came 
into my mind as I came to the spot where I 
had once witnessed that fateful assignation, 
and with that unaccountable perversity which 
prompts us to dwell upon thoughts of the 
most painful character I seated myself upon 
one of the benches to indulge them. A man 
entered the square and came along the walk 
toward me. His hands were clasped behind 
him, his head was bowed; he seemed to ob 
serve nothing. As he approached the shadow 
in which I sat I recognized him as the man 
whom I had seen meet Julia Margovan years 
before at that spot. But he was terribly al 
tered gray, worn and haggard. Dissipation 
and vice were in evidence in every look; ill 
ness was no less apparent. His clothing was 
in disorder, his hair fell across his forehead 
in a derangement which was at once un 
canny and picturesque. He looked fitter for 
restraint than liberty the restraint of a hos 
pital. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 133 

With no defined purpose I rose and con 
fronted him. He raised his head and looked 
me full in the face. I have no words to de 
scribe the ghastly Change that came over his 
own; it was a look of unspeakable terror 
he thought himself eye to eye with a ghost. 
But he was a courageous man. " Damn you, 
John Stevens!" he cried, and lifting his trem 
bling arm he dashed his fist feebly at my face 
and fell headlong upon the gravel as I walked 
away. 

Somebody found him there, stone-dead. 
Nothing more is known of him, not even his 
name. To know of a man that he is dead 
should be enough. 



134 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THE HAUNTED VALLEY 



HOW TREES ARE FELLED IN CHINA 

AIALF-MILE north from Jo. Dun- 
fer s, on the road from Hutton s to 
Mexican Hill, the highway dips into 
a sunless ravine which opens out on 
either hand in a half-confidential manner, as 
if it had a secret to impart at some more con 
venient season. I never used to ride through 
it without looking first to the one side and 
then to the other, to see if the time had ar 
rived for the revelation. If I saw nothing 
and I never did see anything there was no 
feeling of disappointment, for I knew the dis 
closure was merely withheld temporarily for 
some good reason which I had no right to 
question. That I should one day be taken 
into full confidence I no more doubted than 
I doubted the existence of Jo. Dunfer him 
self, through whose premises the ravine ran. 
It was said that Jo. had once undertaken to 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 135 

erect a cabin in some remote part of it, but 
for some reason had abandoned the enterprise 
and constructed his present hermaphrodite 
habitation, half residence and half groggery, 
at the roadside, upon an extreme corner of 
his estate; as far away as possible, as if on 
purpose to show how radically he had 
changed his mind. 

This Jo. Dunfer or, as he was familiarly 
known in the neighborhood, Whisky Jo. 
was a very important personage in those parts. 
He was apparently about forty years of age, 
a long, shock-headed fellow, with a corded 
fa ce, a gnarled arm and a knotty hand like 
a bunch of prison-keys. He was a hairy man, 
with a stoop in his walk, like that of one 
who is about to spring upon something and 
rend it. 

Next to the peculiarity to which he owed 
his local appellation, Mr. Dunfer s most ob 
vious characteristic was a deep-seated antip 
athy to the Chinese. I saw him once in a 
towering rage because one of his herdsmen 
had permitted a travel-heated Asian to slake 
his thirst at the horse-trough in front of the 
saloon end of Jo. s establishment. I ventured 
faintly to remonstrate with Jo. for his un 
christian spirit, but he merely explained that 



136 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

there was nothing about Chinamen in the 
New Testament, and strode away to wreak 
his displeasure upon his dog, which also, I 
suppose, the inspired scribes had overlooked. 

Some days afterward, finding him sitting 
alone in his barroom, I cautiously approached 
the subject, when, greatly to my relief, the 
habitual austerity of his expression visibly 
softened into something that I took for con 
descension. 

"You young Easterners," he said, "are a 
mile-and-a-half too good for this country, and 
you don t catch on to our play. People who 
don t know a Chileno from a Kanaka can af 
ford to hang out liberal ideas about Chinese 
immigration, but a fellow that has to fight 
for his bone with a lot of mongrel coolies 
hasn t any time for foolishness." 

This long consumer, who had probably 
never done an honest day s-work in his life, 
sprung the lid of a Chinese tobacco-box and 
with thumb and forefinger forked out a wad 
like a small haycock. Holding this rein 
forcement within supporting distance he 
fired away with renewed confidence. 

"They re a flight of devouring locusts, 
and they re going for everything green in this 
God blest land, if you want to know." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 137 

Here he pushed his reserve into the breach 
and when his gabble-gear was again disen 
gaged resumed his uplifting discourse. 

" I had one of them on this ranch five years 
ago, and I ll tell you about it, so that you 
can see the nub of this whole question. I 
didn t pan out particularly well those days 
drank more whisky than was prescribed for 
me and didn t seem to care for my duty as a 
patriotic American citizen; so I took that 
pagan in, as a kind of cook. But when I got 
religion over at the Hill and they talked of 
running me for the Legislature it was given 
to me to see the light. But what was I to 
do? If I gave him the go somebody else 
would take him, and mightn t treat him 
white. What was I to do? What would 
any good Christian do, especially one new to 
the trade and full to the neck with the brother 
hood of Man and the fatherhood of God?" 

Jo. paused for a reply, with an expression 
of unstable satisfaction, as of one who has 
solved a problem by a distrusted method. 
Presently he rose and swallowed a glass of 
whisky from a full bottle on the counter, then 
resumed his story. 

"Besides, he didn t count for much didn t 
know anything and gave himself airs. They 



138 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

all do that. I said him nay, but he muled it 
through on that line while he lasted; but af 
ter turning the other cheek seventy and seven 
times I doctored the dice so that he didn t 
last forever. And I m almighty glad I had 
the sand to do it." 

Jo. s gladness, which somehow did not im 
press me, was duly and ostentatiously cele 
brated at the bottle. 

" About five years ago I started in to stick 
up a shack. That was before this one was 
built, and I put it in another place. I set 
Ah Wee and a little cuss named Gopher to 
cutting the timber. Of course I didn t ex 
pect Ah Wee to help much, for he had a face 
like a day in June and big black eyes I guess 
maybe they were the damnedest eyes in this 
neck o woods." 

While delivering this trenchant thrust at 
common sense Mr. Dunfer absently regarded 
a knot-hole in the thin board partition separ 
ating the bar from the living-room, as if 
that were one of the eyes whose size and color 
had incapacitated his servant for good serv 
ice. 

"Now you Eastern galoots won t believe 
anything against the yellow devils," he sud 
denly flamed out with an appearance of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 139 

earnestness not altogether convincing, " but I 
tell you that Chink was the perversest scoun 
drel outside San Francisco. The miserable 
pig-tail Mongolian went to hewing away at 
the saplings all round the stems, like a worm 
o the dust gnawing a radish. I pointed out 
his error as patiently as I knew how, and 
showed him how to cut them on two sides, 
so as to make them fall right; but no sooner 
would I turn my back on him, like this" 
and he turned it on me, amplifying the illus 
tration by taking some more liquor "than 
he was at it again. It was just this way: 
while I looked at him, so" regarding me 
rather unsteadily and with evident complex 
ity of vision "he was all right; but when 
I looked away, so" taking a long pull at 
the bottle "he defied me. Then I d gaze 
at him reproachfully, so, and butter wouldn t 
have melted in his mouth." 

Doubtless Mr. Dunfer honestly intended 
the look that he fixed upon me to be merely 
reproachful, but it was singularly fit to arouse 
the gravest apprehension in any unarmed per 
son incurring it; and as I had lost all interest 
in his pointless and interminable narrative, 
I rose to go. Before I had fairly risen, he 
had again turned to the counter, and with a 



140 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

barely audible " so," had emptied the bottle 
at a gulp. 

Heavens! what a yell! It was like a Titan 
in his last, strong agony. Jo. staggered back 
after emitting it, as a cannon recoils from 
its own thunder, and then dropped into his 
chair, as if he had been "knocked in the 
head" like a beef his eyes drawn sidewise 
toward the wall, with a stare of terror. 
Looking in the same direction, I saw that the 
knot-hole in the wall had indeed become a 
human eye a full, black eye, that glared 
into my own with an entire lack of express 
ion more awful than the most devilish glit 
ter. I think I must have covered my face 
with my hands to shut out the horrible illus 
ion, if such it was, and Jo. s little white 
man-of-all-work coming into the room broke 
the spell, and I walked out of the house with 
a sort of dazed fear that delirium tremens 
might be infectious. My horse was hitched 
at the watering-trough, and untying him I 
mounted and gave him his head, too much 
troubled in mind to note whither he took me. 

I did not know what to think of all this, 
and like every one who does not know what 
to think I thought a great deal, and to little 
purpose. The only reflection that seemed 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 141 

at all satisfactory, was, that on the morrow 
I should be some miles away, with a strong 
probability of never returning. 

A sudden coolness brought me out of my 
abstraction, and looking up I found myself 
entering the deep shadows of the ravine. 
The day was stifling; and this transition from 
the pitiless, visible heat of the parched fields 
to the cool gloom, heavy with pungency of 
cedars and vocal with twittering of the birds 
that had been driven to its leafy asylum, was 
exquisitely refreshing. I looked for my mys 
tery, as usual, but not finding the ravine in 
a communicative mood, dismounted, led my 
sweating animal into the undergrowth, tied 
him securely to a tree and sat down upon a 
rock to meditate. 

I began bravely by analyzing my pet su 
perstition about the place. Having resolved 
it into its constituent elements I arranged 
them in convenient troops and squadrons, and 
collecting all the forces of my logic bore 
down upon them from impregnable premises 
with the thunder of irresistible conclusions 
and a great noise of chariots and general in 
tellectual shouting. Then, when my big 
mental guns had overturned all opposition, 
and were growling almost inaudibly away on 



142 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the horizon of pure speculation, the routed 
enemy straggled in upon their rear, massed 
silently into a solid phalanx, and captured 
me, bag and baggage. An indefinable dread 
came upon me. I rose to shake it off, and 
began threading the narrow dell by an old, 
grass-grown cow-path that seemed to flow 
along the bottom, as a substitute for the brook 
that Nature had neglected to provide. 

The trees among which the path straggled 
were ordinary, well-behaved plants, a trifle 
perverted as to trunk and eccentric as to 
bough, but with nothing unearthly in their 
general aspect. A few loose bowlders, which 
had detached themselves from the sides of 
the depression to set up an independent exist 
ence at the bottom, had dammed up the path 
way, here and there, but their stony repose 
had nothing in it of the stillness of death. 
There was a kind of death-chamber hush in 
the valley, it is true, and a mysterious whisper 
above: the wind was just fingering the tops 
of the trees that was all. 

I had not thought of connecting Jo. Dun- 
fer s drunken narrative with what I now 
sought, and only when I came into a clear 
space and stumbled over the level trunks of 
some small trees did I have the revelation. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 143 

This was the site of the abandoned " shack." 
The discovery was verified by noting that 
some of the rotting stumps were hacked all 
round, in a most unwoodmanlike way, while 
others were cut straight across, and the butt 
ends of the corresponding trunks had the 
blunt wedge-form given by the axe of a mas 
ter. 

The opening among the trees was not more 
than thirty paces across. At one side was a 
little knoll a natural hillock, bare of shrubb 
ery but covered with wild grass, and on this, 
standing out of the grass, the headstone of a 
grave ! 

I do not remember that I felt anything 
like surprise at this discovery. I viewed that 
lonely grave with something of the feeling 
that Columbus must have had when he saw 
the hills and headlands of the new world. 
Before approaching it I leisurely completed 
my survey of the surroundings. I was even 
guilty of the affectation of winding my watch 
at that unusual hour, and with needless care 
and deliberation. Then I approached my 
mystery. 

The grave a rather short one was in 
somewhat better repair than was consistent 
with its obvious age and isolation, and my 



144 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

eyes, I dare say, widened a trifle at a clump 
of unmistakable garden flowers showing 
evidence of recent watering. The stone had 
clearly enough done duty once as a doorstep. 
In its front was carved, or rather dug, an in 
scription. It read thus: 

AH WEE CHINAMAN. 

Age unknown. Worked for Jo. Dunfer. 

This monument is erected by him to keep the Chink s 

memory green. Likewise as a warning to Celestials 

not to take on airs. Devil take em! 

She Was a Good Egg. 

I cannot adequately relate my astonish 
ment at this uncommon inscription! The 
meagre but sufficient identification of the de 
ceased; the impudent candor of confession; 
the brutal anathema; the ludicrous change of 
sex and sentiment all marked this record 
as the work of one who must have been at 
least as much demented as bereaved. I felt 
that any further disclosure would be a paltry 
anti-climax, and with an unconscious regard 
for dramatic effect turned squarely about and 
walked away. Nor did I return to that part 
of the county for four years. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 145 



II 



WHO DRIVES SANE OXEN SHOULD HIMSELF 
BE SANE 

"Gee-up, there, old Fuddy-Duddy!" 
This unique adjuration came from the lips 
of a queer little man perched upon a wagon- 
ful of firewood, behind a brace of oxen that 
were hauling it easily along with a simulation 
of mighty effort which had evidently not im 
posed on their lord and master. As that gen 
tleman happened at the moment to be staring 
me squarely in the face as I stood by the road 
side it was not altogether clear whether he 
was addressing me or his beasts; nor could 
I say if they were named Fuddy and Duddy 
and were both subjects of the imperative 
verb "to gee-up." Anyhow the command 
produced no effect on us, and the queer little 
man removed his eyes from mine long enough 
to spear Fuddy and Duddy alternately with 
a long pole, remarking, quietly but with feel 
ing: " Dern your skin," as if they enjoyed 
that integument in common. Observing that 



146 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

my request for a ride took no attention, and 
finding myself falling slowly astern, I placed 
one foot upon the inner circumference of a 
hind wheel and was slowly elevated to the 
level of the hub, whence I boarded the con 
cern, sans ceremonie, and scrambling for 
ward seated myself beside the driver who 
took no notice of me until he had adminis 
tered another indiscriminate castigation to his 
cattle, accompanied with the advice to 
"buckle down, you derned Incapable!" 
Then, the master of the outfit (or rather the 
former master, for I could not suppress a 
whimsical feeling that the entire establish 
ment was my lawful prize) trained his big, 
black eyes upon me with an expression 
strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, famil 
iar, laid down his rod which neither blos 
somed nor turned into a serpent, as I half 
expected folded his arms, and gravely de 
manded, "Wat did you do to W isky?" 

My natural reply would have been that 
I drank it, but there was something about the 
query that suggested a hidden significance, 
and something about the man that did not 
invite a shallow jest. And so, having no 
other answer ready, I merely held my tongue, 
but felt as if I were resting under an imputa- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 147 

tion of guilt, and that my silence was being 
construed into a confession. 

Just then a cold shadow fell upon my cheek, 
and caused me to look up. We were descend 
ing into my ravine! I can not describe the 
sensation that came upon me : I had not seen 
it since it unbosomed itself four years before, 
and now I felt like one to whom a friend has 
made some sorrowing confession of crime 
long past, and who has basely deserted him 
in consequence. The old memories of Jo. 
Dunfer, his fragmentary revelation, and the 
unsatisfying explanatory note by the head 
stone, came back with singular distinctness. 
I wondered what had become of Jo., and 
I turned sharply round and asked my pris 
oner. He was intently watching his cattle, 
and without withdrawing his eyes replied: 

"Gee-up, old Terrapin! He lies aside of 
Ah Wee up the gulch. Like to see it? They 
always come back to the spot I ve been ex- 
pectin you. H-woa!" 

At the enunciation of the aspirate, Fuddy- 
Duddy, the incapable terrapin, came to a 
dead halt, and before the vowel had died away 
up the ravine had folded up all his eight legs 
and lain down in the dusty road, regardless 
of the effect upon his derned skin. The 



148 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

queer little man slid off his seat to the ground 
and started up the dell without deigning to 
look back to see if I was following. But 
I was. 

It was about the same season of the year, 
and at near the same hour of the day, of my 
last visit. The jays clamored loudly, and 
the trees whispered darkly, as before; and 
I somehow traced in the two sounds a fanci 
ful analogy to the open boastfulness of Mr. 
Jo. Dunfer s mouth and the mysterious reti 
cence of his manner, and to the mingled har 
dihood and tenderness of his sole literary 
production the epitaph. All things in the 
valley seemed unchanged, excepting the cow- 
path, which was almost wholly overgrown 
with weeds. When we came out into the 
"clearing," however, there was change 
enough. Among the stumps and trunks of 
the fallen saplings, those that had been hacked 
"China fashion" were no longer distinguish 
able from those that were cut" Melican way." 
It was as if the Old-World barbarism and the 
New- World civilization had reconciled their 
differences by the arbitration of an impartial 
decay as is the way of civilizations. The 
knoll was there, but the Hunnish brambles 
had overrun and all but obliterated its effete 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 149 

grasses; and the patrician garden-violet had 
capitulated to his plebeian brother perhaps 
had merely reverted to his original type. 
Another grave a long, robust mound had 
been made beside the first, which seemed to 
shrink from the comparison; and in the 
shadow of a new headstone the old one lay 
prostrate, with its marvelous inscription illeg 
ible by accumulation of leaves and soil. In 
point of literary merit the new was inferior 
to the old was even repulsive in its terse and 
savage jocularity: 

JO. DUNFER. DONE FOR. 

I turned from it with indifference, and 
brushing away the leaves from the tablet of 
the dead pagan restored to light the mocking 
words which, fresh from their long neglect, 
seemed to have a certain pathos. My guide, 
too, appeared to take on an added seriousness 
as he read it, and I fancied that I could de 
tect beneath his whimsical manner something 
of manliness, almost of dignity. But while 
I looked at him his former aspect, so subtly 
unhuman, so tantalizingly familiar, crept 
back into his big eyes, repellant and attrac 
tive. I resolved to make an end of the mys 
tery if possible. 



150 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" My friend," I said, pointing to the 
smaller grave, " did Jo. Dunfer murder that 
Chinaman?" 

He was leaning against a tree and looking 
across the open space into the top of another, 
or into the blue sky beyond. He neither 
withdrew his eyes, nor altered his posture as 
he slowly replied: 

"No, sir; he justifiably homicided him." 

"Then he really did kill him." 

"Kill im? I should say he did, rather. 
Doesn t everybody know that? Didn t he 
stan up before the coroner s jury and confess 
it? And didn t they find a verdict of Came 
to is death by a wholesome Christian senti 
ment workin in the Caucasian breast ? 
An didn t the church at the Hill turn W isky 
down for it? And didn t the sovereign 
people elect him Justice of the Peace to get 
even on the gospelers? I don t know T where 
you were brought up." 

"But did Jo. do that because the China 
man did not, or would not, learn to cut down 
trees like a white man?" 

"Sure! it Stan s so on the record, which 
makes it true an legal. My knowin better 
doesn t make any difference with legal truth; 
it wasn t my funeral and I wasn t invited to de- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 151 

liver an oration. But the fact is, W isky was 
jealous o me" and the little wretch actually 
swelled out like a turkeycock and made a 
pretense of adjusting an imaginary neck-tie, 
noting the effect in the palm of his hand, 
held up before him to represent a mirror. 

"Jealous of you!" I repeated with ill-man 
nered astonishment 

" That s what I said. Why not? don t I 
look all right?" 

He assumed a mocking attitude of studied 
grace, and twitched the wrinkles out of his 
threadbare waistcoat. Then, suddenly dropp 
ing his voice to a low pitch of singular 
sweetness, he continued: 

" W isky thought a lot o that Chink; nobody 
but me knew how e doted on im. Couldn t 
bear im out of is sight, the derned proto 
plasm! Andw en e came down to this clear- 
in one day an found him an me neglectin 1 
our work him asleep an me grapplin a tar 
antula out of is sleeve W isky laid hold of 
my axe and let us have it, good an hard! 
I dodged just then, for the spider bit me, but 
Ah Wee got it bad in the side an tumbled 
about like anything. W isky was just weigh- 
in me out one w en e saw the spider fastened 
on my finger; then e knew he d made a jack 



152 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

ass of imself. He threw away the axe and 
got down on is knees alongside of Ah Wee, 
who gave a last little kick and opened is 
eyes he had eyes like mine an puttin up 
is hands drew down W isky s ugly head and 
held it there w ile e stayed. That wasn t 
long, for a tremblin ran through im and e 
gave a bit of a moan an beat the game." 

During the progress of the story the nar 
rator had become transfigured. The comic, 
or rather, the sardonic element was all out 
of him, and as he painted that strange scene 
it was with difficulty that I kept my com 
posure. And this consummate actor had 
somehow so managed me that the sympathy 
due to his dramatis persona was given to him 
self. I stepped forward to grasp his hand, 
when suddenly a broad grin danced across 
his face and with a light, mocking laugh he 
continued : 

"W en W isky got is nut out o that e 
was a sight to see! All his fine clothes he 
dressed mighty blindin those days were 
spoiled everlastin ! Is hair was towsled and 
his face what I could see of it was whiter 
than the ace of lilies. E stared once at me, 
and looked away as if I didn t count; an then 
there were shootin pains chasin one another 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 153 

from my bitten finger into my head, and it 
was Gopher to the dark. That s why I wasn t 
at the inquest." 

" But why did you hold your tongue after 
ward?" I asked. " 

" It s that kind of tongue," he replied, and 
not another word would he say about it. 

" After that W isky took to drinkin harder 
an harder, and was rabider an rabider anti- 
coolie, but I don t think e was ever particu 
larly glad that e dispelled Ah Wee. He 
didn t put on so much dog about it w en we 
were alone as w en he had the ear of a derned 
Spectacular Extravaganza like you. E put 
up that headstone and gouged the inscription 
accordin to his varyin moods. It took im 
three weeks, workin between drinks. I 
gouged his in one day." 

"When did Jo. die?" I asked rather ab 
sently. The answer took my breath: 

" Pretty soon after I looked at him through 
that knot-hole, w en you had put something 
in his w isky, you derned Borgia!" 

Recovering somewhat from my surprise at 
this astounding charge, I was half-minded to 
throttle the audacious accuser, but was re 
strained by a sudden conviction that came 
to me in the light of a revelation. I fixed a 



154 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

grave look upon him and asked, as calmly as 
I could: "And when did you go luny?" 

"Nine years ago!" he shrieked, throwing 
out his clenched hands " nine years ago, 
w en that big brute killed the woman who 
loved him better than she did me! me who 
had followed er from San Francisco, where 
e won er at draw poker! me who had 
watched over er for years w en the scoundrel 
she belonged to was ashamed to acknowledge 
er and treat er white! me who for her sake 
kept is cussed secret till it ate im up! me 
who w en you poisoned the beast fulfilled is 
last request to lay im alongside er and give 
im a stone to the head of im! And I ve 
never since seen er grave till now, for I didn t 
want to meet im here." 

" Meet him? Why, Gopher, my poor fel 
low, he is dead!" 

"That s why I m afraid of im." 

I followed the little wretch back to his 
wagon and wrung his hand at parting. It 
was now nightfall, and as I stood there at the 
roadside in the deepening gloom, watching 
the blank outlines of the receding wagon, a 
sound was borne to me on the evening wind 
a sound as of a series of vigorous thumps 
and a voice came out of the night: 

" Gee-up, there, you derned old Geranium." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 155 



A JUG OF SIRUP 

THIS narrative begins with the death 
of its hero. Silas Deemer died on 
the 1 6th day of July, 1863, and 
two days later his remains were 
buried. As he had been personally known 
to every man, woman and well-grown 
child in the village, the funeral, as the local 
newspaper phrased it, "was largely at 
tended." In accordance with a custom of 
the time and place, the coffin was opened at 
the graveside and the entire assembly of 
friends and neighbors filed past, taking a last 
look at the face of the dead. And then, be 
fore the eyes of all, Silas Deemer was put 
into the ground. Some of the eyes were a 
trifle dim, but in a general way it may be 
said that at that interment there was lack of 
neither observance nor observation; Silas was 
indubitably dead, and none could have pointed 
out any ritual delinquency that would have 
justified him in coming back from the grave. 
Yet if human testimony is good for anything 
(and certainly it once put an end to witch 
craft in and about Salem) he came back. 



156 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

I forgot to state that the death and burial 
of Silas Deemer occurred in the little village 
of Hillbrook, where he had lived for thirty- 
one years. He had been what is known in 
some parts of the Union (which is admittedly 
a free country) as a "merchant"; that is to 
say, he kept a retail shop for the sale of such 
things as are commonly sold in shops of that 
character. His honesty had never been ques 
tioned, so far as is known, and he was held in 
high esteem by all. The only thing that 
could be urged against him by the most cen 
sorious was a too close attention to business. 
It was not urged against him, though many 
another, who manifested it in no greater de 
gree, was less leniently judged. The busi 
ness to which Silas was devoted was mostly 
his own that, possibly, may have made a dif 
ference. 

At the time of Deemer s death nobody could 
recollect a single day, Sundays excepted, that 
he had not passed in his " store," since he had 
opened it more than a quarter-century before. 
His health having been perfect during all 
that time, he had been unable to discern any 
validity in whatever may or might have been 
urged to lure him astray from his counter; 
and it is related that once when he was sum- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 157 

moned to the county seat as a witness in an 
important law case and did not attend, the 
lawyer who had the hardihood to move that 
he be " admonished " was solemnly informed 
that the Court regarded the proposal with 
"surprise." Judicial surprise being an emo 
tion that attorneys are not commonly ambi 
tious to arouse, the motion was hastily with 
drawn and an agreement with the other side 
effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have 
said if he had been there the other side 
pushing its advantage to the extreme and 
making the supposititious testimony distinctly 
damaging to the interests of its proponents. 
In brief, it was the general feeling in all 
that region that Silas Deemer was the one 
immobile verity of Hillbrook, and that his 
translation in space would precipitate some 
dismal public ill or strenuous calamity. 

Mrs. Deemer and two grown daughters 
occupied the upper rooms of the building, 
but Silas had never been known to sleep else 
where than on a cot behind the counter of the 
store. And there, quite by accident, he was 
found one night, dying, and passed away just 
before the time for taking down the shutters. 
Though speechless, he appeared conscious, 
and it was thought by those who knew him 



158 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

best that if the end had unfortunately been 
delayed beyond the usual hour for opening 
the store the effect upon him would have been 
deplorable. 

Such had been Silas Deemer such the 
fixity and invariety of his life and habit, that 
the village humorist (who had once attended 
college) was moved to bestow upon him the 
sobriquet of "Old Ibidem," and, in the first 
issue of the local newspaper after the death, 
to explain without offence that Silas had taken 
" a day off." It was more than a day, but 
from the record it appears that well within a 
month Mr. Deemer made it plain that he had 
not the leisure to be dead. 

One of Hillbrook s most respected citizens 
was Alvan Creede, a banker. He lived in 
the finest house in town, kept a carriage and 
was a most estimable man variously. He 
knew something of the advantages of travel, 
too, having been frequently in Boston, and 
once, it was thought, in New York, though 
he modestly disclaimed that glittering distinc 
tion. The matter is mentioned here merely 
as a contribution to an understanding of Mr. 
Creede s worth, for either way it is creditable 
to him to his intelligence if he had put 
himself, even temporarily, into contact with 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 159 

metropolitan culture; to his candor if he had 
not. 

One pleasant summer evening at about the 
hour of ten Mr. Creede, entering at his gar 
den gate, passed up the gravel walk, which 
looked very white in the moonlight, mounted 
the stone steps of his fine house and pausing a 
moment inserted his latchkey in the door. As 
he pushed this open he met his wife, who was 
crossing the passage from the parlor to the 
library. She greeted him pleasantly and 
pulling the door further back held it for him 
to enter. Instead he turned and, looking 
about his feet in front of the threshold, ut 
tered an exclamation of surprise. 

"Why! what the devil," he said, "has 
become of that jug?" 

" What jug, Alvan? " his wife inquired, not 
very sympathetically. 

" A jug of maple sirup I brought it along 
from the store and set it down here to open 
the door. What the 

"There, there, Alvan, please don t swear 
again," said the lady, interrupting. Hill- 
brook, by the way, is not the only place in 
Christendom where a vestigial polytheism 
forbids the taking in vain of the Evil One s 
name. 



160 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

The jug of maple sirup which the easy 
ways of village life had permitted Hill- 
brook s foremost citizen to carry home from 
the store was not there. 

" Are you quite sure, Alvan? " 

" My dear, do you suppose a man does not 
know when he is carrying a jug? I bought 
that sirup at Deemer s as I was passing. 
Deemer himself drew it and lent me the jug, 
and I 

The sentence remains to this day un 
finished. Mr. Creede staggered into the 
house, entered the parlor and dropped into 
an arm-chair, trembling in every limb. He 
had suddenly remembered that Silas Deemer 
was three weeks dead. 

Mrs. Creede stood by her husband, regard 
ing him with surprise and anxiety. 

"For Heaven s sake," she said, "what ails 
you?" 

Mr. Creede s ailment having no obvious 
relation to the interests of the better land he 
did not apparently deem it necessary to ex 
pound it on that demand; he said nothing 
merely stared. There were long moments of 
silence broken by nothing but the measured 
ticking of the clock, which seemed some 
what slower than usual, as if it were civilly 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 161 

granting them an extension of time in which 
to recover their wits. 

"Jane, I have gone mad that is it." He 
spoke thickly and hurriedly. "You should 
have told me; you must have observed my 
symptoms before they became so pronounced 
that I have observed them myself. I thought 
I was passing Deemer s store; it was open and 
lit up that is what I thought; of course it is 
never open now. Silas Deemer stood at his 
desk behind the counter. My God, Jane, I 
saw him as distinctly as I see you. Remem 
bering that you had said you wanted some 
maple sirup, I went in and bought some 
th#t is all I bought two quarts of maple 
sirup from Silas Deemer, who is dead and 
underground, but nevertheless drew that 
sirup from a cask and handed it to me in a 
jug. He talked with me, too, rather gravely, 
I remember, even more so than was his way, 
but not a word of what he said can I now re 
call. But I saw him good Lord, I saw and 
talked with him and he is dead! So I 
thought, but I m mad, Jane, I m as crazy as 
a beetle; and you have kept it from me." 

This monologue gave the woman time to 
collect what faculties she had. 

"Alvan," she said, "you have given no 



162 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

evidence of insanity, believe me. This was un 
doubtedly an illusion how should it be any 
thing else? That would be too terrible! 
But there is no insanity; you are working too 
hard at the bank. You should not have at 
tended the meeting of directors this evening; 
any one could see that you were ill; I knew 
something would occur." 

It may have seemed to him that the proph 
ecy had lagged a bit, awaiting the event, 
but he said nothing of that, being concerned 
with his own condition. He was calm now, 
and could think coherently. 

" Doubtless the phenomenon was subjec 
tive," he said, with a somewhat ludicrous 
transition to the slang of science. " Granting 
the possibility of spiritual apparition and 
even materialization, yet the apparition and 
materialization of a half-gallon brown clay 
jug a piece of coarse, heavy pottery evolved 
from nothing that is hardly thinkable." 

As he finished speaking, a child ran into 
the room his little daughter. She was clad 
in a bedgown. Hastening to her father she 
threw her arms about his neck, saying: "You 
naughty papa, you forgot to come in and kiss 
me. We heard you open the gate and got 
up and looked out. And, papa dear, Eddy 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 168 

says mayn t he have the little jug when it is 
empty?" 

As the full import of that revelation im 
parted itself to Alvan Creede s understanding 
he visibly shuddered. For the child could 
not have heard a word of the conversation. 

The estate of Silas Deemer being in the 
hands of an administrator who had thought 
it best to dispose of the " business " the store 
had been closed ever since the owner s death, 
the goods having been removed by another 
"merchant" who had purchased them en 
bloc. The rooms above were vacant as well, 
for the widow and daughters had gone to 
another town. 

On the evening immediately after Alvan 
Creede s adventure (which had somehow 
"got out") a crowd of men, women and 
children thronged the sidewalk opposite the 
store. That the place was haunted by the 
spirit of the late Silas Deemer was now well 
known to every resident of Hillb rook, though 
many affected disbelief. Of these the hard 
iest, and in a general way the youngest, threw 
stones against the front of the building, the 
only part accessible, but carefully missed the 
unshuttered windows. Incredulity had not 
grown to malice. A few venturesome souls 



164 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

crossed the street and rattled the door in its 
frame; struck matches and held them near 
the window; attempted to view the black in 
terior. Some of the spectators invited atten 
tion to their wit by shouting and groaning and 
challenging the ghost to a footrace. 

After a considerable time had elapsed 
without any manifestation, and many of the 
crowd had gone away, all those remaining 
began to observe that the interior of the store 
was suffused with a dim, yellow light. At 
this all demonstrations ceased; the intrepid 
souls about the door and windows fell back 
to the opposite side of the street and were 
merged in the crowd; the small boys ceased 
throwing stones. Nobody spoke above his 
breath; all whispered excitedly and pointed 
to the now steadily growing light. How 
long a time had passed since the first faint 
glow had been observed none could have 
guessed, but eventually the illumination was 
bright enough to reveal the whole interior of 
the store; and there, standing at his desk be 
hind the counter, Silas Deemer was distinctly 
visible! 

The effect upon the crowd was marvelous. 
It began rapidly to melt away at both flanks, 
as the timid left the place. Many ran as fast 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 165 

as their legs would let them; others moved 
off with greater dignity, turning occasionally 
to look backward over the shoulder. At last 
a score or more, mostly men, remained where 
they were, speechless, staring, excited. The 
apparition inside gave them no attention; it 
was apparently occupied with a book of ac 
counts. 

Presently three men left the crowd on the 
sidewalk as if by a common impulse and 
crossed the street. One of them, a heavy 
man, was about to set his shoulder against the 
door when it opened, apparently without hu 
man agency, and the courageous investiga 
tors passed in. No sooner had they crossed 
the threshold than they were seen by the awed 
observers outside to be acting in the most 
unaccountable way. They thrust out their 
hands before them, pursued devious courses, 
came into violent collision with the counter, 
with boxes and barrels on the floor, and with 
one another. They turned awkwardly hither 
and thither and seemed trying to escape, but 
unable to retrace their steps. Their voices 
were heard in exclamations and curses. But 
in no way did the apparition of Silas Deemer 
manifest an interest in what was going on. 

By what impulse the crowd was moved 



166 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

none ever recollected, but the entire mass 
men, women, children, dogs made a simul 
taneous and tumultuous rush for the entrance. 
They congested the doorway, pushing for pre 
cedence resolving themselves at length into 
a line and moving up step by step. By some 
subtle spiritual or physical alchemy observa 
tion had been transmuted into action the 
sightseers had become participants in the 
spectacle the audience had usurped the 
stage. 

To the only spectator remaining on the 
other side of the street Alvan Creede, the 
banker the interior of the store with its in- 
pouring crowd continued in full illumina 
tion; all the strange things going on there 
were clearly visible. To those inside all was 
black darkness. It was as if each person as 
he was thrust in at the door had been stricken 
blind, and was maddened by the mischance. 
They groped with aimless imprecision, tried 
to force their way out against the current, 
pushed and elbowed, struck at random, fell 
and were trampled, rose and trampled in 
their turn. They seized one another by the 
garments, the hair, the beard fought like 
animals, cursed, shouted, called one another 
opprobrious and obscene names. When, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 167 

finally, Alvan Creede had seen the last per 
son of the line pass into that awful tumult 
the light that had illuminated it was suddenly 
quenched and all was as black to him as 
to those within. He turned away and left 
the place. 

In the early morning a curious crowd had 
gathered about " Deemer s." It was com 
posed partly of those who had run away the 
night before, but now had the courage of 
sunshine, partly of honest folk going to their 
daily toil. The door of the store stood open; 
the place was vacant, but on the walls, the 
floor, the furniture, were shreds of clothing 
and tangles of hair. Hillbrook militant had 
managed somehow to pull itself out and had 
gone home to medicine its hurts and swear 
that it had been all night in bed. On the 
dusty desk, behind the counter, was the sales- 
book. The entries in it, in Deemer s hand 
writing, had ceased on the i6th day of July, 
the last of his life. There was no record of 
a later sale to Alvan Creede. 

That is the entire story except that men s 
passions having subsided and reason having 
resumed its immemorial sway, it was con 
fessed in Hillbrook that, considering the 
harmless and honorable character of his first 



168 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

commercial transaction under the new con 
ditions, Silas Deemer, deceased, might prop 
erly have been suffered to resume business at 
the old stand without mobbing. In that 
judgment the local historian from whose un 
published work these facts are compiled had 
the thoughtfulness to signify his concurrence. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 169 



STALEY FLEMING S HALLUCINA 
TION 

OF two men who were talking one 
was a physician. 
" I sent for you, Doctor," said the 
other, " but I don t think you can do 
me any good. May be you can recommend 
a specialist in psychopathy. I fancy I m a 
bit loony." 

"You look all right," the physician said. 

"You shall judge I have hallucinations. 
I wake every night and see in my room, in 
tently watching me, a big black Newfound 
land dog with a white forefoot." 

"You say you wake; are you sure about 
that? Hallucinations are sometimes only 
dreams." 

"Oh, I wake, all right. Sometimes I lie 
still a long time, looking at the dog as ear 
nestly as the dog looks at me I always leave 
the light going. When I can t endure it any 
longer I sit up in bed and nothing is there 1" 

" M, m what is the beast s expression?" 

" It seems to me sinister. Of course I know 



170 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

that, except in art, an animal s face in repose 
has always the same expression. But this is 
not a real animal. Newfoundland dogs are 
pretty mild looking, you know; what s the 
matter with this one?" 

" Really, my diagnosis would have no 
value: I am not going to treat the dog," 

The physician laughed at his own pleas 
antry, but narrowly watched his patient from 
the corner of his eye. Presently he said: 
" Fleming, your description of the beast fits 
the dog of the late Atwell Barton." 

Fleming half-rose from his chair, sat again 
and made a visible attempt at indifference. 
" I remember Barton," he said; " I believe he 
was it was reported that wasn t there some 
thing suspicious in his death?" 

Looking squarely now into the eyes of his 
patient, the physician said: "Three years ago 
the body of your old enemy, Atwell Barton, 
was found in the woods near his house and 
yours. He had been stabbed to death. 
There have been no arrests; there was no 
clew. Some of us had * theories. I had 
one. Have you? " 

"I? Why, bless your soul, what could I 
know about it? You remember that I left 
for Europe almost immediately afterward 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 171 

a considerable time afterward. In the few 
weeks since my return you could not expect 
me to construct a theory. In fact, I have 
not given the matter a thought. What about 
his dog?" 

" It was first to find the body. It died of 
starvation on his grave." 

We do not know the inexorable law under 
lying coincidences. Staley Fleming did not, 
or he would perhaps not have sprung to his 
feet as the night wind brought in through 
the open window the long wailing howl of a 
distant dog. He strode several times across 
the room in the steadfast gaze of the physi 
cian; then, abruptly confronting him, almost 
shouted: "What has all this to do with my 
trouble, Dr. Halderman? You forget why 
you were sent for." 

Rising, the physician laid his hand upon 
his patient s arm and said, gently: "Pardon 
me. I cannot diagnose your disorder off 
hand to-morrow, perhaps. Please go to 
bed, leaving your door unlocked; I will pass 
the night here with your books. Can you 
call me without rising?" 

"Yes, there is an electric bell." 

"Good. If anything disturbs you push the 
button without sitting up. Good night." 



172 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Comfortably installed in an armchair the 
man of medicine stared into the glowing coals 
and thought deeply and long, but apparently 
to little purpose, for he frequently rose and 
opening a door leading to the staircase, list 
ened intently; then resumed his seat. Pres 
ently, however, he fell asleep, and when he 
woke it was past midnight. He stirred the 
failing fire, lifted a book from the table at 
his side and looked at the title. It was Den- 
neker s " Meditations." He opened it at 
random and began to read: 

" Forasmuch as it is ordainqd of God that 
all flesh hath spirit and thereby taketh on 
spiritual powers, so, also, the spirit hath 
powers of the flesh, even when it is gone out 
of the flesh and liveth as a thing apart, as 
many a violence performed by wraith and 
lemure sheweth. And there be who say that 
man is not single in this, but the beasts have 
the like evil inducement, and " 

The reading was interrupted by a shaking 
of the house, as by the fall of a heavy object. 
The reader flung down the book, rushed from 
the room and mounted the stairs to Fleming s 
bed-chamber. He tried the door, but con 
trary to his instructions it was locked. He 
set his shoulder against it with such force that 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 173 

it gave way. On the floor near the disordered 
bed, in his night clothes, lay Fleming gasp 
ing away his life. 

The physician raised the dying man s head 
from the floor and observed a wound in the 
throat. " I should have thought of this," he 
said, believing it suicide. 

When the man was dead an examination 
disclosed the unmistakable marks of an 
animal s fangs deeply sunken into the jugular 
vein. 

But there was no animal. 



174 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



A RESUMED IDENTITY 



THE REVIHV AS A FORM OF WELCOME 

OXE summer night a man stood on a 
low hill overlooking a wide ex 
panse of forest and tield. By the 
full moon hanging low in the west 
he knew what he might not have known other- 
\\ se: that it was near the hour of dawn. A 
light mist lay along the earth, partly veiling 
the lower features of the landscape, but above 
it the taller trees showed in well-defined 
masses against a clear sky. Two or three 
farmhouses were visible through the haze, but 
in none of them, naturallv. was a light. Xo- 
where, indeed, was any sign or suggestion of 
life except the barking of a distant dog, 
which, repeated with mechanical iteration, 
served rather to accentuate than dispel the 
loneliness of the scene. 

The man looked curiously about him on all 
sides, as one who among familiar surround 
ings is unable to determine his exact place and 
part in the scheme of things. It is so, pei 



npr- 



OF AMBROSE BIERC K 175 

haps, that we shall act when, risen from the 
dead, we await the call to judgment 

A hundred yards away was a straight road, 
showing white in the moonlight Endeavor 
ing to orient himself, as a surveyor or navigat 
or might say, the man moved his eyes slowly 
along its visible length and at a distance of a 
quarter-mile to the south of his station saw, 
dim and gray in the haze, a group of horse 
men riding to the north. Behind them were 
men afoot, marching in column, with dimly 
gleaming rifles aslant above their shoulders. 
They moved slowly and in silence. Another 
group of horsemen, another regiment of in 
fantry, another and another all in unceasing 
motion toward the man s point of view, past 
it, and beyond, A battery of artillery fol 
lowed, the cannoneers Tiding with folded 
arms on limber and caisson. And still the in 
terminable procession came out of the ob 
scurity to south and passed into the obscurity 
to north, with never a sound of voice, nor 
hoof, nor wheel. 

The man could not rightly understand: he 
thought himself deaf; said so, and heard his 
own voice, although it had an unfamiliar 
quality that almost alarmed him; it disap 
pointed his ear s expectancy in the matter of 



176 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

timbre and resonance. But he was not deaf, 
and that for the moment sufficed. 

Then he remembered that there are natural 
phenomena to which some one has given the 
name " acoustic shadows." If you stand in an 
acoustic shadow there is one direction from 
which you will hear nothing. At the battle 
of Gaines s Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts 
of the Civil War, with a hundred guns in 
play, spectators a mile and a half away on the 
opposite side of the Chickahominy valley 
heard nothing of what they clearly saw. The 
bombardment of Port Royal, heard and felt 
at St. Augustine, a hundred and fifty miles to 
the south, was inaudible two miles to the north 
in a still atmosphere. A few days before the 
surrender at Appomattox a thunderous en 
gagement between the commands of Sheridan 
and Pickett was unknown to the latter com 
mander, a mile in the rear of his own line. 

These instances were not known to the man 
of whom we write, but less striking ones of the 
same character had not escaped his observa 
tion. He was profoundly disquieted, but for 
another reason than the uncanny silence of 
that moonlight march. 

"Good Lord!" he said to himself and 
again it was as if another had spoken his 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 177 

thought " if those people are what I take 
them to be we have lost the battle and they 
are moving on Nashville!" 

Then came a thought of self an apprehen 
sion a strong sense of personal peril, such as 
in another we call fear. He stepped quickly 
into the shadow of a tree. And still the silent 
battalions moved slowly forward in the haze. 

The chill of a sudden breeze upon the back 
of his neck drew his attention to the quarter 
whence it came, and turning to the east he 
saw a faint gray light along the horizon 
the first sign of returning day. This in 
creased his apprehension. 

" I must get away from here," he thought, 
" or I shall be discovered and taken." 

He moved out of the shadow, walking 
rapidly toward the graying east. From the 
safer seclusion of a clump of cedars he looked 
back. The entire column had passed out of 
sight: the straight white road lay bare and 
desolate in the moonlight! 

Puzzled before, he was now inexpressibly 
astonished. So swift a passing of so slow an 
army! he could not comprehend it. Minute 
after minute passed unnoted; he had lost his 
sense of time. He sought with a terrible 
earnestness a solution of the mystery, but 



178 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

sought in vain. When at last he roused him 
self from his abstraction the sun s rim was 
visible above the hills, but in the new condi 
tions he found no other light than that of day; 
his understanding was involved as darkly in 
doubt as before. 

On every side lay cultivated fields showing 
no sign of war and war s ravages. From the 
chimneys of the farmhouses thin ascensions of 
blue smoke signaled preparations for a day s 
peaceful toil. Having stilled its immemorial 
allocution to the moon, the watch-dog was as 
sisting a negro who, prefixing a team of mules 
to the plow, was flatting and sharping con 
tentedly at his task. The hero of this tale 
stared stupidly at the pastoral picture as if he 
had never seen such a thing in all his life; 
then he put his hand to his head, passed it 
through his hair and, withdrawing it, attent 
ively considered the palm a singular thing 
to do. Apparently reassured by the act, he 
walked confidently toward the road. 

II 

WHEN YOU HAVE LOST YOUR LIFE CONSULT A 

PHYSICIAN 

Dr. Stilling Malson, of Murfreesboro, hav 
ing visited a patient six or seven miles away, 
on the Nashville road, had remained with 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 179 

him all night. At daybreak he set out for 
home on horseback, as was the custom of doct 
ors of the time and region. He had passed in 
to the neighborhood of Stone s River battle 
field when a man approached him from the 
roadside and saluted in the military fashion, 
with a movement of the right hand to the hat- 
brim. But the hat was not a military hat, the 
man was not in uniform and had not a martial 
bearing. The doctor nodded civilly, half 
thinking that the stranger s uncommon greet 
ing was perhaps in deference to the historic 
surroundings. As the stranger evidently de 
sired speech with him he courteously reined in 
his horse and waited. 

" Sir," said the stranger, " although a civil 
ian, you are perhaps an enemy." 

" I am a physician," was the non-committal 
reply. 

"Thank you," said the other. " I am a 
lieutenant, of the staff of General Hazen." 
He paused a moment and looked sharply at 
the person whom he was addressing, then 
added, " Of the Federal army." 

The physician merely nodded. 

" Kindly tell me," continued the other, 
"what has happened here. Where are the 
armies? Which has won the battle?" 

The physician regarded his questioner 



180 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

curiously with half-shut eyes. After a pro 
fessional scrutiny, prolonged to the limit of 
politeness, "Pardon me," he said; "one ask 
ing information should be willing to impart 
it. Are you wounded? " he added, smiling. 

" Not seriously it seems." 

The man removed the unmilitary hat, put 
his hand to his head, passed it through his 
hair and, withdrawing it, attentively consid 
ered the palm. 

" I was struck by a bullet and have been 
unconscious. It must have been a light, 
glancing blow: I find no blood and feel no 
pain. I will not trouble you for treatment, 
but will you kindly direct me to my command 
to any part of the Federal army if you 
know?" 

Again the doctor did not immediately 
reply : he was recalling much that is recorded 
in the books of his profession something 
about lost identity and the effect of familiar 
scenes in restoring it. At length he looked 
the man in the face, smiled, and said: 

" Lieutenant, you are not wearing the uni 
form of your rank and service." 

At this the man glanced down at his civilian 
attire, lifted his eyes, and said with hesita 
tion: 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 181 

"That is true. I I don t quite under 
stand." 

Still regarding him sharply but not unsym- 
pathetically the man of science bluntly in 
quired: 

"How old are you?" 

" Twenty-three if that has anything to do 
with it." 

"You don t look it; I should hardly have 
guessed you to be just that." 

The man was growing impatient. "We 
need not discuss that," he said; "I want to 
know about the army. Not two hours ago I 
saw a column of troops moving northward on 
this road. You must have met them. Be 
good enough to tell me the color of their 
clothing, which I was unable to make out, 
and I ll trouble you no more." 

"You are quite sure that you saw them?" 

"Sure? My God, sir, I could have 
counted them! " 

" Why, really," said the physician, with an 
amusing consciousness of his own resemblance 
to the loquacious barber of the Arabian 
Nights, " this is very interesting. I met no 
troops." 

The man looked at him coldly, as if he 
had himself observed the likeness to the bar- 



182 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

her. " It is plain," he said, " that you do not 
care to assist me. Sir, you may go to the 
devil!" 

He turned and strode away, very much at 
random, across the dewy fields, his half-penit- 
erit tormentor quietly watching him from his 
point of vantage in the saddle till he disap 
peared beyond an array of trees. 



Ill 



THE DANGER OF LOOKING INTO A POOL OF 
WATER 

After leaving the road the man slackened 
his pace, and now went forward, rather de 
viously, with a distinct feeling of fatigue. 
He could not account for this, though truly 
the interminable loquacity of that country 
doctor offered itself in explanation. Seating 
himself upon a rock, he laid one hand upon 
his knee, back upward, and casually looked 
at it. It was lean and withered. He lifted 
both hands to his face. It was seamed and 
furrowed; he could trace the lines with the 
tips of his fingers. How strange! a mere 
bullet-stroke and a brief unconsciousness 
should not make one a physical wreck. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 183 

" I must have been a long time in hospital," 
he said aloud. "Why, what a fool I am! 
The battle was in December, and it is now 
summer!" He laughed. " No wonder that 
fellow thought me an escaped lunatic. He 
was wrong: I am only an escaped patient." 

At a little distance a small plot of ground 
enclosed by a stone wall caught his attention. 
With no very definite intent he rose and went 
to it. In the center was a square, solid monu 
ment of hewn stone. It was brown with age, 
weather-worn at the angles, spotted with moss 
and lichen. Between the massive blocks were 
strips of grass the leverage of whose roots had 
pushed them apart. In answer to the chal 
lenge of this ambitious structure Time had 
laid his destroying hand upon it, and it would 
soon be "one with Nineveh and Tyre." In 
an inscription on one side his eye caught a 
familiar name. Shaking with excitement, he 
craned his body across the wall and read: 

HAZEN S BRIGADE 
to 

The Memory of Its Soldiers 

who fell at 
Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862. 

The man fell back from the wall, faint 



184 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

and sick. Almost within an arm s length was 
a little depression in the earth; it had been 
filled by a recent rain a pool of clear water. 
He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the up 
per part of his body on his trembling arms, 
thrust forward his head and saw the reflection 
of his face, as in a mirror. He uttered a ter 
rible cry. His arms gave way; he fell, face 
downward, into the pool and yielded up the 
life that had spanned another life. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 185 

- , ** * 

A BABY TRAMP 

IF you had seen little Jo standing at the 
street corner in the rain, you would 
hardly have admired him. It was appar 
ently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, but 
the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly 
old enough to be either just or unjust, and so 
perhaps did not come under the law of im 
partial distribution) appeared to have some 
property peculiar to itself: one would have 
said it was dark and adhesive sticky. But 
that could hardly be so, even in Blackburg, 
where things certainly did occur that were a 
good deal out of the common. 

For example, ten or twelve years before, a 
shower of small frogs had fallen, as is cred 
ibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, 
the record concluding with a somewhat ob 
scure statement to the effect that the chron 
icler considered it good growing-weather for 
Frenchmen. 

Some years later Blackburg had a fall of 
crimson snow; it is cold in Blackburg when 
winter is on, and the snows are frequent and 
deep. There can be no doubt of it the 



186 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

SIK^VCQ ! is instance was of the color of blood 
and melltd into water of the same hue, if 
water it was, not blood. The phenomenon 
had attracted wide attention, and science had 
as many explanations as there were scientists 
who knew nothing about it. But the men of 
Blackburg men who for many years had 
lived right there where the red snow fell, and 
might be supposed to know a good deal about 
the matter shook their heads and said some 
thing would come of it. 

And something did, for the next summer 
was made memorable by the prevalence of 
a mysterious disease epidemic, endemic, or 
the Lord knows what, though the physicians 
didn t which carried away a full half of 
the population. Most of the other half car 
ried themselves away and were slow to return, 
but finally came back, and were now increas 
ing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg 
had not since been altogether the same. 

Of quite another kind, though equally " out 
of the common," was the incident of Hetty 
Parlow s ghost. Hetty Parlow s maiden 
name had been Brownon, and in Blackburg 
that meant more than one would think. 

The Brownons had from time immemorial 
from the very earliest of the old colonial 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 187 

days been the leading family of the town. 
It was the richest and it was the best, and 
Blackburg would have shed the last drop of 
its plebeian blood in defense of the Brownon 
fair fame. As few of the family s members 
had ever been known to live permanently 
away from Blackburg, although most of them 
were educated elsewhere and nearly all had 
traveled, there was quite a number of them. 
The men held most of the public offices, and 
the women were foremost in all good works. 
Of these latter, Hetty was most beloved by 
reason of the sweetness of her disposition, the 
purity of her character and her singular per 
sonal beauty. She married in Boston a young 
scapegrace named Parlow, and like a good 
Brownon brought him to Blackburg forth 
with and made a man and a town councilman 
of him. They had a child which they named 
Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the 
fashion among parents in all that region. 
Then they died of the mysterious disorder al 
ready mentioned, and at the age of one whole 
year Joseph set up as an orphan. 

Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which 
had cut off his parents did not stop at that; 
it went on and extirpated nearly the whole 
Brownon contingent and its allies by mar- 



188 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

riage; and those who fled did not return. 
The tradition was broken, the Brownon es 
tates passed into alien hands and the only 
Brownons remaining in that place were under 
ground in Oak Hill Cemetery, where, indeed, 
was a colony of them powerful enough to 
resist the encroachment of surrounding tribes 
and hold the best part of the grounds. But 
about the ghost: 

One night, about three years after the 
death of Hetty Parlow, a number of the 
young people of Blackburg were passing Oak 
Hill Cemetery in a wagon if you have been 
there you will remember that the road to 
Greenton runs alongside it on the south. They 
had been attending a May Day festival at 
Greenton; and that serves to fix the date. 
Altogether there may have been a dozen, and 
a jolly party they were, considering the 
legacy of gloom left by the town s recent 
somber experiences. As they passed the cem 
etery the man driving suddenly reined in 
his team with an exclamation of surprise. It 
was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for just 
ahead, and almost at the roadside, though 
inside the cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty 
Parlow. There could be no doubt of it, for 
she had been personally known to every youth 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 189 

and maiden in the party. That established 
the thing s identity; its character as ghost was 
signified by all the customary signs the 
shroud, the long, undone hair, the " far-away 
look" everything. This disquieting appar 
ition was stretching out its arms toward the 
west, as if in supplication for the evening 
star, which, certainly, was an alluring object, 
though obviously out of reach. As they all 
sat silent (so the story goes) every member of 
that party of merrymakers they had merry- 
made on coffee and lemonade only distinctly 
heard that ghost call the name " Joey, Joey!" 
A moment later nothing was there. Of course 
one does not have to believe all that. 

Now, at that moment, as was afterward as 
certained, Joey was wandering about in the 
sagebrush on the opposite side of the conti 
nent, near Winnemucca, in the State of Ne 
vada. He had been taken to that town by 
some good persons distantly related to his 
dead father, and by them adopted and ten 
derly cared for. But on that evening the poor 
child had strayed from home and was lost in 
the desert. 

His after history is involved in obscurity 
and has gaps which conjecture alone can fill. 
It is known that he was found by a family of 



190 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Piute Indians, who kept the little wretch with 
them for a time and then sold him actually 
sold him for money to a woman on one of the 
east-bound trains, at a station a long way from 
Winnemucca. The woman professed to have 
made all manner of inquiries, but all in vain: 
so, being childless and a widow, she adopted 
him herself. At this point of his career Jo 
seemed to be getting a long way from the con 
dition of orphanage; the interposition of a 
multitude of parents between himself and 
that woeful state promised him a long im 
munity from its disadvantages. 

Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in 
Cleveland, Ohio. But her adopted son did 
not long remain with her. He was seen one 
afternoon by a policeman, new to that beat, 
deliberately toddling away from her house, 
and being questioned answered that he was 
" a doin home." He must have traveled by 
rail, somehow, for three days later he was in 
the town of Whiteville, which, as you know, 
is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing 
was in pretty fair condition, but he was sin 
fully dirty. Unable to give any account of 
himself he was arrested as a vagrant and sen 
tenced to imprisonment in the Infants Shel 
tering Home where he was washed. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 191 

Jo ran away from the Infants Sheltering 
Home at Whiteville just took to the woods 
one day, and the Home knew him no more 
forever. 

We find him next, or rather get back to 
him, standing forlorn in the cold autumn rain 
at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; 
and it seems right to explain now that the 
raindrops falling upon him there were really 
not dark and gummy; they only failed to 
make his face and hands less so. Jo was in 
deed fearfully and wonderfully besmirched, 
as by the hand of an artist. And the forlorn 
little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, 
red, and swollen, and when he walked he 
limped with both legs. As to clothing ah, 
you would hardly have had the skill to name 
any single garment that he wore, or say by 
what magic he kept it upon him. That he 
was cold all over and all through did not 
admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Any 
one would have been cold there that evening; 
but, for that reason, no one else was there. 
How Jo came to be there himself, he could 
not for the flickering little life of him have 
told, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceed 
ing a hundred words. From the way he stared 
about him one could have seen that he had 



192 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

not the faintest notion of where (nor why) he 
was. 

Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day 
and generation; being cold and hungry, and 
still able to walk a little by bending his knees 
very much indeed and putting his feet down 
toes first, he decided to enter one of the houses 
which flanked the street at long intervals and 
looked so bright and warm. But when he at 
tempted to act upon that very sensible decis 
ion a burly dog came bowsing out and dis 
puted his right. Inexpressibly frightened 
and believing, no doubt (with some reason, 
too) that brutes without meant brutality 
within, he hobbled away from all the houses, 
and with gray, wet fields to right of him and 
gray, wet fields to left of him with the rain 
half blinding him and the night coming in 
mist and darkness, held his way along the 
road that leads to Greenton. That is to say, 
the road leads those to Greenton who succeed 
in passing the Oak Hill Cemetery. A con 
siderable number every year do not. 

Jo did not. 

They found him there the next morning, 
very wet, very cold, but no longer hungry. 
He had apparently entered the cemetery gate 
hoping, perhaps, that it led to a house 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 193 

where there was no dog and gone blunder 
ing about in the darkness, falling over many 
a grave, no doubt, until he had tired \)f it 
all and given up. The little body lay upon 
one side, with one soiled cheek upon one 
soiled hand, the other hand tucked away 
among the rags to make it warm, the other 
cheek washed clean and white at last, as for 
a kiss from one of God s great angels. It 
was observed though nothing was thought 
of it at the time, the body being as yet un 
identified that the little fellow was lying 
upon the grave of Hetty Parlow. The grave, 
however, had not opened to receive him. 
That is a circumstance which, without actual 
irreverence, one may wish had been ordered 
otherwise. 



194 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT "DEAD- 
MAN S " 

A STORY THAT IS UNTRUE 

IT was a singularly sharp night, and 
clear as the heart of a diamond. Clear 
nights have a trick of being keen. In 
darkness you may be cold and not 
know it; when you see, you suffer. This 
night was bright enough to bite like a ser 
pent. The moon was moving mysteriously 
along behind the giant pines crowning the 
South Mountain, striking a cold sparkle from 
the crusted snow, and bringing out against 
the black west the ghostly outlines of the 
Coast Range, beyond which lay the invisible 
Pacific. The snow had piled itself, in the 
open spaces along the bottom of the gulch, 
into long ridges that seemed to heave, and 
into hills that appeared to toss and scatter 
spray. The spray was sunlight, twice re 
flected: dashed once from the moon, once 
from the snow. 

In this snow many of the shanties of the 
abandoned mining camp were obliterated, (a 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 195 

sailor might have said they had gone down) 
and at irregular intervals it had overtopped 
the tall trestles which had once supported a 
river called a flume; for, of course, "flume" 
is flumen. Among the advantages of which 
the mountains cannot deprive the gold-hunter 
is the privilege of speaking Latin. He says 
of his dead neighbor, " He has gone up the 
flume." This is not a bad way to say, " His 
life has returned to the Fountain of Life." 

While putting on its armor against the as 
saults of the wind, this snow had neglected 
no coign of vantage. Snow pursued by the 
wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. 
In the open field it ranges itself in ranks 
and battalions; where it can get a foothold 
it makes a stand; where it can take cover it 
does so. You may see whole platoons of snow 
cowering behind a bit of broken wall. The 
devious old road, hewn out of the mountain 
side, was full of it. Squadron upon squadron 
had struggled to escape by this line, when 
suddenly pursuit had ceased. A more deso 
late and dreary spot than Deadman s Gulch 
in a winter midnight it is impossible to imag 
ine. Yet Mr. Hiram Beeson elected to live 
there, the sole inhabitant. 

Away up the side of the North Mountain his 



196 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

little pine-log shanty projected from its sin 
gle pane of glass a long, thin beam of light, 
and looked not altogether unlike a black 
beetle fastened to the hillside with a bright 
new pin. Within it sat Mr. Beeson himself, 
before a roaring fire, staring into its hot heart 
as if he had never before seen such a thing in 
all his life. He was not a comely man. He 
was gray; he was ragged and slovenly in his 
attire; his face was wan and haggard; his 
eyes were too bright. As to his age, if one 
had attempted to guess it, one might have said 
forty-seven, then corrected himself and said 
seventy-four. He was really twenty-eight. 
Emaciated he was; as much, perhaps, as he 
dared be, with a needy undertaker at Bent- 
ley s Flat and a new and enterprising coroner 
at Sonora. Poverty and zeal are an upper 
and a nether millstone. It is dangerous to 
make a third in that kind of sandwich. 

As Mr. Beeson sat there, with his ragged 
elbows on his ragged knees, his lean jaws 
buried in his lean hands, and with no appar 
ent intention of going to bed, he looked as if 
the slightest movement would tumble him to 
pieces. Yet during the last hour he had 
winked no fewer than three times. 

There was a sharp rapping at the door. A 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 197 

rap at that time of night and in that weather 
might have surprised an ordinary mortal who 
had dwelt two years in the gulch without see 
ing a human face, and could not fail to know 
that the country was impassable; but Mr. 
Beeson did not so much as pull his eyes out 
of the coals. And even when the door was 
pushed open he only shrugged a little more 
closely into himself, as one does who is ex 
pecting something that he would rather not 
see. You may observe this movement in wo 
men when, in a mortuary chapel, the coffin 
is borne up the aisle behind them. 

But when a long old man in a blanket over 
coat, his head tied up in a handkerchief and 
nearly his entire face in a muffler, wearing 
green goggles and with a complexion of glit 
tering whiteness where it could be seen, strode 
silently into the room, laying a hard, gloved 
hand on Mr. Beeson s shoulder, the latter so 
far forgot himself as to look up with an ap 
pearance of no small astonishment; whom 
ever he may have been expecting, he had evid 
ently not counted on meeting anyone like 
this. Nevertheless, the sight of this unex 
pected guest produced in Mr. Beeson the fol 
lowing sequence: a feeling of astonishment; 
a sense of gratification; a sentiment of pro- 



198 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

found good will. Rising from his seat, he 
took the knotty hand from his shoulder, and 
shook it up and down with a fervor quite un 
accountable; for in the old man s aspect was 
nothing to attract, much to repel. However, 
attraction is too general a property for repuls 
ion to be without it. The most attractive ob 
ject in the world is the face we instinctively 
cover with a cloth. When it becomes still 
more attractive fascinating we put seven 
feet of earth above it. 

"Sir," said Mr. Beeson, releasing the old 
man s hand, which fell passively against his 
thigh with a quiet clack, " it is an extremely 
disagreeable night. Pray be seated; I am 
very glad to see you." 

Mr. Beeson spoke with an easy good breed 
ing that one would hardly have expected, con 
sidering all things. Indeed, the contrast be 
tween his appearance and his manner was 
sufficiently surprising to be one of the com 
monest of social phenomena in the mines. 
The old man advanced a step toward the fire, 
glowing cavernously in the green goggles. 
Mr. Beeson resumed: 

"You bet your life I am!" 

Mr. Beeson s elegance was not too refined; 
it had made reasonable concessions to local 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 199 

taste. He paused a moment, letting his eyes 
drop from the muffled head of his guest, down 
along the row of moldy buttons confining the 
blanket overcoat, to the greenish cowhide 
boots powdered with snow, which had begun 
to melt and run along the floor in little rills. 
He took an inventory of his guest, and ap 
peared satisfied. Who would not have been? 
Then he continued : 

"The cheer I can offer you is, unfortun 
ately, in keeping with my surroundings; but 
I shall esteem myself highly favored if it is 
your pleasure to partake of it, rather than 
seek better at Bentley s Flat." 

With a singular refinement of hospitable 
humility Mr. Beeson spoke as if a sojourn in 
his warm cabin on such a night, as compared 
with walking fourteen miles up to the throat 
in snow with a cutting crust, would be an 
intolerable hardship. By way of reply, his 
guest unbuttoned the blanket overcoat. The 
host laid fresh fuel on the fire, swept the 
hearth with the tail of a wolf, and added: 

"But I think you d better skedaddle." 

The old man took a seat by the fire, spread 
ing his broad soles to the heat without remov 
ing his hat. In the mines the hat is seldom 
removed except when the boots are. Without 



200 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

further remark Mr. Beeson also seated him 
self in a chair which had been a barrel, and 
which, retaining much of its original char 
acter, seemed to have been designed with a 
view to preserving his dust if it should please 
him to crumble. For a moment there was 
silence; then, from somewhere among the 
pines, came the snarling yelp of a coyote; 
and simultaneously the door rattled in its 
frame. There was no other connection be 
tween the two incidents than that the coyote 
has an aversion to storms, and the wind was 
rising; yet there seemed somehow a kind of 
supernatural conspiracy between the two, and 
Mr. Beeson shuddered with a vague sense of 
terror. He recovered himself in a moment 
and again addressed his guest. 

"There are strange doings here. I will 
tell you everything, and then if you decide to 
go I shall hope to accompany you over the 
worst of the way; as far as where Baldy Pe 
terson shot Ben Hike I dare say you know 
the place." 

The old man nodded emphatically, as in 
timating not merely that he did, but that he 
did indeed. 

"Two years ago," began Mr. Beeson, "I, 
with two companions, occupied this house; 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 201 

but when the rush to the Flat occurred we 
left, along with the rest. In ten hours the 
Gulch was deserted. That evening, however, 
I discovered I had left behind me a valuable 
pistol (that is it) and returned for it, passing 
the night here alone, as I have passed every 
night since. I must explain that a few days 
before we left, our Chinese domestic had the 
misfortune to die while the ground was frozen 
so hard that it was impossible to dig a grave 
in the usual way. So, on the day of our hasty 
departure, we cut through the floor there, and 
gave him such burial as we could. But be 
fore putting him down I had the extremely 
bad taste to cut off his pigtail and spike it to 
that beam above his grave, where you may see 
it at this moment, or, preferably, when 
warmth has given you leisure for observation. 

" I stated, did I not, that the Chinaman 
came to his death from natural causes? I had, 
of course, nothing to do with that, and re 
turned through no irresistible attraction, or 
morbid fascination, but only because I had 
forgotten a pistol. This is clear to you, is 
it not, sir?" 

The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared 
to be a man of few words, if any. Mr. Bee- 
son continued: 



202 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" According to the Chinese faith, a man is 
like a kite : he cannot go to heaven without a 
tail. Well, to shorten this tedious story 
which, however, I thought it my duty to re 
late on that night, while I was here alone 
and thinking of anything but him, that China 
man came back for his pigtail. 

" He did not get it." 

At this point Mr. Beeson relapsed into 
blank silence. Perhaps he was fatigued by 
the unwonted exercise of speaking: perhaps 
he had conjured up a memory that demanded 
his undivided attention. The wind was now 
fairly abroad, and the pines along the mount 
ain-side sang with singular distinctness. The 
narrator continued: 

" You say you do not see much in that, and 
I must confess I do not myself. 

" But he keeps coming!" 

There was another long silence, during 
which both stared into the fire without the 
movement of a limb. Then Mr. Beeson broke 
out, almost fiercely, fixing his eyes on what 
he could see of the impassive face of his 
auditor: 

" Give it him? Sir, in this matter I have 
no intention of troubling anyone for advice. 
You will pardon me, I am sure" here he 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 203 

became singularly persuasive " but I have 
ventured to nail that pigtail fast, and have as 
sumed the somewhat onerous obligation of 
guarding it. So it is quite impossible to act 
on your considerate suggestion. 

"Do you play me for a Modoc?" 

Nothing could exceed the sudden ferocity 
with which he thrust this indignant remon 
strance into the ear of his guest. It was as if 
he had struck him on the side of the head with 
a steel gauntlet. It was a protest, but it was 
a challenge. To be mistaken for a coward 
to be played for a Modoc: these two express 
ions are one. Sometimes it is a Chinaman. 
Do you play me for a Chinaman? is a ques 
tion frequently addressed to the ear of the sud 
denly dead. 

Mr. Beeson s buffet produced no effect, 
and after a moment s pause, during which the 
wind thundered in the chimney like the sound 
of clods upon a coffin, he resumed : 

" But, as you say, it is wearing me out. I 
feel that the life of the last two years has been 
a mistake a mistake that corrects itself; you 
see how. The grave! No; there is no one to 
dig it. The ground is frozen, too. But you 
are very welcome. You may say at Bentley s 
but that is not important. It was very 



204 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

tough to cut: they braid silk into their pig 
tails. Kwaagh." 

Mr. Beeson was speaking with his eyes 
shut, and he wandered. His last word was a 
snore. A moment later he drew a long breath, 
opened his eyes with an effort, made a single 
remark, and fell into a deep sleep. What he 
said was this: 

"They are swiping my dust!" 

Then the aged stranger, who had not ut 
tered one word since his arrival, arose from 
his seat and deliberately laid off his outer 
clothing, looking as angular in his flannels 
as the late Signorina Festorazzi, an Irish wo 
man, six feet in height, and weighing fifty-six 
pounds, who used to exhibit herself in her 
chemise to the people of San Francisco. He 
then crept into one of the "bunks," having 
first placed a revolver in easy reach, accord 
ing to the custom of the country. This re 
volver he took from a shelf, and it was the 
one which Mr. Beeson had mentioned as that 
for which he had returned to the Gulch two 
years before. 

In a few moments Mr. Beeson awoke, and 
seeing that his guest had retired he did like 
wise. But before doing so he approached the 
long, plaited wisp of pagan hair and gave it 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 205 

a powerful tug, to assure himself that it was 
fast and firm. The two beds mere shelves 
covered with blankets not overclean faced 
each other from opposite sides of the room, 
the little square trapdoor that had given ac 
cess to the Chinaman s grave being midway 
between. This, by the way, was crossed by a 
double row of spike-heads. In his resistance 
to the supernatural, Mr. Beeson had not dis 
dained the use of material precautions. 

The fire was now low, the flames burning 
bluely and petulantly, with occasional flashes, 
projecting spectral shadows on the walls 
shadows that moved mysteriously about, now 
dividing, now uniting. The shadow of the 
pendent queue, however, kept moodily apart, 
near the roof at the further end of the room, 
looking like a note of admiration. The song 
of the pines outside had now risen to the dig 
nity of a triumphal hymn. In the pauses the 
silence was dreadful. 

It was during one of these intervals that the 
trap in the floor began to lift. Slowly and 
steadily it rose, and slowly and steadily rose 
the swaddled head of the old man in the bunk 
to observe it. Then, with a clap that shook 
the house to its foundation, it was thrown 
clean back, where it lay with its unsightly 



206 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

spikes pointing threateningly upward. Mr. 
Beeson awoke, and without rising, pressed his 
fingers into his eyes. He shuddered; his teeth 
chattered. His guest was now reclining on 
one elbow, watching the proceedings with 
the goggles that glowed like lamps. 

Suddenly a howling gust of wind swooped 
down the chimney, scattering ashes, and smoke 
in all directions, for a mcment obscuring 
everything. When the fireught again illum 
inated the room there was seen, sitting gin 
gerly on the edge of a stool by the hearthside, 
a swarthy little man of prepossessing appear 
ance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding 
to the old man with a friendly and engaging 
smile. " Frcm San Francisco, evidently," 
thought Mr. Beeson, who having somewhat 
recovered from his fright was groping his 
way to a solution of the evening s events. 

But now another actor appeared upon the 
scene. Out of the square black hole in the 
middle of the floor protruded the head of the 
departed Chinaman, his glassy eyes turned 
upward in their angular slits and fastened on 
the dangling queue above with a look of 
yearning unspeakable. Mr. Beeson groaned, 
and again spread his hands upon his face. A 
mild odor of opium pervaded the place. The 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 207 

phantom, clad only in a short blue tunic 
quilted and silken but covered with grave- 
mold, rose slowly, as if pushed by a weak 
spiral spring. Its knees were at the level of 
the floor, when with a quick upward impulse 
like the silent leaping of a flame it grasped 
the queue with both hands, drew up its body 
and took the tip in its horrible yellow teeth. 
To this it clung in a seeming frenzy, grimac 
ing ghastly, surging and plunging from side 
to side in its efforts to disengage its property 
from the beam, but uttering no sound. It 
was like a corpse artificially convulsed by 
means of a galvanic battery. The contrast 
between its superhuman activity and its si 
lence was no less than hideous 1 

Mr. Beeson cowered in his bed. The 
swarthy little gentleman uncrossed his legs, 
beat an impatient tattoo with the toe of his 
boot and consulted a heavy gold watch. The 
old man sat erect and quietly laid hold of the 
revolver. 

Bang! 

Like a body cut from the gallows the Chi 
naman plumped into the black hole below, 
carrying his tail in his teeth. The trapdoor 
turned over, shutting down with a snap. The 
swarthy little gentleman from San Francisco 



208 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

sprang nimbly from his perch, caught some 
thing in the air with his hat, as a boy catches 
a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as 
if drawn up by suction. 

From away somewhere in the outer dark 
ness floated in through the open door a faint, 
far cry a long, sobbing wail, as of a child 
death-strangled in the desert, or a lost soul 
borne away by the Adversary. It may have 
been the coyote. 

In the early days of the following spring a 
party of miners on their way to new diggings 
passed along the Gulch, and straying through 
the deserted shanties found in one of them the 
body of Hiram Beeson, stretched upon a 
bunk, with a bullet hole through the heart. 
The ball had evidently been fired from the op 
posite side of the room, for in one of the oaken 
beams overhead was a shallow blue dint, 
where it had struck a knot and been deflected 
downward to the breast of its victim. 
Strongly attached to the same beam was what 
appeared to be an end of a rope of braided 
horsehair, which had been cut by the bullet 
in its passage to the knot. Nothing else of 
interest was noted, excepting a suit of moldy 
and incongruous clothing, several articles of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 209 

which were afterward identified by respect 
able witnesses as those in which certain de 
ceased citizens of Deadman s had been buried 
years before. But it is not easy to understand 
how that could be, unless, indeed, the gar 
ments had been worn as a disguise by Death 
himself which is hardly credible. 



210 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



BEYOND THE WALL 

MANY years ago, on my way from 
Hongkong to New York, I 
passed a week in San Francisco. 
A long time had gone by since I 
had been in that city, during which my vent 
ures in the Orient had prospered beyond my 
hope; I was rich and could afford to re 
visit my own country to renew my friendship 
with such of the companions of my youth as 
still lived and remembered me with the old 
affection. Chief of these, I hoped, was 
Mohun Dampier, an old schoolmate with 
whom I had held a desultory correspondence 
which had long ceased, as is the way of cor 
respondence between men. You may have 
observed that the indisposition to write a 
merely social letter is in the ratio of the 
square of the distance between you and your 
correspondent. It is a law. 

I remembered Dampier as a handsome, 
strong young fellow of scholarly tastes, with 
an aversion to work and a marked indiffer 
ence to many of the things that the world 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 211 

cares for, including wealth, of which, how 
ever, he had inherited enough to put him 
beyond the reach of want. In his family, 
one of the oldest and most aristocratic in the 
country, it was, I think, a matter of pride that 
no member of it had ever been in trade nor 
politics, nor suffered any kind of distinction. 
Mohun was a trifle sentimental, and had in 
him a singular element of superstition, which 
led him to the study of all manner of occult 
subjects, although his sane mental health 
safeguarded him against fantastic and peril 
ous faiths. He made daring incursions into 
the realm of the unreal without renouncing 
his residence in the partly surveyed and 
charted region of what we are pleased to call 
certitude. 

The night of my visit to him was stormy. 
The Californian winter was on, and the in 
cessant rain plashed in the deserted streets, 
or, lifted by irregular gusts of wind, was 
hurled against the houses with incredible 
fury. With no small difficulty my cabman 
found the right place, away out toward the 
ocean beach, in a sparsely populated suburb. 
The dwelling, a rather ugly one, apparently, 
stood in the center of its grounds, which as 
nearly as I could make out in the gloom 



212 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

were destitute of either flowers or grass. 
Three or four trees, writhing and moaning 
in the torment of the tempest, appeared to be 
trying to escape from their dismal environ 
ment and take the chance of finding a better 
one out at sea. The house was a two-story 
brick structure with a tower, a story higher, 
at one corner. In a window of that was the 
only visible light. Something in the ap 
pearance of the place made me shudder, a 
performance that may have been assisted by 
a rill of rain-water down my back as I scut 
tled to cover in the doorway. 

In answer to my note apprising him of my 
wish to call, Dampier had written, " Don t 
ring open the door and come up." I did 
so. The staircase was dimly lighted by a 
single gas-jet at the top of the second flight. 
I managed to reach the landing without dis 
aster and entered by an open door into the 
lighted square room of the tower. Dampier 
came forward in gown and slippers to receive 
me, giving me the greeting that I wished, 
and if I had held a thought that it might 
more fitly have been accorded me at the front 
door the first look at him dispelled any sense 
of his inhospitality. 

He was not the same. Hardly past mid- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 213 

die age, he had gone gray and had acquired 
a pronounced stoop. His figure was thin 
and angular, his face deeply lined, his com 
plexion dead-white, without a touch of 
color. His eyes, unnaturally large, glowed 
with a fire that was almost uncanny. 

He seated me, proffered a cigar, and with 
grave and obvious sincerity assured me of 
the pleasure that it gave him to meet me. 
Some unimportant conversation followed, 
but all the while I was dominated by a mel 
ancholy sense of the great change in him. 
This he must have perceived, for he sud 
denly said with a bright enough smile, "You 
are disappointed in me non sum quails 



eram." 



I hardly knew what to reply, but managed 
to say: "Why, really, I don t know: your 
Latin is about the same." 

He brightened again. "No," he said, "be 
ing a dead language, it grows in appropriate 
ness. But please have the patience to wait: 
where I am going there is perhaps a better 
tongue. Will you care to have a message in 
it?" 

The smile faded as he spoke, and as he 
concluded he was looking into my eyes with 
a gravity that distressed me. Yet I would 



214 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

not surrender myself to his mood, nor permit 
him to see how deeply his prescience of death 
affected me. 

" I fancy that it will be long," I said, " be 
fore human speech will cease to serve our 
need ; and then the need, with its possibilities 
of service, will have passed." 

He made no reply, and I too was silent, 
for the talk had taken a dispiriting turn, yet 
I knew not how to give it a more agreeable 
character. Suddenly, in a pause of the storm, 
when the dead silence was almost startling 
by contrast with the previous uproar, I heard 
a gentle tapping, which appeared to come 
from the wall behind my chair. The sound 
was such as might have been made by a hu 
man hand, not as upon a door by one asking 
admittance, but rather, I thought, as an 
agreed signal, an assurance of someone s pres 
ence in an adjoining room; most of us, I 
fancy, have had more experience of such com 
munications than we should care to relate. I 
glanced at Dampier. If possibly there was 
something of amusement in the look he did 
not observe it. He appeared to have forgot 
ten my presence, and was staring at the wall 
behind me with an expression in his eyes that 
I am unable to name, although my memory 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 215 

of it is as vivid to-day as was my sense of it 
then. The situation was embarrassing; I rose 
to take my leave. At this he seemed to re 
cover himself. 

"Please be seated," he said; "it is nothing 
no one is there." 

But the tapping was repeated, and with the 
same gentle, slow insistence as before. 

"Pardon- me," I said, "it is late. May I 
call to-morrow?" 

He smiled a little mechanically, I 
thought. " It is very delicate of you," said 
he, "but quite needless. Really, this is the 
only room in the tower, and no one is there. 
At least " He left the sentence incom 
plete, rose, and threw up a window, the only 
opening in the wall from which the sound 
seemed to come. " See." 

Not clearly knowing what else to do I 
followed him to the window and looked out. 
A street-lamp some little distance away gave 
enough light through the murk of the rain 
that was again falling in torrents to make it 
entirely plain that " no one was there." In 
truth there was nothing but the sheer blank 
wall of the tower. 

Dampier closed the window and signing 
me to my seat resumed his own. 



216 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

The incident was not in itself particularly 
mysterious ; any one of a dozen explanations 
was possible (though none has occurred to 
me), yet it impressed me strangely, the more, 
perhaps, from my friend s effort to reassure 
me, which seemed to dignify it with a certain 
significance and importance. He had proved 
that no one was there, but in that fact lay all 
the interest; and he proffered no explanation. 
His silence was irritating and made me re 
sentful. 

" My good friend," I said, somewhat iron 
ically, I fear, " I am not disposed to question 
your right to harbor as many spooks as you 
find agreeable to your taste and consistent with 
your notions of companionship; that is no 
business of mine. But being just a plain man 
of affairs, mostly of this world, I find spooks 
needless to my peace and comfort. I am go 
ing to my hotel, where my fellow-guests are 
still in the flesh." 

It was not a very civil speech, but he mani 
fested no feeling about it. " Kindly remain," 
he said. " I am grateful for your presence 
here. What you have heard to-night I be 
lieve myself to have heard twice before. Now 
I know it was no illusion. That is much to 
me more than you know. Have a fresh 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 217 

cigar and a good stock of patience while I tell 
you the story." 

The rain was now falling more steadily, 
with a low, monotonous susurration, inter 
rupted at long intervals by the sudden slash 
ing of the boughs of the trees as the wind 
rose and failed. The night was well ad 
vanced, but both sympathy and curiosity held 
me a willing listener to my friend s mono 
logue, which I did not interrupt by a single 
word from beginning to end. 

" Ten years ago," he said, " I occupied a 
ground-floor apartment in one of a row of 
houses, all alike, away at the other end of 
the town, on what we call Rincon Hill. This 
had been the best quarter of San Francisco, 
but had fallen into neglect and decay, partly 
because the primitive character of its domest 
ic architecture no longer suited the matur 
ing tastes of our wealthy citizens, partly be 
cause certain public improvements had made 
a wreck of it. The row of dwellings in one 
of which I lived stood a little way back from 
the street, each having a miniature garden, 
separated from its neighbors by low iron 
fences and bisected with mathematical preci 
sion by a box-bordered gravel walk from gate 
to door. 



218 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" One morning as I was leaving my lodg 
ing I observed a young girl entering the ad 
joining garden on the left. It was a warm 
day in June, and she was lightly gowned in 
white. From her shoulders hung a broad straw 
hat profusely decorated with flowers and won 
derfully beribboned in the fashion of the 
time. My attention was not long held by the 
exquisite simplicity of her costume, for no 
one could look at her face and think of any 
thing earthly. Do not fear; I shall not pro 
fane it by description; it was beautiful ex 
ceedingly. All that I had ever seen or 
dreamed of loveliness was in that matchless 
living picture by the hand of the Divine Art 
ist. So deeply did it move me that, without a 
thought of the impropriety of the act, I un 
consciously bared my head, as a devout Cath 
olic or well-bred Protestant uncovers before 
an image of the Blessed Virgin. The maiden 
showed no displeasure; she merely turned her 
glorious dark eyes upon me with a look that 
made me catch my breath, and without other 
recognition of my act passed into the house. 
For a moment I stood motionless, hat in hand, 
painfully conscious of my rudeness, yet so 
dominated by the emotion inspired by that 
vision of incomparable beauty that my penit- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 219 

ence was less poignant than it should have 
been. Then I went my way, leaving my heart 
behind. In the natural course of things I 
should probably have remained away until 
nightfall, but by the middle of the afternoon 
I was back in the little garden, affecting an 
interest in the few foolish flowers that I had 
never before observed. My hope was vain; 
she did not appear. 

"To a night of unrest succeeded a day of 
expectation and disappointment, but on the 
day after, as I wandered aimlessly about the 
neighborhood, I met her. Of course I did 
not repeat my folly of uncovering, nor vent 
ure by even so much as too long a look to 
manifest an interest in her; yet my heart was 
beating audibly. I trembled and consciously 
colored as she turned her big black eyes upon 
me with a look of obvious recognition entirely 
devoid of boldness or coquetry. 

"I will not weary you with particulars; 
many times \fterward I met the maiden, yet 
never either addressed her or sought to fix her 
attention. Nor did I take any action toward 
making her acquaintance. Perhaps my for 
bearance, requiring so supreme an effort of 
self-denial, will not be entirely clear to you. 
That I was heels over head in love is true, 

S 



220 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

but who can overcome his habit of thought, 
or reconstruct his character? 

" I was what some foolish persons are 
pleased to call, and others, more foolish, are 
pleased to be called an aristocrat; and de 
spite her beauty, her charms and graces, the 
girl was not of my class. I had learned her 
name which it is needless to speak and 
something of her family. She was an orphan, 
a dependent niece of the impossible elderly fat 
woman in whose lodging-house she lived. My 
income was small and I lacked the talent for 
marrying; it is perhaps a gift. An alliance 
with that family would condemn me to its 
manner of life, part me from my books and 
studies, and in a social sense reduce me to the 
ranks. It is easy to deprecate such considera 
tions as these and I have not retained myself 
for the defense. Let judgment be entered 
against me, but in strict justice all my ancest 
ors for generations should be made co-de 
fendants and I be permitted to p ead in mitig 
ation of punishment the impeiious mandate 
of heredity. To a mesalliance of that kind 
every globule of my ancestral blood spoke in 
opposition. In brief, my tastes, habits, in 
stinct, with whatever of reason my love had 
left me all fought against it. Moreover, I 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 221 

was an irreclaimable sentimentalist, and found 
a subtle charm in an impersonal and spiritual 
relation which acquaintance might vulgarize 
and marriage would certainly dispel. No 
woman, I argued, is what this lovely creature 
seems. Love is a delicious dream; why 
should I bring about my own awakening? 

" The course dictated by all this sense and 
sentiment was obvious. Honor, pride, prud 
ence, preservation of my ideals all com 
manded me to go away, but for that I was too 
weak. The utmost that I could do by a 
mighty effort of will was to cease meeting the 
girl, and that I did. I even avoided the 
chance encounters of the garden, leaving my 
lodging only when I knew that she had gone 
to her music lessons, and returning after night 
fall. Yet all the while I was as one in a 
trance, indulging the most fascinating fancies 
and ordering my entire intellectual life in ac 
cordance with my dream. Ah, my friend, as 
one whose actions have a traceable relation 
to reason, you cannot know the fool s paradise 
in which I lived. 

" One evening the devil put it into my head 
to be an unspeakable idiot. By apparently 
careless and purposeless questioning I learned 
from my gossipy landlady that the young wo- 



222 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

man s bedroom adjoined my own, a party-wall 
between. Yielding to a sudden and coarse 
impulse I gently rapped on the wall. There 
was no response, naturally, but I was in no 
mood to accept a rebuke. A madness was 
upon me and I repeated the folly, the offense, 
but again ineffectually, and I had the decency 
to desist. 

" An hour later, while absorbed in some of 
my infernal studies, I heard, or thought I 
heard, my signal answered. Flinging down 
my books I sprang to the wall and as steadily 
as my beating heart would permit gave three 
slow taps upon it. This time the response was 
distinct, unmistakable: one, two, three an 
exact repetition of my signal. That was all I 
could elicit, but it was enough too much. 

" The next evening, and for many evenings 
afterward, that folly went on, I always hav 
ing the last word. During the whole period 
I was deliriously happy, but with the per 
versity of my nature I persevered in my reso 
lution not to see her. Then, as I should have 
expected, I got no further answers. She is 
disgusted, I said to myself, with what she 
thinks my timidity in making no more definite 
advances ; and I resolved to seek her and 
make her acquaintance and what? I did 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 223 

not know, nor do I now know, what might 
have come of it. I know only that I passed 
days and days trying to meet her, and all in 
vain; she was invisible as well as inaudible. 
I haunted the streets where we had met, but 
she did not come. From my window I 
watched the garden in front of her house, but 
she passed neither in nor out. I fell into the 
deepest dejection, believing that she had gone 
away, yet took no steps to resolve my doubt 
by inquiry of my landlady, to whom, indeed, 
I had taken an unconquerable aversion from 
her having once spoken of the girl with less 
of reverence than I thought befitting. 

"There came a fateful night. Worn out 
with emotion, irresolution and despondency, 
I had retired early and fallen into such sleep 
as was still possible to me. In the middle 
of the night something some malign power 
bent upon the wrecking of my peace forever 
caused me to open my eyes and sit up, wide 
awake and listening intently for I knew not 
what. Then I thought I heard a faint tapp 
ing on the wall the mere ghost of the fam 
iliar signal. In a few moments it was re 
peated: one, two, three no louder than be 
fore, but addressing a sense alert and strained 
to receive it. I was about to reply when the 



224 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Adversary of Peace again intervened in my 
affairs with a rascally suggestion of retalia 
tion. She had long and cruelly ignored me; 
now I would ignore her. Incredible fatuity 
may God forgive it! All the rest of the 
night I lay awake, fortifying my obstinacy 
with shameless justifications and listening. 

" Late the next morning, as I was leaving 
the house, I met my landlady, entering. 

" Good morning, Mr. Dampier, she said. 
1 Have you heard the news? 

" I replied in words that I had heard no 
news ; in manner, that I did not care to hear 
any. The manner escaped her observa 
tion. 

" * About the sick young lady next door/ 
she babbled on. What! you did not know? 
Why, she has been ill for weeks. And 
now 

" I almost sprang upon her. And now, 
I cried, now what? 

" She is dead. 

"That is not the whole story. In the mid 
dle of the night, as I learned later, the patient, 
awakening from a long stupor after a week of 
delirium, had asked it was her last utter 
ance that her bed be moved to the opposite 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 225 

side of the room. Those in attendance had 
thought the request a vagary of her delirium, 
but had complied. And there the poor pass 
ing soul had exerted its failing will to restore 
a broken connection a golden thread of sen 
timent between its innocence and a monstrous 
baseness owning a blind, brutal allegiance to 
the Law of Self. 

"What reparation could I make? Are 
there masses that can be said for the repose 
of souls that are abroad such nights as this 
spirits blown about by the viewless winds 
coming in the storm and darkness with 
signs and portents, hints of memory and pre 
sages of doom? 

"This is the third visitation. On the first 
occasion I was too skeptical to do more than 
verify by natural methods the character of 
the incident; on the second, I responded to 
the signal after it had been several times 
repeated, but without result. To-night s 
recurrence completes the * fatal triad 7 ex 
pounded by Parapelius Necromantius. There 
is no more to tell." 

When Dampier had finished his story I 
could think of nothing relevant that I cared 
to say, and to question him would have been 



226 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

a hideous impertinence. I rose and bade him 
good night in a way to convey to him a sense 
of my sympathy, which he silently acknowl 
edged by a pressure of the hand. That night, 
alone with his sorrow and remorse, he passed 
into the Unknown. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 227 



A PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK 

IN the summer of 1874 I was m Liver 
pool, whither I had gone on business 
for the mercantile house of Bronson & 
Jarrett, New York. I am William Jar- 
rett; my partner was Zenas Bronson. The 
firm failed last year, and unable to endure the 
fall from affluence to poverty he died. 

Having finished my business, and feeling 
the lassitude and exhaustion incident to its 
dispatch, I felt that a protracted sea voyage 
would be both agreeable and beneficial, so 
instead of embarking for my return on one 
of the many fine passenger steamers I booked 
for New York on the sailing vessel Morrow, 
upon which I had shipped a large and valu 
able invoice of the goods I had bought. The 
Morrow was an English ship with, of course, 
but little accommodation for passengers, of 
whom there were only myself, a young 
woman and her servant, who was a middle- 
aged negress. I thought it singular that a 
traveling English girl should be so attended, 
but she afterward explained to me that the 



228 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

woman had been left with her family by a 
man and his wife from South Carolina, both 
of whom had died on the same day at the 
house of the young lady s father in Devon 
shire a circumstance in itself sufficiently un 
common to remain rather distinctly in my 
memory, even had it not afterward transpired 
in conversation with the young lady that the 
name of the man was William Jarrett, the 
same as my own. I knew that a branch of my 
family had settled in South Carolina, but of 
them and their history I was ignorant. 

The Morrow sailed from the mouth of the 
Mersey on the i^th of June and for several 
weeks we had fair breezes and unclouded 
skies. The skipper, an admirable seaman 
but nothing more, favored us with very little 
of his society, except at his table; and the 
young woman, Miss Janette Harford, and I 
became very well acquainted. We were, in 
truth, nearly always together, and being of 
an introspective turn of mind I often en 
deavored to analyze and define the novel feel 
ing with which she inspired me a secret, 
subtle, but powerful attraction which con 
stantly impelled me to seek her; but the at 
tempt was hopeless. I could only be sure 
that at least it was not love. Having assured 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 229 

myself of this and being certain that she was 
quite as whole-hearted, I ventured one ev.n- 
ing (I remember it was on the 3d of July) 
as we sat on deck to ask her, laughingly, if 
she could assist me to resolve my psycholog 
ical doubt. 

For a moment she was silent, with averted 
face, and I began to fear I had been ex 
tremely rude and indelicate; then she fixed 
her eyes gravely on my own. In an instant my 
mind was dominated by as strange a fancy as 
ever entered human consciousness. It seemed 
as if she were looking at me, not with, but 
through, those eyes from an immeasurable 
distance behind them and that a number of 
other persons, men, women and children, upon 
whose faces I caught strangely familiar 
evanescent expressions, clustered about her, 
struggling with gentle eagerness to look at me 
through the same orbs. Ship, ocean, sky 
all had vanished. I was conscious of nothing 
but the figures in this extraordinary and fan 
tastic scene. Then all at once darkness fell 
upon me, and anon from out of it, as to one 
who grows accustomed by degrees to a dim 
mer light, my former surroundings of deck 
and mast and cordage slowly resolved them 
selves. Miss Harford had closed her eyes and 



230 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

was leaning back in her chair, apparently 
asieep, the book she had been reading open 
in her lap. Impelled by surely I cannot say 
what motive, I glanced at the top of the page ; 
it was a copy of that rare and curious work, 
" Denneker s Meditations," and the lady s in 
dex finger rested on this passage: 

"To sundry it is given to be drawn away, 
and to be apart from the body for a season; 
for, as concerning rills which would flow 
across each other the weaker is borne along 
by the stronger, so there be certain of kin 
whose paths intersecting, their souls do bear 
company, the while their bodies go fore-ap 
pointed ways, unknowing." 

Miss Harford arose, shuddering; the sun 
had sunk below the horizon, but it was not 
cold. There was not a breath of wind; there 
were no clouds in the sky, yet not a star was 
visible. A hurried tramping sounded on the 
deck; the captain, summoned from below, 
joined the first officer, who stood looking at 
the barometer. "Good God!" I heard him 
exclaim. 

An hour later the form of Janette Har 
ford, invisible in the darkness and spray, was 
torn from my grasp by the cruel vortex of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 231 

the sinking ship, and I fainted in the cordage 
of the floating mast to which I had lashed 
myself. 

It was by lamplight that I awoke. I lay 
in a berth amid the familiar surroundings of 
the stateroom of a steamer. On a couch op 
posite sat a man, half undressed for bed, read 
ing a book. I recognized the face of my 
friend Gordon Doyle, whom I had met in 
Liverpool on the day of my embarkation, 
when he was himself about to sail on the 
steamer City of Prague, on which he had 
urged me to accompany him. 

After some moments I now spoke his name. 
He simply said, " Well," and turned a leaf in 
his book without removing his eyes from the 
page. 

" Doyle," I repeated, " did they save her?" 

He now deigned to look at me and smiled 
as if amused. He evidently thought me but 
half awake. 

"Her? Whom do you mean?" 

"Janette Harford." 

His amusement turned to amazement; he 
stared at me fixedly, saying nothing. 

"You will tell me after a while," I con 
tinued; "I suppose you will tell me after a 
while." 



232 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

A moment later I asked: "What ship is 
this?" 

Doyle stared again. " The steamer City of 
Prague, bound from Liverpool to New York, 
three weeks out with a broken shaft. Prin 
cipal passenger, Mr. Gordon Doyle; ditto 
lunatic, Mr. William Jarrett. These two dis 
tinguished travelers embarked together, but 
they are about to part, it being the resolute in 
tention of the former to pitch the latter over 
board." 

I sat bolt upright. " Do you mean to say 
that I have been for three weeks a passenger 
on this steamer?" 

"Yes, pretty nearly; this is the 3d of July." 

"Have I been ill?" 

" Right as a trivet all the time, and punct 
ual at your meals." 

"My God! Doyle, there is some mystery 
here; do have the goodness to be serious. 
Was I not rescued from the wreck of the ship 
Morrow?" 

Doyle changed color, and approaching me, 
laid his fingers on my wrist. A moment later, 
"What do you know of Janette Harford?" 
he asked very calmly. 

" First tell me what you know of her?" 

Mr. Doyle gazed at me for some moments 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 233 

as if thinking what to do, then seating himself 
again on the couch, said: 

" Why should I not? I am engaged to 
marry Janette Harford, whom I met a year 
ago in London. Her family, one of the 
wealthiest in Devonshire, cut up rough about 
it, and we eloped are eloping rather, for 
on the day that you and I walked to the land 
ing stage to go aboard this steamer she and 
her faithful servant, a negress, passed us, driv 
ing to the ship Morrow. She would not con 
sent to go in the same vessel with me, and it 
had been deemed best that she take a sailing 
vessel in order to avoid observation and lessen 
the risk of detection. I am now alarmed lest 
this cursed breaking of our machinery may 
detain us so long that the Morrow will get to 
New York before us, and the poor girl will 
not know where to go." 

I lay still in my berth so still I hardly 
breathed. But the subject was evidently not 
displeasing to Doyle, and after a short pause 
he resumed: 

" By the way, she is only an adopted daugh 
ter of the Harfords. Her mother was killed 
at their place by being thrown from a horse 
while hunting, and her father, mad with grief, 
made away with himself the same day. No 



284 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

one ever claimed the child, and after a reason 
able time they adopted her. She has grown 
up in the belief that she is their daughter." 

"Doyle, what book are you reading?" 

" Oh, it s called Denneker s Meditations. 
It s a rum lot, Janette gave it to me; she hap 
pened to have two copies. Want to see it?" 

He tossed me the volume, which opened 
as it fell. On one of the exposed pages was 
a marked passage: 

" To sundry it is given to be drawn away, 
and to be apart from the body for a season; 
for, as concerning rills w^hich would flow 
across each other the weaker is borne along 
by the stronger, so there be certain of kin 
whose paths intersecting, their souls do bear 
company, the while their bodies go fore-ap 
pointed ways, unknowing." 

"She had she has a singular taste in 
reading," I managed to say, mastering my 
agitation. 

" Yes. And now perhaps you will have the 
kindness to explain how you knew her name 
and that of the ship she sailed in." 

"You talked of her in your sleep," I said. 

A week later we were towed into the port 
of New York. But the Morrow was never 
heard from. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 235 



THE MIDDLE TOE OF THE RIGHT 
FOOT 

I 

IT is well known that the old Manton 
house is haunted. In all the rural dis 
trict near about, and even in the town of 
Marshall, a mile away, not one person 
of unbiased mind entertains a doubt of it; in 
credulity is confined to those opinionated 
persons who will be called " cranks " as soon 
as the useful word shall have penetrated the 
intellectual demesne of the Marshall Ad 
vance. The evidence that the house is 
haunted is of two kinds: the testimony of 
disinterested witnesses who have had ocular 
proof, and that of the house itself. The 
former may be disregarded and ruled out on 
any of the various grounds of objection which 
may be urged against it by the ingenious; but 
facts within the observation of all are ma 
terial and controlling. 

In the first place, the Manton house has 
been unoccupied by mortals for more than 
ten years, and with its outbuildings is slowly 



236 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

falling into decay a circumstance which in 
itself the judicious will hardly venture to ig 
nore. It stands a little way off the loneliest 
reach of the Marshall and Harriston road, in 
an opening which was once a farm and is still 
disfigured with strips of rotting fence and 
half covered with brambles overrunning a 
stony and sterile soil long unacquainted with 
the plow. The house itself is in tolerably 
good condition, though badly weather-stained 
and in dire need of attention from the glazier, 
the smaller male population of the region 
having attested in the manner of its kind its 
disapproval of dwelling without dwellers. 
It is two stories in height, nearly square, its 
front pierced by a single doorway flanked on 
each side by a window boarded up to the very 
top. Corresponding windows above, not pro 
tected, serve to admit light and rain to the 
rooms of the upper floor. Grass and weeds 
grow pretty rankly all about, and a few shade 
trees, somewhat the worse for wind, and lean 
ing all in one direction, seem to be making 
a concerted effort to run away. In short, as 
the Marshall town humorist explained in the 
columns of the Advance, " the proposition 
that the Manton house is badly haunted is the 
only logical conclusion from the premises." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 237 

The fact that in this dwelling Mr. Manton 
thought it expedient one night some ten years 
ago to rise and cut the throats of his wife and 
two small children, removing at once to an 
other part of the country, has no doubt done 
its share in directing public attention to the 
fitness of the place for supernatural phe 
nomena. 

To this house, one summer evening, came 
four men in a wagon. Three of them 
promptly alighted, and the one who had been 
driving hitched the team to the only remain 
ing post of what had been a fence. The 
fourth remained seated in the wagon. 
"Come," said one of his companions, ap 
proaching him, while the others moved away 
in the direction of the dwelling " this is the 
place." 

The man addressed did not move. " By 
God!" he said harshly, "this is a trick, and 
it looks to me as if you were in it." 

"Perhaps I am," the other said, looking 
him straight in the face and speaking in a tone 
which had something of contempt in it. 
"You will remember, however, that the 
choice of place was with your own assent left 
to the other side. Of course if you are afraid 
of spooks " 



238 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" I am afraid of nothing," the man inter 
rupted with another oath, and sprang to the 
ground. The two then joined the others at 
the door, which one of them had already 
opened with some difficulty, caused by rust 
of lock and hinge. All entered. Inside it 
was dark, but the man who had unlocked 
the door produced a candle and matches and 
made a light. He then unlocked a door on 
their right as they stood in the passage. 
This gave them entrance to a large, square 
room that the candle but dimly lighted. 
The floor had a thick carpeting of dust, which 
partly muffled their footfalls. Cobwebs 
were in the angles of the walls and depended 
from the ceiling like strips of rotting lace, 
making undulatory movements in the dis 
turbed air. The room had two windows in 
adjoining sides, but from neither could any 
thing be seen except the rough inner surfaces 
of boards a few inches from the glass. There 
was no fireplace, no furniture; there was 
nothing: besides the cob\vebs and the dust, 
the four men were the only objects there 
which were not a part of the structure. 

Strange enough they looked in the yellow 
light of the candle. The one who had so 
reluctantly alighted was especially spectacu- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 239 

lar he might have been called sensational. 
He was of middle age, heavily built, deep 
chested and broad shouldered. Looking at 
his figure, one would have said that he had 
a giant s strength; at his features, that he 
would use it like a giant. He was clean 
shaven, his hair rather closely cropped and 
gray. His low forehead was seamed with 
WTinkles above the eyes, and over the nose 
these became vertical. The heavy black 
brows followed the same law, saved from 
meeting only by an upward turn at what 
would otherwise have been the point of con 
tact. Deeply sunken beneath these, glowed in 
the obscure light a pair of eyes of uncertain 
color, but obviously enough too small. There 
was something forbidding in their expression, 
which was not bettered by the cruel mouth 
and wide jaw. The nose was well enough, 
as noses go; one does not expect much of 
noses. All that was sinister in the man s face 
seemed accentuated by an unnatural pallor 
he appeared altogether bloodless. 

The appearance^ of the other men was suf 
ficiently commonplace: they were such per 
sons as one meets and forgets that he met. All 
were younger than the man described, be 
tween whom and the eldest of the others, who 



240 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

stood apart, there was apparently no kindly 
feeling. They avoided looking at each other. 

" Gentlemen," said the man holding the 
candle and keys, " I believe everything is 
right. Are you ready, Mr. Rosser? " 

The man standing apart from the group 
bowed and smiled. 

"And you, Mr. Grossmith?" 

The heavy man bowed and scowled. 

" You will be pleased to remove your outer 
clothing." 

Their hats, coats, waistcoats and neckwear 
were soon removed and thrown outside the 
door, in the passage. The man with the 
candle now nodded, and the fourth man 
he who had urged Grossmith to leave the 
wagon produced from the pocket of his 
overcoat two long, murderous-looking bowie- 
knives, which he drew now from their leather 
scabbards. 

"They are exactly alike," he said, present 
ing one to each of the two principals for by 
this time the dullest observer would have un 
derstood the nature of this meeting. It was 
to be a duel to the death. 

Each combatant took a knife, examined it 
critically near the candle and tested the 
strength of blade and handle across his lifted 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 241 

knee. Their persons were then searched in 
turn, each by the second of the other. 

" If it is agreeable to you, Mr. Grossmith," 
said the man holding the light, " you will 
place yourself in that corner." 

He indicated the angle of the room far 
thest from the door, whither Grossmith re 
tired, his second parting from him with a 
grasp of the hand which had nothing of cor 
diality in it. In the angle nearest the door 
Mr. Rosser stationed himself, and after a 
whispered consultation his second left him, 
joining the other near the door. At that 
moment the candle was suddenly extin 
guished, leaving all in profound darkness. 
This may have been done by a draught from 
the opened door; whatever the cause, the ef 
fect was startling. 

" Gentlemen," said a voice which sounded 
strangely unfamiliar in the altered condition 
affecting the relations of the senses " gen 
tlemen, you will not move until you hear the 
closing of the outer door." 

A sound of trampling ensued, then the 
closing of the inner door; and finally the 
outer one closed with a concussion which 
shook the entire building. 

A few minutes afterward a belated farmer s 



242 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

boy met a light wagon which was being 
driven furiously toward the town of Marshall. 
He declared that behind the two figures on 
the front seat stood a third, with its hands 
upon the bowed shoulders of the others, who 
appeared to struggle vainly to free themselves 
from its grasp. This figure, unlike the others, 
was clad in white, and had undoubtedly 
boarded the wagon as it passed the haunted 
house. As the lad could boast a consider 
able former experience with the supernatural 
thereabouts his word had -the weight justly 
due to the testimony of an expert. The story 
(in connection with the next day s events) 
eventually appeared in the Advance, with 
some slight literary embellishments and a 
concluding intimation that the gentlemen re 
ferred to would be allowed the use of the pa 
per s columns for their version of the night s 
adventure. But the privilege remained with 
out a claimant. 

II 

The events that led up to this " duel in 
the dark" were simple enough. One even 
ing three young men of the town of Mar 
shall were sitting in a quiet corner of the 
porch of the village hotel, smoking and dis- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 243 

cussing such matters as three educated young 
men of a Southern village would naturally 
find interesting. Their names were King, 
Sancher and Rosser. At a little distance, 
within easy hearing, but taking no part in the 
conversation, sat a fourth. He was a stranger 
to the others. They merely knew that on his 
arrival by the stage-coach that afternoon he 
had written in the hotel register the name 
Robert Grossmith. He had not been ob 
served to speak to anyone except the hotel 
clerk. He seemed, indeed, singularly fond of 
his own company or, as the personnel of the 
Advance expressed it, " grossly addicted to 
evil associations." But then it should be said 
in justice to the stranger that the personnel 
was himself of a too convivial disposition 
fairly to judge one differently gifted, and 
had, moreover, experienced a slight rebuff in 
an effort at an " interview." 

" I hate any kind of deformity in a woman," 
said King, " whether natural or acquired. 
I have a theory that any physical defect has 
its correlative mental and moral defect." 

" I infer, then," said Rosser, gravely, " that 
a lady lacking the moral advantage of a nose 
would find the struggle to become Mrs. King 
an arduous enterprise." 



244 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Of course you may put it that way," was 
the reply; " but, seriously, I once threw over 
a most charming girl on learning quite accid 
entally that she had suffered amputation of 
a toe. My conduct was brutal if you like, 
but if I had married that girl I should have 
been miserable for life and should have made 
her so." 

"Whereas," said Sancher, with a light 
laugh, "by marrying a gentleman of more 
liberal views she escaped with a parted 
throat." 

"Ah, you know to whom I refer. Yes, 
she married Manton, but I don t know about 
his liberality; Fm not sure but he cut her 
throat because he discovered that she lacked 
that excellent thing in woman, the middle toe 
of the right foot." 

"Look at that chap!" said Rosser in a low 
voice, his eyes fixed upon the stranger. 

That chap was obviously listening intently 
to the conversation. 

"Damn his impudence!" muttered King 
"what ought we to do?" 

"That s an easy one," Rosser replied, ris 
ing. " Sir," he continued, addressing the 
stranger, " I think it would be better if you 
would remove your chair to the other end of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 245 

the veranda. The presence of gentlemen is 
evidently an unfamiliar situation to you." 

The man sprang to his feet and strode for 
ward with clenched hands, his face white with 
rage. All were now standing. Sancher 
stepped between the belligerents. 

"You are hasty and unjust," he said to 
Rosser; "this gentleman has done nothing to 
deserve such language." 

But Rosser would not withdraw a word. 
By the custom of the country and the time 
there could be but one outcome to the quarrel. 

" I demand the satisfaction due to a gen 
tleman," said the stranger, who had become 
more calm. " I have not an acquaintance in 
this region. Perhaps you, sir," bowing to 
Sancher, "will be kind enough to represent 
me in this matter." 

Sancher accepted the trust somewhat re 
luctantly it must be confessed, for the man s 
appearance and manner were not at all to his 
liking. King, who during the colloquy had 
hardly removed his eyes from the stranger s 
face and had not spoken a word, consented 
with a nod to act for Rosser, and the upshot 
of it was that, the principals having retired, a 
meeting was arranged for the next evening. 
The nature of the arrangements has been al- 



246 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

ready disclosed. The duel with knives in a 
dark room was once a commoner feature of 
Southwestern life than it is likely to be again. 
How thin a veneering of "chivalry" covered 
the essential brutality of the code under which 
such encounters were possible we shall see. 

Ill 

In the blaze of a midsummer noonday the 
old Manton house was hardly true to its tra 
ditions. It was of the earth, earthy. The 
sunshine caressed it warmly and affectionately, 
with evident disregard of its bad reputation. 
The grass greening all the expanse in its front 
seemed to grow, not rankly, but with a nat 
ural and joyous exuberance, and the weeds 
blossomed quite like plants. Full of charm 
ing lights and shadows and populous with 
pleasant-voiced birds, the neglected shade 
trees no longer struggled to run away, but 
bent reverently beneath their burdens of sun 
and song. Even in the glassless upper win 
dows was an expression of peace and content 
ment, due to the light within. Over the stony 
fields the visible heat danced with a lively 
tremor incompatible with the gravity which 
is an attribute of the supernatural. 

Such was the aspect under which the place 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 247 

presented itself to Sheriff Adams and two 
other men who had come out from Marshall 
to look at it. One of these men was Mr. 
King, the sheriff s deputy; the other, whose 
name was Brewer, was a brother of the late 
Mrs. Manton. Under a beneficent law of the 
State relating to property which has been for 
a certain period abandoned by an owner 
whose residence cannot be ascertained, the 
sheriff was legal custodian of the Manton 
farm and appurtenances thereunto belonging. 
His present visit was in mere perfunctory 
compliance with some order of a court in 
which Mr. Brewer had an action to get pos 
session of the property as heir to his deceased 
sister. By a mere coincidence, the visit was 
made on the day after the night that Deputy 
King had unlocked the house for another and 
very different purpose. His presence now 
was not of his own choosing: he had been or 
dered to accompany his superior and at the 
moment could think of nothing more prudent 
than simulated alacrity in obedience to the 
command. 

Carelessly opening the front door, which 
to his surprise was not locked, the sheriff 
was amazed to see, lying on the floor of the 
passage into which it opened, a confused 



248 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

heap of men s apparel. Examination showed 
it to consist of two hats, and the same num 
ber of coats, waistcoats and scarves, all in a 
remarkably good state of preservation, albeit 
somewhat defiled by the dust in which they 
lay. Mr. Brewer was equally astonished, 
but Mr. King s emotion is not of record. 
With a new and lively interest in his own 
actions the sheriff now unlatched and pushed 
open a door on the right, and the three en 
tered. The room was apparently vacant 
no; as their eyes became accustomed to the 
dimmer light something was visible in the 
farthest angle of the wall. It was a human 
figure that of a man crouching close in the 
corner. Something in the attitude made the 
intruders halt when they had barely passed 
the threshold. The figure more and more 
clearly defined itself. The man was upon 
one knee, his back in the angle of the wall, 
his shoulders elevated to the level of his ears, 
his hands before his face, palms outward, the 
fingers spread and crooked like claws; the 
white face turned upward on the retracted 
neck had an expression of unutterable fright, 
the mouth half open, the eyes incredibly ex 
panded. He was stone dead. Yet, with the 
exception of a bowie-knife, which had evi- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 249 

dently fallen from his own hand, not another 
object was in the room. 

In thick dust that covered the floor were 
some confused footprints near the door and 
along the wall through which it opened. 
Along one of the adjoining walls, too, past 
the boarded-up windows, was the trail made 
by the man himself in reaching his corner. 
Instinctively in approaching the body the 
three men followed that trail. The sheriff 
grasped one of the outthrown arms; it was 
as rigid as iron, and the application of a gen 
tle force rocked the entire body without alter 
ing the relation of its parts. Brewer, pale 
with excitement, gazed intently into the dis 
torted face. "God of mercy!" he suddenly 
cried, "it is Manton!" 

"You are right," said King, with an evi 
dent attempt at calmness: "I knew Manton. 
He then wore a full beard and his hair long, 
but this is he." 

He might have added: " I recognized him 
when he challenged Rosser. I told Rosser 
and Sancher who he was before we played 
him this horrible trick. When Rosser left 
this dark room at our heels, forgetting his 
outer clothing in the excitement, and driving 
away with us in his shirt sleeves all through 



250 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the discreditable proceedings we knew whom 
we were dealing with, murderer and coward 
that he was!" 

But nothing of this did Mr. King say. 
V/ith his better light he was trying to pene 
trate the mystery of the man s death. That 
he had not once moved from the corner where 
he had been stationed; that his posture was 
that of neither attack nor defense; that he 
had dropped his weapon; that he had ob 
viously perished of sheer horror of something 
that he saw these were circumstances which 
Mr. King s disturbed intelligence could not 
rightly comprehend. 

Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew 
to his maze of doubt, his gaze, directed me 
chanically downward in the way of one who 
ponders momentous matters, fell upon some 
thing which, there, in the light of day and in 
the presence of living companions, affected 
him with terror. In the dust of years that 
lay thick upon the floor leading from the 
door by which they had entered, straight 
across the room to within a yard of Manton s 
crouching corpse were three parallel lines 
of footprints light but definite impressions 
of bare feet, the outer ones those of small 
children, the inner a woman s. From the 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 251 

point at which they ended they did not 
return; they pointed all one way. Brewer, 
who had observed them at the same moment, 
was leaning forward in an attitude of rapt at 
tention, horribly pale. 

"Look at that!" he cried, pointing with 
both hands at the nearest print of the wo 
man s right foot, where she had apparently 
stopped and stood. " The middle toe is miss 
ing it was Gertrude!" 

Gertrude was the late Mrs. Manton, sister 
to Mr. Brewer. 



252 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



JOHN MORTONSON S FUNERAL* 

JOHN MORTONSON was dead: his 
lines in "the tragedy Man " had all 
been spoken and he had left the stage. 
The body rested in a fine mahogany 
coffin fitted with a plate of glass. All ar 
rangements for the funeral had been so well 
attended to that had the deceased known he 
would doubtless have approved. The face, 
as it showed under the glass, was not disagree 
able to look upon: it bore a faint smile, and 
as the death had been painless, had not betn 
distorted beyond the repairing power of the 
undertaker. At two o clock of the afternoon 
the friends were to assemble to pay their last 
tribute of respect to one who had no further 
need of friends and respect. The surviving 
members of the family came severally every 
few minutes to the casket and wept above the 
placid features beneath the glass. This did 
them no good; it did no good to John Mor- 

* Rough notes of this tale were found among the papers 
of the late Leigh Bierce. It is printed here with such 
revision only as the author might himself have made in 
transcription. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 253 

tonson; but in the presence of death reason 
and philosophy are silent. 

As the hour of two approached the friends 
began to arrive and after offering such con 
solation to the stricken relatives as the pro 
prieties of the occasion required, solemnly 
seated themselves about the room with an 
augmented consciousness of their importance 
in the scheme funereal. Then the minister 
came, and in that overshadowing presence the 
lesser lights went into eclipse. His entrance 
was followed by that of the widow, whose 
lamentations filled the room. She ap 
proached the casket and after leaning her face 
against the cold glass for a moment was 
gelitly led to a seat near her daughter. 
Mournfully and low the man of God began 
his eulogy of the dead, and his doleful voice, 
mingled with the sobbing which it was its 
purpose to stimulate and sustain, rose and 
fell, seemed to come and go, like the sound 
of a sullen sea. The gloomy day grew darker 
as he spoke; a curtain of cloud underspread 
the sky and a few drops of rain fell audibly. 
It seemed as if all nature were weeping for 
John Mortonson. 

When the minister had finished his eulogy 
with prayer a hymn was sung and the pall- 



254 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

bearers took their places beside the bier. As 
the last notes of the hymn died away the 
widow ran to the coffin, cast herself upon it 
and sobbed hysterically. Gradually, how 
ever, she yielded to dissuasion, becoming more 
composed; and as the minister was in the act 
of leading her away her eyes sought the face 
of the dead beneath the glass. She threw up 
her arms and with a shriek fell backward in 
sensible. 

The mourners sprang forward to the coffin, 
the friends followed, and as the clock on the 
mantel solemnly struck three all were star 
ing down upon the face of John Mortonson, 
deceased. 

They turned away, sick and faint. One 
man, trying in his terror to escape the awful 
sight, stumbled against the coffin so heavily 
as to knock away one of its frail supports. 
The coffin fell to the floor, the glass was shat 
tered to bits by the concussion. 

From the opening crawled John Morton- 
son s cat, which lazily leapt to the floor, sat 
up, tranquilly wiped its crimson muzzle with 
a forepaw, then walked with dignity from the 
room. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 255 

THE REALM OF THE UNREAL 

I 

FOR a part of the distance between 
Auburn and Newcastle the road 
first on one side of a creek and then 
on the other occupies the whole 
bottom of the ravine, being partly cut out of 
the steep hillside, and partly built up with 
bowlders removed from the creek-bed by the 
miners. The hills are wooded, the course of 
the ravine is sinuous. In a dark night careful 
driving is required in order not to go off into 
the water. The night that I have in memory 
was dark, the creek a torrent, swollen by a re 
cent storm. I had driven up from New 
castle and was within about a mile of Auburn 
in the darkest and narrowest part of the ra 
vine, looking intently ahead of my horse for 
the roadway. Suddenly I saw a man almost 
under the animal s nose, and reined in with a 
jerk that came near setting the creature up 
on its haunches. 

" I beg your pardon," I said ; " I did not see 
you, sir." 



256 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"You could hardly be expected to see me," 
the man replied, civilly, approaching the 
side of the vehicle; "and the noise of the 
creek prevented my hearing you." 

I at once recognized the voice, although 
five years had passed since I had heard it. 
I was not particularly well pleased to hear 
it now. 

"You are Dr. Dorrimore, I think," said I. 

"Yes; and you are my good friend Mr. 
Manrich. I am more than glad to see you 
the excess," he added, with a light laugh, "be 
ing due to the fact that I am going your way, 
and naturally expect an invitation to ride with 
you." 

"Which I extend with all my heart." 

That was not altogether true. 

Dr. Dorrimore thanked me as he seated 
himself beside me, and I drove cautiously 
forward, as before. Doubtless it is fancy, but 
it seems to me now that the remaining distance 
was made in a chill fog; that I was uncom 
fortably cold; that the way was longer than 
ever before, and the town, when we reached 
it, cheerless, forbidding, and desolate. It 
must have been early in the evening, yet I do 
not recollect a light in any of the houses nor 
a living thing in the streets. Dorrimore ex- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 257 

plained at some length how he happened to 
be there, and where he had been during the 
years that had elapsed since I had seen him. 
I recall the fact of the narrative, but none of 
the facts narrated. He had been in foreign 
countries and had returned this is all that 
my memory retains, and this I already knew. 
As to myself I cannot remember that I spoke 
a word, though doubtless I did. Of one 
thing I am distinctly conscious: the man s 
presence at my side was strangely distasteful 
and disquieting so much so that when I at 
last pulled up under the lights of the Put 
nam House I experienced a sense of having 
escaped some spiritual peril of a nature pe 
culiarly forbidding. This sense of relief was 
somewhat modified by the discovery that Dr. 
Dorrimore was living at the same hotel. 

II 

In partial explanation of my feelings re 
garding Dr. Dorrimore I will relate briefly 
the circumstances under which I had met him 
some years before. One evening a half- 
dozen men of whom I was one were sitting 
in the library of the Bohemian Club in San 
Francisco. The conversation had turned to 
the subject of sleight-of-hand and the feats 



258 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

of the prestidigitateurs, one of whom was then 
exhibiting at a local theatre. 

"These fellows are pretenders in a double 
sense," said one of the party; " they can do 
nothing which it is worth one s while to be 
made a dupe by. The humblest wayside 
juggler in India could mystify them to the 
verge of lunacy." 

" For example, how?" asked another, light 
ing a cigar. 

" For example, by all their common and 
familiar performances throwing large ob 
jects into the air which never come down; 
causing plants to sprout, grow visibly and 
blossom, in bare ground chosen by spectators; 
putting a man into a wicker basket, piercing 
him through and through with a sword while 
he shrieks and bleeds, and then the basket 
being opened nothing is there; tossing the free 
end of a silken ladder into the air, mounting 
it and disappearing." 

"Nonsense!" I said, rather uncivilly, I 
fear. "You surely do not believe such 
things?" 

"Certainly not: I have seen them too 
often." 

" But I do," said a journalist of consider 
able local fame as a picturesque reporter. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 259 

" I have so frequently related them that 
nothing but observation could shake my con 
viction. Why, gentlemen, I have my own 
word for it." 

Nobody laughed all were looking at 
something behind me. Turning in my seat 
I saw a man in evening dress who had just 
entered the room. He was exceedingly dark, 
almost swarthy, with a thin face, black- 
bearded to the lips, an abundance of coarse 
black hair in some disorder, a high nose and 
eyes that glittered with as soulless an express 
ion as those of a cobra. One of the group 
rose and introduced him as Dr. Dorrimore, 
of Calcutta. As each of us was presented in 
turn he acknowledged the fact with a pro 
found bow in the Oriental manner, but with 
nothing of Oriental gravity. His smile im 
pressed me as cynical and a trifle contempt 
uous. His whole demeanor I can describe 
only as disagreeably engaging. 

His presence led the conversation into other 
channels. He said little I do not recall any 
thing of what he did say. I thought his voice 
singularly rich and melodious, but it affected 
me in the same way as his eyes and smile. In 
a few minutes I rose to go. He also rose and 
put on his overcoat 



260 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Mr. Manrich," he said, " I am going your 
way." 

"The devil you are!" I thought. "How 
do you know which way I am going? " Then 
I said, " I shall be pleased to have your com 
pany." 

We left the building together. No cabs 
were in sight, the street cars had gone to bed, 
there was a full moon and the cool night air 
was delightful ; we walked up the California 
street hill. I took that direction thinking he 
would naturally wish to take another, toward 
one of the hotels. 

"You do not believe what is told of the 
Hindu jugglers," he said abruptly. 

" How do you know that?" I asked. 

Without replying he laid his hand lightly 
upon my arm and with the other pointed to 
the stone sidewalk directly in front. There, 
almost at our feet, lay the dead body of a 
man, the face upturned and white in the 
moonlight! A sword whose hilt sparkled 
with gems stood fixed and upright in the 
breast; a pool of blood had collected on the 
stones of the sidewalk. 

I was startled and terrified not only by 
what I saw, but by the circumstances under 
which I saw it. Repeatedly during our 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 261 

ascent of the hill my eyes, I thought, had 
traversed the whole reach of that sidewalk, 
from street to street. How could they have 
been insensible to this dreadful object now so 
conspicuous in the white moonlight? 

As my dazed faculties cleared I observed 
that the body was in evening dress; the over 
coat thrown wide open revealed the dress- 
coat, the white tie, the broad expanse of shirt 
front pierced by the sword. And horrible 
revelation! the face, except for its pallor, 
was that of my companion! It was to the 
minutest detail of dress and feature Dr. Dor- 
rimore himself. Bewildered and horrified, I 
turned to look for the living man. He was 
nowhere visible, and with an added terror I 
retired from the place, down the hill in the 
direction whence I had come. I had taken 
but a few strides when a strong grasp upon 
my shoulder arrested me. I came near cry 
ing out with terror: the dead man, the sword 
still fixed in his breast, stood beside me! 
Pulling out the sword with his disengaged 
hand, he flung it from him, the moonlight 
glinting upon the jewels of its hilt and the 
unsullied steel of its blade. It fell with a 
clang upon the sidewalk ahead and van 
ished! The man, swarthy as before, relaxed 



262 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

his grasp upon my shoulder and looked at me 
with the same cynical regard that I had ob 
served on first meeting him. The dead have 
not that look it partly restored me, and turn 
ing my head backward, I saw the smooth 
white expanse of sidewalk, unbroken from 
street to street. 

"What is all this nonsense, you devil?" I 
demanded, fiercely enough, though weak and 
trembling in every limb. 

" It is what some are pleased to call jug 
glery," he answered, with a light, hard laugh. 

He turned down Dupont street and I saw 
him no more until we met in the Auburn 
ravine. 

Ill 

On the day after my second meeting with 
Dr. Dorrimore I did not see him: the clerk 
in the Putnam House explained that a slight 
illness confined him to his rooms. That af 
ternoon at the railway station I was surprised 
and made happy by the unexpected arrival 
of Miss Margaret Corray and her mother, 
from Oakland. 

This is not a love story. I am no story 
teller, and love as it is cannot be portrayed in 
a literature dominated and enthralled by the 
debasing tyranny which "sentences letters" 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 263 

in the name of the Young Girl. Under the 
Young Girl s blighting reign or rather un 
der the rule of those false Ministers of the 
Censure who have appointed themselves to 
the custody of her welfare love 

veils her sacred fires, 
And, unaware, Morality expires, 

famished upon the sifted meal and distilled 
water of a prudish purveyance. 

Let it suffice that Miss Corray and I were 
engaged in marriage. She and her mother 
went to the hotel at which I lived, and for 
two weeks I saw her daily. That I was 
happy needs hardly be said; the only bar to 
my perfect enjoyment of those golden days 
was the presence of Dr. Dorrimore, whom I 
had felt compelled to introduce to the ladies. 

By them he was evidently held in favor. 
What could I say? I knew absolutely no 
thing to his discredit. His manners were those 
of a cultivated and considerate gentleman; 
and to women a man s manner is the man. 
On one or two occasions when I saw Miss 
Corray walking with him I was furious, and 
once had the indiscretion to protest. Asked 
for reasons, I had none to give and fancied I 



264 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

saw in her expression a shade of contempt for 
the vagaries of a jealous mind. In time I 
grew morose and consciously disagreeable, 
and resolved in my madness to return to San 
Francisco the next day. Of this, however, I 
said nothing. 

IV 

There was at Auburn an old, abandoned 
cemetery. It was nearly in the heart of the 
town, yet by night it was as gruesome a place 
as the most dismal of human moods could 
crave. The railings about the plats were 
prostrate, decayed, or altogether gone. Many 
of the graves were sunken, from others grew 
sturdy pines, whose roots had committed un 
speakable sin. The headstones were fallen 
and broken across; brambles overran the 
ground; the fence was mostly gone, and cows 
and pigs wandered there at will; the place 
was a dishonor to the living, a calumny on 
the dead, a blasphemy against God. 

The evening of the day on which I had 
taken my madman s resolution to depart in 
anger from all that was dear to me found me 
in that congenial spot. The light of the half 
moon fell ghostly through the foliage of trees 
in spots and patches, revealing much that was 
unsightly, and the black shadows seemed con- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 265 

spiracles withholding to the proper time rev 
elations of darker import. Passing along 
what had been a gravel path, I saw emerging 
from shadow the figure of Dr. Dorrimore. 
I was myself in shadow, and stood still with 
clenched hands and set teeth, trying to control 
the impulse to leap upon and strangle him. 
A moment later a second figure joined him 
and clung to his arm. It was Margaret Cor- 
ray! 

I cannot rightly relate what occurred. I 
know that I sprang forward, bent upon mur 
der; I know that I was found in the gray of 
the morning, bruised and bloody, with finger 
marks upon my throat. I was taken to the 
Putnam House, where for days I lay in a de 
lirium. All this I know, for I have been told. 
And of my own knowledge I know that when 
consciousness returned with convalescence I 
sent for the clerk of the hotel. 

" Are Mrs. Corray and her daughter still 
here?" I asked. 

" What name did you say? " 

" Corray." 

" Nobody of that name has been here." 

" I beg you will not trifle with me," I said 
petulantly. "You see that I am all right 
now; tell me the truth." 



266 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" I give you my word," he replied with 
evident sincerity, "we have had no guests of 
that name." 

His words stupefied me. I lay for a few 
moments in silence ; then I asked : " Where is 
Dr. Dorrimore?" 

" He left on the morning of your fight and 
has not been heard of since. It was a rough 
deal he gave you." 



Such are the facts of this case. Margaret 
Corray is now my wife. She has never seen 
Auburn, and during the weeks whose history 
as it shaped itself in my brain I have endeav 
ored to relate, was living at her home in Oak 
land, wondering where her lover was and 
why he did not write. The other day I saw 
in the Baltimore Sun the following para 
graph: 

" Professor Valentine Dorrimore, the hyp 
notist, had a large audience last night. The 
lecturer, who has lived most of his life in 
India, gave some marvelous exhibitions of his 
power, hypnotizing anyone who chose to sub 
mit himself to the experiment, by merely 
looking at him. In fact, he twice hypnotized 
the entire audience (reporters alone ex- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 267 

empted), making all entertain the most ex 
traordinary illusions. The most valuable 
feature of the lecture was the disclosure of 
the methods of the Hindu jugglers in their 
famous performances, familiar in the mouths 
of travelers. The professor declares that 
these thaumaturgists have acquired such skill 
in the art which he learned at their feet that 
they perform their miracles by simply throw 
ing the spectators into a state of hypnosis 
and telling them what to see and hear. His 
assertion that a peculiarly susceptible subject 
may be kept in the realm of the unreal for 
weeks, months, and even years, dominated by 
whatever delusions and hallucinations the op 
erator may from time to time suggest, is a 
trifle disquieting." 






268 THE COLLECTED WORKS 
JOHN BARTINE S WATCH 

A STORY BY A PHYSICIAN 

THE exact time? Good God! my 
friend, why do you insist? One 
would think but what does it 
matter; it is easily bedtime isn t 
that near enough? But, here, if you must set 
your watch, take mine and see for yourself." 
With that he detached his watch a tre 
mendously heavy, old-fashioned one from 
the chain, and handed it to me; then turned 
away, and walking across the room to a shelf 
of books, began an examination of their backs. 
His agitation and evident distress surprised 
me; they appeared reasonless. Having set my 
watch by his, I stepped over to where he stood 
and said, " Thank you." 

As he took his timepiece and reattached it 
to the guard I observed that his hands were 
unsteady. With a tact upon which I greatly 
prided myself, I sauntered carelessly to the 
sideboard and took some brandy and water; 
then, begging his pardon for my thoughtless 
ness, asked him to have some and went back to 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 269 

my seat by the fire, leaving him to help him 
self, as was our custom. He did so and pres 
ently joined me at the hearth, as tranquil as 
ever. 

This odd little incident occurred in my 
apartment, where John Bartine was passing 
an evening. We had dined together at the 
club, had come home in a cab and in short, 
everything had been done in the most prosaic 
way; and why John Bartine should break in 
upon the natural and established order of 
things to make himself spectacular with a dis 
play of emotion, apparently for his own enter 
tainment, I could nowise understand. The 
more I thought of it, while his brilliant con 
versational gifts were commending them 
selves to my inattention, the more curious I 
grew, and of course had no difficulty in per 
suading myself that my curiosity was friendly 
solicitude. That is the disguise that curiosity 
usually assumes to evade resentment. So I 
ruined one of the finest sentences of his disre 
garded monologue by cutting it short without 
ceremony. 

"John Bartine," I said, "you must try to 
forgive me if I am wrong, but with the light 
that I have at present I cannot concede your 
right to go all to pieces when asked the time o 



270 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

night. I cannot admit that it is proper to ex 
perience a mysterious reluctance to look your 
own watch in the face and to cherish in my 
presence, without explanation, painful emo 
tions which are denied to me, and which are 
none of my business." 

To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no 
immediate reply, but sat looking gravely into 
the fire. Fearing that I had offended I was 
about to apologize and beg him to think no 
more about the matter, when looking me 
calmly in the eyes he said : 

" My dear fellow, the levity of your manner 
does not at all disguise the hideous impudence 
of your demand; but happily I had already 
decided to tell you what you wish to know, 
and no manifestation of your unworthiness to 
hear it shall alter my decision. Be good 
enough to give me your attention and you 
shall hear all about the matter. 

"This watch," he said, "had been in my 
family for three generations before it fell to 
me. Its original owner, for whom it was 
made, was my great-grandfather, Bramwell 
Olcott Bartine, a wealthy planter of Colonial 
Virginia, and as stanch a Tory as ever lay 
awake nights contriving new kinds of male 
dictions for the head of Mr. Washington, and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 271 

new methods of aiding and abetting good 
King George. One day this worthy gentle 
man had the deep misfortune to perform for 
his cause a service of capital importance 
which was not recognized as legitimate by 
those who suffered its disadvantages. It does 
not matter what it was, but among its minor 
consequences was my excellent ancestor s ar 
rest one night in his own house by a party of 
Mr. Washington s rebels. He was permitted 
to say farewell to his weeping family, and 
was then marched away into the darkness 
which swallowed him up forever. Not the 
slenderest clew to his fate was ever found. 
After the war the most diligent inquiry and 
the offer of large rewards failed to turn up 
any of his captors or any fact concerning his 
disappearance. He had disappeared, and that 
was all." 

Something in Bartine s manner that was 
not in his words I hardly knew what it was 
prompted me to ask: 

".What is your view of the matter of the 
justice of it?" 

" My view of it," he flamed out, bringing 
his clenched hand down upon the table as if 
he had been in a public house dicing with 
blackguards "my view of it is that it was 



272 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

a characteristically dastardly assassination by 
that damned traitor, Washington, and his rag 
amuffin rebels!" 

For some minutes nothing was said: Bar- 
tine was recovering his temper, and I waited. 
Then I said: 

"Was that all?" 

"No there was something else. A few 
weeks after my great-grandfather s arrest his 
watch was found lying on the porch at the 
front door of his dwelling. It was wrapped 
in a sheet of letter paper bearing the name of 
Rupert Bartine, his only son, my grandfather. 
I am wearing that watch." 

Bartine paused. His usually restless black 
eyes were staring fixedly into the grate, a 
point of red light in each, reflected from the 
glowing coals. He seemed to have forgotten 
me. A sudden threshing of the branches of 
a tree outside one of the windows, and almost 
at the same instant a rattle of rain against the 
glass, recalled him to a sense of his surround 
ings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single 
gust of wind, and in a few moments the steady 
plash of the water on the pavement was dis 
tinctly heard. I hardly know why I relate 
this incident; it seemed somehow to have a 
certain significance and relevancy which I am 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 273 

unable now to discern. It at least added an 
element of seriousness, almost solemnity. Bar- 
tine resumed: 

" I have a singular feeling toward this 
watch a kind of affection for it; I like to 
have it about me, though partly from its 
weight, and partly for a reason I shall now 
explain, I seldom carry it. The reason is this : 
Every evening when I have it with me I feel 
an unaccountable desire to open and consult 
it, even if I can think of no reason for wishing 
to know the time. But if I yield to it, the 
moment my eyes rest upon the dial I am filled 
with a mysterious apprehension a sense of 
imminent calamity. And this is the more in 
supportable the nearer it is to eleven o clock 
by this watch, no matter what the actual 
hour may be. After the hands have registered 
eleven the desire to look is gone; I am en 
tirely indifferent. Then I can consult the 
thing as often as I like, with no more emotion 
than you feel in looking at your own. Natur 
ally I have trained myself not to look at that 
watch in the evening before eleven; nothing 
could induce me. Your insistence this even 
ing upset me a trifle. I felt very much as I 
suppose an opium-eater might feel if his 
yearning for his special and particular kind of 



274 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

hell were re-enforced by opportunity and ad 
vice. 

" Now that is my story, and I have told it 
in the interest of your trumpery science; but 
if on any evening hereafter you observe me 
wearing this damnable watch, and you have 
the thoughtfulness to ask me the hour, I shall 
beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of 
being knocked down." 

His humor did not amuse me. I could see 
that in relating his delusion he was again 
somewhat disturbed. His concluding smile 
was positively ghastly, and his eyes had re 
sumed something more than their old restless 
ness; they shifted hither and thither about 
the room with apparent aimlessness and I fan 
cied had taken on a wild expression, such as 
is sometimes observed in cases of dementia. 
Perhaps this was my own imagination, but at 
any rate I was now persuaded that my friend 
was afflicted with a most singular and interest 
ing monomania. Without, I trust, any abate 
ment of my affectionate solicitude for him as 
a friend, I began to regard him as a patient, 
rich in possibilities of profitable study. Why 
not? Had he not described his delusion in 
the interest of science? Ah, poor fellow, he 
was doing more for science than he knew: not 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 275 

only his story but himself was in evidence. I 
should cure him if I could, of course, but first 
I should make a little experiment in psychol 
ogy nay, the experiment itself might be a 
step in his restoration. 

" That is very frank and friendly of you, 
Bartine," I said cordially, "and I m rather 
proud of your confidence. It is all very odd, 
certainly. Do you mind showing me the 
watch?" 

He detached it from his waistcoat, chain 
and all, and passed it to me without a word. 
The case was of gold, very thick and strong, 
and singularly engraved. After closely ex 
amining the dial and observing that it was 
nearly twelve o clock, I opened it at the back 
and was interested to observe an inner case of 
ivory, upon which was painted a miniature 
portrait in that exquisite and delicate manner 
which was in vogue during the eighteenth 
century. 

" Why, bless my soul ! " I exclaimed, feeling 
a sharp artistic delight " how under the sun 
did you get that done? I thought miniature 
painting on ivory was a lost art." 

"That," he replied, gravely smiling, "is 
not I ; it is my excellent great-grandfather, the 
late Bramwell Olcott Bartine, Esquire, of 



276 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Virginia. He was younger then than later 
about my age, in fact. It is said to resemble 
me; do you think so?" 

" Resemble you? I should say so! Barring 
the costume, which I supposed you to have as 
sumed out of compliment to the art or for 
vraisemblance, so to say and the no mus 
tache, that portrait is you in every feature, 
line, and expression." 

No more was said at that time. Bartine 
took a book from the table and began reading. 
I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain 
in the street. There were occasional hurried 
footfalls on the sidewalks; and once a slower, 
heavier tread seemed to cease at my door a 
policeman, I thought, seeking shelter in the 
doorway. The boughs of the trees tapped 
significantly on the window panes, as if ask 
ing for admittance. I remember it all 
through these years and years of a wiser, 
graver life. 

Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old- 
fashioned key that dangled from the chain 
and quickly turned back the hands of the 
watch a full hour; then, closing the case, I 
handed Bartine his property and saw him re 
place it on his person. 

" I think you said," I began, with assumed 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 277 

carelessness, " that after eleven the sight of 
the dial no longer affects you. As it is now 
nearly twelve " looking at my own timepiece 
" perhaps, if you don t resent my pursuit of 
proof, you will look at it now." 

He smiled good-humoredly, pulled out the 
watch again, opened it, and instantly sprang 
to his feet with a cry that Heaven has not had 
the mercy to permit me to forget! His eyes, 
their blackness strikingly intensified by the 
pallor of his face, were fixed upon the watch, 
which he clutched in both hands. For some 
time he remained in that attitude without ut 
tering another sound; then, in a voice that I 
should not have recognized as his, he said: 

"Damn you! it is two minutes to eleven!" 

I was not unprepared for some such out 
break, and without rising replied, calmly 
enough : 

" I beg your pardon; I must have misread 
your watch in setting my own by it." 

He shut the case with a sharp snap and put 
the watch in his pocket. He looked at me and 
made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip 
quivered and he seemed unable to close his 
mouth. His hands, also, were shaking, and he 
thrust them, clenched, into the pockets of his 
sack-coat. The courageous spirit was mani- 



278 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

festly endeavoring to subdue the coward body. 
The effort was too great; he began to sway 
from side to side, as from vertigo, and before 
I could spring from my chair to support him 
his knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly 
forward and fell upon his face. I sprang to 
assist him to rise; but when John Bartine rises 
we shall all rise. 

The post-mortem examination disclosed 
nothing; every organ was normal and sound. 
But when the body had been prepared for 
burial a faint dark circle was seen to have de 
veloped around the neck; at least I was so as 
sured by several persons who said they saw it, 
but of my own knowledge I cannot say if that 
was true. 

Nor can I set limitations to the law of 
heredity. I do not know that in the spiritual 
world a sentiment or emotion may not survive 
the heart that held it, and seek expression in 
a kindred life, ages removed. Surely, if I 
were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott 
Bartine, I should guess that he was hanged at 
eleven o clock in the evening, and that he had 
been allowed several hours in which to pre 
pare for the change. 

As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient 
for five minutes, and Heaven forgive me! 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 279 

my victim for eternity, there is no more to 
say. He is buried, and his watch with him I 
saw to that. May God rest his soul in Para 
dise, and the soul of his Virginian ancestor, 
if, indeed, they are two souls. 



280 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

THE DAMNED THING 
I 

ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS EAT WHAT IS ON THE 
TABLE 

Bf the light of a tallow candle which 
had been placed on one end of a 
rough table a man was reading some 
thing written in a book. It was an 
old account book, greatly worn; and the writ 
ing was not, apparently, very legible, for the 
man sometimes held the page close to the flame 
of the candle to get a stronger light on 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, 
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 up 
ward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at 
his sides. He was dead. 
The man with the book was not reading 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 281 

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 in trees; 
strange cries of night birds, so different from 
those of the birds of day; the drcyie of great 
blundering beetles, and all that mysterious 
chorus of small sounds that seem always to 
have been but half heard when they have sud 
denly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscre 
tion. But nothing of all this was noted in that 
company; its members were not overmuch ad 
dicted to idle interest in matters of no practic 
al 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 
woodsmen. 

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 



282 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

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 >f 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 author 
ity. 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 cor 
oner. " It is necessary to have done with this 
business to-night." 

The young man smiled. " I am sorry to 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 283 

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 news 
paper," 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 please. 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 a 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 silent for a time, 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?" 



284 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Twenty-seven." 

" You knew the deceased, Hugh Morgan? " 

11 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, solitary way 
of life. He seemed a good model for a char 
acter in fiction. I sometimes write stories." 

" I sometimes read them." 

"Thank you." 

" Stories in general not yours." 

Some of the jurors laughed. Against a 
sombre background humor shows high lights. 
Soldiers in the intervals of battle laugh easily, 
and a jest in the death chamber 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 man 
uscript 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. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 285 

II 
WHAT MAY HAPPEN IN A FIELD OF WILD OATS 

". . . 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 comparat 
ively 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 ve started a deer, I said. I wish 
we had brought a rifle. 

"Morgan, who had stopped and was in 
tently watching the agitated chaparral f said 
nothing, but 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 im 
minent peril. 



286 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" O, 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 intensity of his look. 
Then I understood that we had serious busi 
ness in hand and my first conjecture was that 
we had * jumped a grizzly. 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, with 
out turning his head. His voice was husky 
and unnatural. He trembled visibly. 

" I was about to speak further, when I ob 
served the wild oats near the place of the dis 
turbance moving in the most inexplicable way. 
I can 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 unac 
countable phenomenon, yet I am unable to 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 287 

recall any sense of fear. I remember and 
tell it here because, singularly enough, I 
recollected it then that once in looking care 
lessly 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 and detail seemed out of harmony 
with them. It was a mere falsification of the 
law of aerial perspective, but it startled, al 
most terrified me. We so rely upon the or 
derly operation of familiar natural laws that 
any seeming suspension of them is noted as a 
menace to our safety, a warning of unthink 
able calamity. So now the apparently cause 
less movement of the herbage and the slow, 
undeviating approach of the line of disturb 
ance were distinctly disquieting. My com 
panion appeared actually frightened, and I 
could hardly credit my senses when I saw him 
suddenly throw his gun to his shoulder and 
fire both barrels at the agitated grain! Be 
fore 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 



288 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

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 re 
cover my gun, which seemed to have been 
struck from my hands, I heard Morgan cry 
ing out as if in mortal agony, and mingling 
with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds 
as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpress 
ibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and 
looked in the direction of Morgan s retreat; 
and may Heaven in 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 in disorder and 
his 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 re 
ports 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 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 assumed all 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 289 

the postures of a determined wrestler van 
quished by superior weight and strength. I 
saw nothing but him, and him not always dis 
tinctly. During the entire incident his shouts 
and curses were heard, as if through an en 
veloping uproar of such sounds of rage and 
fury as I had never heard from the throat 
of 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 again the mysterious movement of 
the wild oats, prolonging itself from the 
trampled area about the prostrate man to 
ward 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. 7 

Ill 
A MAN THOUGH NAKED MAY BE IN RAGS 

The coroner rose from his seat and stood 
beside the dead man. Lifting an edge of the 



290 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

sheet he pulled it away, exposing the entire 
body, altogether naked and showing in the 
candle-light a claylike yellow. It had, how 
ever, broad maculations of bluish black, ob- 
viously s caused by ojrtravacatod 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 handker 
chief 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. Wit 
ness 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 pro 
duced 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 uninterested. They had, in 
truth, seen all this before; the only thing 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 291 

that was new to them being Harker s testi 
mony. 

" Gentlemen," the coroner said, " we have 
no more evidence, I think. Your duty has 
been already explained to you; if there is no 
thing 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, Mr. 
Coroner," he said. "What asylum did this 
yer last witness escape from?" 

"Mr. Harker," said the coroner, gravely 
and tranquilly, " from what asylum did you 
last escape?" 

Harker flushed crimson again, but said 
nothing, and the seven jurors rose and sol 
emnly 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 the 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: 



292 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"The book that you have there I recog 
nize it as Morgan s diary. You 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 mat 
ter," 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 
reentered and stood about the table, on which 
the now covered corpse showed under the 
sheet with sharp definition. The foreman 
seated himself near the candle, produced from 
his breast pocket a 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 mount 
ain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, 
they had fits." 

IV 
AN EXPLANATION FROM THE TOMB 

In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are 
certain interesting entries having, possibly, a 
scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 293 

upon his body the book was not put in evid 
ence; 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 fol 
lows: 

" . . . would run in a half-circle, 
keeping his head turned always toward the 
centre, 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 pun 
ishment. 

" Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors 
impress some cerebral centre with images of 
the thing that emitted them? . . . 

" Sept. 2. 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 some 
thing had passed along between me and them ; 



294 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

but I could not see it, and the stars were not 
thick enough to define its outline. Ugh! I 
don t like this." . . . 

Several weeks entries are missing, three 
leaves being torn from the book. 

" Sept. 27. It has been about here again 
I find evidences of its presence every day. I 
watched again all last night in the same cover, 
gun in hand, double-charged with 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 amaz 
ing experiences are real I shall go mad; if 
they are fanciful I am mad already. 

" Oct. 3. I shall not go it shall not drive 
me away. No, this is my house, my land. 
God hates a coward. . . . 

"Oct. 5. 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. 

" Oct. 7. I have the solution of the myst 
ery; 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 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 295 

no chord of that imperfect instrument, the 
human ear. They are too high or too grave. 
I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupy 
ing an entire tree-top the tops of several 
trees and all in full song. Suddenly in a 
moment at 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 un 
heard. I have observed, too, the same simul 
taneous 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, will sometimes dive at the 
same instant all gone out of sight in a mo 
ment. The signal has been sounded too 
grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead 
and his comrades on the deck who neverthe 
less feel its vibrations in the ship as the stones 
of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of the 
organ. 



296 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" As with sounds, so with colors. At each 
end of the solar spectrum the chemist can de 
tect the presence of what are known as 
* actinic rafys. They represent colors in 
tegral 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 Thing 
is of such a color!" 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 297 



HAITA THE SHEPHERD 

IN the heart of Haita the illusions of 
youth had not been supplanted by those 
of age and experience. His thoughts 
were pure and pleasant, for his life was 
simple and his soul devoid of ambition. He 
rose with the sun and went forth to pray at 
the shrine of Hastur, the god of shepherds, 
who heard and was pleased. After perform 
ance of this pious rite Ha ita unbarred the gate 
of the fold and with a cheerful mind drove 
his flock afield, eating his morning meal of 
curds and oat cake as he went, occasionally 
pausing to add a few berries, cold with dew, 
or to drink of the waters that came away from 
the hills to join the stream in the middle of 
the valley and be borne along with it, he knew 
not whither. 

During the long summer day, as his sheep 
cropped the good grass which the gods had 
made to grow for them, or lay with their fore 
legs doubled under their breasts and chewed 
the cud, Ha ita, reclining in the shadow of a 
tree, or sitting upon a rock, played so sweet 



208 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

music upon his reed pipe that sometimes from 
the corner of his eye he got accidental 
glimpses of the minor sylvan deities, leaning 
forward out of the copse to hear; but if he 
looked at them directly they vanished. From 
this for he must be thinking if he would 
not turn into one of his own sheep he drew 
the solemn inference that happiness may come 
if not sought, but if looked for will never be 
seen; for next to the favor of Hastur, who 
never disclosed himself, Haita most valued the 
friendly interest of his neighbors, the shy im 
mortals of the w r ood and stream. At nightfall 
he drove his flock back to the fold, saw that 
the gate was secure and retired to his cave for 
refreshment and for dreams. 

So passed his life, one day like another, save 
when the storms uttered the wrath of an of 
fended god. Then Haita cowered in his cave, 
his face hidden in his hands, and prayed that 
he alone might be punished for his sins and 
the world saved from destruction. Sometimes 
when there was a great rain, and the stream 
came out of its banks, compelling him to urge 
his terrified flock to the uplands, he inter 
ceded for the people in the cities which he had 
been told lay in the plain beyond the two blue 
hills forming the gateway of his valley. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 299 

" It is kind of thee, O Hastur," so he prayed, 
" to give me mountains so near to my dwell 
ing and my fold that I and my sheep can 
escape the angry torrents; but the rest of the 
world thou must thyself deliver in some way 
that I know not of, or I will no longer wor 
ship thee." 

And Hastur, knowing that Haita was a 
youth who kept his word, spared the cities 
and turned the waters into the sea. 

So he had lived since he could remember. 
He could not rightly conceive any other mode 
of existence. The holy hermit who dwelt at 
the head of the valley, a full hour s journey 
away, from whom he had heard the tale of 
the great cities where dwelt people poor 
souls! who had no sheep, gave him no know 
ledge of that early time, when, so he reasoned, 
he must have been small and helpless like a 
lamb. 

It was through thinking on these mysteries 
and marvels, and on that horrible change to 
silence and decay which he felt sure must 
some time come to him, as he had seen it come 
to so many of his flock as it came to all liv 
ing things except the birds that Hai ta first 
became conscious how miserable and hopeless 
was his lot. 



300 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" It is necessary," he said, " that I know 
whence and how I came ; for how can one per 
form his duties unless able to judge what they 
are by the way in which he was intrusted with 
them? And what contentment can I have 
when I know not how long it is going to last? 
Perhaps before another sun I may be changed, 
and then what will become of the sheep? 
What, indeed, will have become of me?" 

Pondering these things Haita became mel 
ancholy and morose. He no longer spoke 
cheerfully to his flock, nor ran with alacrity 
to the shrine of Hastur. In every breeze he 
heard whispers of malign deities whose exist 
ence he now first observed. Every cloud was 
a portent signifying disaster, and the darkness 
was full of terrors. His reed pipe when ap 
plied to his lips gave out no melody, but a 
dismal wail; the sylvan and riparian intellig 
ences no longer thronged the thicket-side to 
listen, but fled from the sound, as he knew by 
the stirred leaves and bent flowers. He re 
laxed his vigilance and many of his sheep 
strayed away into the hills and were lost. 
Those that remained became lean and ill for 
lack of good pasturage, for he would not seek 
it for them, but conducted them day after day 
to the same spot, through mere abstraction, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 301 

while puzzling about life and death of im 
mortality he knew not. 

One day while indulging in the gloomiest 
reflections he suddenly sprang from the rock 
upon which he sat, and with a determined ges 
ture of the right hand exclaimed: " I will no 
longer be a suppliant for knowledge which 
the gods withhold. Let them look to it that 
they do me no wrong. I will do my duty as 
best I can and if I err upon their own heads 
be it!" 

Suddenly, as he spoke, a great brightness 
fell about him, causing him to look upward, 
thinking the sun had burst through a rift in 
the clouds; but there were no clouds. No 
more than an arm s length away stood a beau 
tiful maiden. So beautiful she was that the 
flowers about her feet folded their petals in 
despair and bent their heads in token of sub 
mission ; so sweet her look that the humming 
birds thronged her eyes, thrusting their thirsty 
bills almost into them, and the wild bees were 
about her lips. And such was her brightness 
that the shadows of all objects lay divergent 
from her feet, turning as she moved. 

Haita was entranced. Rising, he knelt be 
fore her in adoration, and she laid her hand 
upon his head. 



302 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Come," she said in a voice that had the 
music of all the bells of his flock "come, 
thou art not to worship me, who am no godd 
ess, but if thou art truthful and dutiful I will 
abide with thee." 

Haita seized her hand, and stammering his 
joy and gratitude arose, and hand in hand 
they stood and smiled into each other s eyes. 
He gazed on her with reverence and rapt 
ure. He said : " I pray thee, lovely maid, tell 
me thy name and whence and why thou 
comest." 

At this she laid a warning finger on her 
lip and began to withdraw. Her beauty un 
derwent a visible alteration that made him 
shudder, he knew not why, for still she was 
beautiful. The landscape was darkened by a 
giant shadow sweeping across the valley with 
the speed of a vulture. In the obscurity the 
maiden s figure grew dim and indistinct and 
her voice seemed to come from a distance, as 
she said, in a tone of sorrowful reproach: 
"Presumptuous and ungrateful youth! must 
I then so soon leave thee? Would nothing 
do but thou must at once break the eternal 
compact?" 

Inexpressibly grieved, Hai ta fell upon his 
knees and implored her to remain rose and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 803 

sought her in the deepening darkness ran in 
circles, calling to her aloud, but all in vain. 
She was no longer visible, but out of the 
gloom he heard her voice saying: " Nay, thou 
shalt not have me by seeking. Go to thy duty, 
faithless shepherd, or we shall never meet 
again." 

Night had fallen; the wolves were howling 
in the hills and the terrified sheep crowding 
about Haita s feet. In the demands of the 
hour he forgot his disappointment, drove his 
sheep to the fold and repairing to the place 
of worship poured out his heart in gratitude 
to Hastur for permitting him to save his flock, 
then retired to his cave and slept. 

When Ha ita awoke the sun was high and 
shone in at the cave, illuminating it with a 
great glory. And there, beside him, sat the 
maiden. She smiled upon him with a smile 
that seemed the visible music of his pipe of 
reeds. He dared not speak, fearing to offend 
her as before, for he knew not what he could 
venture to say. 

" Because," she said, " thou didst thy duty 
by the flock, and didst not forget to thank Has 
tur for staying the wolves -of the night, I am 
come to thee again. Wilt thou have me for 
a companion?" 



304 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"Who would not have thee forever?" re 
plied Haita. "Oh! never again leave me un 
til until I change and become silent and 
motionless." 

Haita had no word for death. 

" I wish, indeed," he continued, " that thou 
wert of my own sex, that we might wrestle 
and run races and so never tire of being to 
gether." 

At these words the maiden arose and passed 
out of the cave, and Haita, springing from 
his couch of fragrant boughs to overtake and 
detain her, observed to his astonishment that 
the rain was falling and the stream in the 
middle of the valley had come out of its banks. 
The sheep were bleating in terror, for the ris 
ing waters had invaded their fold. And there 
was danger for the unknown cities of the dis 
tant plain. 

It was many days before Haita saw the 
maiden again. One day he was returning 
from the head of the valley, where he had 
gone with ewe s milk and oat cake and berries 
for the holy hermit, who was too old and fee 
ble to provide himself with food. 

"Poor old man!" he said aloud, as he 
trudged along homeward. " I will return to 
morrow and bear him on my back to my own 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 305 

dwelling, where I can care for him. Doubt 
less it is for this that Hastur has reared me all 
these many years, and gives me health and 
strength." 

As he spoke, the maiden, clad in glittering 
garments, met him in the path with a smile 
that took away his breath. 

" I am come again," she said, " to dwell 
with thee if thou wilt now have me, for none 
else will. Thou mayest have learned wisdom, 
and art willing to take me as I am, nor care 
to know." 

Haita threw himself at her feet. " Beau 
tiful being," he cried, " if thou wilt but deign 
to accept all the devotion of my heart and 
soul after Hastur be served it is thine for 
ever. But, alas! thou art capricious and way 
ward. Before to-morrow s sun I may lose 
thee again. Promise, I beseech thee, that 
however in my ignorance I may offend, thou 
wilt forgive and remain always with me." 

Scarcely had he finished speaking when a 
troop of bears came out of the hills, racing 
toward him with crimson mouths and fiery 
eyes. The maiden again vanished, and he 
turned and fled for his life. Nor did he stop 
until he was in the cot of the holy hermit, 
whence he had set out. Hastily barring the 



306 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

door against the bears he cast himself upon 
the ground and wept. 

" My son," said the hermit from his couch 
of straw, freshly gathered that morning by 
Haita s hands, " it is not like thee to weep for 
bears tell me what sorrow hath befallen thee, 
that age may minister to the hurts of youth 
with such balms as it hath of its wisdom." 

Haita told him all: how thrice he had met 
the radiant maid, and thrice she had left him 
forlorn. He related minutely all that had 
passed between them, omitting no word of 
what had been said. 

When he had ended, the holy hermit was a 
moment silent, then said : " My son, I have 
attended to thy story, and I know the maiden. 
I have myself seen her, as have many. Know, 
then, that her name, which she would not even 
permit thee to inquire, is Happiness. Thou 
saidst the truth to her, that she is capricious 
for she imposeth conditions that man can not 
fulfill, and delinquency is punished by deser 
tion. She cometh only when unsought, and 
will not be questioned. One manifestation of 
curiosity, one sign of doubt, one expression of 
misgiving, and she is away! How long didst 
thou have her at any time before she fled?" 

"Only a single instant," answered Haita, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 307 

blushing with shame at the confession. " Each 
time I drove her away in one moment." 

" Unfortunate youth! " said the holy hermit, 
" but for thine indiscretion thou mightst have 
had her for two." 



808 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA 

For there be divers sorts of death some wherein the 
body remaineth ; and in some it vanisheth quite away with 
the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude 
(such is God s will) and, none seeing the end, we say 
the man is lost, or gone on a long journey which indeed 
he hath ; but sometimes it hath happened in sight of many, 
as abundant testimony showeth. In one kind of death the 
spirit also dieth, and this it hath been known to do while 
yet the body was in vigor for many years. Sometimes, as 
is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after a 
season is raised up again in that place where the body did 
decay. 

PONDERING these words of Hali 
(whom God rest) and questioning 
their full meaning, as one who, hav 
ing an intimation, yet doubts if there 
be not something behind, other than that which 
he has discerned, I noted not whither I had 
strayed until a sudden chill wind striking my 
face revived in me a sense of my surroundings. 
I observed with astonishment that everything 
seemed unfamiliar. On every side of me 
stretched a bleak and desolate expanse of 
plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of sere 
grass, which rustled and whistled in the au- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 309 

tumn wind with heaven knows what myster 
ious and disquieting suggestion. Protruded 
at long intervals above it, stood strangely 
shaped and somber-colored rocks, which 
seemed to have an understanding with one an 
other and to exchange looks of uncomfortable 
significance, as if they had reared their heads 
to watch the issue of some foreseen event. A 
few blasted trees here and there appeared as 
leaders in this malevolent conspiracy of silent 
expectation. 

The day, I thought, must be far advanced, 
though the sun was invisible; and although 
sensible that the air was raw and chill my con 
sciousness of that fact was rather mental than 
physical I had no feeling of discomfort. 
Over all the dismal landscape a canopy of low, 
lead-colored clouds hung like a visible curse. 
In all this there were a menace and a portent 
a hint of evil, an intimation of doom. 
Bird, beast, or insect there was none. The 
wind sighed in the bare branches of the dead 
trees and the gray grass bent to whisper its 
dread secret to the earth; but no other sound 
nor motion broke the awful repose of that dis 
mal place. 

I observed in the herbage a number of 
weather-worn stones, evidently shaped with 



310 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

tools. They were broken, covered with moss 
and half sunken in the earth. Some lay pros 
trate, some leaned at various angles, none was 
vertical. They were obviously headstones of 
graves, though the graves themselves no longer 
existed as either mounds or depressions; the 
years had leveled all. Scattered here and 
there, more massive blocks showed where 
some pompous tomb or ambitious monument 
had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion. 
So old seemed these relics, these vestiges of 
vanity and memorials of affection and piety, 
so battered and worn and stained so neg 
lected, deserted, forgotten the place, that I 
could not help thinking myself the discoverer 
of the burial-ground of a prehistoric race of 
men whose very name was long extinct. 

Filled with these reflections, I was for some 
time heedless of the sequence of my own ex 
periences, but soon I thought, " How came I 
hither?" A moment s reflection seemed to 
make this all clear and explain at the same 
time, though in a disquieting way, the singular 
character with which my fancy had invested 
all that I saw or heard. I was ill. I remem 
bered now that I had been prostrated by a sud 
den fever, and that my family had told me 
that in my periods of delirium I had con- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 311 

stantly cried out for liberty and air, and had 
been held in bed to prevent my escape out-of- 
doors. Now I had eluded the vigilance of 
my attendants and had wandered hither to 
to where? I could not conjecture. Clearly 
I was at a considerable distance from the city 
where I dwelt the ancient and famous city 
of Carcosa. 

No signs of human life were anywhere vis 
ible nor audible; no rising smoke, no watch 
dog s bark, no lowing of cattle, no shouts of 
children at play nothing but that dismal 
burial-place, with its air of mystery and dread, 
due to my own disordered brain. Was I not be 
coming again delirious, there beyond human 
aid? Was it not indeed all an illusion of my 
madness? I called aloud the names of my 
wives and sons, reached out my hands in 
search of theirs, even as I walked among the 
crumbling stones and in the withered grass. 

A noise behind me caused me to turn about 
A wild animal a lynx was approaching. 
The thought came to me: If I break down 
here in the desert if the fever return and I 
fail, this beast will be at my throat. I sprang 
toward it, shouting. It trotted tranquilly by 
within a hand s breadth of me and disap 
peared behind a rock. 



312 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

A moment later a man s head appeared to 
rise out of the ground a short distance away. 
He was ascending the farther slope of a low 
hill whose crest was hardly to be distinguished 
from the general level. His whole figure soon 
came into view against the background of 
gray cloud. He was half naked, half clad in 
skins. His hair was unkempt, his beard long 
and ragged. In one hand he carried a bow 
and arrow; the other held a blazing torch 
with a long trail of black smoke. He walked 
slowly and with caution, as if he feared fall 
ing into some open grave concealed by the tall 
grass. This strange apparition surprised but 
did not alarm, and taking such a course as to 
intercept him I met him almost face to face, 
accosting him with the familiar salutation, 
" God keep you." 

He gave no heed, nor did he arrest his 
pace. 

" Good stranger," I continued, " I am ill 
and lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Car- 
cosa." 

The man broke into a barbarous chant in 
an unknown tongue, passing on and away. 

An owl on the branch of a decayed tree 
hooted dismally and was answered by another 
in the distance. Looking upward, I saw 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 313 

through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran 
and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint 
of night the lynx, the man with the torch, 
the owl. Yet I saw I saw even the stars in 
absence of the darkness. I saw, but was ap 
parently not seen nor heard. Under what aw 
ful spell did I exist? 

I seated myself at the root of a great tree, 
seriously to consider what it were best to do. 
That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet 
recognized a ground of doubt in the convic 
tion. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, 
a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether 
unknown to me a feeling of mental and 
physical exaltation. My senses seemed all 
alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous sub 
stance; I could hear the silence. 

A great root of the giant tree against whose 
trunk I leaned as I sat held inclosed in its 
grasp a slab of stone, a part of which pro 
truded into a recess formed by another root. 
The stone was thus partly protected from the 
weather, though greatly decomposed. Its 
edges were worn round, its corners eaten 
away, its surface deeply furrowed and scaled. 
Glittering particles of mica were visible in 
the earth about it vestiges of its decomposi 
tion. This stone had apparently marked the 



314 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

grave out of which the tree had sprung ages 
ago. The tree s exacting roots had robbed 
the grave and made the stone a prisoner. 

A sudden wind pushed some dry leaves and 
twigs from the uppermost face of the stone; 
I saw the low-relief letters of an inscription 
and bent to read it. God in Heaven! my 
name in full! the date of my birth! the 
date of my death! 

A level shaft of light illuminated the whole 
side of the tree as I sprang to my feet in ter 
ror. The sun was rising in the rosy east. I 
stood between the tree and his broad red disk 
no shadow darkened the trunk! 

A chorus of howling wolves saluted the 
dawn. I saw them sitting on their haunches, 
singly and in groups, on the summits of ir 
regular mounds and tumuli filling a half of 
my desert prospect and extending to the hori 
zon. And then I knew that these were ruins 
of the ancient and famous city of Carcosa. 



Such are the facts imparted to the medium 
Bayrolles by the spirit Hoseib Alar Robar- 
din. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 315 



THE STRANGER 

A "AN stepped out of the darkness 
into the little illuminated circle 
about our failing campfire and 
seated himself upon a rock. 
"You are not the first to explore this re 
gion," he said, gravely. 

Nobody controverted his statement; he was 
himself proof of its truth, for he was not of 
our party and must have been somewhere 
near when we camped. Moreover, he must 
have companions not far away; it was not a 
place where one would be living or traveling 
alone. For more than a week we had seen, 
besides ourselves and our animals, only such 
living things as rattlesnakes and horned toads. 
In an Arizona desert one does not long coexist 
with only such creatures as these: one must 
have pack animals, supplies, arms " an out 
fit." And all these imply comrades. It was 
perhaps a doubt as to what manner of men 
this unceremonious stranger s comrades might 
be, together with something in his words in- 
terpretable as a challenge, that caused every 
man of our half-dozen " gentlemen , advent- 



316 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

urers " to rise to a sitting posture and lay his 
hand upon a weapon an act signifying, in 
that time and place, a policy of expectation. 
The stranger gave the matter no attention and 
began again to speak in the same deliberate, 
uninflected monotone in which he had de 
livered his first sentence: 

"Thirty years ago Ramon Gallegos, Wil 
liam Shaw, George W. Kent and Berry Davis, 
all of Tucson, crossed the Santa Catalina 
mountains and traveled due west, as nearly 
as the configuration of the country permitted. 
We were prospecting and it was our intention, 
if we found nothing, to push through to the 
Gila river at some point near Big Bend, 
where we understood there was a settlement. 
We had a good outfit but no guide just 
Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. 
Kent and Berry Davis. 7 

The man repeated the names slowly and 
distinctly, as if to fix them in the memories of 
his audience, every member of which was 
now attentively observing him, but with a 
slackened apprehension regarding his pos 
sible companions somewhere in the darkness 
that seemed to enclose us like a black wall; 
in the manner of this volunteer historian was 
no suggestion of an unfriendly purpose. His 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 317 

act was rather that of a harmless lunatic than 
an enemy. We were not so new to the coun 
try as not to know that the solitary life of 
many a plainsman had a tendency to develop 
eccentricities of conduct and character not 
always easily distinguishable from mental 
aberration. A man is like a tree : in a forest 
of his fellows he will grow as straight as his 
generic and individual nature permits; alone 
in the open, he yields to the deforming stresses 
and tortions that environ him. Some such 
thoughts were in my mind as I watched the 
man from the shadow of my hat, pulled low 
to shut out the firelight. A witless fellow, 
no doubt, but what could he be doing there 
in the heart of a desert? 

Having undertaken to tell this story, I 
wish that I could describe the man s appear 
ance; that would be a natural thing to do. 
Unfortunately, and somewhat strangely, I 
find myself unable to do so with any degree 
of confidence, for afterward no two of us 
agreed as to what he wore and how he looked ; 
and when I try to set down my own impress 
ions they elude me. Anyone can tell some 
kind of story; narration is one of the ele 
mental powers of the race. But the talent for 
description is a gift. 



318 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Nobody having broken silence the visitor 
went on to say: 

" This country was not then what it is now. 
There was not a ranch between the Gila and 
the Gulf. There was a little game here and 
there in the mountains, and near the infre 
quent water-holes grass enough to keep our 
animals from starvation. If we should be so 
fortunate as to encounter no Indians we might 
get through. But within a week the purpose 
of the expedition had altered from discovery 
of wealth to preservation of life. We had 
gone too far to go back, for what was ahead 
could be no worse than what was behind; so 
we pushed on, riding by night to avoid In 
dians and the intolerable heat, and con 
cealing ourselves by day as best we could. 
Sometimes, having exhausted our supply of 
wild meat and emptied our casks, we were 
days without food or drink; then a water-hole 
or a shallow pool in the bottom of an arroyo 
so restored our strength and sanity that we 
were able to shoot some of the wild animals 
that sought it also. Sometimes it was a bear, 
sometimes an antelope, a coyote, a cougar 
that was as God pleased; all were food. 

" One morning as we skirted a mountain 
range, seeking a practicable pass, we were at- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 319 

tacked by a band of Apaches who had fol 
lowed our trail up a gulch it is not far from 
here. Knowing that they outnumbered us ten 
to one, they took none of their usual cowardly 
precautions, but dashed upon us at a gallop, 
firing and yelling. Fighting was out of the 
question: we urged our feeble animals up the 
gulch as far as there was footing for a hoof, 
then threw ourselves out of our saddles and 
took to the chaparral on one of the slopes, 
abandoning our entire outfit to the enemy. 
But we retained our rifles, every man Ramon 
Gallegos, William Shaw, George W. Kent 
and Berry Davis." 

" Same old crowd," said the humorist of 
our party. He was an Eastern man, unfamil 
iar with the decent observances of social in 
tercourse. A gesture of disapproval from 
our leader silenced him and the stranger pro 
ceeded with his tale: 

" The savages dismounted also, and some of 
them ran up the gulch beyond the point at 
which we had left it, cutting off further re 
treat in that direction and forcing us on up 
the side. Unfortunately the chaparral ex 
tended only a short distance up the slope, 
and as we came into the open ground above 
we took the fire of a dozen rifles; but Apaches 



820 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

shoot badly when in a hurry, and God so 
willed it that none of us fell. Twenty yards 
up the slope, beyond the edge of the brush, 
were vertical cliffs, in which, directly in front 
of us, was a narrow opening. Into that we 
ran, finding ourselves in a cavern about as 
large as an ordinary room in a house. Here 
for a time we were safe: a single man with 
a repeating rifle could defend the entrance 
against all the Apaches in the land. But 
against hunger and thirst we had no defense. 
Courage we still had, but hope was a memory. 

"Not one of those Indians did we after 
ward see, but by the smoke and glare of their 
fires in the gulch we knew that by day and 
by night they watched with ready rifles in 
the edge of the bush knew that if we made 
a sortie not a man of us would live to take 
three steps into the open. For three days, 
watching in turn, we held out before our 
suffering became insupportable. Then it 
was the morning of the fourth day Ramon 
Gallegos said: 

" Senores, I know not well of the good 
God and what please him. I have live with 
out religion, and I am not acquaint with that 
of you. Pardon, senores, if I shock you, but 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 321 

for me the time is come to beat the game of 
the Apache. 

" He knelt upon the rock floor of the cave 
and pressed his pistol against his temple. 
Madre de Dios, he said, comes now the 
soul of Ramon Gallegos. 

"And so he left us William Shaw, 
George W. Kent and Berry Davis. 

" I was the leader: it was for me to speak, 

" * He was a brave man, I said he knew 
when to die, and how. It is foolish to go 
mad from thirst and fall by Apache bullets, 
or be skinned alive it is in bad taste. Let 
us join Ramon Gallegos. 

" c That is right, said William Shaw. 

" That is right, said George W. Kent. 

" I straightened the limbs of Ramon Gal 
legos and put a handkerchief over his face. 
Then William Shaw said : I should like to 
look like that a little while. 

"And George W. Kent said that he felt 
that way, too. 

" It shall be so, I said: the red devils 
will wait a week. William Shaw and George 
W. Kent, draw and kneel. 

" They did so and I stood before them. 

" Almighty God, our Father, said I. 



322 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" Almighty God, our Father/ said Wil 
liam Shaw. 

" Almighty God, our Father, said George 
W. Kent. 

" Forgive us our sins, said I. 

" Forgive us our sins, said they. 

" And receive our souls. 

" And receive our souls. 

" Amen! 

" Amen! 

" I laid them beside Ramon Gallegos and 
covered their faces." 

There was a quick commotion on the op 
posite side of the campfire: one of our party 
had sprung to his feet, pistol in hand. 

"And you!" he shouted "you dared to 
escape? you dare to be alive? You cow 
ardly hound, I ll send you to join them if I 
hang for it!" 

But with the leap of a panther the captain 
was upon him, grasping his wrist. " Hold it 
in, Sam Yountsey, hold it in!" 

We were now all upon our feet except 
the stranger, who sat motionless and appar 
ently inattentive. Some one seized Yount- 
sey s other arm. 

"Captain," I said, "there is something 
wrong here. This fellow is either a lunatic 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 323 

or merely a liar just a plain, every-day liar 
whom Yountsey has no call to kill. If this 
man was of that party it had five members, 
one of whom probably himself he has not 
named." 

"Yes," said the captain, releasing the in 
surgent, who sat down, "there is something 
unusual. Years ago four dead bodies of 
white men, scalped and shamefully mutilated, 
were found about the mouth of that cave. 
They are buried there; I have seen the graves 
we shall all see them to-morrow." 

The stranger rose, standing tall in the light 
of the expiring fire, which in our breathless 
attention to his story we had neglected to keep 
going. 

" There were four," he said " Ramon Gal- 
legos, William Shaw, George W. Kent and 
Berry Davis." 

With this reiterated roll-call of the dead 
he walked into the darkness and we saw him 
no more. 

At that moment one of our party, who had 
been on guard, strode in among us, rifle in 
hand and somewhat excited. 

" Captain," he said, " for the last half-hour 
three men have been standing out there on 
the mesa." He pointed in the direction taken 



324 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

by the stranger. " I could see them dis 
tinctly, for the moon is up, but as they had no 
guns and I had them covered with mine I 
thought it was their move. They have made 
none, but, damn itl they have got on to my 



nerves." 



" Go back to your post, and stay till you see 
them again," said the captain. " The rest of 
you lie down again, or I ll kick you all into 
the fire." 

The sentinel obediently withdrew, swear 
ing, and did not return. As we were ar 
ranging our blankets the fiery Yountsey said: 
" I beg your pardon, Captain, but who the 
devil do you take them to be?" 

" Ramon Gallegos, William Shaw and 
George W. Kent." 

" But how about Berry Davis? I ought to 
have shot him." 

"Quite needless; you couldn t have made 
him any deader. Go to sleep." 



THE WAYS OF GHOSTS 



My peculiar relation to the writer of the 
following narratives is such that I must ask 
the reader to overlook the absence of explana 
tion as to how they came into my possession. 
Withal, my knowledge of him is so meager 
that I should rather not undertake to say if 
he were himself persuaded of the truth of 
what he relates; certainly such inquiries as I 
have thought it worth while to set about have 
not in every instance tended to confirmation 
of the statements made. Yet his style, for the 
most part devoid alike of artifice and 
art, almost baldly simple and direct, seems 
hardly compatible with the disingenuousness 
of a merely literary intention; one would call 
it the manner of one more concerned for the 
fruits of research than for the flowers of ex 
pression. In transcribing his notes and forti 
fying their claim to attention by giving them 
something of an orderly arrangement, I have 
conscientiously refrained from embellishing 
them with such small ornaments of diction as 
I may have felt myself able to bestow, which 
would not only have been impertinent, even 
if pleasing, but would have given me a some 
what closer relation to the work than I should 
care to have and to avow. A. B. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 327 



PRESENT AT A HANGING 

A old man named Daniel Baker, living 
near Lebanon, Iowa, was suspected 
by his neighbors of having murdered 
a peddler who had obtained permis 
sion to pass the night at his house. This was 
in 1853, when peddling was more common in 
the Western country than it is now, and was 
attended with considerable danger. The ped 
dler with his pack traversed the country by 
all manner of lonely roads, and was compelled 
to rely upon the country people for hospital 
ity. This brought him into relation with 
queer characters, some of whom were not alto 
gether scrupulous in their methods of making 
a living, murder being an acceptable means 
to that end. It occasionally occurred that a 
peddler with diminished pack and swollen 
purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling 
of some rough character and never could be 
traced beyond. This was so in the case of 
"old man Baker," as he was always called. 
(Such names are given in the western "settle- 



328 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

ments" only to elderly persons who are not 
esteemed; to the general disrepute of social 
unworth is affixed the special reproach of 
age.) A peddler came to his house and none 
went away that is all that anybody knew. 

Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, 
a Baptist minister well known in that part of 
the country, was driving by Baker s farm one 
night. It was not very dark: there was a bit 
of moon somewhere above the light veil of 
mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings, 
who was at all times a cheerful person, was 
whistling a tune, which he would occasionally 
interrupt to speak a word of friendly encour 
agement to his horse. As he came to a little 
bridge across a dry ravine he saw the figure of 
a man standing upon it, clearly outlined 
against the gray background of a misty for 
est. The man had something strapped on his 
back and carried a heavy stick obviously an 
itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it a 
suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleep 
walker. Mr. Cummings reined in his horse 
when he arrived in front of him, gave him a 
pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat 
in the vehicle " if you are going my way," 
he added. The man raised his head, looked 
him full in the face, but neither answered nor 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 329 

made any further movement. The minister, 
with good-natured persistence, repeated his in 
vitation. At this the man threw his right 
hand forward from his side and pointed down 
ward as he stood on the extreme edge of the 
bridge. Mr. Cummings looked past him, 
over into the ravine, saw nothing unusual and 
withdrew his eyes to address the man again. 
He had disappeared. The horse, which all 
this time had been uncommonly restless, gave 
at the same moment a snort of terror and 
started to run away. Before he had regained 
control of the animal the minister was at the 
crest of the hill a hundred yards along. He 
looked back and saw the figure again, at the 
same place and in the same attitude as when 
he had first observed it. Then for the first 
time he was conscious of a sense of the super 
natural and drove home as rapidly as his will 
ing horse would go. 

On arriving at home he related his advent 
ure to his family, and early the next morning, 
accompanied by two neighbors, John White 
Corwell and Abner Raiser, returned to the 
spot. They found the body of old man Baker 
hanging by the neck from one of the beams of 
the bridge, immediately beneath the spot 
where the apparition had stood. A thick 



330 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

coating of dust, slightly dampened by the mist, 
covered the floor of the bridge, but the only 
footprints were those of Mr. Cummings 
horse. 

In taking down the body the men disturbed 
the loose, friable earth of the slope below it, 
disclosing human bones already nearly uncov 
ered by the action of water and frost. They 
were identified as those of the lost peddler. At 
the double inquest the coroner s jury found 
that Daniel Baker died by his own hand 
while suffering from temporary insanity, and 
that Samuel Morritz was murdered by some 
person or persons to the jury unknown. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 331 



A COLD GREETING 

THIS is a story told by the late Ben 
son Foley of San Francisco: 
"In the summer of 1881 I met a 
man named James H. Conway, a 
resident of Franklin, Tennessee. He was visit 
ing San Francisco for his health, deluded man, 
and brought me a note of introduction from 
Mr. Lawrence Barting. I had known Bart- 
ing as a captain in the Federal army during 
the civil war. At its close he had settled in 
Franklin, and in time became, I had reason to 
think, somewhat prominent as a lawyer. Bart- 
ing had always seemed to me an honorable 
and truthful man, and the warm friendship 
which he expressed in his note for Mr. Con- 
way was to me sufficient evidence that the 
latter was in every way worthy of my confid 
ence and esteem. At dinner one day Conway 
told me that it had been solemnly agreed be 
tween him and Barting that the one who died 
first should, if possible, communicate with 
the other from beyond the grave, in some 
unmistakable way just how, they had left 
(wisely, it seemed to me) to be decided by the 



332 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

deceased, according to the opportunities that 
his altered circumstances might present. 

"A few weeks after the conversation in 
which Mr. Conway spoke of this agreement, 
I met him one day, walking slowly down 
Montgomery street, apparently, from his ab 
stracted air, in deep thought. He greeted me 
coldly with merely a movement of the head 
and passed on, leaving me standing on the 
walk, with half-proffered hand, surprised and 
naturally somewhat piqued. The next day I 
met him again in the office of the Palace 
Hotel, and seeing him about to repeat the dis 
agreeable performance of the day before, in 
tercepted him in a doorway, with a friendly 
salutation, and bluntly requested an explana 
tion of his altered manner. He hesitated a 
moment; then, looking me frankly in the 
eyes, said: 

" I do not think, Mr. Foley, that I have 
any longer a claim to your friendship, since 
Mr. Barting appears to have withdrawn his 
own from me for what reason, I protest I 
do not know. If he has not already informed 
you he probably will do so. 

" But, I replied, I have not heard from 
Mr. Barting. 

" i Heard from him! he repeated, with ap- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 333 

parent surprise. Why, he is here. I met 
him yesterday ten minutes before meeting you. 
I gave you exactly the same greeting that he 
gave me. I met him again not a quarter of 
an hour ago, and his manner was precisely the 
same : he merely bowed and passed on. I shall 
not soon forget your civility to me. Good 
morning, or as it may please you farewell. 

"All this seemed to me singularly consid 
erate and delicate behavior on the part of 
Mr. Conway. 

" As dramatic situations and literary effects 
are foreign to my purpose I will explain at 
once that Mr. Barting was dead. He had 
died in Nashville four days before this con 
versation. Calling on Mr. Conway, I ap 
prised him of our friend s death, showing him 
the letters announcing it. He was visibly af 
fected in a way that forbade me to entertain 
a doubt of his sincerity. 

" It seems incredible, he said, after a 
period of reflection. * I suppose I must have 
mistaken another man for Barting, and that 
man s cold greeting was merely a stranger s 
civil acknowledgment of my own. I remem 
ber, indeed, that he lacked Barring s mus 
tache. 

Doubtless it was another man, I as- 



i 



334 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

sented; and the subject was never afterward 
mentioned between us. But I had in my 
pocket a photograph of Barting, which had 
been inclosed in the letter from his widow. 
It had been taken a week before his death, and 
was without a mustache." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 335 



A WIRELESS MESSAGE 

IN the summer of 1896 Mr. William 
Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chi 
cago, was living temporarily in a little 
town of central New York, the name 
of which the writer s memory has not re 
tained. Mr. Holt had had " trouble with his 
wife," from whom he had parted a year be 
fore. Whether the trouble was anything 
more serious than "incompatibility of tem 
per," he is probably the only living person 
that knows: he is not addicted to the vice 
of confidences. Yet he has related the incid 
ent herein set down to at least one person 
without exacting a pledge of secrecy. He is 
now living in Europe. 

One evening he had left the house of a 
brother whom he was visiting, for a stroll in 
the country. It may be assumed whatever 
the value of the assumption in connection 
with what is said to have occurred that his 
mind was occupied with reflections on his 
domestic infelicities and the distressing 
changes that they had wrought in his life. 



336 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Whatever may have been his thoughts, they 
so possessed him that he observed neither the 
lapse of time nor whither his feet were carry 
ing him; he knew only that he had passed 
far beyond the town limits and was travers 
ing a lonely region by a road that bore no 
resemblance to the one by which he had left 
the village. In brief, he was " lost." 

Realizing his mischance, he smiled; cent 
ral New York is not a region of perils, nor 
does one long remain lost in it. He turned 
about and went back the way that he had 
come. Before he had gone far he observed 
that the landscape was growing more dis 
tinct was brightening. Everything was 
suffused with a soft, red glow in which he 
saw his shadow projected in the road before 
him. " The moon is rising," he said to him 
self. Then he remembered that it was about 
the time of the new moon, and if that tricksy 
orb was in one of its stages of visibility it had 
set long before. He stopped and faced 
about, seeking the source of the rapidly 
broadening light. As he did so, his shadow 
turned and lay along the road in front of him 
as before. The light still came from behind 
him. That was surprising; he could not un 
derstand. Again he turned, and again, fac- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 337 

ing successively to every point of the hori 
zon. Always the shadow was before always 
the light behind, " a still and awful red." 

Holt was astonished " dumfounded " is the 
word that he used in telling it yet seems to 
have retained a certain intelligent curiosity. 
To test the intensity of the light whose nature 
and Cause he could not determine, he took out 
his watch to see if he could make out the 
figures on the dial. They were plainly vis 
ible, and the hands indicated the hour of 
eleven o clock and twenty-five minutes. At 
that moment the mysterious illumination 
suddenly flared to an intense, an almost blind 
ing splendor, flushing the entire sky, extin 
guishing the stars and throwing the monstrous 
shadow of himself athwart the landscape. 
In that unearthly illumination he saw near 
him, but apparently in the air at a consider 
able elevation, the figure of his wife, clad in 
her night-clothing and holding to her breast 
the figure of his child. Her eyes were fixed 
upon his with an expression which he after 
ward professed himself unable to name or de 
scribe, further than that it was "not of this 
life." 

The flare was momentary, followed by 
black darkness, in which, however, the ap- 



338 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

parition still showed white and motionless; 
then by insensible degrees it faded and van 
ished, like a bright image on the retina after 
the closing of the eyes. A peculiarity of the 
apparition, hardly noted at the time, but af 
terward recalled, was that it showed only 
the upper half of the woman s figure : nothing 
was seen below the waist. 

The sudden darkness was comparative, not 
absolute, for gradually all objects of his en 
vironment became again visible. 

In the dawn of the morning Holt found 
himself entering the village at a point op 
posite to that at which he had left it. He 
soon arrived at the house of his brother, who 
hardly knew him. He was wild-eyed, hag 
gard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoher 
ently, he related his night s experience. 

" Go to bed, my poor fellow," said his 
brother, "and wait. We shall hear more 
of this." 

An hour later came the predestined tele 
gram. Holt s dwelling in one of the sub 
urbs of Chicago had been destroyed by fire. 
Her escape cut off by the flames, his wife had 
appeared at an upper window, her child in 
her arms. There she had stood, motionless, 
apparently dazed. Just as the firemen had 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 339 

arrived with a ladder, the floor had given 
way, and she was seen no more. 

The moment of this culminating horror 
was eleven o clock and twenty-five minutes, 
standard time. 



340 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



AN ARREST 

HAVING murdered his brother-in- 
law, Orrin Brower of Kentucky 
was a fugitive from justice. From 
the county jail where he had been 
confined to await his trial he had escaped by 
knocking down his jailer with an iron bar, 
robbing him of his keys and, opening the outer 
door, walking out into the night. The jailer 
being unarmed, B rower got no weapon with 
which to defend his recovered liberty. As 
soon as he was out of the town he had the 
folly to enter a forest; this was many years 
ago, when that region was wilder than it is 
now. 

The night was pretty dark, with neither 
moon nor stars visible, and as Brower had 
never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of 
the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long 
in losing himself. He could not have said 
if he were getting farther away from the 
town or going back to it a most important 
matter to Orrin Brower. He knew that in 
either case a posse of citizens with a pack of 
bloodhounds would soon be on his track and 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 341 

his chance of escape was very slender; but he 
did not wish to assist in his own pursuit. 
Even an added hour of freedom was worth 
having. 

Suddenly he emerged from the forest into 
an old road, and there before him saw, in 
distinctly, the figure of a man, motionless in 
the gloom. It was too late to retreat: the 
fugitive felt that at the first movement back 
toward the wood he would be, as he after 
ward explained, " filled with buckshot." So 
the two stood there like trees, B rower nearly 
suffocated by the activity of his own heart; 
the other the emotions of the other are not 
recorded. 

A moment later it may have been an 
hour the moon sailed into a patch of un 
clouded sky and the hunted man saw that 
visible embodiment of Law lift an arm and 
point significantly toward and beyond him. 
He understood. Turning his back to his 
captor, he walked submissively away in the 
direction indicated, looking to neither the 
right nor the left; hardly daring to breathe, 
his head and back actually aching with a 
prophecy of buckshot. 

B rower was as courageous a criminal as 
ever lived to be hanged; that was shown by 



342 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the conditions of awful personal peril in 
which he had coolly killed his brother-in-law. 
It is needless to relate them here; they came 
out at his trial, and the revelation of his calm 
ness in confronting them came near to saving 
his neck. But what would you have? when 
a brave man is beaten, he submits. 

So they pursued their journey jailward 
along the old road through the woods. Only 
once did Brower venture a turn of the head: 
just once, when he was in deep shadow and 
he knew that the other was in moonlight, he 
looked backward. His captor was Burton 
Duff, the jailer, as white as death and bear 
ing upon his brow the livid mark of the iron 
bar. Orrin Brower had no further curiosity. 

Eventually they entered the town, which 
was all alight, but deserted; only the women 
and children remained, and they were off 
the streets. Straight toward the jail the crim 
inal held his way. Straight up to the main 
entrance he walked, laid his hand upon the 
knob of the heavy iron door, pushed it open 
without command, entered and found himself 
in the presence of a half-dozen armed men. 
Then he turned. Nobody else entered. 

On a table in the corridor lay the dead 
body of Burton Duff. 



SOLDIER-FOLK 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 345 



A MAN WITH TWO LIVES 

HERE is the queer story of David 
William Duck, related by himself. 
Duck is an old man living in Au 
rora, Illinois, where he is univers 
ally respected. He is commonly known, how 
ever, as " Dead Duck." 

" In the autumn of 1866 I was a private 
soldier of the Eighteenth Infantry. My 
company was one of those stationed at Fort 
Phil Kearney, commanded by Colonel Car- 
rington. The country is more or less famil 
iar with the history of that garrison, partic 
ularly with the slaughter by the Sioux of a 
detachment of eighty-one men and officers 
not one escaping through disobedience of 
orders by its commander, the brave but reck 
less Captain Fetterman. When that occurred, 
I was trying to make my way with im 
portant dispatches to Fort C. F. Smith, on 
the Big Horn. As the country swarmed with 
hostile Indians, I traveled by night and con 
cealed myself as best I could before day- 



346 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

break. The better to do so, I went afoot, 
armed with a Henry rifle and carrying three 
days rations in my haversack. 

" For my second place of concealment I 
chose what seemed in the darkness a narrow 
canon leading through a range of rocky hills. 
It contained many large bowlders, detached 
from the slopes of the hills. Behind one of 
these, in a clump of sage-brush, I made my 
bed for the day, and soon fell asleep. It 
seemed as if I had hardly closed my eyes, 
though in fact it was near midday, when I 
was awakened by the report of a rifle, the 
bullet striking the bowlder just above my 
body. A band of Indians had trailed me and 
had me nearly surrounded; the shot had been 
fired with an execrable aim by a fellow who 
had caught sight of me from the hillside 
above. The smoke of his rifle betrayed him, 
and I was no sooner on my feet than he was 
off his and rolling down the declivity. Then 
I ran in a stooping posture, dodging among 
the clumps of sage-brush in a storm of bullets 
from invisible enemies. The rascals did not 
rise and pursue, which I thought rather queer, 
for they must have known by my trail that 
they had to deal with only one man. The 
reason for their inaction was soon made clear. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 347 

I had not gone a hundred yards before I 
reached the limit of my run the head of 
the gulch which I had mistaken for a canon. 
It terminated in a concave breast of rock, 
nearly vertical and destitute of vegetation. 
In that cul-de-sac I was caught like a bear in 
a pen. Pursuit was needless; they had only 
to wait. 

"They waited. For two days and nights, 
crouching behind a rock topped with a 
growth of mesquite, and with the cliff at my 
back, suffering agonies of thirst and abso 
lutely hopeless of deliverance, I fought the 
fellows at long range, firing occasionally at 
the smoke of their rifles, as they did at that of 
mine. Of course, I did not dare to close my 
eyes at night, and lack of sleep was a keen 
torture. 

" I remember the morning of the third day, 
which I knew was to be my last. I remem 
ber, rather indistinctly, that in my despera 
tion and delirium I sprang out into the open 
and began firing my repeating rifle without 
seeing anybody to fire at. And I remember 
no more of that fight. 

"The next thing that I recollect was my 
pulling myself out of a river just at night 
fall, I had not a rag of clothing and knew 



348 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

nothing of my whereabouts, but all that night 
I traveled, cold and footsore, toward the 
north. At daybreak I found myself at Fort 
C. F. Smith, my destination, but without my 
dispatches. The first man that I met was a 
sergeant named William Briscoe, whom I 
knew very well. You can fancy his astonish 
ment at seeing me in that condition, and my 
own at his asking who the devil I was. 

" Dave Duck, I answered; who should 
I be? 

" He stared like an owl. 

" * You do look it, he said, and I observed 
that he drew a little away from me. * What s 
up? he added. 

" I told him what had happened to me the 
day before. He heard me through, still star 
ing; then he said: 

" My dear fellow, if you are Dave Duck 
I ought to inform you that I buried you two 
months ago. I was out with a small scouting 
party and found your body, full of bullet- 
holes and newly scalped somewhat mu 
tilated otherwise, too, I am sorry to say 
right where you say you made your fight. 
Come to my tent and I ll show you your cloth 
ing and some letters that I took from your 
person; the commandant has your dispatches. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 349 

" He performed that promise. He showed 
me the clothing, which I resolutely put on; 
the letters, which I put into my pocket. He 
made no objection, then took me to the com 
mandant, who heard my story and coldly 
ordered Briscoe to take me to the guardhouse. 
On the way I said: 

" Bill Briscoe, did you really and truly 
bury the dead body that you found in these 
togs? 

" Sure, he answered just as I told you. 
It was Dave Duck, all right; most of us knew 
him. And now, you damned impostor, you d 
better tell me who you are. 

" I d give something to know, I said. 

" A week later, I escaped from the guard 
house and got out of the country as fast as 
I could. Twice I have been back, seeking 
for that fateful spot in the hills, but unable 
to find it." 



350 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THREE AND ONE ARE ONE 

IN the year 1861 Barr Lassiter, a young 
man of twenty-two, lived with his par 
ents and an elder sister near Carthage, 
Tennessee. The family were in some 
what humble circumstances, subsisting by cult 
ivation of a small and not very fertile plant 
ation. Owning no slaves, they were not rated 
among " the best people " of their neighbor 
hood; but they were honest persons of good 
education, fairly well mannered and as re 
spectable as any family could be if uncreden- 
tialed by personal dominion over the sons and 
daughters of Ham. The elder Lassiter had 
that severity of manner that so frequently af 
firms an uncompromising devotion to duty, 
and conceals a warm and affectionate disposi 
tion. He was of the iron of which martyrs 
are made, but in the heart of the matrix had 
lurked a nobler metal, fusible at a milder 
heat, yet never coloring nor softening the 
hard exterior. By both heredity and en 
vironment something of the man s inflexible 
character had touched the other members of 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 351 

the family; the Lassiter home, though not de 
void of domestic affection, was a veritable 
citadel of duty, and duty ah, duty is as 
cruel as death! 

When the war came on it found in the 
family, as in so many others in that State, a di 
vided sentiment; the young man was loyal to 
the Union, the others savagely hostile. This 
unhappy division begot an insupportable do 
mestic bitterness, and when the offending son 
and brother left home with the avowed pur 
pose of joining the Federal army not a hand 
was laid in his, not a word of farewell was 
spoken, not a good wish followed him out into 
the world whither he went to meet with such 
spirit as he might whatever fate awaited him. 

Making his way to Nashville, already oc 
cupied by the Army of General Buell, he en 
listed in the first organization that he found, 
a Kentucky regiment of cavalry, and in due 
time passed through all the stages of milit 
ary evolution from raw recruit to experienced 
trooper. A right good trooper he was, too, 
although in his oral narrative from which 
this tale is made there was no mention of 
that; the fact was learned from his surviving 
comrades. For Barr Lassiter has answered 
" Here " to the sergeant whose name is Death. 



352 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

Two years after he had joined it his regi 
ment passed through the region whence he 
had come. The country thereabout had 
suffered severely from the ravages of war, 
having been occupied alternately (and simul 
taneously) by the belligerent forces, and a san 
guinary struggle had occurred in the immedi 
ate vicinity of the Lassiter homestead. But 
of this the young trooper was not aware. 

Finding himself in camp near his home, he 
felt a natural longing to see his parents and 
sister, hoping that in them, as in him, the un 
natural animosities of the period had been 
softened by time and separation. Obtaining 
a leave of absence, he set foot in the late sum 
mer afternoon, and soon after the rising of the 
full moon w r as walking up the gravel path 
leading to the dwelling in which he had been 
born. 

Soldiers in war age rapidly, and in youth 
two years are a long time. Barr Lassiter felt 
himself an old man, and had almost expected 
to find the place a ruin and a desolation. 
Nothing, apparently, was changed. At the 
sight of each dear and familiar object he was 
profoundly affected. His heart beat audibly, 
his emotion nearly suffocated him; an ache 
was in his throat Unconsciously he quick- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 853 

ened his pace until he almost ran, his long 
shadow making grotesque efforts to keep its 
place beside him. 

The house was unlighted, the door open. 
As he approached and paused to recover con 
trol of himself his father came out and stood 
bare-headed in the moonlight 

" Father!" cried the young man, springing 
forward with outstretched hand "Father!" 

The elder man looked him sternly in the 
face, stood a moment motionless and without 
a word withdrew into the house. Bitterly dis 
appointed, humiliated, inexpressibly hurt and 
altogether unnerved, the soldier dropped 
upon a rustic seat in deep dejection, support 
ing his head upon his trembling hand. But 
he would not have it so: he was too good a 
soldier to accept repulse as defeat. He rose 
and entered the house, passing directly to the 
" sitting-room." 

It was dimly lighted by an uncurtained east 
window. On a low stool by the hearthside, 
the only article of furniture in the place, sat 
his mother, staring into a fireplace strewn 
with blackened embers and cold ashes. He 
spoke to her tenderly, interrogatively, and 
with hesitation, but she neither answered, 
nor moved, nor seemed in any way surprised. 



354 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

True, there had been time for her husband 
to apprise her of their guilty son s return. 
He moved nearer and was about to lay his 
hand upon her arm, when his sister entered 
from an adjoining room, looked him full in 
the face, passed him without a sign of recog 
nition and left the room by a door that was 
partly behind him. He had turned his head 
to watch her, but when she was gone his eyes 
again sought his mother. She too had left 
the place. 

Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which 
he had entered. The moonlight on the lawn 
was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling 
sea. The trees and their black shadows shook 
as in a breeze. Blended with its borders, the 
gravel walk seemed unsteady and insecure to 
step on. This young soldier knew the optical 
illusions produced by tears. He felt them on 
his cheek, and saw them sparkle on the breast 
of his trooper s jacket. He left the house and 
made his way back to camp. 

The next day, with no very definite inten 
tion, with no dominant feeling that he could 
rightly have named, he again sought the spot. 
Within a half-mile of it he met Bushrod Al- 
bro, a former playfellow and schoolmate, who 
greeted him warmly. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 355 

" I am going to visit my home," said the 
soldier. 

The other looked at him rather sharply, 
but said nothing. 

" I know," continued Lassiter, " that my 
folks have not changed, but " 

"There have been changes," Albro inter 
rupted "everything changes. I ll go with 
you if you don t mind. We can talk as we 
go." 

But Albro did not talk. 

Instead of a house they found only fire- 
blackened foundations of stone, enclosing an 
area of compact ashes pitted by rains. 

Lassiter s astonishment was extreme. 

" I could not find the right way to tell you," 
said Albro. " In the fight a year ago your 
house was burned by a Federal shell." 

"And my family where are they?" 

" In Heaven, I hope. All were killed by 
the shell." 



356 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



A BAFFLED AMBUSCADE 

CONNECTING Readyville and 
Woodbury was a good, hard turn 
pike nine or ten miles long. Ready 
ville was an outpost of the Federal 
army at Murfreesboro; Woodbury had the 
same relation to the Confederate army at Tul- 
lahoma. For months after the big battle at 
Stone River these outposts were in constant 
quarrel, most of the trouble occurring, nat 
urally, on the turnpike mentioned, between 
detachments of cavalry. Sometimes the in 
fantry and artillery took a hand in the game 
by way of showing their good-will. 

One night a squadron of Federal horse 
commanded by Major Seidel, a gallant and 
skillful officer, moved out from Readyville 
on an uncommonly hazardous enterprise re 
quiring secrecy, caution and silence. 

Passing the infantry pickets, the detach 
ment soon afterward approached two cavalry 
videttes staring hard into the darkness ahead. 
There should have been three. 
"Where is your other man?" said the 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 357 

major. " I ordered Dunning to be here to 
night." 

" He rode forward, sir," the man replied. 
"There was a little firing afterward, but it 
was a long way to the front." 

" It was against orders and against sense 
for Dunning to do that," said the officer, 
obviously vexed. "Why did he ride for 
ward?" 

"Don t know, sir; he seemed mighty rest 
less. Guess he was skeered." 

When this remarkable reasoner and his 
companion had been absorbed into the exped 
itionary force, it resumed its advance. Con 
versation was forbidden; arms and accouter- 
ments were denied the right to rattle. The 
horses tramping was all that could be heard 
and the movement was slow in order to have 
as little as possible of that. It was after mid 
night and pretty dark, although there was a 
bit of moon somewhere behind the masses of 
cloud. 

Two or three miles along, the head of the 
column approached a dense forest of cedars 
bordering the road on both sides. The major 
commanded a halt by merely halting, and, 
evidently himself a bit "skeered," rode on 
alone to reconnoiter. He was followed, how- 



358 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

ever, by his adjutant and three troopers, who 
remained a little distance behind and, unseen 
by him, saw all that occurred. 

After riding about a hundred yards toward 
the forest, the major suddenly and sharply 
reined in his horse and sat motionless in the 
saddle. Near the side of the road, in a little 
open space and hardly ten paces away, stood 
the figure of a man, dimly visible and as mo 
tionless as he. The major s first feeling was 
that of satisfaction in having left his caval 
cade behind ; if this were an enemy and should 
escape he would have little to report. The 
expedition was as yet undetected. 

Some dark object was dimly discernible at 
the man s feet; the officer could not make it 
out. With the instinct of the true cavalry 
man and a particular indisposition to the dis 
charge of firearms, he drew his saber. The 
man on foot made no movement in answer to 
the challenge. The situation was tense and 
a bit dramatic. Suddenly the moon burst 
through a rift in the clouds and, himself in 
the shadow of a group of great oaks, the 
horseman saw the footman clearly, in a patch 
of white light. It was Trooper Dunning, 
unarmed and bareheaded. The object at his 
feet resolved itself into a dead horse, and at 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 359 

a right angle across the animal s neck lay a 
dead man, face upward in the moonlight. 

" Dunning has had the fight of his life," 
thought the major, and was about to ride for 
ward. Dunning raised his hand, motioning 
him back with a gesture of warning; then, 
lowering the arm, he pointed to the place 
where the road lost itself in the blackness of 
the cedar forest. 

The major understood, and turning his 
horse rode back to the little group that had 
followed him and was already moving to the 
rear in fear of his displeasure, and so re 
turned to the head of his command. 

" Dunning is just ahead there," he said to 
the captain of his leading company. " He 
has killed his man and will have something 
to report." 

Right patiently they waited, sabers drawn, 
but Dunning did not come. In an hour the 
day broke and the whole force moved cau 
tiously forward, its commander not altogether 
satisfied with his faith in Private Dunning. 
The expedition had failed, but something re 
mained to be done. 

In the little open space off the road they 
found the fallen horse. At a right angle 
across the animal s neck face upward, a bullet 



360 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

in the brain, lay the body of Trooper Dunn 
ing, stiff as a statue, hours dead. 

Examination disclosed abundant evidence 
that within a half-hour the cedar forest had 
been occupied by a strong force of Confed 
erate infantry an ambuscade. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 361 



TWO MILITARY EXECUTIONS 

IN the spring of the year 1862 General 
BuelPs big army lay in camp, licking 
itself into shape for the campaign which 
resulted in the victory at Shiloh. It was 
a raw, untrained army, although some of its 
fractions had seen hard enough service, with 
a good deal of fighting, in the mountains of 
Western Virginia, and in Kentucky. The 
war was young and soldiering a new industry, 
imperfectly understood by the young Ameri 
can of the period, who found some features 
of it not altogether to his liking. Chief 
among these was that essential part of dis 
cipline, subordination. To one imbued from 
infancy with the fascinating fallacy that all 
men are born equal, unquestioning submiss 
ion to authority is not easily mastered, and 
the American volunteer soldier in his " green 
and salad days" is among the worst known. 
That is how it happened that one of Buell s 
men, Private Bennett Story Greene, com 
mitted the indiscretion of striking his officer. 
Later in the war he would not have done that; 
like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he would have 



362 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"seen him damned" first. But time for re 
formation of his military manners was denied 
him: he was promptly arrested on complaint 
of the officer, tried by court-martial and sent 
enced to be shot. 

"You might have thrashed me and let it 
go at that," said the condemned man to the 
complaining witness; "that is what you used 
to do at school, when you were plain Will 
Dudley and I wlas as good as you. Nobody 
saw me strike you ; discipline would not have 
suffered much." 

" Ben Greene, I guess you are right about 
that," said the lieutenant. " Will you for 
give me? That is what I came to see you 
about." 

There was no reply, and an officer putting 
his head in at the door of the guard-tent where 
the conversation had occurred, explained that 
the time allowed for the interview had ex 
pired. The next morning, when in the pres 
ence of the whole brigade Private Greene 
was shot to death by a squad of his comrades, 
Lieutenant Dudley turned his back upon the 
sorry performance and muttered a prayer for 
mercy, in which himself was included. 

A few weeks afterward, as iBuell s leading 
division was being ferried over the Tennessee 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 363 

River to assist in succoring Grant s beaten 
army, night was coming on, black and stormy. 
Through the wreck of battle the division 
moved, inch by inch, in the direction of the 
enemy, who had withdrawn a little to reform 
his lines. But for the lightning the darkness 
was absolute. Never for a moment did it 
cease, and ever when the thunder did not 
crack and roar were heard the moans of the 
wounded among whom the men felt their way 
with their feet, and upon whom they stumbled 
in the gloom. The dead were there, too 
there were dead a-plenty. 

In the first faint gray of the morning, when 
the swarming advance had paused to resume 
something of definition as a line of battle, 
and skirmishers had been thrown forward, 
word was passed along to call the roll. The 
first sergeant of Lieutenant Dudley s com 
pany stepped to the front and began to name 
the men in alphabetical order. He had no 
written roll, but a good memory. The men 
answered to their names as he ran down the 
alphabet to G. 

" Gorham." 

"Here!" 

" Grayrock." 

"Here!" 



364 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

The sergeant s good memory was affected 
by habit: 

"Greene." 

"Here!" 

The response was clear, distinct, unmistak 
able! 

A sudden movement, an agitation of the 
entire company front, as from an electric 
shock, attested the startling character of the 
incident. The sergeant paled and paused. 
The captain strode quickly to his side and 
said sharply: 

" Call that name again." 

Apparently the Society for Psychical Re 
search is not first in the field of curiosity con 
cerning the Unknown. 

" Bennett Greene." 

"Here!" 

All faces turned in the direction of the 
familiar voice; the two men between whom 
in the order of stature Greene had commonly 
stood in line turned and squarely confronted 
each other. 

"Once more," commanded the inexorable 
investigator, and once more came a trifle 
tremulously the name of the dead man: 

" Bennett Story Greene." 

"Here!" 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 365 

At that instant a single rifle-shot was heard, 
away to the front, beyond the skirmish-line, 
followed, almost attended, by the savage hiss 
of an approaching bullet which, passing 
through the line, struck audibly, punctuating 
as with a full stop the captain s exclamation, 
"What the devil does it mean?" 

Lieutenant Dudley pushed through the 
ranks from his place in the rear. 

" It means this," he said, throwing open 
his coat and displaying a visibly broadening 
stain of crimson on his breast. His knees 
gave way; he fell awkwardly and lay dead. 

A little later the regiment was ordered out 
of line to relieve the congested front, and 
through some misplay in the game of battle 
was not again under fire. Nor did Bennett 
Greene, expert in military executions, ever 
again signify his presence at one. 



SOME HAUNTED HOUSES 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 369 



THE ISLE OF PINES 

FOR many years there lived near the 
town of Gallipolis, Ohio, an old man 
named Herman Deluse. Very little 
was known of his history, for he 
would neither speak of it himself nor suf 
fer others. It was a common belief among 
his neighbors that he had been a pirate if 
upon any better evidence than his collection 
of boarding pikes, cutlasses, and ancient flint 
lock pistols, no one knew. He lived entirely 
alone in a small house of four rooms, fall 
ing rapidly into decay and never repaired 
further than was required by the weather. It 
stood on a slight elevation in the midst of a 
large, stony field overgrown with brambles, 
and cultivated in patches and only in the 
most primitive way. It was his only visible 
property, but could hardly have yielded him 
a living, simple and few as were his wants. 
He seemed always to have ready money, and 
paid cash for all his purchases at the village 
stores roundabout, seldom buying more than 
two or three times at the same place until 



370 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

after the lapse of a considerable time. He 
got no commendation, however, for this equit 
able distribution of his patronage; people 
were disposed to regard it as an ineffectual 
attempt to conceal his possession of so much 
money. That he had great hoards of ill-got 
ten gold buried somewhere about his tumble 
down dwelling was not reasonably to be 
doubted by any honest soul conversant with 
the facts of local tradition and gifted with 
a sense of the fitness of things. 

On the 9th of November, 1867, the old 
man died; at least his dead body was dis 
covered on the loth, and physicians testified 
that death had occurred about twenty-four 
hours previously precisely how, they were 
unable to say; for the post-mortem examina 
tion showed every organ to be absolutely 
healthy, with no indication of disorder or 
violence. According to them, death must 
have taken place about noonday, yet the body 
was found in bed. The verdict of the coron 
er s jury was that he " came to his death by 
a visitation of God." The body was buried 
and the public administrator took charge of 
the estate. 

A rigorous search disclosed nothing more 
than was already known about the dead man, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 371 

and much patient excavation here and there 
about the premises by thoughtful and thrifty 
neighbors went unrewarded. The adminis 
trator locked up the house against the time 
when the property, real and personal, should 
be sold by law with a view to defraying, 
partly, the expenses of the sale. 

The night of November 20 was boisterous. 
A furious gale stormed across the country, 
scourging it with desolating drifts of sleet. 
Great trees were torn from the earth and 
hurled across the roads. So wild a night had 
never been known in all that region, but to 
ward morning the storm had blown itself out 
of breath and day dawned bright and clear. 
At about eight o clock that morning the Rev. 
Henry Galbraith, a well-known and highly es 
teemed Lutheran minister, arrived on foot at 
his house, a mile and a half from the Deluse 
place. Mr. Galbraith had been for a month 
in Cincinnati. He had come up the river in 
a steamboat, and landing at Gallipolis the 
previous evening had immediately obtained 
a horse and buggy and set out for home. The 
violence of the storm had delayed him over 
night, and in the morning the fallen trees had 
compelled him to abandon his conveyance and 
continue his journey afoot. 



372 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

"But where did you pass the night?" in 
quired his wife, after he had briefly related 
his adventure. 

"With old Deluse at the Isle of Pines, "* 
was the laughing reply; " and a glum enough 
time I had of it. He made no objection to 
my remaining, but not a word could I get out 
of him." 

Fortunately for the interests of truth there 
was present at this conversation Mr. Robert 
Mosely Maren, a lawyer and litterateur of 
Columbus, the same who wrote the delightful 
" Mellowcraft Papers." Noting, but appar 
ently not sharing, the astonishment caused by 
Mr. Galbraith s answer this ready-witted 
person checked by a gesture the exclamations 
that would naturally have followed, and tran 
quilly inquired: "How came you to go in 
there?" 

This is Mr. Maren s version of Mr. Gal- 
braith s reply: 

" I saw a light moving about the house, and 
being nearly blinded by the sleet, and half 
frozen besides, drove in at the gate and put 
up my horse in the old rail stable, where it is 
now. I then rapped at the door, and getting 

*The Isle of Pines was once a famous rendezvous of 
pirates. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 373 

no invitation went in without one. The room 
was dark, but having matches I found a can 
dle and lit it. I tried to enter the adjoining 
room, but the door was fast, and although I 
heard the old man s heavy footsteps in there 
he made no response to my calls. There was 
no fire on the hearth, so I made one and lay 
ing [sic] down before it with my overcoat 
under my head, prepared myself for sleep. 
Pretty soon the door that I had tried silently 
opened and the old man came in, carrying a 
candle. I spoke to him pleasantly, apolo 
gizing for my intrusion, but he took no notice 
of me. He seemed to be searching for some 
thing, though his eyes were unmoved in their 
sockets. I wonder if he ever walks in his 
sleep. He took a circuit a part of the way 
round the room, and went out the same way 
he had come in. Twice more before I slept 
he came back into the room, acting precisely 
the same way, and departing as at first. In 
the intervals I heard him tramping all over 
the house, his footsteps distinctly audible 
in the pauses of the storm. When I woke in 
the morning he had already gone out." 

Mr. Maren attempted some further ques 
tioning, but was unable longer to restrain the 
family s tongues; the story of Deluse s death 



374 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

and burial came out, greatly to the good min 
ister s astonishment. 

"The explanation of your adventure is very 
simple," said Mr. Maren. "I don t believe 
old Deluse walks in his sleep not in his pres 
ent one; but you evidently dream in yours." 

And to this view of the matter Mr. Gal- 
braith was compelled reluctantly to assent. 

Nevertheless, a late hour of the next night 
found these two gentlemen, accompanied by 
a son of the minister, in the road in front of 
the old Deluse house. There was a light in 
side; it appeared now at one window and now 
at another. The three men advanced to the 
door. Just as they reached it there came 
from the interior a confusion of the most ap 
palling sounds the clash of weapons, steel 
against steel, sharp explosions as of firearms, 
shrieks of women, groans and the curses of 
men in combat! The investigators stood a 
moment, irresolute, frightened. Then Mr. 
Galbraith tried the door. It was fast. But 
the minister was a man of courage, a man, 
moreover, of Herculean strength. He re 
tired a pace or two and rushed against the 
door, striking it with his right shoulder and 
bursting it from the frame with a loud crash. 
In a moment the three were inside. Dark- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 375 

ness and silence ! The only sound was the 
beating of their hearts. 

Mr. Maren had provided himself with 
matches and a candle. With some difficulty, 
begotten of his excitement, he made a light, 
and they proceeded to explore the place, pass 
ing from room to room. Everything was in 
orderly arrangement, as it had been left by the 
sheriff; nothing had been disturbed. A light 
coating of dust was everywhere. A back door 
was partly open, as if by neglect, and their 
first thought was that the authors of the aw 
ful revelry might have escaped. The door 
was opened, and the light of the candle 
shone through upon the ground. The ex 
piring effort of the previous night s storm had 
been a light fall of snow; there were no foot 
prints ; the white surface was unbroken. They 
closed the door and entered the last room of 
the four that the house contained that far 
thest from the road, in an angle of the build 
ing. Here the candle in Mr. Maren s hand 
was suddenly extinguished as by a draught of 
air. Almost immediately followed the sound 
of a heavy fall. When the candle had been 
hastily relighted young Mr. Galbraith was 
seen prostrate on the floor at a little distance 
from the others. He was dead. In one hand 



376 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the body grasped a heavy sack of coins, which 
later examination showed to be all of old 
Spanish mintage. Directly over the body as 
it lay, a board had been torn from its fasten 
ings in the wall, and from the cavity so dis 
closed it was evident that the bag had been 
taken. 

Another inquest was held: another post 
mortem examination failed to reveal a prob 
able cause of death. Another verdict of " the 
visitation of God" left all at liberty to form 
their own conclusions. Mr. Maren con 
tended that the young man died of excitement. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 377 



A FRUITLESS ASSIGNMENT 

HENRY SAYLOR, who was killed 
in Covington, in a quarrel with 
Antonio Finch, was a reporter on 
the Cincinnati Commercial. In 
the year 1859 a vacant dwelling in Vine 
street, in Cincinnati, became the center of 
a local excitement because of the strange 
sights and sounds said to be observed in 
it nightly. According to the testimony of 
many reputable residents of the vicinity 
these were inconsistent with any other hy 
pothesis than that the house was haunted. 
Figures with something singularly unfamiliar 
about them were seen by crowds on the side 
walk to pass in and out. No one could say 
just where they appeared upon the open lawn 
on their way to the front door by which they 
entered, nor at exactly what point they van 
ished as they came out; or, rather, while each 
spectator was positive enough about these mat 
ters, no two agreed. They were all similarly 
at variance in their descriptions of the figures 
themselves. Some of the bolder of the curi 
ous throng ventured on several evenings to 



378 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

stand upon the doorsteps to intercept them, 
or failing in this, get a nearer look at them. 
These courageous men, it was said, were un 
able to force the door by their united strength, 
and always were hurled from the steps by 
some invisible agency and severely injured; 
the door immediately afterward opening, ap 
parently of its own volition, to admit or free 
some ghostly guest. The dwelling was known 
as the Roscoe house, a family of that name 
having lived there for some years, and then, 
one by one, disappeared, the last to leave be 
ing an old woman. Stories of foul play and 
successive murders had always been rife, but 
never were authenticated. 

One day during the prevalence of the ex 
citement Saylor presented himself at the office 
of the Commercial for orders. He received 
a note from the city editor which read as 
follows: " Go and pass the night alone in 
the haunted house in Vine street and if any 
thing occurs worth while make two columns." 
Saylor obeyed his superior; he could not af 
ford to lose his position on the paper. 

Apprising the police of his intention, he 
effected an entrance through a rear window 
before dark, walked through the deserted 
rooms, bare of furniture, dusty and desolate, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 379 

and seating himself at last in the parlor on 
an old sofa which he had dragged in from 
another room watched the deepening of the 
gloom as night came on. Before it was al 
together dark the curious crowd had collected 
in the street, silent, as a rule, and expectant, 
with here and there a scoffer uttering his in 
credulity and courage with scornful remarks 
or ribald cries. None knew of the anxious 
watcher inside. He feared to make a light; 
the uncurtained windows would have be 
trayed his presence, subjecting him to insult, 
possibly to injury. Moreover, he was too 
conscientious to do anything to enfeeble his 
impressions and unwilling to alter any of the 
customary conditions under which the mani 
festations were said to occur. 

It was now dark outside, but light from the 
street faintly illuminated the part of the room 
that he was in. He had set open every door 
in the whole interior, above and below, but 
all the outer ones were locked and bolted. 
Sudden exclamations from the crowd caused 
him to spring to the window and look out. 
He saw the figure of a man moving rapidly 
across the lawn toward the building saw it 
ascend the steps; then a projection of the wall 
concealed it. There was a noise as of the 



380 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

opening and closing of the hall door; he heard 
quick, heavy footsteps along the passage 
heard them ascend the stairs heard them on 
the uncarpeted floor of the chamber immedi 
ately overhead. 

Saylor promptly drew his pistol, and grop 
ing his way up the stairs entered the chamber, 
dimly lighted from the street. No one was 
there. He heard footsteps in an adjoining 
room and entered that. It was dark and 
silent. He struck his foot against some ob 
ject on the floor, knelt by it, passed his hand 
over it. It was a human head that of a 
woman. Lifting it by the hair this iron- 
nerved man returned to the half-lighted room 
below, carried it near the window and attent 
ively examined it. While so engaged he was 
half conscious of the rapid opening and clos 
ing of the outer door, of footfalls sounding 
all about him. He raised his eyes from the 
ghastly object of his attention and saw him 
self the center of a crowd of men and women 
dimly seen ; the room was thronged with them. 
He thought the people had broken in. 

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, coolly, 
"you see me under suspicious circumstances, 

but " his voice was drowned in peals of 

laughter such laughter as is heard in asy- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 381 

lums for the insane. The persons about him 
pointed at the object in his hand and their 
merriment increased as he dropped it and it 
went rolling among their feet. They danced 
about it with gestures grotesque and atti 
tudes obscene and indescribable. They struck 
it with their feet, urging it about the room 
from wall to wall ; pushed and overthrew one 
another in their struggles to kick it; cursed 
and screamed and sang snatches of ribald 
songs as the battered head bounded about the 
room as if in terror and trying to escape. At 
last it shot out of the door into the hall, fol 
lowed by all, with tumultuous haste. That 
moment the door closed with a sharp concus 
sion. Saylor was alone, in dead silence. 

Carefully putting away his pistol, which all 
the time he had held in his hand, he went 
to a window and looked out. The street was 
deserted and silent; the lamps were extin 
guished; the roofs and chimneys of the houses 
were sharply outlined against the dawn-light 
in the east. He left the house, the door yield 
ing easily to his hand, and walked to the Com 
mercial office. The city editor was still in 
his office asleep. Saylor waked him and 
said: "I have been at the haunted house." 

The editor stared blankly as if not wholly 



382 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

awake. "Good God!" he cried, "are you 
Saylor?" 

"Yes why not?" 

The editor made no answer, but continued 
staring. 

" I passed the night there it seems," said 
Saylor. 

"They say that things were uncommonly 
quiet out there," the editor said, trifling with 
a paper-weight upon which he had dropped 
his eyes, "did anything occur?" 

" Nothing whatever." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 383 



A VINE ON A HOUSE 

A 3UT three miles from the little town 
of Norton, in Missouri, on the road 
leading to Maysville, stands an old 
house that was last occupied by a 
family named Harding. Since 1886 no one 
has lived in it, nor is anyone likely to live in 
it again. Time and the disfavor of persons 
dwelling thereabout are converting it into 
a rather picturesque ruin. An observer un 
acquainted with its history would hardly put 
it into the category of " haunted houses," yet 
in all the region round such is its evil reputa 
tion. Its windows are without glass, its door 
ways without doors; there are wide breaches 
in the shingle roof, and for lack of paint the 
weatherboarding is a dun gray. But these un 
failing signs of the supernatural are partly 
concealed and greatly softened by the abund 
ant foliage of a large vine overrunning the 
entire structure. This vine of a species 
which no botanist has ever been able to name 
has an important part in the story of the 
house. 



384 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

The Harding family consisted of Robert 
Harding, his wife Matilda, Miss Julia Went, 
who was her sister, and two young children. 
Robert Harding was a silent, cold-mannered 
man who made no friends in the neighbor 
hood and apparently cared to make none. 
He was about forty years old, frugal and in 
dustrious, and made a living from the little 
farm which is now overgrown with brush and 
brambles. He and his sister-in-law were 
rather tabooed by their neighbors, who seemed 
to think that they were seen too frequently to 
gether not entirely their fault, for at these 
times they evidently did not challenge ob 
servation. The moral code of rural Missouri 
is stern and exacting. 

Mrs. Harding was a gentle, sad-eyed 
woman, lacking a left foot. 

At some time in 1884 it became known that 
she had gone to visit her mother in Iowa. 
That was what her husband said in reply to 
inquiries, and his manner of saying it did not 
encourage further questioning. She never 
came back, and two years later, without sell 
ing his farm or anything that was his, or ap 
pointing an agent to look after his interests, 
or removing his household goods, Harding, 
with the rest of the family, left the country. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 385 

Nobody knew whither he went; nobody at 
that time cared. Naturally, whatever was 
movable about the place soon disappeared and 
the deserted house became " haunted " in the 
manner of its kind. 

One summer evening, four or five years 
later, the Rev. J. Gruber, of Norton, and a 
Maysville attorney named Hyatt met on horse 
back in front of the Harding place. Having 
business matters to discuss, they hitched their 
animals and going to the house sat on the 
porch to talk. Some humorous reference to 
the somber reputation of the place was made 
and forgotten as soon as uttered, and they 
talked of their business affairs until it grew 
almost dark. The evening was oppressively 
warm, the air stagnant. 

Presently both men started from their seats 
in surprise: a long vine that covered half the 
front of the house and dangled its branches 
from the edge of the porch above them was 
visibly and audibly agitated, shaking violently 
in every stem and leaf. 

"We shall have a storm," Hyatt exclaimed. 

Gruber said nothing, but silently directed 
the other s attention to the foliage of adjacent 
trees, which showed no movement; even the 
delicate tips of the boughs silhouetted against 



386 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the clear sky were motionless. They hastily 
passed down the steps to what had been a lawn 
and looked upward at the vine, whose entire 
length was now visible. It continued in vio 
lent agitation, yet they could discern no dis 
turbing cause. 

" Let us leave," said the minister. 

And leave they did. Forgetting that they 
had been traveling in opposite directions, they 
rode away together. They went to Norton, 
where they related their strange experience to 
several discreet friends. The next evening, 
at about the same hour, accompanied by two 
others whose names are not recalled, they 
were again on the porch of the Harding house, 
and again the mysterious phenomenon oc 
curred: the vine was violently agitated while 
under the closest scrutiny from root to tip, 
nor did their combined strength applied to the 
trunk serve to still it. After an hour s ob 
servation they retreated, no less wise, it is 
thought, than when they had come. 

No great time was required for these sin 
gular facts to rouse the curiosity of the entire 
neighborhood. By day and by night crowds 
of persons assembled at the Harding house 
" seeking a sign." It does not appear that any 
found it, yet so credible were the witnesses 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 387 

mentioned that none doubted the reality of the 
"manifestations" to which they testified. 

By either a happy inspiration or some de 
structive design, it was one day proposed 
nobody appeared to know from whom the 
suggestion came to dig up the vine, and after 
a good deal of debate this was done. Nothing 
was found but the root, yet nothing could have 
been more strange! 

For five or six feet from the trunk, which 
had at the surface of the ground a diameter 
of several inches, it ran downward, single and 
straight, into a loose, friable earth; then it 
divided and subdivided into rootlets, fibers 
and filaments, most curiously interwoven. 
When carefully freed from soil they showed 
a singular formation. In their ramifications 
and doublings back upon themselves they 
made a compact network, having in size and 
shape an amazing resemblance to the human 
figure. Head, trunk and limbs were there; 
even the fingers and toes were distinctly de 
fined; and many professed to see in the dis 
tribution and arrangement of the fibers in the 
globular mass representing the head a grot 
esque suggestion of a face. The figure was 
horizontal; the smaller roots had begun to 
unite at the breast. 



388 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

In point of resemblance to the human form 
this image was imperfect. At about ten inches 
from one of the knees, the cilia forming that 
leg had abruptly doubled backward and in 
ward upon their course of growth. The figure 
lacked the left foot. 

There was but one inference the obvious 
one; but in the ensuing excitement as many 
courses of action were proposed as there were 
incapable counselors. The matter was settled 
by the sheriff of the county, who as the lawful 
custodian of the abandoned estate ordered the 
root replaced and the excavation filled with 
the earth that had been removed. 

Later inquiry brought out only one fact of 
relevancy and significance: Mrs. Harding 
had never visited her relatives in Iowa, nor 
did they know that she was supposed to have 
done so. 

Of Robert Harding and the rest of his fam 
ily nothing is known. The house retains its 
evil reputation, but the replanted vine is as 
orderly and well-behaved a vegetable as a 
nervous person could wish to sit under of a 
pleasant night, when the katydids grate out 
their immemorial revelation and the distant 
whippoorwill signifies his notion of what 
ought to be done about it. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 389 



AT OLD MAN ECKERT S 

PHILIP ECKERT lived for many 
years in an old, weather-stained 
wooden house about three miles from 
the little town of Marion, in Ver 
mont. There must be quite a number of per 
sons living who remember him, not unkindly, 
I trust, and know something of the story that 
I am about to tell. 

"Old Man Eckert," as he was always 
called, was not of a sociable disposition and 
lived alone. As he was never known to speak 
of his own affairs nobody thereabout knew any 
thing of his past, nor of his relatives if he had 
any. Without being particularly ungracious 
or repellent in manner or speech, he managed 
somehow to be immune to impertinent curios 
ity, yet exempt from the evil repute with 
which it commonly revenges itself when baf 
fled; so far as I know, Mr. Eckert s renown as 
a reformed assassin or a retired pirate of the 
Spanish Main had not reached any ear in 
Marion. He got his living cultivating a small 
and not very fertile farm. 
One day he disappeared and a prolonged 



390 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

search by his neighbors failed to turn him up 
or throw any light upon his whereabouts or 
whyabouts. Nothing indicated preparation 
to leave: all was as he might have left it to 
go to the spring for a bucket of water. For a 
few weeks little else was talked of in that re 
gion; then "old man Eckert" became a vil 
lage tale for the ear of the stranger. I do not 
know what was done regarding his property 
the correct legal thing, doubtless. The house 
was standing, still vacant and conspicuously 
unfit, when I last heard of it, some twenty 
years afterward. 

Of course it came to be considered 
" haunted," and the customary tales were told 
of moving lights, dolorous sounds and start 
ling apparitions. At one time, about five years 
after the disappearance, these stones of the su 
pernatural became so rife, or through some at 
testing circumstances seemed so important, 
that some of Marion s most serious citizens 
deemed it well to investigate, and to that end 
arranged for a night session on the premises. 
The parties to this undertaking were John 
Holcomb, an apothecary; Wilson Merle, a 
lawyer, and Andrus C. Palmer, the teacher of 
the public school, all men of consequence and 
repute. They were to meet at Holcornb s 
house at eight o clock in the evening of the 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 391 

appointed day and go together to the scene of 
their vigil, where certain arrangements for 
their comfort, a provision of fuel and the like, 
for the season was winter, had been already 
made. 

Palmer did not keep the engagement, and 
after waiting a half-hour for him the others 
went to the Eckert house without him. They 
established themselves in the principal room, 
before a glowing fire, and without other light 
than it gave, awaited events. It had been 
agreed to speak as little as possible: they did 
not even renew the exchange of views regard 
ing the defection of Palmer, which had oc 
cupied their minds on the way. 

Probably an hour had passed without incid 
ent when they heard (not without emotion, 
doubtless) the sound of an opening door in 
the rear of the house, followed by footfalls in 
the room adjoining that in which they sat. 
The watchers rose to their feet, but stood firm, 
prepared for whatever might ensue. A long 
silence followed how long neither would 
afterward undertake to say. Then the door 
between the two rooms opened and a man 
entered. 

It was Palmer. He was pale, as if from 
excitement as pale as the others felt them 
selves to be. His manner, too, was singularly 



392 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

distrait: he neither responded to their saluta 
tions nor so much as looked at them, but 
walked slowly across the room in the light of 
the failing fire and opening the front door 
passed out into the darkness. 

It seems to have been the first thought of 
both men that Palmer was suffering from 
fright that something seen, heard or imag 
ined in the back room had deprived him of 
his senses. Acting on the same friendly im 
pulse both ran after him through the open 
door. But neither they nor anyone ever again 
saw or heard of Andrus Palmer! 

This much was ascertained the next morn 
ing. During the session of Messrs. Holcomb 
and Merle at the " haunted house" a new 
snow had fallen to a depth of several inches 
upon the old. In this snow Palmer s trail 
from his lodging in the village to the back 
door of the Eckert house was conspicuous. 
But there it ended: from the front door no 
thing led away but the tracks of the two men 
who swore that he preceded them. Palmer s 
disappearance was as complete as that of " old 
man Eckert" himself whom, indeed, the 
editor of the local paper somewhat graph 
ically accused of having " reached out and 
pulled him in." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 393 



THE SPOOK HOUSE 

ON the road leading north from 
Manchester, in eastern Kentucky, 
to Booneville, twenty miles away, 
stood, in 1862, a wooden plantation 
house of a somewhat better quality than most 
of the dwellings in that region. The house 
was destroyed by fire in the year following 
probably by some stragglers from the retreat 
ing column of General George W. Morgan, 
when he was driven from Cumberland Gap 
to the Ohio river by General Kirby Smith. 
At the time of its destruction, it had for four 
or five years been vacant. The fields about it 
were overgrown with brambles, the fences 
gone, even the few negro quarters, and out 
houses generally, fallen partly into ruin by 
neglect and pillage; for the negroes and poor 
whites of the vicinity found in the building 
and fences an abundant supply of fuel, of 
which they availed themselves without hesit 
ation, openly and by daylight. By daylight 
alone; after nightfall no human being except 
passing strangers ever went near the place. 
It was known as the " Spook House." That 



394 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

it was tenanted by evil spirits, visible, audible 
and active, no one in all that region doubted 
any more than he doubted what he was told 
of Sundays by the traveling preacher. Its 
owner s opinion of the matter was unknown; 
he and his family had disappeared one night 
and no trace of them had ever been found. 
They left everything household goods, 
clothing, provisions, the horses in the stable, 
the cows in the field, the negroes in the quar 
ters all as it stood; nothing was missing 
except a man, a woman, three girls, a boy 
and a babe! It was not altogether surprising 
that a plantation where seven human beings 
could be simultaneously effaced and nobody 
the wiser should be under some suspicion. 

One night in June, 1859, two citizens of 
Frankfort, Col. J. C. McArdle, a lawyer, and 
Judge Myron Veigh, of the State Militia, 
were driving from Booneville to Manchester. 
Their business was so important that they de 
cided to push on, despite the darkness and the 
mutterings of an approaching storm, which 
eventually broke upon them just as they ar 
rived opposite the " Spook House." The 
lightning was so incessant that they easily 
found their way through the gateway and 
into a shed, where they hitched and unhar- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 395 

nessed their team. They then went to the 
house, through the rain, and knocked at all 
the doors without getting any response. At 
tributing this to the continuous uproar of the 
thunder they pushed at one of the doors, 
which yielded. They entered without fur 
ther ceremony and closed the door. That in 
stant they were in darkness and silence. Not 
a gleam of the lightning s unceasing blaze 
penetrated the windows or crevices; not a 
whisper of the awful tumult without reached 
them there. It was as if they had suddenly 
been stricken blind and deaf, and McArdle 
afterward said that for a moment he believed 
himself to have been killed by a stroke of 
lightning as he crossed the threshold. The 
rest of this adventure can as well be related in 
his own words, from the Frankfort Advocate 
of August 6, 1876: 

"When I had somewhat recovered from 
the dazing effect of the transition from uproar 
to silence, my first impulse was to reopen the 
door which I had closed, and from the knob 
of which I was not conscious of having re 
moved my hand; I felt it distinctly, still in 
the clasp of my fingers. My notion was to 
ascertain by stepping again into the storm 
whether I had been deprived of sight and 



396 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

hearing. I turned the door-knob and pulled 
open the door. It led into another room! 

" This apartment was suffused with a faint 
greenish light, the source of which I could 
not determine, making everything distinctly 
visible, though nothing was sharply defined. 
Everything, I say, but in truth the only ob 
jects within the blank stone walls of that room 
were human corpses. In number they w r ere 
perhaps eight or ten it may w r ell be under 
stood that I did not truly count them. They 
were of different ages, or rather sizes, from 
infancy up, and of both sexes. All were pros 
trate on the floor, excepting one, apparently a 
young woman, who sat up, her back sup 
ported by an angle of the wall. A babe was 
clasped in the arms of another and older wo 
man. A half-grown lad lay face downward 
across the legs of a full-bearded man. One 
or two w r ere nearly naked, and the hand of a 
young girl held the fragment of a gown which 
she had torn open at the breast. The bodies 
were in various stages of decay, all greatly 
shrunken in face and figure. Some were but 
little more than skeletons. 

"While I stood stupefied with horror by 
this ghastly spectacle and still holding open 
the door, by some unaccountable perversity 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 397 

my attention was diverted from the shocking 
scene and concerned itself with trifles and de 
tails. Perhaps my mind, with an instinct of 
self-preservation, sought relief in matters 
which would relax its dangerous tension. 
Among other things, I observed that the door 
that I was holding open was of heavy iron 
plates, riveted. Equidistant from one another 
and from the top and bottom, three strong bolts 
protruded from the beveled edge. I turned 
the knob and they were retracted flush with the 
edge ; released it, and they shot out. It was 
a spring lock. On the inside there was no 
knob, nor any kind of projection a smooth 
surface of iron. 

" While noting these things with an interest 
and attention which it now astonishes me to 
recall I felt myself thrust aside, and Judge 
Veigh, whom in the intensity and vicissitudes 
of my feelings I had altogether forgotten, 
pushed by me into the room. i For God s 
sake/ I cried, do not go in there! Let us 
get out of this dreadful place! 

"He gave no heed to my entreaties, but 
(as fearless a gentleman as lived in all the 
South) walked quickly to the center of the 
room, knelt beside one of the bodies for a 
closer examination and tenderly raised its 



398 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

blackened and shriveled head in his hands. 
A strong disagreeable odor came through the 
doorway, completely overpowering me. My 
senses reeled; I felt myself falling, and in 
clutching at the edge of the door for sup 
port pushed it shut with a sharp click! 

"I remember no more: six weeks later I 
recovered my reason in a hotel at Manches 
ter, whither I had been taken by strangers the 
next day. For all these weeks I had suffered 
from a nervous fever, attended with constant 
delirium. I had been found lying in the 
road several miles away from the house; but 
how I had escaped from it to get there I 
never knew. On recovery, or as soon as my 
physicians permitted me to talk, I inquired 
the fate of Judge Veigh, whom (to quiet me, 
as I now know) they represented as well and 
at home. 

" No one believed a word of my story, and 
who can wonder? And who can imagine my 
grief when, arriving at my home in Frankfort 
two months later, I learned that Judge Veigh 
had never been heard of since that night? I 
then regretted bitterly the pride which since 
the first few days after the recovery of my 
reason had forbidden me to repeat my dis 
credited story and insist upon its truth. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 399 

"With all that afterward occurred the ex 
amination of the house; the failure to find 
any room corresponding to that which I 
have described; the attempt to have me 
adjudged insane, and my triumph over my 
accusers the readers of the Advocate are 
familiar. After all these years I am still con 
fident that excavations which I have neither 
the legal right to undertake nor the wealth 
to make would disclose the secret of the dis 
appearance of my unhappy friend, and poss 
ibly of the former occupants and owners of 
the deserted and now destroyed house. I do 
not despair of yet bringing about such a 
search, and it is a source of deep grief to me 
that it has been delayed by the undeserved 
hostility and unwise incredulity of the family 
and friends of the late Judge Veigh." 

Colonel McArdle died in Frankfort on the 
thirteenth day of December, in the year 1879. 



400 THE COLLECTED WORKS 



THE OTHER LODGERS 

<<<lir N order to take that train," said 
Colonel Levering, sitting in the Wai- 



i 



dorf- Astoria hotel, " you will have to 
remain nearly all night in Atlanta. 
That is a fine city, but I advise you not to put 
up at the Breathitt House, one of the principal 
hotels. It is an old wooden building in urg 
ent need of repairs. There are breaches in 
the walls that you could throw a cat through. 
The bedrooms have no locks on the doors, 
no furniture but a single chair in each, and a 
bedstead without bedding just a mattress. 
Even these meager accommodations you can 
not be sure that you will have in monopoly; 
you must take your chance of being stowed in 
with a lot of others. Sir, it is a most abom 
inable hotel. 

" The night that I passed in it was an un 
comfortable night. I got in late and was 
shown to my room on the ground floor by an 
apologetic night-clerk with a tallow candle, 
which he considerately left with me. I was 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 401 

worn out by two days and a night of hard 
railway travel and had not entirely recovered 
from a gunshot wound in the head, received 
in an altercation. Rather than look for bet 
ter quarters I lay down on the mattress with 
out removing my clothing and fell asleep. 

" Along toward morning I awoke. The 
moon had risen and was shining in at the 
uncurtained window, illuminating the room 
with a soft, bluish light which seemed, some 
how, a bit spooky, though I dare say it had 
no uncommon quality; all moonlight is that 
way if you will observe it. Imagine my sur 
prise and indignation when I saw the floor 
occupied by at least a dozen other lodgers! 
I sat up, earnestly damning the management 
of that unthinkable hotel, and was about to 
spring from the bed to go and make trouble 
for the night-clerk him of the apologetic 
manner and the tallow candle when some 
thing in the situation affected me with a 
strange indisposition to move. I suppose I 
was what a story-writer might call frozen 
with terror. For those men were obviously 
all dead! 

"They lay on their backs, disposed orderly 
along three sides of the room, their feet to the 
walls against the other wall, farthest from 



402 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

the door, stood my bed and the chair. All the 
faces were covered, but under their white 
cloths the features of the two bodies that lay 
in the square patch of moonlight near the win 
dow showed in sharp profile as to nose and 
chin. 

" I thought this a bad dream and tried to 
cry out, as one does in a nightmare, but could 
make no sound. At last, with a desperate 
effort I threw my feet to the floor and pass 
ing between the two rows of clouted faces and 
the two bodies that lay nearest the door, I 
escaped from the infernal place and ran to 
the office. The night-clerk was there, behind 
the desk, sitting in the dim light of another 
tallow candle just sitting and staring. He 
did not rise: my abrupt entrance produced 
no effect upon him, though I must have 
looked a veritable corpse myself. It occurred 
to me then that I had not before really ob 
served the fellow. He was a little chap, with 
a colorless face and the whitest, blankest eyes 
I ever saw. He had no more expression than 
the back of my hand. His clothing was a 
dirty gray. 

" Damn you! I said; what do you 
mean? 

"Just the same, I was shaking like a leaf 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 403 

in the wind and did not recognize my own 
voice. 

"The night-clerk rose, bowed (apologet 
ically) and well, he was no longer there, 
and at that moment I felt a hand laid upon 
my shoulder from behind. Just fancy that if 
you can! Unspeakably frightened, I turned 
and saw a portly, kind-faced gentleman, who 
asked : 

" What is the matter, my friend? 

" I was not long in telling him, but before 
I made an end of it he went pale himself. 
See here, he said, are you telling the 
truth? 

" I had now got myself in hand and terror 
had given place to indignation. If you dare 
to doubt it, I said, I ll hammer the life out 
of you! 

" No, he replied, don t do that; just sit 
down till I tell you. This is not a hotel. It 
used to be; afterward it was a hospital. Now 
it is unoccupied, awaiting a tenant. The 
room that you mention was the dead-room 
there were always plenty of dead. The fel 
low that you call the night-clerk used to be 
that, but later he booked the patients as they 
were brought in. I don t understand his be 
ing here. He has been dead a few weeks. 



404 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

" And who are you? I blurted out. 

" Oh, I look after the premises. I hap 
pened to be passing just now, and seeing a 
light in here came in to investigate. Let us 
have a look into that room, he added, lifting 
the sputtering candle from the desk. 

"Til see you at the devil first! said I, 
bolting out of the door into the street. 

" Sir, that Breathitt House, in Atlanta, is 
a beastly place! Don t you stop there." 

" God forbid! Your account of it certainly 
does not suggest comfort. By the way, Col 
onel, when did all that occur?" 

"In September, 1864 shortly after the 
siege." 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 405 




THE THING AT NOLAN 

the south of where the road be 
tween Leesville and Hardy, in the 
State of Missouri, crosses the east 
fork of May Creek stands an aban 
doned house. Nobody has lived in it since the 
summer of 1879, and it is fast going to pieces. 
For some three years before the date men 
tioned above, it was occupied by the family of 
Charles May, from one of whose ancestors 
the creek near which it stands took its name. 
Mr. May s family consisted of a wife, an adult 
son and two young girls. The son s name was 
John the names of the daughters are un 
known to the writer of this sketch. 

John May was of a morose and surly dis 
position, not easily moved to anger, but hav 
ing an uncommon gift of sullen, implacable 
hate. His father was quite otherwise; of a 
sunny, jovial disposition, but with a quick 
temper like a sudden flame kindled in a wisp 
of straw, which consumes it in a flash and is no 
more. He cherished no resentments, and his 



406 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

anger gone, was quick to make overtures for 
reconciliation. He had a brother living near 
by who was unlike him in respect of all this, 
and it was a current witticism in the neigh 
borhood that John had inherited his disposi 
tion from his uncle. 

One day a misunderstanding arose between 
father and son, harsh words ensued, and the 
father struck the son full in the face with his 
fist. John quietly wiped away the blood that 
followed the blow, fixed his eyes upon the al 
ready penitent offender and said with cold 
composure, " You will die for that." 

The words were overheard by two brothers 
named Jackson, who were approaching the 
men at the moment; but seeing them engaged 
in a quarrel they retired, apparently unob 
served. Charles May afterward related the 
unfortunate occurrence to his wife and ex 
plained that he had apologized to the son for 
the hasty blow, but without avail ; the young 
man not only rejected his overtures, but re 
fused to withdraw his terrible threat. Never 
theless, there was no open rupture of relations : 
John continued living with the family, and 
things went on very much as before. 

One Sunday morning in June, 1879, about 
two weeks after what has been related, May 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 407 

senior left the house immediately after break 
fast, taking a spade. He said he was going to 
make an excavation at a certain spring in a 
wood about a mile away, so that the cattle 
could obtain water. John remained in the house 
for some hours, variously occupied in shav 
ing himself, writing letters and reading a 
newspaper. His manner was very nearly 
what it usually was; perhaps he was a trifle 
more sullen and surly. 

At two o clock he left the house. At five, he 
returned. For some reason not connected 
with any interest in his movements, and which 
is not now recalled, the time of his departure 
and that of his return were noted by his 
mother and sisters, as was attested at his trial 
for murder. It was observed that his cloth 
ing was wet in spots, as if (so the prosecution 
afterward pointed out) he had been remov 
ing blood-stains from it His manner was 
strange, his look wild. He complained of ill 
ness, and going to his room took to his bed. 

May senior did not return. Later that even 
ing the nearest neighbors were aroused, and 
during that night and the following day a 
search was prosecuted through the wood where 
the spring was. It resulted in little but the 
discovery of both men s footprints in the clay 



408 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

about the spring. John May in the meantime 
had grown rapidly worse with what the local 
physician called brain fever, and in his de 
lirium raved of murder, but did not say whom 
he conceived to have been murdered, nor 
whom he imagined to have done the deed. 
But his threat was recalled by the brothers 
Jackson and he was arrested on suspicion and 
a deputy sheriff put in charge of him at his 
home. Public opinion ran strongly against 
him and but for his illness he would probably 
have been hanged by a mob. As it was, a 
meeting of the neighbors was held on Tues 
day and a committee appointed to watch the 
case and take such action at any time as cir 
cumstances might seem to warrant. 

On Wednesday all was changed. From the 
town of Nolan, eight miles away, came a story 
which put a quite different light on the mat 
ter. Nolan consisted of a school house, a black 
smith s shop, a "store" and a half-dozen 
dwellings. The store was kept by one Henry 
Odell, a cousin of the elder May. On the 
afternoon of the Sunday of May s dis 
appearance Mr. Odell and four of his 
neighbors, men of credibility, were sitt 
ing in the store smoking and talking. It was 
a warm day; and both the front and the back 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 409 

door were open. At about three o clock 
Charles May, who was well known to three 
of them, entered at the front door and passed 
out at the rear. He was without hat or coat. 
He did not look at them, nor return their 
greeting, a circumstance which did not sur 
prise, for he was evidently seriously hurt. 
Above the left eyebrow was a wound a deep 
gash from which the blood flowed, covering 
the whole left side of the face and neck and 
saturating his light-gray shirt. Oddly 
enough, the thought uppermost in the minds 
of all was that he had been fighting and was 
going to the brook directly at the back of 
the store, to wash himself. 

Perhaps there was a feeling of delicacy 
a backwoods etiquette which restrained them 
from following him to offer assistance; the 
court records, from which, mainly, this nar 
rative is drawn, are silent as to anything but 
the fact. They waited for him to return, but 
he did not return. 

Bordering the brook behind the store is a 
forest extending for six miles back to the 
Medicine Lodge Hills. As soon as it became 
known in the neighborhood of the missing 
man s dwelling that he had been seen in 
Nolan there was a marked alteration in pub- 



410 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

lie sentiment and feeling. The vigilance 
committee went out of existence without the 
formality of a resolution. Search along the 
wooded bottom lands of May Creek was 
stopped and nearly the entire male popula 
tion of the region took to beating the bush 
about Nolan and in the Medicine Lodge 
Hills. But of the missing man no trace was 
found. 

One of the strangest circumstances of this 
strange case is the formal indictment and trial 
of a man for murder of one whose body no 
human being professed to have seen one 
not known to be dead. We are all more or 
less familiar with the vagaries and eccentrici 
ties of frontier law, but this instance, it is 
thought, is unique. However that may be, it 
is of record that on recovering from his ill 
ness John May was indicted for the murder 
of his missing father. Counsel for the de 
fense appears not to have demurred and the 
case was tried on its merits. The prosecution 
was spiritless and perfunctory; the defense 
easily established with regard to the de 
ceased an alibi. If during the time in which 
John May must have killed Charles May, if 
he killed him at all, Charles May was miles 
away from where John May must have been, 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 411 

it is plain that the deceased must have come 
to his death at the hands of someone else. 

John May was acquitted, immediately left 
the country, and has never been heard of 
from that day. Shortly afterward his mother 
and sisters removed to St. Louis. The farm 
having passed into the possession of a man 
who owns the land adjoining, and has a dwell 
ing of his own, the May house has ever since 
been vacant, and has the somber reputation of 
being haunted. 

One day after the May family had left the 
country, some boys, playing in the woods along 
May Creek, found concealed under a mass 
of dead leaves, but partly exposed by the 
rooting of hogs, a spade, nearly new and 
bright, except for a spot on one edge, which 
was rusted and stained with blood. The im 
plement had the initials C. M. cut into the 
handle. 

This discovery renewed, in some degree, 
the public excitement of a few months before. 
The earth near the spot where the spade was 
found was carefully examined, and the result 
was the finding of the dead body of a man. 
It had been buried under two or three feet 
of soil and the spot covered with a layer of 
dead leaves and twigs. There was but little 



412 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

decomposition, a fact attributed to some pre 
servative property in the mineral-bearing 
soil. 

Above the left eyebrow was a wound a 
deep gash from which blood had flowed, cov 
ering the whole left side of the face and neck 
and saturating the light-gray shirt. The skull 
had been cut through by the blow. The body 
was that of Charles May. 

But what was it that passed through Mr. 
OdelFs store at Nolan? 



" MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCES " 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 415 



THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A 
FIELD 

ONE morning in July, 1854, a planter 
named Williamson, living six miles 
from Selma, Alabama, was sitting 
with his wife and a child on the 
veranda of his dwelling. Immediately in 
front of the house was a lawn, perhaps fifty 
yards in extent between the house and public 
road, or, as it was called, the " pike." Be 
yond this road lay a close-cropped pasture of 
some ten acres, level and without a tree, rock, 
or any natural or artificial object on its sur 
face. At the time there was not even a do 
mestic animal in the field. In another field, 
beyond the pasture, a dozen slaves were at 
work under an overseer. 

Throwing away the stump of a cigar, the 
planter rose, saying: "I forgot to tell An 
drew about those horses." Andrew was the 
overseer. 

Williamson strolled leisurely down the 
gravel walk, plucking a flower as he went, 
passed across the road and into the pasture, 



416 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

pausing a moment as he closed the gate lead 
ing into it, to greet a passing neighbor, Ar 
mour Wren, who lived on an adjoining plant 
ation. Mr. Wren was in an open carriage 
with his son James, a lad of thirteen. When 
he had driven some two hundred yards from 
the point of meeting, Mr. Wren said to his 
son : " I forgot to tell Mr. Williamson about 
those horses." 

Mr. Wren had sold to Mr. Williamson 
some horses, which were to have been sent for 
that day, but for some reason not now remem 
bered it would be inconvenient to deliver 
them until the morrow. The coachman was 
directed to drive back, and as the vehicle 
turned Williamson was seen by all three, 
walking leisurely across the pasture. At 
that moment one of the coach horses stumbled 
and came near falling. It had no more than 
fairly recovered itself when James Wren 
cried: "Why, father, what has become of 
Mr. Williamson?" 

It is not the purpose of this narrative to 
answer that question. 

Mr. Wren s strange account of the matter, 
given under oath in the course of legal pro 
ceedings relating to the Williamson estate, 
here follows: 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 417 

" My son s exclamation caused me to look 
toward the spot where I had seen the deceased 
[sic] an instant before, but he was not there, 
nor was he anywhere visible. I cannot say 
that at the moment I was greatly startled, or 
realized the gravity of the occurrence, though 
I thought it singular. My son, however, was 
greatly astonished and kept repeating his 
question in different forms until we arrived 
at the gate. My black boy Sam was simil 
arly affected, even in a greater degree, but 
I reckon more by my son s manner than by 
anything he had himself observed. [This 
sentence in the testimony was stricken out.] 
As we got out of the carriage at the gate of 
the field, and while Sam was hanging [sic] 
the team to the fence, Mrs. Williamson, with 
her child in her arms and followed by several 
servants, came running down the walk in 
great excitement, crying: He is gone, he is 
gone! O God! what an awful thing! and 
many other such exclamations, which I do not 
distinctly recollect. I got from them the im 
pression that they related to something more 
than the mere disappearance of her husband, 
even if that had occurred before her eyes. 
Her manner was wild, but not more so, I 
think, than was natural under the circum- 



418 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

stances. I have no reason to think she had at 
that time lost her mind. I have never since 
seen nor heard of Mr. Williamson." 

This testimony, as might have been expect 
ed, was corroborated in almost every particu 
lar by the only other eye-witness (if that is a 
proper term) the lad James. Mrs. William 
son had lost her reason and the servants were, 
of course, not competent to testify. The boy 
James Wren had declared at first that he saw 
the disappearance, but there is nothing of this 
in his testimony given in court. None of the 
field hands working in the field to which 
Williamson was going had seen him at all, 
and the most rigorous search of the entire 
plantation and adjoining country failed to 
supply a clew. The most monstrous and 
grotesque fictions, originating with the blacks, 
were current in that part of the State for many 
years, and probably are to this day; but what 
has been here related is all that is certainly 
known of the matter. The courts decided 
that Williamson was dead, and his estate was 
distributed according to law. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 419 



AN UNFINISHED RACE 

JAMES BURNE WORSON was a shoe 
maker who lived in Leamington, War 
wickshire, England. He had a little 
shop in one of the by-ways leading off 
the road to Warwick. In his humble sphere 
he was esteemed an honest man, although like 
many of his class in English towns he was 
somewhat addicted to drink. When in 
liquor he would make foolish wagers. On 
one of these too frequent occasions he was 
boasting of his prowess as a pedestrian and 
athlete, and the outcome was a match against 
nature. For a stake of one sovereign he un 
dertook to run all the way to Coventry and 
back, a distance of something more than forty 
miles. This was on the 3d day of September 
in 1873. He set out at once, the man with 
whom he had made the bet whose name is 
not remembered accompanied by Barham 
Wise, a linen draper, and Hamerson Burns, a 
photographer, I think, following in a light 
cart or wagon. 

For several miles Worson went on very 
well, at an easy gait, without apparent fatigue, 



420 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

for he had really great powers of endurance 
and was not sufficiently intoxicated to en 
feeble them. The three men in the wagon 
kept a short distance in the rear, giving him 
occasional friendly "chaff" or encourage 
ment, as the spirit moved them! Suddenly 
in the very middle of the roadwav, not a 
dozen yards from them, and with their eyes 
full upon him the man seemed to stumble, 
pitched headlong forward, uttered a terrible 
cry and vanished! He did not fall to the 
earth he vanished before touching: it. No 
trace of him was ever .discovered. 

After remaining at and about the spot for 
some time, with aimless irresolution, the three 
men returned to Leamington, told their aston 
ishing story and were afterward taken into 
custody. But they were of good standing, 
had always been considered truthful, were 
sober at the time of the occurrence, and no 
thing ever transpired to discredit their sworn 
account of their extraordinary adventure, con 
cerning the truth of which, nevertheless, pub 
lic opinion was divided, throughout the 
United Kingdom. If they had something to 
conceal, their choice of means is certainly one 
of the most amazing ever made by sane hu 
man beings. 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 421 



CHARLES ASHMORE S TRAIL 



i 



family of Christian Ashmore 
consisted of his wife, his mother, 
two grown daughters, and a son of 
sixteen years. They lived in Troy, 
New York, were well-to-do, respectable 
persons, and had many friends, some of whom, 
reading these lines, will doubtless learn for 
the first time the extraordinary fate of the 
young man. From Troy the Ashmores 
moved in 1871 or 1872 to Richmond, In 
diana, and a year or two later to the vicinity 
of Quincy, Illinois, where Mr. Ashmore 
bought a farm and lived on it. At some little 
distance from the farmhouse was a spring 
with a constant flow of clear, cold water, 
whence the family derived its supply for do 
mestic use at all seasons. 

On the evening of the 9th of November in 
1878, at about nine o clock, young Charles 
Ashmore left the family circle about the 
hearth, took a tin bucket and started toward 
the spring. As he did not return, the family 



422 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

became uneasy, and going to the door by 
which he had left the house, his father 
called without receiving an answer. He then 
lighted a lantern and with the eldest daugh 
ter, Martha, who insisted on accompanying 
him, went in search. A light snow had 
fallen, obliterating the path, but making the 
young man s trail conspicuous; each footprint 
was plainly defined. After going a little 
more than half-way perhaps seventy-five 
yards the father, who was in advance, halted, 
and elevating his lantern stood peering in 
tently into the darkness ahead. 

"What is the matter, father?" the girl 
asked. 

This was the matter: the trail of the young 
man had abruptly ended, and all beyond was 
smooth, unbroken snow. The last footprints 
were as conspicuous as any in the line; the 
very nail-marks were distinctly visible. Mr. 
Ashmore looked upward, shading his eyes 
with his hat held between them and the lan 
tern. The stars were shining; there was not 
a cloud in the sky; he was denied the explana 
tion which had suggested itself, doubtful as it 
would have been a new snowfall with a 
limit so plainly defined. Taking a wide cir 
cuit round the ultimate tracks, so as to leave 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 423 

them undisturbed for further examination, 
the man proceeded to the spring, the girl fol 
lowing, weak and terrified. Neither had 
spoken a word of what both had observed. 
The spring was covered with ice, hours old. 

Returning to the house they noted the ap 
pearance of the snow on both sides of the 
trail its entire length. No tracks led away 
from it. 

The morning light showed nothing more. 
Smooth, spotless, unbroken, the shallow snow 
lay everywhere. 

Four days later the grief-stricken mother 
herself went to the spring for water. She 
came back and related that in passing the 
spot where the footprints had ended she had 
heard the voice of her son and had been 
eagerly calling to him, wandering about the 
place, as she had fancied the voice to be now 
in one direction, now in another, until she 
was exhausted with fatigue and emotion. 
Questioned as to what the voice had said, she 
was unable to tell, yet averred that the words 
were perfectly distinct. In a moment the 
entire family was at the place, but nothing 
was heard, and the voice was believed to be 
an hallucination caused by the mother s great 
anxiety and her disordered nerves. But for 



424 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

months afterward, at irregular intervals of 
a few days, the voice was heard by the sev 
eral members of the family, and by others. 
All declared it unmistakably the voice of 
Charles Ashmore; all agreed that it seemed 
to come from a great distance, faintly, yet 
with entire distinctness of articulation; yet 
none could determine its direction, nor repeat 
its words. The intervals of silence grew 
longer and longer, the voice fainter and 
farther, and by midsummer it was heard no 
more. 

If anybody knows the fate of Charles Ash- 
more it is probably his mother. She is dead. 



SCIENCE TO THE FRONT 

In connection with this subject of "mys 
terious disappearance " of which every 
memory is stored with abundant example 
it is pertinent to note the belief of Dr. Hern, 
of Leipsic; not by way of explanation, unless 
the reader may choose to take it so, but because 
of its intrinsic interest as a singular specula 
tion. This distinguished scientist has ex 
pounded his views in a book entitled " Versch- 
winden und Seine Theorie," which has at- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 425 

tracted some attention, "particularly," says 
one writer, "among the followers of Hegel, 
and mathematicians who hold to the actual 
existence of a so-called non-Euclidean space 
that is to say, of space which has more di 
mensions than length, breadth, and thickness 
space in which it would be possible to tie 
a knot in an endless cord and to turn a rub 
ber ball inside out without a solution of its 
continuity/ or in other words, without break 
ing or cracking it." 

Dr. Hern believes that in the visible world 
there are void places vacua, and something 
more holes, as it were, through which ani 
mate and inanimate objects may fall into the 
invisible world and be seen and heard no 
more. The theory is something like this: 
Space is pervaded by luminiferous ether, 
which is a material thing as much a sub 
stance as air or water, though almost infinitely 
more attenuated. All force, all forms of 
energy must be propagated in this; every pro 
cess must take place in it which takes place at 
all. But let us suppose that cavities exist in 
this otherwise universal medium, as caverns 
exist in the earth, or cells in a Swiss cheese. In 
such a cavity there would be absolutely no 
thing. It would be such a vacuum as cannot 



426 THE COLLECTED WORKS 

be artificially produced; for if we pump the 
air from a receiver there remains the luminif- 
erous ether. Through one of these cavities 
light could not pass, for there would be no 
thing to bear it. Sound could not come from 
it; nothing could be felt in it. It would not 
have a single one of the conditions necessary 
to the action of any of our senses. In such a 
void, in short, nothing whatever could occur. 
Now, in the words of the writer before quoted 
the learned doctor himself nowhere puts 
it so concisely: "A man inclosed in such a 
closet could neither see nor be seen; neither 
hear nor be heard; neither feel nor be felt; 
neither live nor die, for both life and death 
are processes which can take place only where 
there is force, and in empty space no force 
could exist." Are these the awful conditions 
(some will ask) under which the friends of 
the lost are to think of them as existing, and 
doomed forever to exist? 

Baldly and imperfectly as here stated, Dr. 
Hern s theory, in so far as it professes to be 
an adequate explanation of "mysterious dis 
appearances," is open to many obvious objec 
tions; to fewer as he states it himself in the 
"spacious volubility" of his book. But even 
as expounded by its author it does not ex- 



OF AMBROSE BIERCE 427 

plain, and in truth is incompatible with some 
incidents of, the occurrences related in these 
memoranda: for example, the sound of 
Charles Ashmore s voice. It is not my duty 
to indue facts and theories with affinity. 

A. B. 



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