The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (84 page)

CHAPTER II.

THE ALARM.—THE PISTOL SHOT.—THE PURSUIT AND IT
S CONSEQUENCES.

Lights flashed about the building, and various room doors opened; voices called one to the other. There was an universal stir and commotion among the inhabitants.

“Did you hear a scream, Harry?” asked a young man, half-dressed, as he walked into the chamber of another about his own age.

“I did—where was it?”

“God knows. I dressed myself directly.”

“All is still now.”

“Yes; but unless I was dreaming there was a scream.”

“We could not both dream there was. Where did you think it came from?”

“It burst so suddenly upon my ears that I cannot say.”

There was a tap now at the door of the room where these young men were, and a female voice said—

“For God’s sake, get up!”

“We are up,” said both the young men, appearing.

“Did you hear anything?”

“Yes, a scream.”

“Oh, search the house—search the house; where did it come from—can you tell?”

“Indeed we cannot, mother.”

Another person now joined the party. He was a man of middle age, and, as he came up to them, he said—

“Good God! what is the matter?”

Scarcely had the words passed his lips, than such a rapid succession of shrieks came upon their ears, that they felt absolutely stunned by them. The elderly lady, whom one of the young men had called mother, fainted, and would have fallen to the floor of the corridor in which they all stood, had she not been promptly supported by the last comer, who himself staggered, as those piercing cries came upon the night air. He, however, was the first to recover, for the young men seemed paralysed.

“Henry,” he cried, “for God’s sake support your mother. Can you doubt that these cries come from Flora’s room?”

The young man mechanically supported his mother, and then the man who had just spoken darted back to his own bed-room, from whence he returned in a moment with a pair of pistols, and shouting—

“Follow me, who can!” he bounded across the corridor in the direction of the antique apartment, from whence the cries proceeded, but which were now hushed.

That house was built for strength, and the doors were all of oak, and of considerable thickness. Unhappily, they had fastenings within, so that when the man reached the chamber of her who so much required help, he was helpless, for the door was fast.

“Flora! Flora!” he cried; “Flora, speak!”

All was still.

“Good God!” he added; “we must force the door.”

“I hear a strange noise within,” said the young man, who trembled violently.

“And so do I. What does it sound like?”

“I scarcely know; but it nearest resembles some animal eating, or sucking some liquid.”

“What on earth can it be? Have you no weapon that will force the door? I shall go mad if I am kept here.”

“I have,” said the young man. “Wait here a moment.”

He ran down the staircase, and presently returned with a small, but powerful, iron crow-bar.

“This will do,” he said.

“It will, it will.—Give it to me.”

“Has she not spoken?”

“Not a word. My mind misgives me that something very dreadful must have happened to her.”

“And that odd noise!”

“Still goes on. Somehow, it curdles the very blood in my veins to hear it.”

The man took the crow-bar, and with some difficulty succeeded in introducing it between the door and the side of the wall—still it required great strength to move it, but it did move, with a harsh, crackling sound.

“Push it!” cried he who was using the bar, “push the door at the same time.”

The younger man did so. For a few moments the massive door resisted. Then, suddenly, something gave way with a loud snap—it was a part of the lock—and the door at once swung wide open.

How true it is that we measure time by the events which happen within a given space of it, rather than by its actual duration.

To those who were engaged in forcing open the door of the antique chamber, where slept the young girl whom they named Flora, each moment was swelled into an hour of agony; but, in reality, from the first moment of the alarm to that when the loud cracking noise heralded the destruction of the fastenings of the door, there had elapsed but very few minutes indeed.

“It opens—it opens,” cried the young man.

“Another moment,” said the stranger, as he still plied the crowbar—“another moment, and we shall have free ingress to the chamber. Be patient.”

This stranger’s name was Marchdale; and even as he spoke, he succeeded in throwing the massive door wide open, and clearing the passage to the chamber.

To rush in with a light in his hand was the work of a moment to the young man named Henry; but the very rapid progress he made into the apartment prevented him from observing accurately what it contained, for the wind that came in from the open window caught the flame of the candle, and although it did not actually extinguish it, it blew it so much on one side, that it was comparatively useless as a light.

“Flora—Flora!” he cried.

Then with a sudden bound something dashed from off the bed. The concussion against him was so sudden and so utterly unexpected, as well as so tremendously violent, that he was thrown down, and, in his fall, the light was fairly extinguished.

All was darkness, save a dull, reddish kind of light that now and then, from the nearly consumed mill in the immediate vicinity, came into the room. But by that light, dim, uncertain, and flickering as it was, some one was seen to make for the window.

Henry, although nearly stunned by his fall, saw a figure, gigantic in height, which nearly reached from the floor to the ceiling. The other young man, George, saw it, and Mr. Marchdale likewise saw it, as did the lady who had spoken to the two young men in the corridor when first the screams of the young girl awakened alarm in the breasts of all the inhabitants of that house.

The figure was about to pass out at the window which led to a kind of balcony, from whence there was an easy descent to a garden.

Before it passed out they each and all caught a glance of the side-face, and they saw that the lower part of it and the lips were dabbled in blood. They saw, too, one of those fearful-looking, shining, metallic eyes which presented so terrible an appearance of unearthly ferocity.

No wonder that for a moment a panic seized them all, which paralysed any exertions they might otherwise have made to detain that hideous form.

But Mr. Marchdale was a man of mature years; he had seen much of life, both in this and in foreign lands; and he, although astonished to the extent of being frightened, was much more likely to recover sooner than his younger companions, which, indeed, he did, and acted promptly enough.

“Don’t rise, Henry,” he cried. “Lie still.”

Almost at the moment he uttered these words, he fired at the figure, which then occupied the window, as if it were a gigantic figure set in a frame.

The report was tremendous in that chamber, for the pistol was no toy weapon, but one made for actual service, and of sufficient length and bore of barrel to carry destruction along with the bullets that came from it.

“If that has missed its aim,” said Mr. Marchdale, “I’ll never pull a trigger again.”

As he spoke he dashed forward, and made a clutch at the figure he felt convinced he had shot.

The tall form turned upon him, and when he got a full view of the face, which he did at that moment, from the opportune circumstance of the lady returning at the instant with a light she had been to her own chamber to procure, even he, Marchdale, with all his courage, and that was great, and all his nervous energy, recoiled a step or two, and uttered the exclamation of, “Great God!”

That face was one never to be forgotten. It was hideously flushed with colour—the colour of fresh blood; the eyes had a savage and remarkable lustre; whereas, before, they had looked like polished tin—they now wore a ten times brighter aspect, and flashes of light seemed to dart from them. The mouth was open, as if, from the natural formation of the countenance, the lips receded much from the large canine looking teeth.

A strange howling noise came from the throat of this monstrous figure, and it seemed upon the point of rushing upon Mr. Marchdale. Suddenly, then, as if some impulse had seized upon it, it uttered a wild and terrible shrieking kind of laugh; and then turning, dashed through the window, and in one instant disappeared from before the eyes of those who felt nearly annihilated by its fearful presence.

“God help us!” ejaculated Henry.

Mr. Marchdale drew a long breath, and then, giving a stamp on the floor, as if to recover himself from the state of agitation into which even he was thrown, he cried—

“Be it what or who it may, I’ll follow it”

“No—no—do not,” cried the lady.

“I must, I will. Let who will come with me—I follow that dreadful form.”

As he spoke, he took the road it took, and dashed through the window into the balcony.

“And we, too, George,” exclaimed Henry; “we will follow Mr. Marchdale. This dreadful affair concerns us more nearly than it does him.”

The lady who was the mother of these young men, and of the beautiful girl who had been so awfully visited, screamed aloud, and implored of them to stay. But the voice of Mr. Marchdale was heard exclaiming aloud—

“I see it—I see it; it makes for the wall.”

They hesitated no longer, but at once rushed into the balcony, and from thence dropped into the garden.

The mother approached the bed-side of the insensible, perhaps the murdered girl; she saw her, to all appearance, weltering in blood, and, overcome by her emotions, she fainted on the floor of the room.

When the two young men reached the garden, they found it much lighter than might have been fairly expected; for not only was the morning rapidly approaching, but the mill was still burning, and those mingled lights made almost every object plainly visible, except when deep shadows were thrown from some gigantic trees that had stood for centuries in that sweetly wooded spot. They heard the voice of Mr. Marchdale, as he cried—

“There—there—towards the wall. There—there—God! how it bounds along.”

The young men hastily dashed through a thicket in the direction from whence his voice sounded, and then they found him looking wild and terrified, and with something in his hand which looked like a portion of clothing.

“Which way, which way?” they both cried in a breath.

He leant heavily on the arm of George, as he pointed along a vista of trees, and said in a low voice—

“God help us all. It is not human. Look there—look there—do you not see it?”

They looked in the direction he indicated. At the end of this vista was the wall of the garden. At that point it was full twelve feet in height, and as they looked, they saw the hideous, monstrous form they had traced from the chamber of their sister, making frantic efforts to clear the obstacle.

Then they saw it bound from the ground to the top of the wall, which it very nearly reached, and then each time it fell back again into the garden with such a dull, heavy sound, that the earth seemed to shake again with the concussion. They trembled—well indeed they might, and for some minutes they watched the figure making its fruitless efforts to leave the place.

“What—what is it?” whispered Henry, in hoarse accents. “God, what can it possibly be?”

“I know not,” replied Mr. Marchdale. “I did seize it. It was cold and clammy like a corpse. It cannot be human.”

“Not human?”

“Look at it now. It will surely escape now.”

“No, no—we will not be terrified thus—there is Heaven above us. Come on, and, for dear Flora’s sake, let us make an effort yet to seize this bold intruder.”

“Take this pistol,” said Marchdale. “It is the fellow of the one I fired. Try its efficacy.”

“He will be gone,” exclaimed Henry, as at this moment, after many repeated attempts and fearful falls, the figure reached the top of the wall, and then hung by its long arms a moment or two, previous to dragging itself completely up.

The idea of the appearance, be it what it might, entirely escaping, seemed to nerve again Mr. Marchdale, and he, as well as the two young men, ran forward towards the wall. They got so close to the figure before it sprang down on the outer side of the wall, that to miss killing it with the bullet from the pistol was a matter of utter impossibility, unless wilfully.

Henry had the weapon, and he pointed it full at the tall form with a steady aim. He pulled the trigger—the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the wall on the outside.

“I have shot him,” cried Henry, “I have shot him.”

CHAPTER III.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY.—FLORA’S RECOVERY AND MADNESS.—THE OFFER OF ASSISTAN
CE FROM SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

“He is human!” cried Henry; “I have surely killed him.”

“It would seem so,” said Mr. Marchdale. “Let us now hurry round to the outside of the wall, and see where he lies.”

This was at once agreed to, and the whole three of them made what expedition they could towards a gate which led into a paddock, across which they hurried, and soon found themselves clear of the garden wall, so that they could make way towards where they fully expected to find the body of him who had worn so unearthly an aspect, but who it would be an excessive relief to find was human.

So hurried was the progress they made, that it was scarcely possible to exchange many words as they went; a kind of breathless anxiety was upon them, and in the speed they disregarded every obstacle, which would, at any other time, have probably prevented them from taking the direct road they sought.

It was difficult on the outside of the wall to say exactly which was the precise spot which it might be supposed the body had fallen on; but, by following the wall in its entire length, surely they would come upon it.

They did so; but, to their surprise, they got from its commencement to its further extremity without finding any dead body, or even any symptoms of one having lain there.