The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0151/01512.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 14KB | 246 lines

$Unique_ID{bob01512}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Sketches, Old And New
A Ghost Story}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{heard
away
light
am
bed
place
felt
once
till
body}
$Date{1893}
$Log{}
Title:       Sketches, Old And New
Book:        A Ghost Story
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1893

A Ghost Story

     I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper
stories had been wholly unoccupied for years, until I came.  The place had
long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed
groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night
I climbed up to my quarters.  For the first time in my life a superstitious
dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an
invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered
as one who had encountered a phantom.

     I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mould and the
darkness.  A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it
with a comforting sense of relief.  For two hours I sat there, thinking of
bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half- forgotten faces out of
the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew
silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now.  And as
my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the
winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the
panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street
subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away
in the distance and left no sound behind.

     The fire had burned low.  A sense of loneliness crept over me.  I arose
and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to
do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be
fatal to break.  I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind
and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep.

     I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know.  All at once I found
myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy.  All was still.  All
but my own heart - I could hear it beat.  Presently the bed clothes began to
slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them!
I could not stir; I could not speak.  Still the blankets slipped deliberately
away, till my breast was uncovered.  Then with a great effort I seized them
and drew them over my head.  I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady
pull began, and once more I lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my
breast was naked again.  At last I roused my energies and snatched the covers
back to their place and held them with a strong grip.  I waited.  By and bye I
felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip.  The tug strengthened to a steady
strain - it grew stronger and stronger.  My hold parted, and for the third
time the blankets slid away. I groaned.  An answering groan came from the foot
of the bed!  Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead.  I was more dead
than alive.  Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room - the step of an
elephant, it seemed to me - it was not like anything human.  But it was moving
from me - there was relief in that.  I heard it approach the door - pass out
without moving bolt or lock - and wander away among the dismal corridors,
straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it passed - and
then silence reigned once more.

     When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, "This is a dream -
simply a hideous dream." And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced
myself that it was a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I
was happy again.  I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the locks
and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laugh welled in my
heart and rippled from my lips.  I took my pipe and lit it, and was just
sitting down before the fire, when - down went the pipe out of my nerveless
fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing was cut short
with a gasp!  In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare
footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant's!
Then I had had a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained.

     I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear.  I lay a long
time, peering into the darkness, and listening.  Then I heard a grating noise
overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then the
throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the
concussion.  In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of
doors.  I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among
the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached
my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the clanking of chains
faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer -
while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus
of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the
goblin that bore it advanced.  I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered
screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments,
the rush of invisible wings.  Then I became conscious that my chamber was
invaded - that I was not alone.  I heard sighs and breathings about my bed,
and mysterious whisperings.  Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light
appeared on the ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a
moment, and then dropped - two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow.
They spattered, liquidly, and felt warm.  Intuition told me they had turned to
gouts of blood as they fell - I needed no light to satisfy myself of that.
Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating
bodiless in the air, - floating a moment and then disappearing.  The
whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, and a solemn stillness
followed.  I waited, and listened.  I felt that I must have light, or die. I
was weak with fear.  I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my
face came in contact with a clammy hand!  All strength went from me,
apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid.  Then I heard the rustle
of a garment - it seemed to pass to the door and go out.

     When everything was still once more, I crept out of bed, sick and feeble,
and lit the gas with a hand that trembled as if it were aged with a hundred
years.  The light brought some little cheer to my spirits.  I sat down and
fell into a dreamy contemplation of that great footprint in the ashes.  By and
bye its outlines began to waver and grow dim.  I glanced up and the broad gas
flame was slowly wilting away.  In the same moment I heard that elephantine
tread again.  I noted its approach, nearer and nearer, along the musty halls,
and dimmer and dimmer the light waned.  The tread reached my very door and
paused - the light had dwindled to a sickly blue, and all things about me lay
in a spectral twilight.  The door did not open, and yet I felt a faint gust of
air fan my cheek, and presently was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence
before me.  I watched it with fascinated eyes.  A pale glow stole over the
Thing; gradually its cloudy folds took shape - an arm appeared, then legs,
then a body, and last a great sad face looked out of the vapor.  Stripped of
its filmy housings, naked, muscular and comely, the majestic Cardiff Giant
loomed above me!

     All my misery vanished - for a child might know that no harm could come
with that benignant countenance.  My cheerful spirits returned at once, and in
sympathy with them the gas flamed up brightly again.  Never a lonely outcast
was so glad to welcome company as I was to greet the friendly giant.  I said:

     "Why, is it nobody but you!  Do you know, I have been scared to death for