As I entered that chamber, the fetid odor which I had noticed in the
passage seemed to overwhelm us. It washed around us in a nauseating
wave and we all gasped for breath. The Factor spoke between coughs. "It will subside in a minute or two. Stand near the aperture." Although the reek remained repellently strong, we could at length
breathe more freely. William Cowath lifted his torch and peered into the black depths of the
chamber. Fearfully, I gazed around his shoulder. There was no sound and at first I could see nothing but nitre-encrusted
walls and wet stone floor. Presently, however, in a far corner, just
beyond the flickering halo of the faggot torch, I saw two tiny fiery
spots of red. I tried to convince myself that they were two red jewels,
two rubies, shining in the torchlight. But I knew at once--I _felt_ at once--what they were. They were two red
eyes and they were watching us with a fierce unwavering stare. The Factor spoke softly. "Wait here." He crossed toward the corner, stopped halfway and held out his torch
at arm's length. For a moment he was silent. Finally he emitted a long
shuddering sigh. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. It was only a sepulchral
whisper. "Come forward," he told us in that strange hollow voice. I followed Earl Frederick until we stood at either side of the Factor. When I saw what crouched on a stone bench in that far corner, I felt
sure that I would faint. My heart literally stopped beating for
perceptible seconds. The blood left my extremities; I reeled with
dizziness. I might have cried out, but my throat would not open. The entity which rested on that stone bench was like something that had
crawled up out of hell. Piercing malignant red eyes proclaimed that
it had a terrible life, and yet that life sustained itself in a black,
shrunken half-mummified body which resembled a disinterred corpse. A
few mouldy rags clung to the cadaver-like frame. Wisps of white hair
sprouted out of its ghastly grey-white skull. A red smear or blotch of
some sort covered the wizened slit which served it as a mouth. It surveyed us with a malignancy which was beyond anything merely
human. It was impossible to stare back into those monstrous red eyes. They were so inexpressibly evil, one felt that one's soul would be
consumed in the fires of their malevolence. Glancing aside, I saw that the Factor was now supporting Earl
Frederick. The young heir had sagged against him. The Earl stared
fixedly at the fearful apparition with terror-glazed eyes. In spite of
my own sense of horror, I pitied him. The Factor sighed again and then he spoke once more in that low
sepulchral voice. "You see before you," he told us, "Lady Susan Glanville. She was
carried into this chamber and fettered to the wall in 1473." A thrill of horror coursed through me; I felt that we were in the
presence of malign forces from the Pit itself. To me the hideous thing had appeared sexless, but at the sound of its
name, the ghastly mockery of a grin contorted the puckered red-smeared
mouth. I noticed now for the first time that monster actually was secured to
the wall. The great double shackles were so blackened with age, I had
not noticed them before. The Factor went on, as if he spoke by rote. "Lady Glanville was a
maternal ancestor of the Chilton-Paynes. She had commerce with the
Devil. She was condemned as a witch but escaped the stake. Finally her
own people forcibly overcame her. She was brought in here, fettered and
left to die." He was silent a moment and then continued. "It was too late. She had
already made a pact with the Powers of Darkness. It was an unspeakably
evil thing and it has condemned her issue to a life of torment and
nightmare, a lifetime of terror and dread." He swung his torch toward the blackened red-eyed thing. "She was a
beauty once. She hated death. She feared death. And so she finally
bartered her own immortal soul--and the bodies of her issue--for
eternal earthly life." I heard his voice as in a nightmare; it seemed to be coming from an
infinite distance. He went on. "The consequences of breaking the pact are too terrible to
describe. No descendant of hers has ever dared do so, once the forfeit
is known. And so she had bided here for these nearly five hundred
years." I had thought he was finished, but he resumed. Glancing upward, he
lifted his torch toward the roof of that accursed chamber. "This room,"
he said, "lies directly underneath the family vaults. Upon the death
of the male Earl, the body is ostensibly left in the vaults. When the
mourners have gone, however, the false bottom of the vault is thrust
aside and the body of the Earl is lowered into this room." Looking up, I saw the square rectangle of a trap door above. The Factor's voice now became barely audible. "Once every generation
Lady Glanville feeds--on the corpse of the deceased Earl. It is a
provision of that unspeakable pact which cannot be broken." I knew now--with a sense of horror utterly beyond description--whence
came that red smear on the repulsive mouth of the creature before us. As if to confirm his words, the Factor lowered his torch until its
flame illuminated the floor at the foot of the stone bench where the
vampiric monster was fettered. Strewn about the floor were the scattered bones and skull of an adult
male, red with fresh blood. And at some distance were other human
bones, brown and crumbling with age. At this point young Earl Frederick began to scream. His shrill
hysterical cries filled the chamber. Although the Factor shook him
roughly, his terrible shrieks continued, terror-filled, nerve-shaking. For moments the corpse-like thing on the bench watched him with its
frightful red eyes. It uttered sound finally, a kind of animal squeal
which might have been intended as laughter. Abruptly then, and without any warning, it slid from the bench and
lunged toward the young Earl. The blackened shackles which fettered it
to the wall permitted it to advance only a yard or two. It was pulled
back sharply; yet it lunged again and again, squealing with a kind of
hellish glee which stirred the hair on my head. William Cowath thrust his torch toward the monster, but it continued to
lunge at the end of its fetters. The nightmare room resounded with the
Earl's screams and the creature's horrible squeals of bestial laughter. I felt that my own mind would give way unless I escaped from that
anteroom of hell. For the first time during an ordeal which would have sent any lesser
man fleeing for his life and sanity, the iron control of the Factor
appeared to be shaken. He looked beyond the wild lunging thing toward
the wall where the fetters were fastened. I sensed what was in his mind. Would those fastenings hold, after all
these centuries of rust and dampness? On a sudden resolve he reached into an inner pocket and drew out
something which glittered in the torchlight. It was a silver crucifix.