And so she had dropped into the
workhouse, from which Mr. J---- had taken her, to be placed in charge
of the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first year
of her wedded life. Mr. J---- added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished
room which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of
dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen
anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors
removed as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and
would commence any day I would name. The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house,--we
went into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the
floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a
trap-door, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed
down, with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descended
into a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected. In
this room there had been a window and a flue, but they had been
bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we
examined this place; it still retained some mouldering
furniture,--three chairs, an oak settle, a table,--all of the fashion
of about eighty years ago. There was a chest of drawers against the
wall, in which we found, half-rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a
man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years
ago by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons,
like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword; in a
waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was now
blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver
coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment
long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron
safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble to
get picked. In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the
shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colorless, volatile essences, of the nature of which I
shall only say that they were not poisons,--phosphor and ammonia
entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass
tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of
rock-crystal, and another of amber,--also a loadstone of great power. In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and
retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the
length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a
man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven
or forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,--a most impressive face. If
you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving
in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better
idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width
and flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguising
the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye,
glittering and green as the emerald,--and withal a certain ruthless
calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power. Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,
and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle
a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date
1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on
being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Within-side
the lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and in
death to ----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it
was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my
childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made a
great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country
on the charge of a double murder within his own house,--that of his
mistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whom
reluctantly I resigned the miniature. We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron
safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not
locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks
the edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a very
singular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small, thin book, or
rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled
with a clear liquid,--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a
needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a
compass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by
astrologers to denote the planets. A peculiar but not strong nor
displeasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood
that we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this
odor, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it,
even the two workmen who were in the room,--a creeping, tingling
sensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair. Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so the
needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness,
and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped
the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilled; the saucer was
broken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant
the walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them. The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by
which we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing more
happened, they were easily induced to return. Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather,
with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and
on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old
monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all that
it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or
dead, as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, and
restless be the dwellers therein." We found no more. Mr. J---- burned the tablet and its anathema. He
razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the
secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to
inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter,
better-conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no
complaints. THE END.