September 3, 2025 • 19 mins
Immerse yourself in a chilling collection of eerie tales carefully selected from the vast library of Project Gutenberg, brought to life through the captivating narration of BellonaTimes.
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Section two of the p D goth Collection. This is
a LibriVox recording. All libyvox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit liberyvox dot org.
Recording by Algaepug The Night Doings at Deadman's a story
(00:21):
that is untrue by Ambrose Biers. 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. The night was bright enough to bite
(00:41):
like a serpent. The moon was moving mysteriously along behind
the giant pines crowding 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 no had piled itself
in the open spaces along the bottom of the gulch,
(01:04):
into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills
that appeared to toss and scatter spray. The spray was
sunlight twice reflected dashed once from the moon, once from
the snow. In this snow. Many of the shanties of
the abandoned mining camp were obliterated. A sailor might have
said they had gone down, and at irregular intervals it
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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 a privilege of speaking Latin. He says
of his dead neighbour, he has gone up the flume.
This is not a bad way to say. His life
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has returned to the fountain of life. While putting on
its armour against the assaults of the wind, this snow
had neglected no coin of vantage. Snow pursued by the
wind is not wholly Unlike a retreating army in the
open field. It ranges itself into ranks and battalions where
it can get a foothold. It makes a stand where
(02:10):
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 desolate and dreary spot than Deadman's gulch in a
(02:32):
winter midnight. It is impossible to imagine, yet mister Haram
Beeson elected to live there, the sole inhabitant. Away up
the side of the North Mountain, his little pine log
shanty projected from its single 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
(02:54):
pin within it. Sat mister 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.
(03:18):
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
Bentley's Flat and a new and enterprising coroner at Sonora,
poverty and zeal are an upper and a nether millstone.
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It is dangerous to make a third in that kind
of sandwich. As mister Beeson sat there, with his ragged
elbows on his ragged knees, his lean jaws buried in
his lean hands, and with no apparent intention of going
to bed, he looked as if the slightest movement would
tumble him to pieces. Yet during the last hour he
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had winked no fewer than three times. There was a
sharp rapping at the door. A 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 seeing a human face, and could not fail to
know that the country was impassable. But mister Beeson did
not so much as pull his eyes out of the coals,
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And even when the door was pushed open, he only
shrugged a little more closely into himself, as one does
who is expecting something that he would rather not see.
He may observe this movement in women when in a
mortuary chapel the coffin is borne up the aisle behind them,
But when a long old man in a blanket overcoat
his head tied up in a handkerchief, and nearly his
(04:46):
entire face in a muffler. Wearing green goggles and with
a complexion of glittering whiteness where it could be seen,
strode silently into the room, laying a hard gloved hand
on mister Beeson's shoulder. The latter so far forgot himself
as to look up with an appearance of no small astonishment.
Whom ever he may have been expecting, he had evidently
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not counted on meeting any one like this. Nevertheless, the
sight of this unexpected guest produced in mister Beeson the
following sequence a feeling of astonishment, a sense of gratification,
a sentiment of profound good will. Rising from his seat,
he took the knotty hand from his shoulder and shook
it up and down with a fervor quite unaccountable for.
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In the old man's aspect, was nothing to attract, much
to repel. However, attraction is too general a property for
repulsion to be without it. The most attractive object 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 mister Beeson, releasing
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the old man's hand, which fell passively against his thigh
with a quiet clack. It is an extremely disagreeable nigh.
Pray be seated. I am very glad to see you.
Mister Beeson spoke with an easy, good breeding that one
would hardly have expected, considering all things. Indeed, the contrast
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between his appearance and his manner were sufficiently surprising to
be one of the commonest of the social phenomena in
the mines. The old man advanced a step toward the fire,
glowing cavernously in the green goggles. Mister Beeson resumed, You
bet your life I am. Mister Beeson's elegance was not
too refined. It had made reasonable concessions to local taste.
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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 appeared satisfied. Who would not
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have been? Then he continued a cheer archanafay unfortunately is
in keeping with my surroundings. But I shall steam 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, mister Beeson spoke as if a
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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
(07:40):
I think you better ski daddle. The old man took
a seat by the fire, spreading his broad souls to
the heat, without removing his hat. In the minds, the
hat is seldom removed, except when the boots are Without
further remark, mister Beeson also seated himself in a chair
which had been a barrel, and which, retaining much to
its original character, seemed to have been designed with a
(08:03):
view to preserving his dust. If it should please him
to crumble for a moment, there was a 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 between the two incidents than
that the coyote has an aversion to storms, and the
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wind was rising. Yet there seemed somehow a kind of
supernatural conspiracy between the two. A mister 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
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worst of the way, as far as where Baldy Peterson
shot Ben Hark. I dare say you know the place?
The old man nodded emphatically, as intimating not merely that
he did, but that he did. Indeed, two years ago
began mister Beeson, ah with two companions occupied this house.
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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
(09:29):
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 before putting him down, I had the extremely bad
taste to cut up his pig tail and spike it
to that beam above his grave, where you may see
(09:50):
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 returned through
no irresistible retraction or morbid fascination, but only because I
had forgotten a pestle. That is clear to you, is
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it not, sir? The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared to
be a man of few words, if any. Mister Beeson continued,
According to the Chinese faith, a man is like a kite.
He cannot go to heaven without a tail. Well to
shorten his tedious story, which, however, I thought it my
duty to relate on that night, while I was here
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alone and thinking of anything but him, that chinaman came
back for his pigtail. He did not get it. At
this point, mister 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
(10:59):
the mountain side see with singular distinctness, the narrator continued.
You say you did 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 mister
Beeson broke out, almost fiercely, fixing his eyes on what
(11:21):
he could see of the impassive face of his auditor.
Give it, am sir, in this matter, I have no
intention of traveling anyone for advice. You will pardon me.
I am sure here he became singularly persuasive, But I
have ventured to nail a pig tail fast and have
assumed the somewhat onerous obligation of guarding it. So it
(11:43):
isn't quite impossible to act on your considerate suggestion, Do
you play me for a mardach? Nothing could exceed the
sudden ferocity with which he thrust this indignant remonstrance 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
(12:05):
played for a monoc These two expressions are one. Sometimes
it is a chinaman. Do you play me for a chinaman?
Is a question frequently addressed to the ear of the
suddenly dead. Mister Beeson's buffet produced no effect, and after
a moment's pause, during which the wind thundered in the
chimney like the sound of cloths upon a coffin, he resumed.
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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.
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It was very tough to cut. They breed silk into
their pig tails. Wlah. Mister 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
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are swiping my dust. Then the aged stranger, who had
not uttered one word since his arrival, arose from his
seat and deliberately laid off his outer clothing, looking as
angular in his flannels as a late Signorina Festorazzi, an
irishwoman six feet in height and weighing fifty six pounds
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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,
according to the custom of the country. This revolver he
took from a shelf, and it was the one which
mister Beeson had mentioned as that for which he had
returned to the gulch two years before. In a few
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moments mister Beeson awoke, and seeing that his guest had retired,
he did likewise, But before doing so, he approached the
long plaid whisper of pagan hair and gave it 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
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square little trap door that had given access 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, mister Beeson had not disdained the
use of material precautions. The fire was now low, the
flames burning bluely and petulantly, with occasional flashes, projecting spectral
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shadows on the walls, shadows that moved mysteriously about, now dividing,
now uniting. The shadow of the pendent que, 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 dignity
of a triumph hymn. In the pauses, the silence was dreadful.
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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
spikes pointing threateningly upward. Mister Beeson awoke, and without rising,
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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 moment, obscuring everything.
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When the firelight again illuminated the room, there was scene
sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the
hearth side, a swarthy little man of prepossessing appearance and
dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the old man with
a friendly and engaging smile. From San Francisco, evidently thought
mister Beeson, who, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was
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graping 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 cure above with a look of yearning unspeakable. Mister
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Beeson groaned and again spread his hands upon his face.
A mild odor of opium pervaded the place. The 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,
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like the silent leaping of a flame, it grasped the
cue with both hands, drew up its body, and took
the tip in its horrible yellow teeth. To this it
clung in a seeming frenzy, grimacing, ghastly, surging and plunging
from side to side in its efforts to disengage its
property from the beam, but uttering no sound. It was
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like a corpse artificially convulsed by means of a galvanic battery.
The contrast between its superhuman activity and its silence was
no less than hideous. Mister Beeson cowed 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
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laid hold of the revolver bang, like a body cut
from the gallows. The chinaman plumped into the black hole below,
carrying his tail in his teeth. The trap door turned over,
shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from
santra'si sco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in
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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 darkness. 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
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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 Beason stretched upon a bunk with a bullet
hole through the heart. The ball had evidently been fired
from the opposite side of the room, for in one
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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 the end of
a rope of braided horsehead, 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
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incongruous clothing, several articles of which were afterward identified by
respectable witnesses as those in which certain deceased citizens of
Dead Men's had been buried years before. But it is
not easy to understand how that could be, unless indeed
the garments had been worn as a disguise by Death himself,
which is hardly credible. End of the night doings are
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Deadmond's by Ambrose Biers
Section two of the p D goth Collection. This is
a LibriVox recording. All libyvox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit liberyvox dot org.
Recording by Algaepug The Night Doings at Deadman's a story
(00:21):
that is untrue by Ambrose Biers. 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. The night was bright enough to bite
(00:41):
like a serpent. The moon was moving mysteriously along behind
the giant pines crowding 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 no had piled itself
in the open spaces along the bottom of the gulch,
(01:04):
into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills
that appeared to toss and scatter spray. The spray was
sunlight twice reflected dashed once from the moon, once from
the snow. In this snow. Many of the shanties of
the abandoned mining camp were obliterated. A sailor might have
said they had gone down, and at irregular intervals it
(01:27):
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 a privilege of speaking Latin. He says
of his dead neighbour, he has gone up the flume.
This is not a bad way to say. His life
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has returned to the fountain of life. While putting on
its armour against the assaults of the wind, this snow
had neglected no coin of vantage. Snow pursued by the
wind is not wholly Unlike a retreating army in the
open field. It ranges itself into ranks and battalions where
it can get a foothold. It makes a stand where
(02:10):
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 desolate and dreary spot than Deadman's gulch in a
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winter midnight. It is impossible to imagine, yet mister Haram
Beeson elected to live there, the sole inhabitant. Away up
the side of the North Mountain, his little pine log
shanty projected from its single 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
(02:54):
pin within it. Sat mister 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.
(03:18):
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
Bentley's Flat and a new and enterprising coroner at Sonora,
poverty and zeal are an upper and a nether millstone.
(03:41):
It is dangerous to make a third in that kind
of sandwich. As mister Beeson sat there, with his ragged
elbows on his ragged knees, his lean jaws buried in
his lean hands, and with no apparent intention of going
to bed, he looked as if the slightest movement would
tumble him to pieces. Yet during the last hour he
(04:02):
had winked no fewer than three times. There was a
sharp rapping at the door. A 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 seeing a human face, and could not fail to
know that the country was impassable. But mister Beeson did
not so much as pull his eyes out of the coals,
(04:24):
And even when the door was pushed open, he only
shrugged a little more closely into himself, as one does
who is expecting something that he would rather not see.
He may observe this movement in women when in a
mortuary chapel the coffin is borne up the aisle behind them,
But when a long old man in a blanket overcoat
his head tied up in a handkerchief, and nearly his
(04:46):
entire face in a muffler. Wearing green goggles and with
a complexion of glittering whiteness where it could be seen,
strode silently into the room, laying a hard gloved hand
on mister Beeson's shoulder. The latter so far forgot himself
as to look up with an appearance of no small astonishment.
Whom ever he may have been expecting, he had evidently
(05:08):
not counted on meeting any one like this. Nevertheless, the
sight of this unexpected guest produced in mister Beeson the
following sequence a feeling of astonishment, a sense of gratification,
a sentiment of profound good will. Rising from his seat,
he took the knotty hand from his shoulder and shook
it up and down with a fervor quite unaccountable for.
(05:31):
In the old man's aspect, was nothing to attract, much
to repel. However, attraction is too general a property for
repulsion to be without it. The most attractive object 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 mister Beeson, releasing
(05:54):
the old man's hand, which fell passively against his thigh
with a quiet clack. It is an extremely disagreeable nigh.
Pray be seated. I am very glad to see you.
Mister Beeson spoke with an easy, good breeding that one
would hardly have expected, considering all things. Indeed, the contrast
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between his appearance and his manner were sufficiently surprising to
be one of the commonest of the social phenomena in
the mines. The old man advanced a step toward the fire,
glowing cavernously in the green goggles. Mister Beeson resumed, You
bet your life I am. Mister Beeson's elegance was not
too refined. It had made reasonable concessions to local taste.
(06:38):
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 appeared satisfied. Who would not
(06:58):
have been? Then he continued a cheer archanafay unfortunately is
in keeping with my surroundings. But I shall steam 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, mister Beeson spoke as if a
(07:19):
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
(07:40):
I think you better ski daddle. The old man took
a seat by the fire, spreading his broad souls to
the heat, without removing his hat. In the minds, the
hat is seldom removed, except when the boots are Without
further remark, mister Beeson also seated himself in a chair
which had been a barrel, and which, retaining much to
its original character, seemed to have been designed with a
(08:03):
view to preserving his dust. If it should please him
to crumble for a moment, there was a 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 between the two incidents than
that the coyote has an aversion to storms, and the
(08:23):
wind was rising. Yet there seemed somehow a kind of
supernatural conspiracy between the two. A mister 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
(08:44):
worst of the way, as far as where Baldy Peterson
shot Ben Hark. I dare say you know the place?
The old man nodded emphatically, as intimating not merely that
he did, but that he did. Indeed, two years ago
began mister Beeson, ah with two companions occupied this house.
(09:05):
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
(09:29):
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 before putting him down, I had the extremely bad
taste to cut up his pig tail and spike it
to that beam above his grave, where you may see
(09:50):
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 returned through
no irresistible retraction or morbid fascination, but only because I
had forgotten a pestle. That is clear to you, is
(10:13):
it not, sir? The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared to
be a man of few words, if any. Mister Beeson continued,
According to the Chinese faith, a man is like a kite.
He cannot go to heaven without a tail. Well to
shorten his tedious story, which, however, I thought it my
duty to relate on that night, while I was here
(10:36):
alone and thinking of anything but him, that chinaman came
back for his pigtail. He did not get it. At
this point, mister 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
(10:59):
the mountain side see with singular distinctness, the narrator continued.
You say you did 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 mister
Beeson broke out, almost fiercely, fixing his eyes on what
(11:21):
he could see of the impassive face of his auditor.
Give it, am sir, in this matter, I have no
intention of traveling anyone for advice. You will pardon me.
I am sure here he became singularly persuasive, But I
have ventured to nail a pig tail fast and have
assumed the somewhat onerous obligation of guarding it. So it
(11:43):
isn't quite impossible to act on your considerate suggestion, Do
you play me for a mardach? Nothing could exceed the
sudden ferocity with which he thrust this indignant remonstrance 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
(12:05):
played for a monoc These two expressions are one. Sometimes
it is a chinaman. Do you play me for a chinaman?
Is a question frequently addressed to the ear of the
suddenly dead. Mister Beeson's buffet produced no effect, and after
a moment's pause, during which the wind thundered in the
chimney like the sound of cloths upon a coffin, he resumed.
(12:28):
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.
(12:50):
It was very tough to cut. They breed silk into
their pig tails. Wlah. Mister 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
(13:11):
are swiping my dust. Then the aged stranger, who had
not uttered one word since his arrival, arose from his
seat and deliberately laid off his outer clothing, looking as
angular in his flannels as a late Signorina Festorazzi, an
irishwoman six feet in height and weighing fifty six pounds
(13:32):
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,
according to the custom of the country. This revolver he
took from a shelf, and it was the one which
mister Beeson had mentioned as that for which he had
returned to the gulch two years before. In a few
(13:53):
moments mister Beeson awoke, and seeing that his guest had retired,
he did likewise, But before doing so, he approached the
long plaid whisper of pagan hair and gave it 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
(14:16):
square little trap door that had given access 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, mister Beeson had not disdained the
use of material precautions. The fire was now low, the
flames burning bluely and petulantly, with occasional flashes, projecting spectral
(14:40):
shadows on the walls, shadows that moved mysteriously about, now dividing,
now uniting. The shadow of the pendent que, 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 dignity
of a triumph hymn. In the pauses, the silence was dreadful.
(15:05):
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
spikes pointing threateningly upward. Mister Beeson awoke, and without rising,
(15:28):
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 moment, obscuring everything.
(15:50):
When the firelight again illuminated the room, there was scene
sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the
hearth side, a swarthy little man of prepossessing appearance and
dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the old man with
a friendly and engaging smile. From San Francisco, evidently thought
mister Beeson, who, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was
(16:13):
graping 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 cure above with a look of yearning unspeakable. Mister
(16:34):
Beeson groaned and again spread his hands upon his face.
A mild odor of opium pervaded the place. The 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,
(16:56):
like the silent leaping of a flame, it grasped the
cue with both hands, drew up its body, and took
the tip in its horrible yellow teeth. To this it
clung in a seeming frenzy, grimacing, ghastly, surging and plunging
from side to side in its efforts to disengage its
property from the beam, but uttering no sound. It was
(17:18):
like a corpse artificially convulsed by means of a galvanic battery.
The contrast between its superhuman activity and its silence was
no less than hideous. Mister Beeson cowed 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
(17:41):
laid hold of the revolver bang, like a body cut
from the gallows. The chinaman plumped into the black hole below,
carrying his tail in his teeth. The trap door turned over,
shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from
santra'si sco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in
(18:03):
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 darkness. 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
(18:24):
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 Beason stretched upon a bunk with a bullet
hole through the heart. The ball had evidently been fired
from the opposite side of the room, for in one
(18:46):
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 the end of
a rope of braided horsehead, 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
(19:07):
incongruous clothing, several articles of which were afterward identified by
respectable witnesses as those in which certain deceased citizens of
Dead Men's had been buried years before. But it is
not easy to understand how that could be, unless indeed
the garments had been worn as a disguise by Death himself,
which is hardly credible. End of the night doings are
(19:32):
Deadmond's by Ambrose Biers
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