Chapter 8

“Yes,” said Paul, “and I perceive that the inhabitants move from place to place through the upper atmosphere in defiance of all law!”

“Law, Mr. Henley, is the operation of man's will. Where man through uncounted eons of time has believed himself the slave of matter, it becomes his master. I mean that the belief enslaves him, and not until he has worked his way out of the false belief, will he become free.”

They continued their walk through gardens of bewitching beauty, and amid lights so far transcending any previous experience of Henley's that he no longer even tried to comprehend Ah Ben's labored explanations. At last his guide, turning, abruptly said:

“Come, let us return; the time is growing short!”

“Time!” said Henley, with an amused expression. “I thought you told me that time was only a mental condition!”

“True, I did,” said Ah Ben, with a return of the same inexpressibly sad look; “but did I tell you that it had ceased to belong to me?”

There was no intimation of reproof, no endeavor to evade the remark; but Paul could not but observe the change in the man's manner as they retraced their steps. Indeed, he was conscious of an overpowering sadness himself, as he turned his back upon the strange scene.

“Come!” said Ah Ben, with authority, leading the way.

They passed up the grand stairway to the terrace, entering the room at the same window by which they had left it, and Ah Ben closed the sash and drew the curtains behind them.

A moment later Paul went to the window and looked out. There was an old moon, and the forest beneath lay bathed in its mellow light. The sudden transition to his former state was no less astounding than the first.

“Which, think you, is the most real,” asked the old man, “the scene before us now, or the one we have left behind?”

Paul could not answer. He was revolving in his mind the marvels he had just witnessed. He could not understand how hypnotism could have created such a world as he had just beheld. It was not a whit less tangible, visible, or audible than that in which he had always lived, and he could not help looking upon Ah Ben as a creature far removed from his own sphere of life. How had the man acquired such powers? These and other thoughts were rushing through his mind. Presently his host touched him lightly upon the shoulder, and said:

“Come, let us descend into the hall again, and finish our pipes.”

And so they wandered back through the silent house to the old pew by the fire; and Ah Ben, stirring up the embers and adding fresh fuel, said:

“Although it is late, Mr. Henley, I do not feel inclined for bed; and if you are of the same mind, should be glad of your company.”

Paul was glad of an excuse to sit up, and so settled himself upon the sofa, absorbed in meditation. The firelight flickered over their faces and the strange pictures on the wall, and the head of Tsong Kapa shone more plainly than ever before. The portraits on the stairs were as weird and incomprehensible as they had appeared on the first night of his arrival; and the old man and the girl, and their strange life, seemed even more deeply involved in mystery than they had upon that occasion. Paul was now beset with conflicting emotions. The gloom of the house was more oppressive than before; and were it not for his sudden and unaccountable affection for Dorothy, he might have left it at once, had it not again been for the vision of splendor and happiness just faded from his sight. He could not bear the thought of losing forever the sensation of life and power and ecstasy just beginning to dawn upon him, when so cruelly snatched away; and but for Ah Ben he knew he should hope in vain for its return. Naturally, his emotions were strong and tearing him in opposite directions. The old man perceiving the depression of spirits into which his guest had fallen, reminded him gently of his warning regarding the shock of occult manifestation to those who were unprepared.

“It is not that so much,” answered Paul, “as the regret I feel at having left it all behind. When a man has only just begun to experience the sensation of life--_of real life_--to find himself suddenly plunged back into a dungeon with chains upon his shoulders, you must admit the shock is terrible.”

“Do I not know it?” answered the old man feelingly. “The return is far more to be dreaded than the escape into that life which you were at first inclined to call unreal; and yet, Mr. Henley, you must admit that it is difficult to decide the question of reality between the two worlds.”

“True,” answered Paul; “and yet I know that what I have just seen can be nothing else than a hypnotic vision; it is impossible it should be otherwise, for it has gone--and beyond my power to recall. What amazes me to the point of stupefaction is the marvelous impression of truth with which hypnotism can fill one. I had always imagined the effect was more in the nature of a dream, but this was vivid, sharp, and perfect as the everyday life about me. I am more bewildered than I have words to express.”

“And yet,” answered Ah Ben, “you still insist that the things you saw were unreal, because, as you say, they were the result of hypnotism. It seems difficult to convince you of what I have already told you, that hypnotism is not a cause of hallucination, but of fact. You insist that because the minority of men only are subjected to hypnotic tests, the impressions produced must be false. You will not admit that a minority has any claim to a hearing, although their evidence is based upon precisely the same testimony as that of the majority--namely, the five senses. You have no better right to assume that your present surroundings are any more truthfully reported by your senses than those of your recent experience. You see, you hear and touch; did you not do the same in Levachan?”

“I did, indeed,” answered Paul, “and with a clearness that makes it the more difficult to comprehend; still, of course, I know that the vision of Levachan was a deception, while this is real!”

“And because you are convinced that a majority of men would see this as you see it. What if it should be proved that you are wrong?”

“That would be impossible,” answered Paul.

“You think so, indeed,” answered the old man with a strange look in his eyes; “and yet, if you will look above you and about you, you will see for the first time the way in which this old house looks to the great majority of mankind--indeed, to such a vast majority, Mr. Henley--that your individual testimony to the contrary would be regarded as the ravings of a madman. Look!”

Paul lifted his eyes. The roof was gone, and the stars shone down upon him through the open space. About him were rough walls of crumbling stone, rapidly falling to decay; there were no pictures, there were no stairs with their uncanny portraits, there was no great open fire-place with the blazing logs, nor hanging lamp, nor cheery pew--all--all was gone--and nothing but ruin and decay remained, save some bunches of ivy which had climbed above the edge of the tottering wall, outlined dimly in the moonlight. The floor had rotted away, and dank grass and bushes and heaps of stone had filled its place. A pool of water in a distant corner reflected the sky and a star or two, and the dismal croaking of a frog was the only sound he heard. Through the open casements wild vines and stunted trees had thrust their boughs, and beyond were the pines and hemlocks. Paul stood erect, and stared around him in blank amazement. Where was Ah Ben? He too had departed with the rest. Dazed and wondering, Henley sauntered toward the door, or rather to where the door had once stood, now only an open portal of crumbling stone, from the crevices of which grew bushes and a tangled network of vines. Climbing down over a mass of fallen bricks, he wandered out into the grounds. The lawn was buried beneath a confused jumble of rubbish and weeds, and the forest encroached upon its rights. The graveled road was no longer visible, wild grass, moss, and piles of fallen stone having covered it far below. As he looked above, the moon shone through the casement of a ruined window, and an owl hooted dismally from the open belfry. The old house was a wreck, a tottering ruin, from whatever point he looked; and no room above or below seemed habitable. He walked around to see if the blank wall which guarded the secret chamber was still intact. Yes, there it was; it alone remained untouched by the ravages of time or war. The portraits and human remains were probably safe in their hiding place, and Paul shuddered at the thought. What hand had bound them up in that strange old corner to be hid forever from the eyes of men? He had heard no human word, nor was there apparently any shelter where man or woman could live. Presently amid the deep shadows of the forest something moved. It came nearer, and then from beneath the trees walked out into the moonlight. Paul started; but at the same moment a familiar voice spoke to him. It was Ah Ben's.

“Do not let what you see alarm you, Mr. Henley, for it is the first time in which you have perceived Guir House in what you would call its normal state. As you now behold it, the majority of men would see it.”

“Then I have been duped ever since my arrival!” exclaimed Paul in a slightly irritated tone.

“Not at all,” answered the elder man complacently. “I have simply presented the house to you as it stood a hundred years ago. The impression you have had of it is quite as truthful as the one now before you. Indeed, it is as truthful as the view you now have of yonder star,” he pointed to a twinkling luminary in the north; “for time has put out its fires more than a thousand years ago, so that you now behold it as it then was, and not as it is to-night.”

“This hypnotism of yours is quite undoing me,” answered Paul, passing his hand across his eyes.

“And yet what you now behold is not hypnotism at all, but fact, as the world would call it. It is what the vast majority of all men would see if here to-night. But I perceive that it is troubling you. Let us return to our old place by the fire, and the house as it was a century ago. In that state of the past I think you will find more comfort than in the melancholy ruin before us.”

They climbed back over the fallen piles of bricks, stone, and mortar; and then Ah Ben lifted his withered hand, and touching Henley lightly upon the forehead, said:

“And now we are back in our old seats, just as they used to be in the days of yore!”

Paul looked about him. The fire was burning brightly. The pictures had been restored to their places on the walls. The old lamp and the strangely decorated staircase were all restored, just as he had left them a few minutes before. He gazed long and earnestly at the scene around him, and then fixing his eyes upon Ah Ben, helplessly, said:

“If then I am to understand that this is no longer real, but that the old ruin just beheld is the existing fact, might I ask in what part of the wreck you and Miss Guir have been able to fix your abode, for I saw nothing but crumbling walls--a roofless ruin?”

“The question you ask involves a story, and if you care to listen I will tell it to you, although the hour is late and the night far gone.”

“I should enjoy nothing more,” said Paul.

And the men filled and lighted their pipes, and Henley listened while Ah Ben told him the following:

9

“In the early settlement of this State, an Englishman by the name of Guir pre-empted a large body of land, near the center of which he erected this house. Although his intention in coming from the old country was to make his permanent home in the colony, his reasons for doing so were quite different from those which usually induce immigration. Guir was an artist, and a man of some means; and his object in colonizing was not so much to cultivate the soil, or to trade with the Indians, or engage in any business enterprise, as to gratify a craving for nature and surround himself with such scenery as he loved to paint. It would be folly to pretend that Guir was a man of ordinary tastes and disposition; for had he been such, he would never have undertaken a journey, with a family of girls, into such a wilderness as Virginia was at that time. No; from the very circumstances of his birth and education, he was unfitted to live with his countrymen; hence his early adoption of the colony as a home for himself, wife, and daughters. This happened a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“He was an ancestor of yours, I presume,” said Paul, hoping to gain some clew to the man's identity.

“No,” answered Ah Ben, “he was not.”

“Pardon the interruption,” added Paul, fearing he had annoyed the speaker.

“Naturally, in a country without roads, or even wagon trails,” continued the old man, without noticing the apology, “it was years before a house of this size could be completed, as every brick and nearly every stick of timber was brought from England. These, of course, were conveyed by water as far as the rivers permitted, the rest of the journey being performed upon sleds drawn by oxen. But it was Guir's hobby, and in the course of a dozen or fifteen years the job was completed, and the house stood as you see it now. Then the owner set himself to work with brush, canvas, and chisel to decorate his home, and make it, according to his ideas, as beautiful and suggestive of his early youth as imaginable. With his own hands, Mr. Henley, he painted most of these pictures, although his three daughters, inheriting his tastes, assisted him. And thus, as the years rolled by, Guir House became more and more a museum of artistic efforts, embracing many unusual subjects, and in every degree of perfection. The broad acres of the estate produced much that was necessary toward the maintenance of life, and what they lacked was supplied once a year from a distant settlement near the coast. As you can readily understand, there were no neighbors, and but occasional visits from the red man, who looked distrustfully upon the pale-face. This feeling became mutual, and trifling acts of hostility on the part of the natives grew both in frequency and magnitude. Depredations upon Guir's fields and cattle were at first ignored, in the effort to maintain peace, but in time it became necessary to resist them. Upon one occasion, a raid upon a distant field was successfully repulsed, with the aid of his wife and three daughters, attired in men's clothing and mounted upon fast horses. The Indians were so completely surprised by the ruse, being apparently attacked by five men, where they had believed there was only one, that they fled, completely routed, nor did they return for several years. Meanwhile, fearing another and closer attack, Guir converted one of the lower rooms of his house into an impenetrable and unassailable place of refuge. The windows were walled up, to correspond with the stonework of the house, leaving no suspicion of there having been once an opening. Likewise the doors were treated, and then carefully plastered both within and without, with the exception of one, which he made anew, to communicate with a private stairway leading from one of the upper bedrooms. This was the only entrance to the dark retreat, and a heavy bolt was placed upon the inside, to be used by the family in case of attack. There was no reason to suppose that a marauding party would ever find the way to this secret chamber, as the entrance was carefully covered by a scuttle in the floor of a dark closet; and the place being thoroughly fire-proof, the family felt unusually secure in the possession of their new retreat.”

“I think I have seen the stairway you speak of,” said Paul.

“Yes,” answered the old man, “it communicates with the closet of your room.

“One day Guir had left his home. He had ridden alone into the distant hills to dispute the range for some cattle with his natural enemy, the red man. The pow-wow had been long and trying, and it was only with the setting sun that he had come to a proper understanding, as he supposed, with the ugly chief who dominated the region about.

“It was midnight when he reached his home. He pounded sharply on the door; but his good wife, who never retired without him, failed to answer the summons. So, after repeated knocks, Guir forced the door and entered. All was dark. An unearthly stillness pervaded the air, and a horrid suspicion forced itself upon him while groping his way forward to secure a light. Finding the chimney, he raked together a few coals, which he blew into a flame, and then, with trembling hands, lighted the candle upon the shelf above. Looking about him, Guir's heart sank. His house had been wrecked. His pictures, the work of years, were scattered in fragments about the floor. The windows were smashed, and the hall starred with broken glass. Not an ornament, not a treasure remained intact. But this he knew was as nothing to the horrible sight which he expected momentarily to greet his eyes. He called aloud to each member of his family, in the failing hope that some one would answer; but no sound broke the awful stillness. Suddenly he bethought him of the secret chamber, and with a wild prayer that his loved ones had been able to reach it in safety, and were still in hiding there, he started down the narrow stairs in search. Reaching the bottom, he found that the door had been wrenched from its hinges and thrown to the ground; and then Guir's heart sank, never to rise again. Stepping across the threshold of the room, candle in hand, a vision of blood swam before his eyes, and the dimly-burning light revealed the horror-stricken faces of his murdered family. Not one was left to tell the tale, but the story pictured before him was unmistakable in every detail. The treacherous natives had first tortured and then butchered them. For a time he stood transfixed with horror, unable to remove his eyes from the awful scene, or his feet from the spot where he had first beheld it; then, with the cry of sudden madness, he threw himself beside the bleeding corpses and lost all consciousness. How long he remained there was problematical, but on awaking Guir was still in the dark, and where he had fallen. At that moment a strange and overpowering desire seized him. He must paint the portraits of his murdered family before it became too late. Had he been sane, such a ghastly thought would never have possessed him; but Guir was crazed, and for days and nights following he worked in that dismal vault, by the light of a smoking lamp, at the task he had set himself, his fired imagination even intensifying the horrors of the grewsome tableau.

“Upon each canvas he depicted the awful countenance which fact and fancy had imprinted upon his brain. Guir painted not only what he saw, but what he imagined he saw--dreadful faces, loaded with torture and despair. When completed, he hung them upon the walls of the room, and then with his own hands bricked up the entrance from within, having first carefully replaced and bolted the door. When Guir had thus entombed himself, he lay down again upon the floor, and then, still a madman, opened a vein in his wrist. The letting of blood may have sobered him or restored his mental equilibrium; for suddenly, with a wild change in his feelings, he bounded to his feet and repented. Again he was in darkness, and could not guess how much time had elapsed since his fatal act. Staggering to the closed doorway, he endeavored to tear away the bricks he had so recently placed there, but the mortar was hardening fast, and he was unable to find his trowel. Groping frantically along the floor, he searched in vain for some tool to open the vault in which he was buried, and then, with the anguish of despair, dropped again upon the ground to await his fate. Thus Guir died, in an agony of remorse, and with the intensest desire to live.”

Ah Ben stopped suddenly, and fixed his eyes upon Henley, as if trying to read his thoughts.

“There is one thing in that story that strikes me as very peculiar,” observed Paul, returning his host's look with interest.

“And what is that?” answered the old man, his eyes still fixed on Henley's face.

“The fact that you are able to repeat with such circumstantial detail the feelings and actions of a man who died under such peculiar conditions, and quite alone.”

“It might indeed appear strange to you, Mr. Henley, but my familiarity with the case enables me to speak with knowledge and accuracy.”

“And would you mind telling me how that is possible?” inquired Paul.

“_Because I am the man Guir himself; and I have lived on through such ages of agony that I have no longer the will or desire to appear other than as the ancient wreck before you_.”

Paul started.

“Do you mean to tell me then that I am talking to a ghost?” he cried in dismay.

“As you please, Mr. Henley; but ghosts are not so different from ordinary people--that is, when they have become materialized. I have just now shown you the real condition of this old house, or rather the way in which the majority of men see it. I do not hesitate, therefore, to show you the ghost that haunts it; nor do I object to explaining the dreadful cause of the haunting, or a little of the philosophy of hauntings in general.”

Paul looked aghast. Easy enough was it now to comprehend how the man had talked so familiarly of death and the next life after having actually crossed the threshold and passed into the realm of experience. But there was something too real, too natural about this personality to accept the remark as literal. Familiarity with Ah Ben had shown him to be a man. Paul felt sure of it. And yet here were revealed mysteries never dreamed of; one of which was even now producing an occult spell. Henley drew a deep breath in agony of spirit.

After a moment's pause, the old man continued:

“Ghosts, Mr. Henley, are as real as you; and when a spirit returns to earth in visible form, it is the result of some disquieting influence immediately before the death of the body, or, as I might say, previous to the new life. At the hour of physical birth, such influences cause idiocy or such imperfection of the bodily functions that death ensues, and the spirit returns to seek another entrance into the world of matter. When a man dies dominated by some intense earthly desire, his mind is barred against the higher powers and greater possibilities of spirit; his whole nature is closed against their reception, so that he perceives and hopes for nothing save the continuance of that life which has so completely filled his nature. His old environment overpowers the new by the very force of his will; and if this continues, he becomes not only a haunting spirit, but a materialized one, visible to certain people under certain conditions, and compelled to live out his life amid the scenes which had so attracted him. This, Mr. Henley, has been my case. I shall live upon earth, and be visible to the spiritually susceptible, until the strong impression made at the hour of death shall have worn away.”

“And the young lady, is she your daughter?” inquired Paul.

“She is my daughter,” answered the old man solemnly.

“How comes it, then, that she addresses you by so singular a name?”

“It is the one she first learned to use in infancy. As I partially explained to you, my mother was a Hindoo, while my father was English. The name Ah Ben belongs to the maternal side of my family.”

“Another question--more vital than any I have yet asked, because it concerns my own well-being and happiness,” continued Paul; “how is it possible that Dorothy can live in a place like this with a being who is only semi-material?

“Because her nature is double, as is mine,” answered the old man. “Dorothy, like her sisters and mother, passed out of this life more than a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“And did the same causes operate to bring her back to earth?”