The Greatest Supernatural Tales of Sheridan Le Fanu (70+ Titles in One Edition). M. R. James

Richard's room.

      As we have said before, several hours had passed, and all had long been silent in the baronet's apartment, when on a sudden Parucci thought he heard the sharp and well-known knocking of his patron's ebony stick upon the floor. He ran and listened at his own door. The sound was repeated with unequivocal and vehement distinctness, and was instantaneously followed by a prolonged and violent peal from his master's hand-bell. The summons was so sustained and vehement, that the Italian at length cautiously withdrew the bolt, unlocked the door, and stole out upon the lobby. So far from abating, the sound grew louder and louder. On tip-toe he scaled the stairs, until he reached to about the midway; and he there paused, for he heard his master's voice exerted in a tone of terrified entreaty,—

      "Not now—not now—avaunt—not now. Oh, God!—help," cried the well-known voice.

      These words were followed by a crash, as of some heavy body springing from the bed—then a rush upon the floor—then another crash.

      The voice was hushed; but in its stead the wild storm made a long and plaintive moan, and the listener's heart turned cold.

      "Malora—Corpo di Pluto!" muttered he between his teeth. "What is it? Will he reeng again? Santo gennaro!—there is something wrong."

      He paused in fearful curiosity; but the summons was not repeated. Five minutes passed; and yet no sound but the howling and pealing of the storm. Parucci, with a beating heart, ascended the stairs and knocked at the door of his patron's chamber. No answer was returned.

      "Sir Richard, Sir Richard," cried the man, "do you want me, Sir Richard?"

      Still no answer. He pushed open the door and entered. A candle, wasted to the very socket, stood upon a table beside the huge hearse-like bed, which, for the convenience of the invalid, had been removed from his bed-chamber to his dressing-room. The light was dim, and waved uncertainly in the eddies which found their way through the chinks of the window, so that the lights and shadows flitted ambiguously across the objects in the room. At the end of the bed a table had been upset; and lying near it upon the floor was some-thing—a heap of bed-clothes, or—could it be?—yes, it was Sir Richard Ashwoode.

      Parncci approached the prostrate figure: it was lying upon its back, the countenance fixed and livid, the eyes staring and glazed, and the jaw fallen—he was a corpse. The Italian stooped down and took the hand of the dead man—it was already cold; he called him by his name and shook him, but all in vain. There lay the cunning intriguer, the fierce, fiery prodigal, the impetuous, unrelenting tyrant, the unbelieving, reckless man of the world, a ghastly lump of clay.

      With strange emotions the Neapolitan gazed upon the lifeless effigy from which the evil tenant had been so suddenly and fearfully called to its eternal and unseen abode.

      "Gone—dead—all over—all past," muttered he, slowly, while he pressed his foot upon the dead body, as if to satisfy himself that life was indeed extinct—"quite gone. Canchero! it was ugly death—there was something with him; what was he speaking with?"

      Parucci walked to the door leading to the great staircase, but found it bolted as usual.

      "Pshaw! there was nothing," said he, looking fearfully round the room as he approached the body again, and repeating the negative as if to reassure himself—"no, no—nothing, nothing."

      He gazed again on the awful spectacle in silence for several minutes.

      "Corbezzoli, and so it is over," at length he ejaculated—"the game is ended. See, see, the breast is bare, and there the two marks of Aldini's stiletto. Ah! briccone, briccone, what wild faylow were you—panzanera, for a pretty ankle and a pair of black eyes, you would dare the devil. Rotto di collo, his face is moving!—pshaw! it is only the light that wavers. Diamine! the face is terrible. What made him speak? nothing was with him—pshaw! nothing could come to him here—no, no, nothing."

      As he thus spoke, the wind swept vehemently upon the windows with a sound as if some great thing had rushed, against them, and was pressing for admission, and the gust blew out the candle; the blast died away in a lengthened wail, and then again came rushing and howling up to the windows, as if the very prince of the powers of the air himself were thundering at the casement; then again the blue dazzling lightning glared into the room and gave place to deeper darkness.

      "Pah! that lightning smells like brimstone. Sangue d'un dua, I hear something in the room."

      Yielding to his terrors, Parucci stumbled to the door opening upon the great lobby, and with cold and trembling fingers drawing the bolt, sprang to the stairs and shouted for assistance in a tone which speedily assembled half the household in the chamber of death.

Chapter XXIX.

      The Crones—The Corpse, and the Sharper

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      Haggard, exhausted, and in no very pleasant temper, Henry Ashwoode rode up the avenue of Morley Court.

      "I shall have a blessed conference with my father," thought he, "when he learns the fate of the thousand pounds I was to have brought him—a pleasant interview, by ——. How shall I open it? He'll be no better than a Bedlamite. By ——, a pretty hot kettle of fish this—but through it I must flounder as best I may—curse it, what am I afraid of?"

      Thus muttering, he leaped from the saddle, leaving the well-trained steed to make his way to the stable, and entered at the half open door. In the hall he encountered a servant, but was too much occupied by his own busy reflections to observe the earnest, awe-struck countenance of the old domestic.

      "Mr. Henry—Mr. Henry—stay, sir—stay—one moment," said the man, following and endeavouring to detain him.

      Ashwoode, however, without heeding the interruption, hastened by him, and mounted the stairs with long and rapid strides, resolved not unnecessarily to defer the interview which he believed must come sooner or later. He opened Sir Richard's door, and entered the chamber. He looked round the room for the object of his search in vain; but to his unmeasured astonishment, beheld instead three old shrivelled hags seated by the hearth, who all rose upon his entrance, except one, who was warming something in a saucepan upon the fire, and each and all resumed respectively the visages of woe which best became the occasion.

      "Eh! How is this? What brings you here, nurse?" exclaimed the young man, in a tone of startled curiosity.

      The old lady whom he addressed thought it advisable to weep, and instead of returning any answer, covered her face with her apron, turned away her head, and shook her palsied hand towards him with a gesture which was meant to express the mute anguish of unutterable sorrow.

      "What is it?" said Ashwoode. "Are you all tongue-tied? Speak, some of you."

      "Oh, musha! musha! the crathur," observed the second witch, with a most lugubrious shake of the head, "but it is he that's to be pitied. Oh, wisha—wisha—wiristhroo!"

      "What the d——l ails you? Can't you speak out? Where's my father?" repeated the young man, with impatient perplexity.

      "With the blessed saints in glory," replied the third hag, giving the saucepan a slight whisk to prevent the contents from burning, "and if ever there was an angel on earth, he was one. Well, well, he has his reward—that's one comfort, sure. The crown of glory, with the holy apostles—it's he's to be envied—up in heaven, though he wint mighty suddint, surely."

      This was followed by a kind of semi-dolorous shake of the head, in which the three old women joined.

      With a hurried step, young Ashwoode strode to the bedside, drew the curtain, and gazed upon the sharp and fixed features of the corpse, as it leered with unclosed eyes from among the bed-clothes. It would not have been easy to analyze the feelings with which he looked upon this spectacle. A kind of incredulous horror sate upon his compressed features. He touched the hand, which rested stiffly upon the coverlet, as if doubtful that