The Argosy — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PHANTOM ARMY. 239 of the great room into which I now stepped. For an instant I caught sight of my own face, white and hollow eyed, in a mirror above a buffet, and that gave me such a start that I dropped the match, and was in darkness again. 1 ‘‘ What is it? What do you see?’’ she asked from her place at the door. ‘“I see my own face,’’ said I, with the poorest attempt possible to con- ceal from her my dread of the room and of that which I believed it to contain. ‘‘ You have another match?’’ she exclaimed in a whisper, which be- ‘trayed her impatience. ‘TI have a boxful,’’ said I, and with that I struck a light for the second time and held it up that I might discover the chandelier. But there was a draft, as from an open window, in the place and my second match dropped reddening upon the carpet, leaving me with a momentary vision of a table set for supper and of glasses overturned upon it. I know not what mad instinct set me thinking it, but as my fingers fumbled for yet another light, I had the thought that the body of the dead man might beat my very feet. And at that, my hand was clumsy as the fingers of one bitten by the cold. Nor could the woman’s distress quicken me or make me forget the horrid thought. ‘“Oh,’’ she repeated, “‘ what is it? What do you see? Why do you not light the gas?’’ ' I suppressed a word of impatience, and at the third attempt obtained a flaming match. The chandelier now showed itself hanging low over the table, and I picked my way to it dreading every step when it carried my foot to the ground. Not until five burners were lighted and a brilliant aureola cut a circle of radiance from the shadows did I breathe a full breath in that place of mystery. The room was a large one, furnished in the Chippendale style. ‘The pictures, as well as I could see them beyond the aureola, were of the Spanish school. There was a heavy mirror, in a black oak frame, above the fire- place ; asecond mirror hung above the buffet. T'wo chairs, I observed, had been drawn to the table, but one of them was overturned. A stain of red wine had run over the white cloth and dropped upon the chair beneath. A candle in a silver stick was broken in half as though by a blow. ‘Trivial as these things were, they confirmed the woman’s story strikingly. It was plain that there had been a brawl in the room ; but what of the brawlers? Certainly, in that space which the circle of light covered, there was no sign of life or of the end of life. But beyond, in the shadows? I passed swiftly round the room, warmed to courage by the friendly gas. The matches no longer fell from my clumsy fingers. There was no nook or cranny into which I did not peer. ‘‘Madam,’’ I said at last, and it was a word of vast relief, ‘‘ you may come in—there is no one here.’’ She entered with noiseless steps, and the light falling upon the superb jewels in her hair and about her neck, gave a changing radiance of fire to them so that her lightest movement was a glitter anew of sparkling gems. When she stood at my side and searched the room with her dark eyes, now aflame with curiosity, she seemed to me to be some queen of the east come COnnicloook (S@)