Argosy, Vol. 118, No. 4 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

CLAIMED. like thing a menace to sanity, at least, if dangerous in no worse way? “Jt is extremely pretty,” commented Miss Fellowes’s positive tones. She was turning it about, admiring the shifting shades of green. ‘Oh! You were hold- ing it upside down, weren’t you? What is this red writing on the cover?” “I don’t know. Give the thing back to me, Aunt Jane. I was foolish to expect results from such an experiment and—lI don’t like to see you holding it!” “Why, Jack, you are really afraid of this box, aren’t your My dear boy, there is nothing in psychic experiences to harm one. If this beautiful little casket is haunted by the restless spirit of some past owner, we, I am entirely sure, have nothing to fear. Such apparitions, Jack, are caused by the effort of earth-bound souls to make themselves seen and known again in the material world. Spirits of that order are to be pitied, not feared.” ‘“‘ Aunt Jane, I tell you this is not a mat- ter of ghost-walking. The apparition that haunts that box—is not—human—” “No? Really, you arouse my curiosity immensely. Perhaps one of the elementals has been playing tricks ‘on you. Raja Ram- put, one of our greatest teachers, told me with his own lips that he had seen a fire elemental—the spiritual essence of fire, you understand—play all about the room where a séance was going on, and apparently set the curtains in a blaze. But no real harm was done. The elementals are mischievous and like to frighten people when they can. I know better than to be afraid, however. Now I shall close my eyes, endeavor to make my mind quite blank, and if any definite ideas or visions come to me I'll let you know.” Sitting up very straight and rigid, hold- ing the box in her lap with long, delicate fingers resting lightly just over the scarlet inscription, she did close her eyes. Several minutes of dead silence ensued. Miss Fel- lowes was quiet as a graven image, and looked rather like one, too. It occurred to Vanaman that any fearful qualities the box possessed might well be held in stern repression so long as it re- mained in the keeping of his Aunt Jane. boL Then Leilah gave a low cry, and the doc- tor half started from his chair. There was reason for dismay. Over those stern, determined features had swept a sudden and dreadful change. Every drop of blood seemed to leave the face ina moment, the very lips went blue- white, and the eyes flashed open with a look of such awful fear in their depths as ‘Vanaman had never seen in the eyes of a living creature. “ Oh—how—horrible! ” a rasping cry, “ How—horrible! The voice was harsh and unfamiliar. The cities—the scarlet cities—crashing—falling— Save me! Oh, God, won’t anybody save me? There he is! There! It is he, I tell you! The archangel—Oh, God—it is the archangel! The archangel of the abyss—” Leaping forward, the doctor snatched the green casket from his aunt’s hands and fairly flung it upon the table. Then he caught her in his arms just in time to pre- vent her toppling sidewise to the floor. Jane Fellowes, who had been so sternly sure of her courage to face any abnormal phenomena, and “ feared nothing in this world or the other,” had fainted dead away from sheer terror. CHAPTER IX. A DARING CHALLENGE, ND again Leilah and Dr. Vanaman were alone with a problem not only unsolved, but which seemed even a shade more sinister for its startling effect upon a person of Miss Fellowes’s previously fear- less and determined character. Under hastily applied restoratives she had soon recovered consciousness and seemed physically little the worse for her experience. But whatever strange vision had flashed before her closed eyes, she was either unable to recall it clearly, or liter- ally dared not describe it. Recalling his own and Leilah’s hesitation to express in words the cause for their own worst fears, Vanaman rather fancied ‘that the latter rea- son for her reticence might be the true one. He had no heart to question his aunt very searchingly. She was tremulous and AMICLOOO (C(O) SS (C(O)