Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 113: what you’re looking at

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

ings, whenever possible, and the ancient market-place is overshadowed with the foliage of hundred-year-old mahogany trees, and a few gnarled ‘“‘otaheites” and Chinese-bean trees. I had nearly finished undressing, had noted that my servant had let down and properly fastened the mosquito netting, and had stepped into the other bedroom to open the jalousies so that I might get as much of the night-breeze as possible circulating through the house. I was coming back through the doorway between the two bedrooms, and taking off my dressing gown at the moment when the first faint perception of what I have called “the shadows” made itself apparent. It was very dark, just after switching off the electric light in that front bedroom. [ had, in fact, to feel for the doorway. In this I experienced some difficulty, and my eyes had not fully adjusted them- selves to the thin starlight seeping in through the slanted jalousies of my own room when I passed through the doorway and groped my way toward the great mahogany four-poster in which I was about to lie down for my belated rest. I saw the nearest post looming before me, closer than I had expected. Put- ting out my hand, I grasped—nothing. I winked in some surprise, and peered through the slightly increasing light, as my eyes adjusted themselves to the sudden change. Yes, surcly,—there was the corner of the bedstead just in front of my face! By now my eyes were sufficiently attuned to the amount of light from outside to see a little plainer. [ was puzzled. The bed was not where 1 had supposed it to be. What could have happened? That the servants should have moved my bed without orders to do so was incredible. Besides, I had undressed, in full electric light in that room, not more than a few minutes ago, and then the bed was standing exactly where it had been since I had had it moved into that room a weck before. I kicked gently, before me with a slippered foot, against the place where that bedpost appeared to be standing— and my foot met no resistance. I stepped over to the light in my own room, and snapped the button. Tu the sudden glare, everything, readjusted itself to normal. There stood my bed, and here in their accustomed places about the room were ranged the chairs, the polished wardrobe (we do not use cupboards in the West India Islands), the mahogany dressing table,—even my clothes which I had hung over a chair where Albertina my servant would find them in the morning and put them (they were of white drill) into the soiled-clothes bag in the morning. I shook my head. Light and shadow in these islands seem, somchow, differ- ent from what they are at home in the United States! The tricks they play are different tricks, somchow. I snapped off the light again, and in the ensuing dead blackness, I crawled in under the loose edge of the mosquito netting, tucked it along under the edge of the mattress on that side, adjusted my pillows and the sheets, and settled myself for a good sleep. Even to a moderate man, these gentlemen’s parties are rather wearing sometimes. They invariably last too long. I closed my eyes and was asleep before I could have put these last ideas into words. In the morning the recollection of the experience with the bed-being-in-the- ' wrong-place was gone. | jumped out of bed and into my shower bath at half- Mil , comicbooks.com