yer last witness escape from?'
'Mr. Harker,' said the coroner, gravely and tranquilly, 'from what asylum did
you last escape?'
Harker flushed crimson again, but said nothing, and the seven jurors rose and
solemnly filed out of the cabin.
'If you have done insulting me, sir,' said Harker, as soon as he and the officer
were left alone with the dead man, 'I suppose I am at liberty to go?'
'Yes,'
Harker started to leave, but paused, with his hand on the door latch. The habit
of his profession was strong in him— stronger than his sense of personal
dignity. He turned about and said:
'The book that you have there— I recognize it as Morgan's diary. You seemed
greatly interested in it; you read in it while I was testifying. May I see it?
The public would like—'
'The book will cut no figure in this matter,' replied the official, slipping it
into his coat pocket; 'all the entries in it were made before the writer's
death.'
As Harker passed out of the house the jury reentered and stood about the table,
on which the now covered corpse showed under the sheet with sharp definition.
The foreman seated himself near the candle, produced from his breast pocket a
pencil and scrap of paper, and wrote rather laboriously the following verdict,
which with various degrees of effort all signed:
'We, the jury, do find that the remains come to their death at the hands of a
mountain lion, but some of us thinks, all the same, they had fits.'
IV
In the diary of the late Hugh Morgan are certain interesting entries having,
possibly, a scientific value as suggestions. At the inquest upon his body the
book was not put in evidence; possibly the coroner thought it not worth while to
confuse the jury. The date of the first of the entries mentioned can not be
ascertained; the upper part of the leaf is torn away; the part of the entry
remaining is as follows:
'...would run in a half circle, keeping his head turned always toward the centre
and again he would stand still, barking furiously. At last he ran away into the
brush as fast as he could go. I thought at first that he had gone mad, but on
returning to the house found no other alteration in his manner than what was
obviously due to fear of punishment.
'Can a dog see with his nose? Do odors impress some olfactory centre with images
of the thing emitting them?...
'Sept. 2.— Looking at the stars last night as they rose above the crest of the
ridge east of the house, I observed them successively disappear— from left to
right. Each was eclipsed but an instant, and only a few at the same time, but
along the entire length of the ridge all that were within a degree or two of the
crest were blotted out. It was as if something had passed along between me and
them; but I could not see it, and the stars were not thick enough to define its
outline. Ugh! I don't like this....'
Several weeks' entries are missing, three leaves being torn from the book.
'Sept. 27.— It has been about here again— I find evidences of its presence every
day. I watched again all of last night in the same cover, gun in hand,
double-charged with buckshot. In the morning the fresh footprints were there, as
before. Yet I would have sworn that I did not sleep— indeed, I hardly sleep at
all. It is terrible, insupportable! If these amazing experiences are real I
shall go mad; if they are fanciful I am mad already.
'Oct. 3.— I shall not go— it shall not drive me away. No, this is my house, my
land. God hates a coward....
'Oct. 5.— I can stand it no longer; I have invited Harker to pass a few weeks
with me— he has a level head. I can judge from his manner if he thinks me mad.
'Oct. 7.— I have the solution of the problem; it came to me last night—
suddenly, as by revelation. How simple— how terribly simple!
'There are sounds that we can not hear. At either end of the scale are notes
that stir no chord of that imperfect instrument, the human ear. They are too
high or too grave. I have observed a flock of blackbirds occupying an entire
treetop— the tops of several trees— and all in full song. Suddenly— in a moment—
at absolutely the same instant— all spring into the air and fly away. How? They
could not all see one another— whole treetops intervened. At no point could a
leader have been visible to all. There must have been a signal of warning or
command, high and shrill above the din, but by me unheard. I have observed, too,
the same simultaneous flight when all were silent, among not only blackbirds,
but other birds— quail, for example, widely separated by bushes— even on
opposite sides of a hill.
'It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the
surface of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between them,
will sometimes dive at the same instant— all gone out of sight in a moment. The
signal has been sounded— too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and
his comrades on the deck— who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as
the stones of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of the organ.
'As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist
can detect the presence of what are known as 'actinic' rays. They represent
colors— integral colors in the composition of light— which we are unable to
discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few
octaves of the real 'chromatic scale.' I am not mad; there are colors that we
can not see.
'And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!'
