aman who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-sevenor forty-eight. It was a remarkable face,--a most impressive face. Ifyou could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preservingin the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a betteridea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the widthand flatness of frontal; the tapering elegance of contour disguisingthe strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye,glittering and green as the emerald,--and withal a certain ruthlesscalm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.
Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it,and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentaclea ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, onbeing pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid. Within-sidethe lid were engraved, "Marianna to thee. Be faithful in life and indeath to ----." Here follows a name that I will not mention, but itwas not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in mychildhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan who had made agreat sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the countryon the charge of a double murder within his own house,--that of hismistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J----, to whomreluctantly I resigned the miniature.
We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the ironsafe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was notlocked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinksthe edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth, we found a verysingular apparatus in the nicest order. Upon a small, thin book, orrather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filledwith a clear liquid,--on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with aneedle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of acompass were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used byastrologers to denote the planets. A peculiar but not strong nordispleasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a woodthat we afterwards discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of thisodor, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it,even the two workmen who were in the room,--a creeping, tinglingsensation from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair.Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so theneedle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness,and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I droppedthe saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilled; the saucer wasbroken; the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instantthe walls shook to and fro, as if a giant had swayed and rocked them.
The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder bywhich we had descended from the trapdoor; but seeing that nothing morehappened, they were easily induced to return.
Meanwhile I had opened the tablet: it was bound in plain red leather,with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, andon that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in oldmonkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus: "On all thatit can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living ordead, as moves the needle, so work my will! Accursed be the house, andrestless be the dwellers therein."
We found no more. Mr. J---- burned the tablet and its anathema. Herazed to the foundations the part of the building containing thesecret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage toinhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter,better-conditioned house could not be found in all London.Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made nocomplaints.
THE END.
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