Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

Haunts of the Invisible-1 by Alexander Stewart

Striking tales are these, from the phantom world, submitted just as they occurred — you to be the final judge

“Who has not either seen or heard of some house, shut up and uninhabitable, fallen into decay and looking dusty and dreary, from which at midnight strange sounds have been heard to issue — knockings, the rattling of chains and the groans of perturbed spirits? A house that people thought it unsafe to pass after dark, and which has remained for years without a tenant — which no tenant would occupy, even if he were paid for it?

“There are hundreds of such houses in England and the United States to-day. Hundreds in France, Germany and almost every country in Europe, which are marked with the mark of fear.”

The above statement was made more than fifty years ago. It still holds good at the present time. For the so-called “haunted” houses are still with us.

In the pages which follow, the records of several of these houses have been set down. No explanations have been attempted. No theories have been advanced. The account here given is merely a plain statement of the facts so far as they are known.

In studying them the reader is asked to remember just one thing—

Although this is the age of science, there are some things which science has not explained. Haunted houses have been recognized by European law for several centuries. Their story is not just a mere fantastic romance.

For the benefit of people who think them a thing of the past, the first house chosen is of very recent date — a villa in Comeada, a suburb of Coimbra, Portugal. The occurrences which took place there were first described by Mme. Frondoni Lacombe, of Lisbon, in an article published in Annales des Sciences Psychiques, March, 1920.

The main victim or hero — whichever you wish to call him — of the affair later described his experiences in detail in a book, “Le Parc du Mystere,” published in 1923 in collaboration with Mme. Rachilde — a woman who up to that time had refused to admit the reality of psychic phenomena at any price, because her parents had been the victims of mediums.

At the beginning of October, 1919, Homem Christo, a first year law student who had been expelled from the University of Coimbra for refusing to conform to a religious custom, and for armed revolt, rented a house in Coimbra. It consisted of a ground floor and a second story. Christo moved into it, together with his wife, their six weeks’ old baby and two maidservants.

On the first night his wife complained of strange noises in the house. Christo, a sound sleeper, had heard nothing and thought it was just imagination on her part.

Eight days later his friend, Gomez Paredes, a second year law student, visited Comeada on business. He remained overnight and was entertained at the home of Homem Christo.

Paredes retired about 1 A. M. His room was on the ground floor, and his host warned him to be sure to bolt the shutters of the windows so that thieves would not be able to enter the house.

The following is Paredes’s own story to Christo describing what happened:

“Having gone off to sleep after smoking a long time and using up all my matches, I was awakened by a sensation of brightness under the eyelids. It resembled that which is felt when one’s closed eyes are struck by the sudden ray of a lamp or fire.

“It fell on my eyelids with such intensity that at last I opened them. I perceived that the shutters I had carefully closed in accord with your recommendation, since I was on the ground floor had parted and that the moon’s light fell directly on my face.

“I was, or thought I was, sure that I had closed them tight and pushed the bolt into the sill as directed. But I might have made a mistake.

“Then, since I wanted to sleep, suspecting nothing, and since the moonlight bothered me, I went to the window, raised it, hung it to the spring provided to keep it up and bent over to pull in the parted shutters.

“They resisted.

“Now, there was no wind. Since it was on the ground floor it might have been caused by some one standing outside on the garden path. Therefore I called out in a chiding tone, but not loud enough to awaken any of you:

“ ‘Hullo, if anybody is there, let him get out or he’ll catch it.’

“But almost instantly the spring which held up the window came undone, and I got such a furious blow on my neck that I was nearly choked, and had to struggle a long time to get free. I did not want to call you, as I feared the ridicule of my position.

“When I was out of the trap I closed the window again. And, for greater safety, I went out and inspected the neighborhood of the garden gate. There was nothing in the garden, or on the road.

“The night was calm and a bright moon brought out the smallest details of my window shutters standing as I had left them. It showed no obstacle in front of them.

“Such evidence has the effect of bringing one back to order and coolness. It was clear I had been mistaken. The shutter had not been held by any hand. The falling of the window was a mere accident. I had been half awake. My movements had been badly coordinated, as sometimes happens when one wakes up suddenly.

“I closed my shutters very methodically, put the window down and went to bed.

“But this time I did not succeed in getting to sleep again. In the first place, the back of my neck hurt me very much. The blood was pounding in my arteries. I was restless and oppressed and could not settle down.

“It was then, with my eyes open to every possible reality, that I observed that horrible thing in front of me.

“The shutters opened again, their bolt having risen quite of itself. And I remembered the trouble I had had to get it into the hole deeply enough and without making a noise. Then, I heard behind my bed another horrible grinding sound like a muffled laugh.

“ ‘Somebody is making a fool of me. But who? Where is the fellow?’ I said, clenching my fist.

“A series of heavy blows replied, struck on the wall, on the floor and on the furniture. Blows which found a dull echo in myself as if aimed at me alone.”

Paredes sprang from his bed and looked around. He could hear footsteps as of some one walking about the room beside him. Doors, apparently, were being opened and closed all over the house. That horrible grating laugh again came from behind his bed. But as far as he could see—

“There was nothing in my room, neither a hidden animal, nor anything revolutionary. Nothing but myself, shivering in the cold moonlight.

“I did not take the trouble to warn you. I did not take time to think. I just bolted into the garden like a lunatic and ran straight before me, without even shutting a door. It did not take many minutes to get to my father’s house, for I went like the wind.”

The next morning Paredes told his father what had happened.

“That is singular,” his father said. “Another tenant, who occupied that house before your friend, left because of the strange noises in the place. And the woman who now takes care of the meteorological observatory opposite the house spent a night there once. She vows she will never enter it again, and declares the house is bewitched. Tell your friend to watch some night and try and find out what it is.”

As he thought over the occurrences of the night before, the thing which struck Paredes as most unusual was that nothing had happened as long as there was a light burning in his room.

He returned to Homem Christo’s house to explain the cause of his disappearance. As his friend heard the story he laughed. Christo writes:

“When my comrade had finished I was silent for a moment. I had vaguely heard our professors tell about ‘collective hallucinations,’ but I couldn’t explain to him so many things at the same time. And I was also struck by the circumstances that the actions or strange noises happened in relative darkness, light destroying the phantasmagoria.

“I drew his attention to that.

“ ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I had in fact used up my matches smoking last night. But I saw with my own eyes in the moonlight my shutters slowly opening, as if pulled by two hands. And when I wanted to pull them in I felt the queer resistance.’

“ ‘Whoever held them was stronger than I am, I assure you. I should swear to that, even though that guillotine window of yours should cut off my head again.

“ ‘And the noises I heard were the same noises as those described by your wife. She told you that several walked in the room, pulling burdens along and shaking all the furniture as if there was a moving going on; and yet you heard nothing, which is another mystery.’

“As for me, it seemed clear to me that after the row of my scandal at the university some practical jokers wanted to exasperate me. Another ‘rag’ among the jolly students of Coimbra! One had to forgive them even though their pleasantry was in rather bad taste, considering that there was a young wife and a seven weeks’ old baby in the case.”

Christo decided to sit up the next night and try to catch the students he believed responsible for everything.

“I installed myself in the suspected room after inspecting the house from cellar to attic and locking in the servants. Considering the artfulness of servants, it was always possible that they could be in league with the mischief-makers up to a certain point.

“I provided myself with matches. And, thinking that a candle was easier to light than a lamp, I took one with a high candlestick, saying to myself that this would not be blown out under my very nose.

“My wife, trembling in all her limbs — though my friend’s adventure was unknown to her — put the baby’s cradle at the foot of her bed upstairs, taking every precaution for the watching of the cradle and of her bolted door. She knew that she could expect no concession from me to the ‘supernatural,’ and that the trickster or tricksters, if caught, would be brutally done to death. It was, in fact, war.

“I had begun to forget completely why I was reading a law book, sitting in an easy chair instead of lying in bed, when, about 1 a. m., my candle began to wane. The wick fell in a little pool of wax and went out.

“I need hardly say that I had closed the shutters, pushed the bolt well in, and let my guillotine of a window slide exactly down into its grooves.

“As I put out my arm to seize the matches I saw — this happened automatically as soon as the light went out — I saw the shutters opening slowly, and the moon introducing into the opening the white cold blade of its sword of light.

“With one bound I was at the guillotine and raised it. I hooked it up and stretched my arms forward without bending my head, warned by the first inexplicable accident.

“I pushed the shutters with all my force. But they resisted.

“Those shutters seemed to be held by a crowd of people. They were both resistant and elastic to the touch, as if held by muscles working against my own.

“I was silent, fearing to disturb her who slept up there, but I felt bathed in perspiration. I underwent the baptism of fear, a first impression of fear which is a sort of nameless anger, an impotent rage which can only utter itself in blasphemies.

“Like my friend, I let go everything and bounded to the door of the passage leading into the garden. I opened it suddenly. The whole movement took me only five seconds.

“I found there was no human being behind the wooden shutters, no branch of a tree to stop them. No string attached — nothing but the pure night air.

“I ran around the house and came back to the door. It had closed itself.

“I was the plaything of an unknown force! I stood for an instant, dum-founded, grinding my teeth and swearing. Yet I had to get out of this terrible force, a force well planned. But by whom?

“Then I called to my wife in a voice as calm as I could make it. At once she came to the upper window, fully dressed, thus showing that she had not intended to sleep.

“ ‘Please open,’ I said to her. ‘Like a fool I have got out, but the door got accidentally closed, and, of course, the front door is locked. It is silly, but after this little night round I believe we can go to sleep on both ears.’

“Although it was summer, my teeth chattered as I spoke. She came downstairs quickly and opened the door, not as yet suspecting my anxiety. I went to get my revolver, which I had left at my bedside.”

Another candle was lit and everything became peaceful once more. But as soon as the candle went out several heavy blows were heard on the ground floor door leading to the garden.

Christo crept down the passageway and stood just inside the door. The blows started again. He jerked the door open suddenly and thrust his head out.

There was no one there — nothing to be seen.

In a little room next to his bedroom, which had no exit, noises began and became louder and louder. As soon as a light was lit they ceased, but the moment the light was put out they began again.

Christo, anxious to catch the trickster, stood on the stair landing, revolver in hand. Hardly had the match he held in his fingers gone out when he heard, close to his face, a loud burst of laughter which echoed all over the house.

He saw a white cloud before him, and two wisps of whitish light came from the nostrils of the figure.

This was too much. He felt his courage giving away. His searching fingers could find no more matches, and he called to his wife to bring some down to him. She came quickly, but, in his excitement, he dropped the candle he held, and it rolled away in the darkness somewhere.

“I clasped my wife against my side with my left hand and said to her:

“ ‘I have no more candle. I shall go up with you to find one. If I shoot at random don’t be frightened. There is really nobody. Only, you know if somebody were there, it would be a good warning.’

“ ‘No,’ she replied, very much frightened, even more by my tone than by my words. ‘I do not understand. Are you frightened, too?’

“ ‘There is no cause, I assure you,’ I said, trying to laugh. ‘I am going with you. You will give me another candle because the moon lights things up so badly—’ I went rambling on.

“As we were going up the stairs, pressed against each other, I suddenly felt her getting heavy and pulling me back with the weight of two bodies. She started struggling and crying:

“ ‘Francis, help! Somebody has got hold of my feet.’

“We had arrived on the small landing lighted by a window opening on the garden at the back of the house.

“Without turning around, so convinced was I that I should not see anybody, I passed my right hand over my left shoulder and fired in that direction. The shot rang out fearfully in that sonorous house, and my wife, leaning across my arm, seemed to be dead.

“But I had not killed the evil thing which pursued me. For I received a violent blow on the cheek as if with five small sticks.

“Strangely enough, the blow on the cheek gave me back all my energy. Being struck means that one strikes out and reacts immediately.

“I tore my wife from the terrible thing which sought to take her away from me, and by the vague light of the window I saw once more that there was nobody behind her. We reached our room and I banged the door feverishly, as if I were crushing something in the doorway.

“My wife, feeling herself saved, and thinking of a malefactor because I defended myself with a revolver, rushed to the cradle of the child.

“The cradle was empty.

“Then she fainted away.

“Savagely watching the circle of feeble light, which the lamp shed around me and the woman on the floor, for a sign of the something which would no doubt appear there, I waited. It was useless to think of defense. Knife, revolver — all this became helpless against an enemy who could not be seized.

“From afar the servants, having heard the firing, howled like dogs at the moon. I know of nothing more demoralizing than the cries of women in the night.

“But the soft wailing of a baby which seemed to come from under the floor awoke me from my moral feebleness. It had to be found, the little mite, for I knew from my wife’s fainting fit that it was not she who put it away.

“So I had the courage — it required some courage to go up and downstairs in that house — to search the whole ground floor, holding the lamp on high.

“I found the infant quite naked, all its swaddling clothes taken off, placed on its back in the middle of a marble tablelike object of no value abandoned by a redoubtable robber in his haste to escape in the night.

“All night long I had to soothe the hysterics of my wife and the terror of my infant child. It was only at sunrise that everything returned to its natural order, and the mother went to sleep with the baby’s lips on her breast.

“I must say that this horrible adventure put me into such a state of breakdown that I could no longer face my invisible enemy or enemies. This last conjuring trick, this baby being taken away without our being able to guess how it passed the staircase — or the walls — it could not be explained, could not be tolerated.

“My heart sank with a new fear, that of having to give way before having understood the phenomena. When day broke I decided not to yield without at least informing the Portuguese police of what had happened.”

Christo’s personal opinion was that the whole affair was the work of burglars who were trying to get him to leave the house so they could loot it. This was one of the reasons that decided him to call on the police for aid.

“These were very incredulous at first, but the notice given by both our servants the day after the events created a very favorable and convincing situation. They went away like two hens frightened by a motor car, bawling and cackling in every key, and adding details which were the more circumstantial for their having seen nothing.”

Convinced that something had really taken place at Christo’s home, the authorities placed a policeman and two constables at his disposal. Paredes and another friend, Henrique Sotto Armas, joined the party which was to watch the next night.

The house was searched and inspected by the group from top to bottom. Satisfied that there was no one hiding inside, they laid their trap. It was decided that the policeman should be outside the house, while the two constables and the other members of the party locked themselves inside and waited behind the outside doors and the window whose shutters had so mysteriously opened themselves.

The next is quoted from a letter written by Christo to Mme. Rachilde.

When every one was at his station the lights were put out. Knocks were immediately heard on the front door.

“Do you hear that?” Christo asked the constables.

“Perfectly,” they replied.

The knocking began again. Christo suddenly jerked open the door. There was nobody to be seen except the policeman who was calmly walking back and forth a short distance away.

“Who knocked here?” Christo demanded.

“Nobody,” the policeman replied.

“Didn’t you hear the knocking just now?”

“I have heard nothing at all,” the policeman insisted.

Christo sputtered angrily. “This is too much,” he declared. “Go on inside, and you two constables come outside here to watch.”

The same thing happened again. The policeman and the people inside heard the knocking, but the constables heard and saw nothing.

It was decided then that everybody should watch inside the house. One of the constables was sent into the room where Paredes had slept on the first night he visited the place. When the man went to sit down on a bench it was pulled away so suddenly that he fell down.

The other constable, Paredes, and the policeman stationed themselves at other strategic points on the ground floor. Christo’s wife and the servants remained in their rooms on the second floor with the doors locked.

As on the previous night Christo stood on a landing of the stair leading to the ground floor.

They had hardly taken their positions before the strange noises and blows started. The racket was particularly loud in a small room next to one of the bedrooms. When this was investigated only a small trunk was found in it, and the trunk was empty. There was no outside entrance to the room. The men returned to their posts again.

As soon as the lights were out a tremendous noise and the sounds of a terrific struggle were heard from the guest room. Every one rushed in, thinking that the constable had at last caught the offender.

But they were disappointed. When they got there all they saw was the infuriated constable striking with his sword right and left. As they appeared he dashed back into a little boudoir where there was a wardrobe with a mirror, which he broke in his fury.

He had to be restrained by force, and told them that something had struck him several times. Christo writes:

“He came out of that dark place declaring that he would sooner resign as a defender of the peace than start again on that kind of war.”

Christo himself was the next man attacked. After the constable had been quieted he had returned to his post on the stair landing. The lights were put out again.

Suddenly he received a blow on his left cheek so hard that he screamed in agony and surprise. It seemed as if fangs had hooked themselves into the flesh to tear it.

The lights were turned on again. Four finger-prints could be plainly seen on his left cheek, which was red, while his right was an ashen hue. It was now about midnight. Of the succeeding events Christo writes:

“Boxes of linen, yet unpacked because of our recent arrival, were found emptied on the floor by hands which could never be caught in the act. Blows sounded throughout the cursed dwelling in the ears of the protectors who had come to help us. Cries and jeers smote them without giving them any possible idea why they were persecuted.

“There were no cellars in this specially haunted house where wires, good or bad conductors of electricity, could have been concealed; no thickets in the garden where clever disturbers of the peace could have concealed themselves.

“No. It was mystery taking possession of a very modern scene and playing the drama of Fear without accessories or scenery, addressing itself only to the mentality of incredulous man, perhaps in order to show him that whatever the times, the unknown forces always remain formed.

“To tell the truth, I was more angry than frightened. I could not admit discovering any trickery. But it seemed humiliating to turn my back on this cowardly and dishonest enemy who struck in the dark.

“Yet we had to go and leave an uninhabitable spot in the night, because of the infant which cried, and the mother who became more and more nervous.”

Although the mother and the baby were given as the reasons for the flight from the house, yet the men were equally terrified. The entire party went to a hotel to spend the rest of the night, and the stupefied police went home, swearing never again to enter such a place.

Christo sublet the house. But after two days the new tenant moved away, declaring that it was uninhabitable. It had to be left empty.

The above is the record of the experiences passed through by Homen Christo in 1919. In some ways they are even more amazing than those events which took place in the haunted castle of Calvados, and which will be told about at another time.

The facts have been verified by several investigators. And as one reads them one wonders. Are there invisible beings? Is there an invisible world? Do we know all the forces of nature?

For centuries “The White Lady of the Hohenzollerns” has appeared to the members of royalty to warn them of approaching death or misfortune. First heard of about four hundred and fifty years ago, she has since been seen by many people, among them Napoleon and Frederick William IV of Prussia.

During the World War she again appeared. The Kaiser, aware of the sinister significance of her appearance at the Imperial House, was so much disturbed over her visits that he forbade the mention of her name at the court.

The White Lady is supposed to be Lady Bertha von Lichtenstein, the beautiful daughter of Catherine of Wurtemberg and Ulrich von Rosenberg, lieutenant governor in Bohemia, and commander in chief of the Roman Catholic troops against the Hussites.

She was the victim of an unhappy marriage, but much beloved by her people, and first appeared at her old castle at Neuhaus after the Thirty Years’ War, when the annual feast held in her memory was temporarily discontinued.

There are many records of her appearance during the next century — always followed by death or misfortune. On August 26, 1678, the Margrave Erdmann Philip of Bayreuth was riding from the race track back to the palace when his horse fell and threw him. The prince died a few hours later. A few days before, the White Lady had been seen by several people, seated in his armchair.

Strangely enough one of the people to whom she appeared was Napoleon. Some time in 1805 his headquarters happened to be at Schönbrunn, where he was directing the movements preceding the “Drei Kaiser Schlacht” of Austerlitz.

“In the middle of the night,” says the record, “he was suddenly awakened by a terrific shaking of his bed, and found that a lady, dressed in white and looking very angry, was trying to overturn the bed.

“Springing up, the emperor fled from the room, thinking that his visitor must be a lunatic who had strayed into it by mistake. Outside the door, however, the Mameluke. Rutau, was sleeping soundly. When the two men went back into the bedchamber they found it empty.

“Napoleon then decided that he had had a very vivid nightmare. When he spoke of the affair the next day, however, to his astonishment he learned that Berthier, who had been sleeping in a room some distance from his own, had had exactly the same visitor!

“Four years later, in 1809, Bonaparte again made Schönbrunn his headquarters after the battle of Wagram. This time he gave orders for his bed to be prepared in another room, thinking that the one he had formerly occupied was haunted.

“The precaution proved useless.

“Once more he was awakened in the middle of the night by the White Lady, and this time her manner was even more menacing than it had been before.

“ ‘Who are you?’ demanded Napoleon. ‘And what do you want of me?’

“ ‘Who I am,’ the apparition replied in French, ‘is known only to Heaven, whose messenger I am. I have to tell you that unless you desist from your efforts against Germany, you and yours will be utterly destroyed one day.’ ”

With these words she vanished.

The Viscomte d’Arlincourt tells of several appearances of the White Lady. On one occasion Katherine, the wife of King William of Wurtemberg, and a sister of the Emperor Nicholas, was lying in bed ill, when the door of the room flew open as if with a sudden gust of wind. The queen demanded hastily that it be shut again, as the draft annoyed her.

Her lady-in-waiting, who was reading to her, got up immediately to obey the command. When she had closed the door and turned to go back to her place by the bedside she distinctly saw the White Lady sitting in her chair. Two days later, January 9, 1819, the queen died suddenly, although she was not generally supposed to be seriously ill.

The White Lady is also supposed to have been seen kneeling by the bed of the dying Margravine Amelia of Baden, the mother of Alexander I of Russia, at the Palace of Bruchsal, which was once the residence of two Prince Bishops in succession.

In 1840 the White Lady appeared before the death of Frederick William III.

Mrs. Hugh Fraser, in her book, “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands” tells this particularly gruesome story of yet another appearance of the famous ghost of the Hohenzollern family:

“In July, 1857, Frederick William IV, of Prussia, and his queen were visiting the King and Queen of Saxony at the Royal Palace at Pillnitz. That night, between midnight and one o’clock, the sentry on guard outside the castle distinguished, through the dead silence around him, the distant sound of heavy, measured footsteps, as of soldiers marching toward him across the graveled space in front of his sentry box.

“Presently he could make out the outlines of a company of some kind, advancing at the same slow, even pace. Then, to his horror, he saw five figures — a woman in white, followed by four headless men carrying a long, heavy object on their shoulders. They passed by him, entered a small side door of the palace and disappeared.

“For a few minutes the sentry stood paralyzed with terror, scarcely knowing whether he was sane or mad. Then the side door was pushed open again, and from it issued the same phantom procession.

“The headless men with their burden this time, however, preceded the White Lady, who followed a few feet behind them.

“They brushed by the sentry who saw that they were carrying an open coffin, in which was the body of a man dressed in a general’s uniform, covered with orders and decorations. Among them he recognized the Order of the Black Eagle.

“But the body, like those of its bearers, was headless and a royal crown filled the space between the shoulders.

“The terrified sentry remained at his post and sufficiently collected his wits to note every detail of the appalling sight.

“Slowly the headless bearers, with their ghastly burden, followed by the White Lady, moved away; and the man when he made his official report the next day, stated that he saw the figures gradually disappear ‘from the feet up.’

“The meaning of this appearance of the White Lady was soon revealed. Frederick William IV had been in poor health for some time, and during this visit to the Palace of Pillnitz the first grave symptoms of the distressing malady which later deprived him of his reason showed themselves.

“In the following October he was struck down with brain seizure, and his condition speedily became so bad that on the twenty-seventh of the same month the Prince of Prussia was reluctantly compelled to assume the regency. For three years the unhappy king lived with only a few occasional intervals of sanity, and died on January 2, 1861.”

When Mrs. Fraser’s husband was attached to the British Legation at Dresden, soon after the White Lady’s appearance, this terrible experience of the sentry at the Palace of Pillnitz was still a much discussed topic.

The latest appearance of the White Lady was, as already mentioned, during the World War. Disaster followed for the House of Hohenzollern.

In an article in the Occult Review of November, 1915, Elliot O’Donnell states that Ferdinand, the King of Bulgaria, was haunted perpetually by the ghost of Stambuloff, the minister whose death he brought about in 1895.

“On several occasions,” he writes, “when Ferdinand had been seen out driving, or even walking, the spectators — though possibly those gifted with psychic powers only — have seen beside him a figure which they have easily recognized as the dead minister.

“On one occasion, when Ferdinand was visiting a certain princess, the latter seemed strangely agitated, as did her lady in waiting.

“Upon the latter being asked what was the matter with her and her royal mistress, she replied in an agitated whisper, that they were disturbed by the sight of the man who persisted in standing just behind his highness, and who looked just like a corpse.

“Her questioner said that the figure was quite invisible to him, but on her describing it, no doubt was left in his mind that what she and the princess had seen was the ghost of Stambuloff.

“On another occasion Ferdinand visited a pretty little Hungarian fortune teller and had his hand read. Then, thinking to trap the girl, he came to her again the next day, this time in disguise.

“Rather to his chagrin — for he flattered himself that his make-up was particularly good — the pretty fortune teller recognized him immediately as the gentleman who had consulted her the day before, and told him that she had been expecting him.

“ ‘How is that?’ asked Ferdinand. ‘Why, I’ve told nobody.’ ”

The girl answered that the gentleman who had accompanied him on his former visit had been to see her half an hour before, and told her that the king was already coming.

“Ferdinand, now becoming highly agitated, asked her to describe this strange person. She did so, and the description exactly tallied with that of the dead Stambuloff, while to his increasing horror the girl added that the gentleman had said to her:

“ ‘Tell him when he comes that he will perish in much the same manner as I have,’ and showed her his own hand.

“Ferdinand then asked the girl what she had seen written there, and she answered that she had seen the same ending to the life-line as she saw in his own; but what it was she would rather not say.

“Then she suddenly cried out that she saw his friend beckoning to him. But Ferdinand had heard enough, and, turning on his heel, left her hurriedly.”