River Ghosts
In China there is a strong belief that spots in rivers, creeks, and ponds where people have been drowned are haunted by devils that, concealing themselves either in the water itself or on the banks, spring out upon the unwary and drown them. To warn people against these dangerous elementals, a stone or pillar called “The Fat-pee,” on which the name of the future Buddha or Pam-mo-o-mee-to-foo is inscribed, is set up near the place where they are supposed to lurk, and when the hauntings become very frequent the evil spirit is exorcised. The ceremony of exorcism consists in the decapitation of a white horse by a specially selected executioner, on the site of the hauntings. The head of the slaughtered animal is placed in an earthenware jar, and buried in the exact spot where it was killed, which place is then carefully marked by the erection of a stone tablet with the words “O-me-o-to-fat” transcribed on it. The performance concludes with the cutting up and selling of the horse’s body for food. Amongst the numerous other creeks that have witnessed this practice in recent years are those adjoining the villages of Tsze-tow (near Whampoa) and Gna-zew (near Canton).
Various of the lakes, particularly the crater lakes of America, were once thought to be haunted by spirits or devils of a fiery red who raised storms and upset canoes.
Sirens
But by far the most fascinating of all the phantasms of the water are the sirens that haunted (and still occasionally haunt) rivers and waterfalls, particularly those of Germany and Austria. Not so very long ago on my travels I came across an aged Hungarian who declared that he had once seen a siren. I append the story he told me, as nearly as possible in his own words.
“My brother Hans and I were wandering, early one morning, along the banks of a tributary of the Drave, in search of birds’ eggs. The shores on either side the river were thickly wooded, and so rough and uneven in places that we had to exercise the greatest care to avoid getting hurt. Few people visited the neighbourhood, save in the warmest and brightest time of the day, and, with the exception of a woodcutter, we had met no one. Much, then, to our astonishment, on arriving at an open space on the bank, we heard the sound of singing and music. ‘Whoever can it be?’ we asked ourselves, and then, advancing close to the water’s edge, we strained our heads, and saw, perched high on a rock in midstream a few feet to our left, a girl with long yellow hair and a face of the most exquisite beauty. Though I was too young then to trouble my head about girls, I could not help being struck with this one, whilst Hans, who was several years older than I, was simply spellbound. ‘My God! how lovely!’ he cried out, ‘and what a voice—how exquisite! Isn’t she divine? She is altogether too beautiful for a human being; she must be an angel,’ and he fell on his knees and extended his hands towards her, as if in the act of worship. Never having seen Hans behave in such a queer way before, I touched him on the shoulder, and said: ‘Get up! If you go on like this the lady will think you mad. Besides, it is getting late, we ought to be going on!’ But Hans did not heed me. He still continued to exclaim aloud, expressing his admiration in the most extravagant phrases; and then the girl ceased singing, and, looking at Hans with her large blue eyes, smiled and beckoned him to approach. I caught hold of him, and begged and implored him to do nothing so foolish, but he wrenched himself free, and, striking me savagely on the chest, leaped into the water and swam towards the rock.
“With what eagerness I counted his strokes and watched the dreaded distance diminish! On and on he swam, till at length he was close to the rock, and the lady, bending down, was holding out her lily hands to him. Hans clutched at them, and they were, I thought, already in his fevered grasp, when she coyly snatched them away and struck him playfully on the head. The cruel, hungry waters then surged over him. I saw him sink down, down, down: I saw him no more. When I raised my agonised eyes to the rocks, all was silent and desolate: the lady had vanished.”
CHAPTER XII
BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS
It was in Paris, at the Hotel Mandeville, that I met the Baroness Paoli, an almost solitary survivor of the famous Corsican family. I was introduced to her by John Heroncourt, a friend in common, and the introduction was typical of his characteristic unorthodoxy.
“Mr Elliott O’Donnell, the Baroness Paoli. Mr Elliott O’Donnell is a writer on the superphysical. He is unlike the majority of psychical researchers, inasmuch as he has not based his knowledge on hearsay, but has actually seen, heard, and felt occult phenomena, both collectively and individually.”
The Baroness smiled.
“Then I am delighted to meet Mr O’Donnell, for I, too, have had experience with the superphysical.”
She extended her hand; the introduction was over.
A man in my line of life has to work hard. My motto is promptness. I have no time to waste on superfluity of any kind. I come to the point at once. Consequently, my first remark to the Baroness was direct from the shoulder:
“Your experiences. Please tell them—they will be both interesting and useful.”
The Baroness gently clasped her hands—truly psychic hands, with slender fingers and long shapely nails—and, looking at me fixedly, said:
“If you write about it, promise that you will not mention names.”
“They shall at all events be unrecognisable,” I said. “Please begin.”
And without further delay the Baroness commenced her story.
“You must know,” she said, “that in my family, as in most historical families—particularly Corsican—there have been many tragedies. In some cases merely orthodox tragedies—a smile, a blow, a groan; in other cases peculiar tragedies—peculiar even in that country and in the grimness of the mediæval age.
“Since 1316 the headquarters of my branch of the Paolis has been at Sartoris, once the strongest fortified castle in Corsica, but now, alas! almost past repair, in fact little better than a heap of crumbling ruins. As you know, Mr O’Donnell, it takes a vast fortune to keep such a place merely habitable.
“I lived there with my mother until my marriage two years ago, and neither she nor I had ever seen or heard any superphysical manifestations. From time to time some of the servants complained of odd noises, and there was one room which none of them would pass alone even in daylight; but we laughed at their fears, merely attributing them to the superstition which is so common among the Corsican peasants.
“The year after my marriage, my husband, a Mr Vercoe, who was a great friend of ours, and I, accepted my mother’s invitation to spend Christmas with her, and we all three travelled together to Sartoris.
“It was an ideal season, and the snow—an exceptional sight in my native town—lay thick in the Castle grounds.
“But to get on with my story—for I see I must not try your patience with unnecessary detail—I must give you a brief description of the bedroom in which my husband and I slept. Like all the rooms in the Castle, it was oak panelled throughout. Floor, ceiling, and walls, all were of oak, and the bed, also of oak, and certainly of no later date than the fourteenth century, was superbly carved, and had been recently valued at £30,000.
“There were two entrances, the one leading into a passage, and the other into a large reception room, formerly a chapel, at the furthest extremity of which was a huge barred and bolted door that had not been opened for more than a hundred years. This door led down a flight of stone steps to a series of ancient dungeons that occupied the space underneath our bedroom and the reception room.
“On Christmas Eve we retired to rest somewhat earlier than usual, and, being tired after a long day’s motoring, speedily fell into a deep sleep. We awoke simultaneously, both querying the time and agreeing that it must be about five o’clock.
“Whilst we were talking, we suddenly heard, to our utter astonishment, the sound of footsteps—heavy footsteps—accompanied by a curious clanging sound, immediately beneath us; and, as if by mutual consent, we both held our b
reath and listened.
“The footsteps moved on, and we presently heard them begin to ascend the stone steps leading to the adjoining room. Up, up, up, they came, until, having reached the summit, they paused. Then we heard the huge, heavy bolts of the fast-closed door shoot back with a sonorous clash. So far I had been rather more puzzled than frightened, and the idea of ghosts had not entered my mind, but when I heard the door—the door which I knew to be so securely fastened from the inside—thus opened, a great fear swept over me, and I prayed Heaven to save us from what might ensue.
“Several people, talking rapidly in gruff voices, now entered the room, and we distinctly heard the jingling of spurs and the rattling of sword scabbards coming to us distinctly through the cracks of the door.
“I was so paralysed with fear that I could do nothing. I could neither speak nor move, and my very soul was concentrated in one great, sickly dread, one awful anticipation that the intruders would burst into our room, and, before our very eyes, perform unthinkable horrors.
“To my immeasurable relief, however, this did not happen. The footsteps, as far as I could judge, advanced into the middle of the room—there was a ghastly suggestion of a scuffle, of a smothered cry, a gurgle; and the mailed feet then retired whence they had come, dragging with them some heavy load which bumped, bumped, bumped down the stairs and into the cellar. Then a brief silence followed, abruptly broken by the sound of a girlish voice, which, though beautifully tintinnabulous, was unearthly, and full of suggestions so sinister and blood-curdling, that the fetters which had hitherto held me tongue-tied snapped asunder, and I was able to give vent to my terror in words. The instant I did so the singing ceased, all was still, and not another sound disturbed us till morning.
“We got up as soon as we dared and found the door at the head of the dungeon steps barred and bolted as usual, while the heavy and antique furniture in the apartment showed no sign of having been disturbed.
“On the following night my husband sat up in the room adjoining our bedroom, to see if there would be a repetition of what had taken place the night before, but nothing occurred, and we never heard the noises again.
“That is one experience. The other, though not our own, was almost coincidental, and happened to our engineer friend, Mr Vercoe. When we told him about the noises we had heard, he roared with laughter.
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I always understood you Corsicans were superstitious, but this beats everything. The regulation stereotype ghost in armour and clanking chains, eh! Do you know what the sounds were, Baroness? Rats!’ and he smiled odiously.
“Then a sudden idea flashed across me. ‘Look here, Mr Vercoe,’ I exclaimed, ‘there is one room in our Castle I defy even you—sceptic as you are—to sleep in. It is the Barceleri Chamber, called after my ancestor, Barceleri Paoli. He visited China in the fifteenth century, bringing back with him a number of Chinese curiosities, and a Buddha which I shrewdly suspect he had stolen from a Canton temple. The room is much the same as when my ancestor occupied it, for no one has slept in it since. Moreover, the servants declare that the noises they so frequently hear come from it. But, of course, you won’t mind spending a night in it?’
“Mr Vercoe laughed. ‘He, he, he! Only too delighted. Give me a bottle of your most excellent vintage, and I defy any ghost that was ever created!’
“He was as good as his word, Mr O’Donnell, and though he had advised the contrary, we—that is to say, my mother, my husband, our two old servants and I—sat up in one of the rooms close at hand.
“Eleven, twelve, one, two, and three o’clock struck, and we were beginning to wish we had taken his advice and gone to bed, when we heard the most appalling, agonising, soul-rending screams for help. We rushed out, and, as we did so, the door of Mr Vercoe’s room flew open and something—something white and glistening—bounded into the candle-light.
“We were so shocked, so absolutely petrified with terror, that it was a second or so before we realised that it was Mr Vercoe—not the Mr Vercoe we knew, but an entirely different Mr Vercoe—a Mr Vercoe without a stitch of clothing, and with a face metamorphosed into a lurid, solid block of horror, overspreading which was a suspicion of something—something too dreadful to name, but which we could have sworn was utterly at variance with his nature. Close at his heels was the blurred outline of something small and unquestionably horrid. I cannot define it. I dare not attempt to diagnose the sensations it produced. Apart from a deadly, nauseating fear, they were mercifully novel.
“Dashing past us, Mr Vercoe literally hurled himself along the corridor, and with almost superhuman strides, disappeared downstairs. A moment later, and the clashing of the hall door told us he was in the open air. A breathless silence fell on us, and for some seconds we were all too frightened to move. My husband was the first to pull himself together.
“‘Come along!’ he cried, gripping one of the trembling servants by the arm. ‘Come along instantly! We must keep him in sight at all costs,’ and, bidding me remain where I was, he raced downstairs.
“After a long search he eventually discovered Mr Vercoe lying at full length on the grass—insensible.
“For some weeks our friend’s condition was critical—on the top of a violent shock to the system, sufficient in itself to endanger life, he had taken a severe chill, which resulted in double pneumonia. However, thanks to a bull-dog constitution, typically English, he recovered, and we then begged him to give us an account of all that had happened.
“‘I cannot!’ he said. ‘My one desire is to forget everything that happened on that awful night.’
“He was obdurate, and our curiosity was, therefore, doomed to remain unsatisfied. Both my husband and I, however, felt quite sure that the image of Buddha was at the bottom of the mischief, and, as there chanced just then to be an English doctor staying at a neighbouring chateau, who was on his way to China, we entrusted the image to him, on the understanding that he would place it in a Buddhist temple. He deceived us, and, returning almost immediately to England, took the image with him. We subsequently learned that within three months this man was divorced, that he murdered a woman in Clapham Rise, and, in order to escape arrest, poisoned himself.
“The image then found its way to a pawnbroker’s establishment in Houndsditch, which shortly afterwards was burned to the ground. Where it is now, I cannot definitely say, but I have been told that an image of Buddha is the sole occupant of an empty house in the Shepherd’s Bush Road—a house that is now deemed haunted. These are the experiences I wanted to tell you, Mr O’Donnell. What do you think of them?”
“I think,” I said, “they are of absorbing interest. Can you see any association in the two hauntings—any possible connection between what you heard and what Mr Vercoe saw?”
A look of perplexity crossed the Baroness’s face. “I hardly know,” she said. “What is your opinion on that point?”
“That they are distinct—absolutely distinct. The phenomena you heard are periodical re-enactions, (either by the earth-bound spirits of the actual victim and perpetrators, or by impersonating phantoms), of a crime once committed within the Castle walls. A girl was obviously murdered in the chapel and her coffin dragged into the dungeons, where, no doubt, her remains are to be found. I presume it was her spirit you heard tintinnabulating. Very possibly, if her skeleton were unearthed and re-interred in an orthodox fashion, the hauntings would cease.
“Now, with regard to your friend’s experience. The blurred figure you saw pursuing the engineer was not the image of Buddha—it was one of Mr Vercoe’s many personalities, extracted from him by the image of Buddha. We are all, as you are aware, complex creatures, all composed of diverse selves, each self possessing a specific shape and individuality. The more animal of these separate selves, the higher spiritual forces attaching themselves to certain localities and symbols have the power of drawing out of us, and eventually des
troying. The higher spiritual forces, however, do not associate themselves with all crucifixes and Buddhas, but only with those moulded by true believers. For instance, a Buddha fashioned for mere gain, and by a person who was not a genuine follower of the prophet, would have no power of attraction.
“I have proved all this, experimentally, times without number.
“Mr Vercoe must have had—as indeed many of us have—vices, in all probability, little suspected. The close proximity of the Buddha acted on them, and they began to leave his body and form a shape of their own. Had he allowed them to do so, all might have gone well; they would have been effectually overcome by the higher spiritual forces attached to the Buddha. But as soon as he saw a figure beginning to form—and no doubt it was very dreadful—he lost his head. His shrieks interrupted the work, the power of the Buddha was, pro tempus, at an end, and the extracted personality commenced at once to re-enter Vercoe. Rushing at him with that end in view, it so terrified him that he fled from the room, and it was at that stage that you appeared upon the scene. What followed is, of course, pure conjecture on my part, but I fear, I greatly fear, that by the time Mr Vercoe became unconscious the mischief was done, and the latter’s evil personality had once again united with his other personalities.”
“And what would be the after-effect, Mr O’Donnell?” the Baroness inquired anxiously.
“I fear a serious one,” I replied evasively. “In the case of the doctor you mentioned, who committed murder, an evil ego had doubtless been expelled, and, receiving a rebuff, had reunited, for after a reunion the evil personality usually receives a new impetus and grows with amazing rapidity. Have you heard from Mr Vercoe lately?”
The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack Page 38
