Hugh Lamb - The Invisible Eye - Tales of Terror by Emile Erckmann and Louis Alexandre Chatrian

‘Good!’ And turning towards a glass door on his left, ‘Katel!’ the burgomaster shouted.

An old female servant half-opened the door.

‘Sir?’

‘I am going to take a walk on the hill. You will wait for me till ten o’clock. Here is the key.’

‘Yes, master.’

Then the old soldier took down a gun from above the door, checked its priming, and slung it across his shoulder; then addressing Kasper Boeck: ‘You will alert the constable to meet me in the small holly bush lane behind the mill,’ he said. ‘Your “ghost” must be some marauder … but if it turns out to be a fox, I will have myself a magnificent hat with long flaps made of it.’

Mauerer and the humble Kasper went out. The weather was splendid, the stars clear and innumerable. While the shepherd went and knocked at the constable’s door, the burgomaster disappeared up a small lane of alder trees, which wound its way behind the old church. Two minutes later Kasper and the constable Hans Goerner, a pistol at his hip, ran to join Master Pétrus in the holly-lined lane. The three of them proceeded together to the ruins of Geierstein.

These ruins, situated some twenty minutes from the village, seemed quite insignificant; they were some pieces of dilapidated walls, four to six feet high, which stretched out in the midst of the heather. Archaeologists call them the aqueducts of Seranus, the Roman camp of the Holderlock, or the remains of Théodoric, according to their whim. The only thing which was really remarkable in these ruins was the stairway of a chamber hewn from the rock.

In a manner contrary to spiral stairs, instead of concentric circles narrowing at each step, the spiral of this one got wider, so that the bottom of the cistern was three times wider than the entrance. Was it a whim of architecture, or rather some other reason which gave rise to this bizarre structure? Little does it matter! The fact is that there resulted from it in the cistern this vague roaring such as can be heard by pressing a seashell to one’s ear, and that one can hear the steps of the travellers on the gravel, the stirring of the air, the rustling of the leaves, and even the distant words of those passing along at the foot of the hill.

And so our three characters climbed the little path, between the vines and the kitchen-gardens of Hirchwiller.

‘I can see nothing,’ said the burgomaster, raising his nose mockingly.

‘Nor I,’ repeated the constable, imitating the tone of the other.

‘It is in the hole,’ murmured the shepherd.

‘We shall see, we shall see,’ took up the burgomaster.

Thus it was that after a quarter of an hour they arrived at the entrance to the chamber. The night was bright, clear, and perfectly calm. As far as the eye could see the moon outlined nocturnal landscapes of bluish lines, studded with slender trees, whose shadows seem sketched in black pencil. The heather and the broom in blossom perfumed the air with their sharp smell and the frogs of a neighbouring pool sang their full-throated chorus, interrupted with silences. But all these details escaped our fine countrymen. Their sole thoughts were of catching the ‘spirit’.

When they reached the stair, all three stopped and listened, then looked into the darkness. Nothing appeared, nothing stirred.

‘Confound it,’ said the burgomaster. ‘We have forgotten to bring a candle. You go down, Kasper, you know the way better than me. I’ll follow.’

At this suggestion the shepherd stepped back suddenly. If left to his own devices the poor man would have taken flight. His woeful countenance made the burgomaster burst out laughing.

‘Ah well, Hans, since he doesn’t want to go down, you show me the way,’ he said to the constable.

‘But, master burgomaster,’ said the latter, ‘you are well aware that there are steps missing. We would risk breaking our necks!’

‘Well then, what are we to do?’

‘Yes, what are we to do?’

‘Send your dog,’ resumed Pétrus.

The shepherd whistled for his dog, showed him the stairs, urged him down; but he was no more willing than the rest to try his luck.

At that moment a bright idea struck the constable.

‘Hey, Mr Burgomaster,’ he said. ‘If you were to fire a shot into it …’

‘Indeed,’ exclaimed the other, ‘you are right. One will see clearly, at least.’

And without hesitation the good fellow approached the stair, levelling his gun.

But because of the acoustic effect described earlier, the ‘spirit’, the marauder, the individual, who was actually in the chamber, had heard everything. The idea of being shot at didn’t appeal to him, for in a piercing, high-pitched voice he shouted out: ‘Stop! Don’t shoot! I’m coming up!’

Then the three dignitaries looked at each other, chuckling, and the burgomaster, leaning forward again into the opening, exclaimed in a coarse voice: ‘Hurry up, you rogue, or I’ll shoot! Hurry up!’

He cocked his gun. The click appeared to hasten the ascent of the mysterious character. Stones could be heard rolling. However it took another minute before he appeared, the chamber being over sixty feet deep.

What was this man doing in the midst of such darkness? He must be some great criminal! Thus at least thought Pétrus Mauerer and his assistants.

At last a vague shape emerged from the shadow, then slowly a small man, four and a half feet tall at the most, thin, in rags, his face wizened and yellow, his eyes sparkling like those of a magpie and his hair untidy, came out shouting: ‘What right have you to come and trouble my studies, you wretches?’

This grandiloquence hardly matched his clothes and his appearance, so the indignant burgomaster replied: ‘Try and show some respect, you rogue, or I’ll start by giving you a thrashing.’

‘A thrashing!’ said the little man, hopping with anger and standing right under the burgomaster’s nose.

‘Yes,’ resumed the former, who couldn’t help but admire the courage of the pygmy, ‘if you don’t answer satisfactorily the questions that I am going to put to you. I am the burgomaster of Hirchwiller, here is the village constable and the shepherd with his dog. We are stronger than you … be sensible and tell me who you are, what you are doing here, and why you don’t dare appear in broad daylight. Then we can see what shall be done with you.’

‘All that’s none of your business,’ answered the little man in his curt voice. ‘I shall not answer you.’

‘In that case, march,’ said the burgomaster, grasping him by the nape of the neck. ‘You’ll spend the night in prison.’

The little man struggled but in vain. Completely exhausted, he said (not without some nobility), ‘Let me go, sir. I yield to force. I shall follow you.’

The burgomaster, who wasn’t lacking in manners himself, became calmer in his turn.

‘Your word?’ he said.

‘My word!’

‘Fine … Quick march!’

And that is how on the night of 29 July 1835 the burgomaster captured a small red-haired man, as he emerged from the cave of Geierstein.

On their return to Hirchwiller, the vagabond was double-locked in, not forgetting the outside bolt and the padlock. Afterwards everyone went to recover from their exertions. Pétrus Mauerer, once in bed, pondered over this strange adventure till midnight.

The next day, about nine o’clock, Hans Goerner, the constable, having received orders to bring the prisoner to the town-hall, so that he could undergo a new examination, went with four sturdy lads to the cell. They opened the door, quite curious to look at the will-o’-the-wisp. They saw him hanging by his tie from the bars of the skylight. Several say that he was still kicking … others that he was already stiff. Whichever it was, someone ran off to get Pétrus Mauerer, to inform him of the fact. What is certain is that at the arrival of the latter, the little man had breathed his last.