Tales of Terror and Mystery Read online

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  Tales of Terror and Mystery

  By

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Contents

  Tales of Terror

  The Horror of the Heights The Leather Funnel The New Catacomb The Case of Lady Sannox The Terror of Blue John Gap The Brazilian Cat

  Tales of Mystery

  The Lost Special The Beetle-Hunter The Man with the Watches The Japanned Box The Black Doctor The Jew's Breastplate

  Tales of Terror

  The Horror of the Heights

  The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called theJoyce-Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by someunknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humour, hasnow been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The mostmacabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking hismorbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforcethe statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing andeven monstrous, it is none the less forcing itself upon the generalintelligence that they are true, and that we must readjust our ideas tothe new situation. This world of ours appears to be separated by aslight and precarious margin of safety from a most singular andunexpected danger. I will endeavour in this narrative, whichreproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhatfragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up todate, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be any who doubtthe narrative of Joyce-Armstrong, there can be no question at all as tothe facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle, R. N., and Mr. Hay Connor, whoundoubtedly met their end in the manner described.

  The Joyce-Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is calledLower Haycock, lying one mile to the westward of the village ofWithyham, upon the Kent and Sussex border. It was on the 15thSeptember last that an agricultural labourer, James Flynn, in theemployment of Mathew Dodd, farmer, of the Chauntry Farm, Withyham,perceived a briar pipe lying near the footpath which skirts the hedgein Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on he picked up a pair of brokenbinocular glasses. Finally, among some nettles in the ditch, he caughtsight of a flat, canvas-backed book, which proved to be a note-bookwith detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and werefluttering along the base of the hedge. These he collected, but some,including the first, were never recovered, and leave a deplorablehiatus in this all-important statement. The note-book was taken by thelabourer to his master, who in turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton, ofHartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for an expertexamination, and the manuscript was forwarded to the Aero Club inLondon, where it now lies.

  The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also onetorn away at the end of the narrative, though none of these affect thegeneral coherence of the story. It is conjectured that the missingopening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce-Armstrong'squalifications as an aeronaut, which can be gathered from other sourcesand are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air-pilots of England.For many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and themost intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him toboth invent and test several new devices, including the commongyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of themanuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are inpencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible--exactly, in fact, asthey might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedlyfrom the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are, it may be added,several stains, both on the last page and on the outside cover whichhave been pronounced by the Home Office experts to be blood--probablyhuman and certainly mammalian. The fact that something closelyresembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood, andthat Joyce-Armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever,is a remarkable example of the new weapons which modern science hasplaced in the hands of our detectives.

  And now a word as to the personality of the author of this epoch-makingstatement. Joyce-Armstrong, according to the few friends who reallyknew something of the man, was a poet and a dreamer, as well as amechanic and an inventor. He was a man of considerable wealth, much ofwhich he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby. He hadfour private aeroplanes in his hangars near Devizes, and is said tohave made no fewer than one hundred and seventy ascents in the courseof last year. He was a retiring man with dark moods, in which he wouldavoid the society of his fellows. Captain Dangerfield, who knew himbetter than anyone, says that there were times when his eccentricitythreatened to develop into something more serious. His habit ofcarrying a shot-gun with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation ofit.

  Another was the morbid effect which the fall of Lieutenant Myrtle hadupon his mind. Myrtle, who was attempting the height record, fell froman altitude of something over thirty thousand feet. Horrible tonarrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbspreserved their configuration. At every gathering of airmen,Joyce-Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ask, with an enigmaticsmile: "And where, pray, is Myrtle's head?"

  On another occasion after dinner, at the mess of the Flying School onSalisbury Plain, he started a debate as to what will be the mostpermanent danger which airmen will have to encounter. Having listenedto successive opinions as to air-pockets, faulty construction, andover-banking, he ended by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to putforward his own views, though he gave the impression that they differedfrom any advanced by his companions.

  It is worth remarking that after his own complete disappearance it wasfound that his private affairs were arranged with a precision which mayshow that he had a strong premonition of disaster. With theseessential explanations I will now give the narrative exactly as itstands, beginning at page three of the blood-soaked note-book:

  "Nevertheless, when I dined at Rheims with Coselli and Gustav Raymond Ifound that neither of them was aware of any particular danger in thehigher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in mythoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any correspondingidea they could not have failed to express it. But then they are twoempty, vainglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their sillynames in the newspaper. It is interesting to note that neither of themhad ever been much beyond the twenty-thousand-foot level. Of course,men have been higher than this both in balloons and in the ascent ofmountains. It must be well above that point that the aeroplane entersthe danger zone--always presuming that my premonitions are correct.

  "Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and onemight well ask: Why should this peril be only revealing itself in ourday? The answer is obvious. In the old days of weak engines, when ahundred horse-power Gnome or Green was considered ample for every need,the flights were very restricted. Now that three hundred horse-poweris the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers havebecome easier and more common. Some of us can remember how, in ouryouth, Garros made a world-wide reputation by attaining nineteenthousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to flyover the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, andthere are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of themhave been undertaken with impunity. The thirty-thousand-foot level hasbeen reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma.What does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet athousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist, and if hechanced to come down into a jungle he might be devoured. There arejungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers whichinhabit them. I believe in time they will map these jungles accuratelyout. Even at the present moment I could name two of them. One of themlies over the Pau-Biarritz district of France. Another is just over myhead as I write here in my house in Wiltshire. I rather think there isa third in the Homburg-Wiesbaden district.

  "It was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me thinking. Ofcourse, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that didnot satisfy me at all. First, there was Verrier in France; his machinewas found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was thecase of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of theiron fixings were found in a wood in Leicestershire. In that case, Dr.Middleton, of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope,declares that just before the clouds obscured the view he saw themachine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularlyupwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thoughtto be impossible. That was the last seen of Baxter. There was acorrespondence in the papers, but it never led to anything. There wereseveral other similar cases, and then there was the death of HayConnor. What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air,and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was everdone to get to the bottom of the business! He came down in atremendous vol-plane from an unknown height. He never got off hismachine and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what? 'Heart disease,'said the doctors. Rubbish! Hay Connor's heart was as sound as mineis. What did Venables say? Venables was the only man who was at hisside when he died. He said that he was shivering and looked like a manwho had been badly scared. 'Died of fright,' said Venables, but couldnot imagine what he was frightened about. Only said one word toVenables, which sounded like 'Monstrous.' They could make nothing ofthat at the inquest. But I could make something of it. Monsters! Thatwas the last word of poor Harry Hay Connor. And he DID die of fright,just as Venables thought.

  "And then there was
Myrtle's head. Do you really believe--does anybodyreally believe--that a man's head could be driven clean into his bodyby the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, forone, have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the greaseupon his clothes--'all slimy with grease,' said somebody at theinquest. Queer that nobody got thinking after that! I did--but, then,I had been thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents--howDangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun--but I've never beenhigh enough. Now, with this new, light Paul Veroner machine and itsone hundred and seventy-five Robur, I should easily touch the thirtythousand tomorrow. I'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I shall havea shot at something else as well. Of course, it's dangerous. If afellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogetherand subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. ButI'll visit the air-jungle tomorrow--and if there's anything there Ishall know it. If I return, I'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. IfI don't this note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how Ilost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries,if YOU please.

  "I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job. There's nothing like amonoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in veryearly days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looksas if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny littlemodel and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine is aten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five.It has all the modern improvements--enclosed fuselage, high-curvedlanding skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, workedby an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian-blindprinciple. I took a shot-gun with me and a dozen cartridges filledwith buck-shot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my oldmechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like anArctic explorer, with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks insidemy padded boots, a storm-cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It wasstifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of theHimalayas, and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there wassomething on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should ifI were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show--if youwant to get the last foot of life out of it. Of course, I took anoxygen bag; the man who goes for the altitude record without one willeither be frozen or smothered--or both.

  "I had a good look at the planes, the rudder-bar, and the elevatinglever before I got in. Everything was in order so far as I could see.Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly.When they let her go she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. Icircled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then witha wave to Perkins and the others, I flattened out my planes and put heron her highest. She skimmed like a swallow down wind for eight or tenmiles until I turned her nose up a little and she began to climb in agreat spiral for the cloud-bank above me. It's all-important to riseslowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go.

  "It was a close, warm day for an English September, and there was thehush and heaviness of impending rain. Now and then there came suddenpuffs of wind from the south-west--one of them so gusty and unexpectedthat it caught me napping and turned me half-round for an instant. Iremember the time when gusts and whirls and air-pockets used to bethings of danger--before we learned to put an overmastering power intoour engines. Just as I reached the cloud-banks, with the altimetermarking three thousand, down came the rain. My word, how it poured!It drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring myglasses so that I could hardly see. I got down on to a low speed, forit was painful to travel against it. As I got higher it became hail,and I had to turn tail to it. One of my cylinders was out of action--adirty plug, I should imagine, but still I was rising steadily withplenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, andI heard the full, deep-throated purr--the ten singing as one. That'swhere the beauty of our modern silencers comes in. We can at lastcontrol our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob whenthey are in trouble! All those cries for help were wasted in the olddays, when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket of themachine. If only the early aviators could come back to see the beautyand perfection of the mechanism which have been bought at the cost oftheir lives!

  "About nine-thirty I was nearing the clouds. Down below me, allblurred and shadowed with rain, lay the vast expanse of SalisburyPlain. Half a dozen flying machines were doing hackwork at thethousand-foot level, looking like little black swallows against thegreen background. I dare say they were wondering what I was doing upin cloud-land. Suddenly a grey curtain drew across beneath me and thewet folds of vapours were swirling round my face. It was clammily coldand miserable. But I was above the hail-storm, and that was somethinggained. The cloud was as dark and thick as a London fog. In myanxiety to get clear, I cocked her nose up until the automaticalarm-bell rang, and I actually began to slide backwards. My soppedand dripping wings had made me heavier than I thought, but presently Iwas in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared the first layer. There wasa second--opal-coloured and fleecy--at a great height above my head, awhite, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark, unbroken floor below, withthe monoplane labouring upwards upon a vast spiral between them. It isdeadly lonely in these cloud-spaces. Once a great flight of some smallwater-birds went past me, flying very fast to the westwards. The quickwhir of their wings and their musical cry were cheery to my ear. Ifancy that they were teal, but I am a wretched zoologist. Now that wehumans have become birds we must really learn to know our brethren bysight.

  "The wind down beneath me whirled and swayed the broad cloud-plain.Once a great eddy formed in it, a whirlpool of vapour, and through it,as down a funnel, I caught sight of the distant world. A large whitebiplane was passing at a vast depth beneath me. I fancy it was themorning mail service betwixt Bristol and London. Then the drift swirledinwards again and the great solitude was unbroken.

  "Just after ten I touched the lower edge of the upper cloud-stratum. Itconsisted of fine diaphanous vapour drifting swiftly from thewestwards. The wind had been steadily rising all this time and it wasnow blowing a sharp breeze--twenty-eight an hour by my gauge. Alreadyit was very cold, though my altimeter only marked nine thousand. Theengines were working beautifully, and we went droning steadily upwards.The cloud-bank was thicker than I had expected, but at last it thinnedout into a golden mist before me, and then in an instant I had shot outfrom it, and there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun above myhead--all blue and gold above, all shining silver below, one vast,glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach. It was a quarter pastten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eighthundred. Up I went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purringof my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolutionindicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators aresaid to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there isno time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted howunreliable is the compass when above a certain height from earth. Atfifteen thousand feet mine was pointing east and a point south. Thesun and the wind gave me my true bearings.

  "I had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, butwith every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. My machinegroaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, andswept away like a sheet of paper when I banked her on the turn,skimming down wind at a greater pace, perhaps, than ever mortal man hasmoved. Yet I had always to turn again and tack up in the wind's eye,for it was not merely a height record that I was after. By all mycalculations it was above little Wiltshire that my air-jungle lay, andall my labour might be lost if I struck the outer layers at somefarther point.

  "When I reached the nineteen-thousand-foot level, which was aboutmidday, the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to thestays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken.I even cast loose the parachute behind me, and fastened its hook intothe ring of my leathern belt, so as to be ready for the worst. Now wasthe time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by thelife of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely. Every cord andstrut was humming and vibrating like so many harp-strings, but it wasglorious to see how, for all the beating and the buffeting, she wasstill the conqueror of Nature and the mistress of the sky. There issurely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superiorto the limitations which Creation seemed to impose--rise, too, by suchunselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquest has shown. Talk ofhuman degeneration! When has such a story as this been written in theannals of our race?

  "These were the thoughts in my head as I climbed that monstrous,inclined plane with the wind sometimes beating in my face and sometimeswhistling behind my ears, while the cloud-land beneath me fell away tosuch a distance that the folds and hummocks of silver had all smoothedout into one flat, shining plain. But suddenly I had a horrible andunprecedented experience. I have known before what it is to be in whatour neighbours have called a tourbillon, but never on such a scale asthis. That huge, sweeping river of wind of which I have spoken had, asit appears, whirlpools within it which were as monstrous as itself.Without a moment's warning I was dragged suddenly into the heart ofone. I spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that I almostlost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down thevacuum funnel in the centre. I dropped like a stone, and lost nearly athousand feet. It was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and theshock and breathlessness left me hanging half-insensible over the sideof the fuselage. But I am always capable of a supreme effort--it is myone great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent wasslower. The whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had cometo the apex. With a terrific wrench, th
rowing my weight all to oneside, I levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. Inan instant I had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky.Then, shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once moremy steady grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep to avoidthe danger-spot of the whirlpool, and soon I was safely above it. Justafter one o'clock I was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea-level.To my great joy I had topped the gale, and with every hundred feet ofascent the air grew stiller. On the other hand, it was very cold, andI was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefaction ofthe air. For the first time I unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag andtook an occasional whiff of the glorious gas. I could feel it runninglike a cordial through my veins, and I was exhilarated almost to thepoint of drunkenness. I shouted and sang as I soared upwards into thecold, still outer world.

  "It is very clear to me that the insensibility which came uponGlaisher, and in a lesser degree upon Coxwell, when, in 1862, theyascended in a balloon to the height of thirty thousand feet, was due tothe extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing itat an easy gradient and accustoming oneself to the lessened barometricpressure by slow degrees, there are no such dreadful symptoms. At thesame great height I found that even without my oxygen inhaler I couldbreathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and mythermometer was at zero, Fahrenheit. At one-thirty I was nearly sevenmiles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. Ifound, however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less supportto my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerablylowered in consequence. It was already clear that even with my lightweight and strong engine-power there was a point in front of me where Ishould be held. To make matters worse, one of my sparking-plugs was introuble again and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. Myheart was heavy with the fear of failure.

  "It was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience.Something whizzed past me in a trail of smoke and exploded with a loud,hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. For the instant I couldnot imagine what had happened. Then I remembered that the earth is forever being bombarded by meteor stones, and would be hardly inhabitablewere they not in nearly every case turned to vapour in the outer layersof the atmosphere. Here is a new danger for the high-altitude man, fortwo others passed me when I was nearing the forty-thousand-foot mark.I cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk wouldbe a very real one.

  "My barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when Ibecame aware that I could go no farther. Physically, the strain wasnot as yet greater than I could bear but my machine had reached itslimit. The attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and theleast tilt developed into side-slip, while she seemed sluggish on hercontrols. Possibly, had the engine been at its best, another thousandfeet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring,and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. If Ihad not already reached the zone for which I was searching then Ishould never see it upon this journey. But was it not possible that Ihad attained it? Soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon theforty-thousand-foot level I let the monoplane guide herself, and withmy Mannheim glass I made a careful observation of my surroundings. Theheavens were perfectly clear; there was no indication of those dangerswhich I had imagined.

  "I have said that I was soaring in circles. It struck me suddenly thatI would do well to take a wider sweep and open up a new airtract. Ifthe hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if hewished to find his game. My reasoning had led me to believe that theair-jungle which I had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. Thisshould be to the south and west of me. I took my bearings from thesun, for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to beseen--nothing but the distant, silver cloud-plain. However, I got mydirection as best I might and kept her head straight to the mark. Ireckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than anotherhour or so, but I could afford to use it to the last drop, since asingle magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth.

  "Suddenly I was aware of something new. The air in front of me hadlost its crystal clearness. It was full of long, ragged wisps ofsomething which I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. Ithung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in thesunlight. As the monoplane shot through it, I was aware of a fainttaste of oil upon my lips, and there was a greasy scum upon thewoodwork of the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appearedto be suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It wasinchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres and then fringingoff into the void. No, it was not life. But might it not be theremains of life? Above all, might it not be the food of life, ofmonstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food forthe mighty whale? The thought was in my mind when my eyes lookedupwards and I saw the most wonderful vision that ever man has seen.Can I hope to convey it to you even as I saw it myself last Thursday?

  "Conceive a jelly-fish such as sails in our summer seas, bell-shapedand of enormous size--far larger, I should judge, than the dome of St.Paul's. It was of a light pink colour veined with a delicate green,but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outlineagainst the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regularrhythm. From it there depended two long, drooping, green tentacles,which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous visionpassed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragileas a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way.

  "I had half-turned my monoplane, that I might look after this beautifulcreature, when, in a moment, I found myself amidst a perfect fleet ofthem, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. Some were quitesmall, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and withmuch the same curvature at the top. There was in them a delicacy oftexture and colouring which reminded me of the finest Venetian glass.Pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had alovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms.Some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron ofstrange unknown argosies of the sky--creatures whose forms andsubstance were so attuned to these pure heights that one could notconceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound of earth.

  "But soon my attention was drawn to a new phenomenon--the serpents ofthe outer air. These were long, thin, fantastic coils of vapour-likematerial, which turned and twisted with great speed, flying round andround at such a pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. Some ofthese ghost-like creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but it wasdifficult to tell their girth, for their outline was so hazy that itseemed to fade away into the air around them. These air-snakes were ofa very light grey or smoke colour, with some darker lines within, whichgave the impression of a definite organism. One of them whisked pastmy very face, and I was conscious of a cold, clammy contact, but theircomposition was so unsubstantial that I could not connect them with anythought of physical danger, any more than the beautiful bell-likecreatures which had preceded them. There was no more solidity in theirframes than in the floating spume from a broken wave.

  "But a more terrible experience was in store for me. Floatingdownwards from a great height there came a purplish patch of vapour,small as I saw it first, but rapidly enlarging as it approached me,until it appeared to be hundreds of square feet in size. Thoughfashioned of some transparent, jelly-like substance, it was none theless of much more definite outline and solid consistence than anythingwhich I had seen before. There were more traces, too, of a physicalorganization, especially two vast, shadowy, circular plates upon eitherside, which may have been eyes, and a perfectly solid white projectionbetween them which was as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture.

  "The whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening, andit kept changing its colour from a very light mauve to a dark, angrypurple so thick that it cast a shadow as it drifted between mymonoplane and the sun. On the upper curve of its huge body there werethree great projections which I can only describe as enormous bubbles,and I was convinced as I looked at them that they were charged withsome extremely light gas which served to buoy up the misshapen andsemi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along,keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more itformed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey whichis waiting to pounce. Its method of progression--done so swiftly thatit was not easy to follow--was to throw out a long, glutinous streamerin front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of thewrithing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that never for twosuccessive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change made itmore threatening and loathsome than the last.

  "I knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous bodytold me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon mewere cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose ofmy monoplane downwards to escape it. As I did so, as quick as a flashthere shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, andit fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lash across the front of mymachine. There was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hotengine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge, flatbody drew itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to avol-pique, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shornoff by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smokewreath. A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind andcaught me round the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore atit, my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-like surface, and for aninstant I disengaged myself, but only to be caught round the boot byanother coil, which gave me a jerk that tilted me almost on to my back.

  "
As I fell over I blazed off both barrels of my gun, though, indeed, itwas like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that anyhuman weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. And yet I aimed betterthan I knew, for, with a loud report, one of the great blisters uponthe creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. Itwas very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast, clearbladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant thehuge, cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find itsbalance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury. Butalready I had shot away on the steepest glide that I dared to attempt,my engine still full on, the flying propeller and the force of gravityshooting me downwards like an aerolite. Far behind me I saw a dull,purplish smudge growing swiftly smaller and merging into the blue skybehind it. I was safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air.

  "Once out of danger I throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machineto pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. It was aglorious, spiral vol-plane from nearly eight miles of altitude--first,to the level of the silver cloud-bank, then to that of the storm-cloudbeneath it, and finally, in beating rain, to the surface of the earth.I saw the Bristol Channel beneath me as I broke from the clouds, but,having still some petrol in my tank, I got twenty miles inland before Ifound myself stranded in a field half a mile from the village ofAshcombe. There I got three tins of petrol from a passing motor-car,and at ten minutes past six that evening I alighted gently in my ownhome meadow at Devizes, after such a journey as no mortal upon earthhas ever yet taken and lived to tell the tale. I have seen the beautyand I have seen the horror of the heights--and greater beauty orgreater horror than that is not within the ken of man.

  "And now it is my plan to go once again before I give my results to theworld. My reason for this is that I must surely have something to showby way of proof before I lay such a tale before my fellow-men. It istrue that others will soon follow and will confirm what I have said,and yet I should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovelyiridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. Theydrift slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercepttheir leisurely course. It is likely enough that they would dissolvein the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap ofamorphous jelly might be all that I should bring to earth with me. Andyet something there would surely be by which I could substantiate mystory. Yes, I will go, even if I run a risk by doing so. These purplehorrors would not seem to be numerous. It is probable that I shall notsee one. If I do I shall dive at once. At the worst there is alwaysthe shot-gun and my knowledge of ..."

  Here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. On the nextpage is written, in large, straggling writing:

  "Forty-three thousand feet. I shall never see earth again. They arebeneath me, three of them. God help me; it is a dreadful death to die!"

  Such in its entirety is the Joyce-Armstrong Statement. Of the mannothing has since been seen. Pieces of his shattered monoplane havebeen picked up in the preserves of Mr. Budd-Lushington upon the bordersof Kent and Sussex, within a few miles of the spot where the note-bookwas discovered. If the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct thatthis air-jungle, as he called it, existed only over the south-west ofEngland, then it would seem that he had fled from it at the full speedof his monoplane, but had been overtaken and devoured by these horriblecreatures at some spot in the outer atmosphere above the place wherethe grim relics were found. The picture of that monoplane skimmingdown the sky, with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath itand cutting it off always from the earth while they gradually closed inupon their victim, is one upon which a man who valued his sanity wouldprefer not to dwell. There are many, as I am aware, who still jeer atthe facts which I have here set down, but even they must admit thatJoyce-Armstrong has disappeared, and I would commend to them his ownwords: "This note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how Ilost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries,if YOU please."