The star. (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1874-1875, 1875-01-30
THE PHANTOM TOE.

| was travelling in Europe when / met
1 with this adventure. ! am not a'sut ter-
stitious man-far from it; but despite all
my efforts to the contrary, l could not
help thinking, directly had taken sur
vey of my chamber, that should never
quit it without going through strange
| adventure. There is something in lis
size, heaviness and gloom that seemed to
| unnihilate at one blow all my resolute
skepticism as regards supernatural Wis.,
itatlon. 1t appeared to me totally impos-
sibIe to go into that room and disbelleye
in ghosts. The fact is l had incautiSusly
partaken at supper OF that favorlte
Dutch dish, sauerkraut, and supposed
it had disagreed with me and put strange
tancieS into my head.
BE this as it may, l only know that af-
ter going to my room for the night grad
ually worked myself into such state of
! tidgetinpss that at last l wasn't sure
whether | hadn't become a ghost my
| self.
| The old cumbrous hangings Of the bed
appeared to my diseased mind to be
| swelled out with u whole army OF
goblins--indeed, almost thought saw
them move of their own accord-and the
carved figures upon the mantle-pieces
seemed to have entered into some devil
ish compact on purpose 10 plague me.
Everything, in short, had suspicious
look, and my nervousness was increased
when, upon turning to the door to'iasten
it, found neither bolt nor lock.
This new discovery raised host of
new fears i'll my brain, and thousand
recullcctions OF midnight robbers shot
| through my mind.
"Supposing," ruminated I--"suppos-
| ing the landlord himself should be
practiced robber, and should haye taken
the lock and bolt from otf this door Tor
the purpose of entering here i'll the dead
OF night, abstracting all my property,
and perhaps numbering me. l thought
the dog had a very cut-throat air about
him."
| Now, l never had any such idea until
| that moment, for my host was a tat, stu
pid-looking fellow, who l don't believe
| had sense enough TO understand what
robbery or mui der meant. But somehow
or other whenever we have anything re-
ally to annoy us (and it certainly was
not pleasant to 60 to bed in strange
place without being able to fasten ones
door) we are sure to aggravate it by myr-
lads of chimeras of our own brain. So,.
on the present occasion, i'll the midst Of
a thousand disagree able reveries, some
OF the most wild absurdity, Jumped very
gloomily into bed, having first put out
my candle, for total darkness was far
preferable to its tlickerng, ghostly light,
which transformed rather than revealed
objects, and soon fell asleep, perfectly
tired out with my days riding.
i How long / lay asleep don't know /;
but suddenly awoke from disagree
able dream Of cut-throats, ghosts, and
long, winding passages in a haunted inn.
An indescribable feeling-such as never
| l,oforo onvparionoad-h II MN IT,
seemed as il every nerve IN my body had
a hundred spirits tickling it. And this
was accompanied by so great heat that
l-inwardly curslngtmy hosts sauerkraut
and wondering how his guests could en-
dure such pOiSon--I was forced to sit Up
in bed to cool myself. The whole of the
, room was profoundly dark excepting at
one place, where the moonlight, falling
through a crevice in the shutters, threw
a straight line of about all inch or so
thick upon the tloor-clear, sharp and
intensely brilliant against the darkness.
| leave you to conceive my horror when,
upon looking at this said line OF light, l
saw there q naked human t0el Nothing
more.
For the first instant thought the Wis.,
ion must be some effect of the moonlight;
then that l was only half awake, and
could not see distictly. So rubbed my
leyes two or three times and looked again.
Still, there was the accursed thing
plain, distinct, mmovable-marb!e-lik
in its tiXedness and rigidity, but every
thing else horribly humanl
i / am not an easily frightened man.
No one who has travelled SO much, and
seen so much, and been exposed to so
many dangers as /, can be. But there
was something SO mysterious and un-
usual in the appearance of this single toe
that for a short time / could not think
what TO be at; so / did nothing but stare
ut it in state of utter bewilderment.
At length, however. as the toe did not
vanish under my steady gaze, l thought
l might as well change my tactics; and
remembering that all midnight invaders,
be they thieves, ghosts or devils, dislike
nothing SO much as good noise.
shouted out in loud voice:
"Who's therep
The toe Immediately disappeared in the
darkness.
: Almost simultaneous with my words
leapt out OF bed, and rushed toward the
place where l had beheld the strange
. appearance. The next instant l ran
against something, and felt an iron griI
round my body. After this, have nc
: distinct recollection of what occurred
( excepting that a fearful struggle ensued
that every now and then we were VIC
! lently hurled to the floor, from which we
> always rose again in an instant, locked
: in deadly embrace; that we tugged and
; strained, and pulled and pushed-I ir
j conyulsive and frantic energy of tight
} for life--he (for by this time
III had discovered that the in
ltruder was human being) actu
ated by some passion OF which | was ig.
norant; that we whirled round anG
! lround and round, cheek to cheek and
/ arm to arm, in fierce contest, until the
!, room appeared to whiz round with us
! and that at last dozen people, reused
, suppose, by our repeated falls, came
! pouring into the room with lights, an(
showed me struggling with man hav
ing nothing on but a shirt, whose long
4 tangled hair and wild, unsettled eyes
i told me he was insane. And then, fol
the first time, lbecame aware that l haC