The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-08-02
A PHANTOM TOE.

had taken q survey of my cham ber that
should never quit it without going through
q strange adventure. There Was something
in its immense size, heaviness and gloom
that seemed to annihilate at one blow all
my resolute skepticism regards super
natural visitations. 1t appeared to me to-
tally impossible TO go into that room and
disbelieve in ghosts.
The fact is, had incautiously partaken
at supper of that favorite Dutch dish,
sauerkraut, and I suppose it had disagreed
with me and put strange fancies into my
head. Be this as it may, only know that
after parting with my friend for the night
I gradually worked myself up into such a
state of hdgetiness that at last I wasn't
sure whether hadn't become ghost my
self.
"Supposing," Illuminated I, "supposing
the landlord himself should be a practical
robber and should have taken the lock and
holt from off this door for the purpose of
entering here in the dead of the night, b.
stracting all my property, and perhaps
numbering mel I thought the dog had
very cutthroat air about him." Now, 1
had never had any such idea until that
moment, for my host was a fat (all Dutch
men are fat), stupid looking fellow, who
don't believe had sense enough to under
stand what a robbery or murder meant,
but somehow or other, whenever we have
anything really to annoy us (and it GER
tainly was not pleasant to go to bed in o
strange place without being able to fasten
ones door,, We are sure to aggravate it by
myriads of chimeras of our own brain.
So, on the present occasion, in the midst
of thousand disagreeable reveries, some
of the most wild absurdity, jumped very
gloomily into bed, having first put out my
candle flor total darkness was far prefer
able to it's Pickering, ghostly light, which
transformed rather than revealed objects),
and soon fell asleep perfectly tired out
with my day riding.
How long I lay asleep I don't know,
but suddenly awoke from disa greeablc
dream of cutthroats, ghosts and long,
winding passages in haunted inn. An
indescribable feeling, such 1 never be-
fore experienced, hung upon me- 1t SEEM
ed as If every nerve in my body had hun
dred spirits tickling it, and this was ac-
companied by SO great heat that, in
wardly cursing mine hosts sauerkraut
and wondering how the DutchInen could
endure such poison, 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 erevioe in the shutters, threw q
straight line of about an inch thick
upon the fiOor-clear, sharp and intensely
brilliant against the darkness. l leave
you to conceive my horror when, upon
looking at this said line of light, l saw
GQ6r6 q NAKED HuIndn 6CS-nObH1nR uOTc.
For the first instant thought the vision
must be some effect of moonlight, then
that I was only half awake and could not
see distinctly. So 1 rubbed my eyes two
or three times and looked again. Still
there was the accused thing-plain. dis
tinct, mmovable-marblelike in it's fixed
ness and rigidity, but in every thing else
horribly human.
am not an easily frightened man. No
one who has travelled SO much and seen so
much and been exposed to many dan
gers as can be, but there was something
SO mysterious and unusual in the APPEAR
ance of this single toe that for q short time
1 could not think what to be at, SO did
nothing but stare at it in a state of utter
bewilderment.
At length however, as the toe did not
vanish under my steady gaze, thought 1
might as well change my tactics, and re-
mem bering that all midnight invaders, be
they thieves, ghosts or devils, dislike moth
ing much good noise shouted out
in loud voice:
"Who's THEREOF
The toe Immediately disappeared in the
darkness.
Almost simultaneously with my words
leaped out of bed and rushed toward the
place where had beheld the strange ap-
pearance The next instant I ran against
something and felt an iron grip round my
body. After this have no distant recol-
lection of what occurred, excepting that
fearful struggle ensued between me and
my unseen opponent; that every now and
then we were violently hurled to the floor,
from which we always rose again in an
instant, locked in a deadly EN- brace; that
we tugged and strained and pulled and
pushed, I in the convulsive and frantic
energy of a fight for life, he 0or by this
time had discovered that the intruder
was human being) actuated by some
oP oh 7 r. haf TVn
whirled round and round and round, cheek
to cheek and arm to arm. in fierce contest,
until the room appeared to whiz round
with u.s. and that at last a dozen people
(my fellow traveller among them, reused,
I suppose, by repeated falls, came
pouring into the room with lights and
showed me struggling with man having
nothing on but a Shirt whose long, tan
gled hair and wild, unsettled eyes told mo
he was insane. And then, for the first
time, l became aware that ] had received
in the conflict several Rashes from knife,
which my opponent still held in his hand.
To conclude my story in a few words
(for dare say all of you by this time arc
getting very tired), it turned out that my
midnight visitor was mailman who was
being conveyed to lunatic asylum at The
Hague, and that he and his keeper had
been Obliged to stop at Delft on their way
| The poor fellow had contrived during the
| night to escape from his keeper, who had
carelessly forgotten to lock the door of his
cham Der, and with that irresistible desire
to shed blood peculiar to many insane peo-
pie had possessed himself of pocketkDife
belonging to the man who had charge CT
hin, entered my room. which was most
likely the only one in the house unfas-
tened, and was probably meditating the
fatal stroke when / saw his toe in the
moonlight, the rest of his body being hid
den in the shade
After this terrible freak of his he was
watched with much greater strictness, but
| I ought to observe, as some excuse for the
| keepers negligence, that this was the first
| act of violence he had ever attempted
| Exchange.