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Title: The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Author: James, Montague Rhodes (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1904
   [included in "Ghost Stories of an Antiquary"]
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   "The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James"
   (New York: Longmans, Green;
   London: Edward Arnold, 1931)
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 28 May 2013
Date last updated: 28 May 2013
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1078

This ebook was produced by:
Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net






                  THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS

                         By M. R. JAMES




I


"Verum usque in prsentem diem multa garriunt inter se Canonici de
abscondito quodam istius Abbatis Thom thesauro, quem spe, quanquam
adhuc incassum, qusiverunt Steinfeldenses. Ipsum enim Thomam adhuc
florida in tate existentem ingentem auri massam circa monasterium
defodisse perhibent; de quo multoties interrogatus ubi esset, cum risu
respondere solitus erat: 'Job, Johannes, et Zacharias vel vobis vel
posteris indicabunt'; idemque aliquando adiicere se inventuris minime
invisurum. Inter alia huius Abbatis opera, hoc memoria prcipue dignum
iudico quod fenestram magnam in orientali parte al australis in
ecclesia sua imaginibus optime in vitro depictis impleverit: id quod et
ipsius effigies et insignia ibidem posita demonstrant. Domum quoque
Abbatialem fere totam restauravit: puteo in atrio ipsius effosso et
lapidibus marmoreis pulchre clatis exornato. Decessit autem, morte
aliquantulum subitanea perculsus, tatis su anno lxxii^{do},
incarnationis vero Dominic mdxxix^{o}."

"I suppose I shall have to translate this," said the antiquary to
himself, as he finished copying the above lines from that rather rare
and exceedingly diffuse book, the "_Sertum Steinfeldense
Norbertinum_."[1] "Well, it may as well be done first as last," and
accordingly the following rendering was very quickly produced:

"Up to the present day there is much gossip among the Canons about a
certain hidden treasure of this Abbot Thomas, for which those of
Steinfeld have often made search, though hitherto in vain. The story is
that Thomas, while yet in the vigour of life, concealed a very large
quantity of gold somewhere in the monastery. He was often asked where it
was, and always answered, with a laugh: 'Job, John, and Zechariah will
tell either you or your successors.' He sometimes added that he should
feel no grudge against those who might find it. Among other works
carried out by this Abbot I may specially mention his filling the great
window at the east end of the south aisle of the church with figures
admirably painted on glass, as his effigy and arms in the window attest.
He also restored almost the whole of the Abbot's lodging, and dug a well
in the court of it, which he adorned with beautiful carvings in marble.
He died rather suddenly in the seventy-second year of his age, A.D.
1529."

[Footnote 1: An account of the Premonstratensian abbey of Steinfeld, in
the Eiffel, with lives of the Abbots, published at Cologne in 1712 by
Christian Albert Erhard, a resident in the district. The epithet
_Norbertinum_ is due to the fact that St. Norbert was founder of the
Premonstratensian Order.]

The object which the antiquary had before him at the moment was that of
tracing the whereabouts of the painted windows of the Abbey Church of
Steinfeld. Shortly after the Revolution, a very large quantity of
painted glass made its way from the dissolved abbeys of Germany and
Belgium to this country, and may now be seen adorning various of our
parish churches, cathedrals, and private chapels. Steinfeld Abbey was
among the most considerable of these involuntary contributors to our
artistic possessions (I am quoting the somewhat ponderous preamble of
the book which the antiquary wrote), and the greater part of the glass
from that institution can be identified without much difficulty by the
help, either of the numerous inscriptions in which the place is
mentioned, or of the subjects of the windows, in which several
well-defined cycles or narratives were represented.

The passage with which I began my story had set the antiquary on the
track of another identification. In a private chapel--no matter
where--he had seen three large figures, each occupying a whole light in
a window, and evidently the work of one artist. Their style made it
plain that that artist had been a German of the sixteenth century; but
hitherto the more exact localizing of them had been a puzzle. They
represented--will you be surprised to hear it?--JOB PATRIARCHA, JOHANNES
EVANGELISTA, ZACHARIAS PROPHETA, and each of them held a book or scroll,
inscribed with a sentence from his writings. These, as a matter of
course, the antiquary had noted, and had been struck by the curious way
in which they differed from any text of the Vulgate that he had been
able to examine. Thus the scroll in Job's hand was inscribed: "Auro est
locus in quo absconditur" (for "conflatur");[2] on the book of John was:
"Habent in vestimentis suis scripturam quam nemo novit"[3] (for "in
vestimento scriptum," the following words being taken from another
verse); and Zacharias had: "Super lapidem unum septem oculi sunt"[4]
(which alone of the three presents an unaltered text).

[Footnote 2: There is a place for gold where it is hidden.]

[Footnote 3: They have on their raiment a writing which no man knoweth.]

[Footnote 4: Upon one stone are seven eyes.]

A sad perplexity it had been to our investigator to think why these
three personages should have been placed together in one window. There
was no bond of connection between them, either historic, symbolic, or
doctrinal, and he could only suppose that they must have formed part of
a very large series of Prophets and Apostles, which might have filled,
say, all the clerestory windows of some capacious church. But the
passage from the "_Sertum_" had altered the situation by showing that
the names of the actual personages represented in the glass now in Lord
D----'s chapel had been constantly on the lips of Abbot Thomas von
Eschenhausen of Steinfeld, and that this Abbot had put up a painted
window, probably about the year 1520, in the south aisle of his abbey
church. It was no very wild conjecture that the three figures might have
formed part of Abbot Thomas's offering; it was one which, moreover,
could probably be confirmed or set aside by another careful examination
of the glass. And, as Mr. Somerton was a man of leisure, he set out on
pilgrimage to the private chapel with very little delay. His conjecture
was confirmed to the full. Not only did the style and technique of the
glass suit perfectly with the date and place required, but in another
window of the chapel he found some glass, known to have been bought
along with the figures, which contained the arms of Abbot Thomas von
Eschenhausen.

At intervals during his researches Mr. Somerton had been haunted by the
recollection of the gossip about the hidden treasure, and, as he thought
the matter over, it became more and more obvious to him that if the
Abbot meant anything by the enigmatical answer which he gave to his
questioners, he must have meant that the secret was to be found
somewhere in the window he had placed in the abbey church. It was
undeniable, furthermore, that the first of the curiously-selected texts
on the scrolls in the window might be taken to have a reference to
hidden treasure.

Every feature, therefore, or mark which could possibly assist in
elucidating the riddle which, he felt sure, the Abbot had set to
posterity he noted with scrupulous care, and, returning to his Berkshire
manor-house, consumed many a pint of the midnight oil over his tracings
and sketches. After two or three weeks, a day came when Mr. Somerton
announced to his man that he must pack his own and his master's things
for a short journey abroad, whither for the moment we will not follow
him.


II

Mr. Gregory, the Rector of Parsbury, had strolled out before breakfast,
it being a fine autumn morning, as far as the gate of his
carriage-drive, with intent to meet the postman and sniff the cool air.
Nor was he disappointed of either purpose. Before he had had time to
answer more than ten or eleven of the miscellaneous questions propounded
to him in the lightness of their hearts by his young offspring, who had
accompanied him, the postman was seen approaching; and among the
morning's budget was one letter bearing a foreign postmark and stamp
(which became at once the objects of an eager competition among the
youthful Gregorys), and was addressed in an uneducated, but plainly an
English hand.

When the Rector opened it, and turned to the signature, he realized that
it came from the confidential valet of his friend and squire, Mr.
Somerton. Thus it ran:

     HONOURD SIR,--

     Has I am in a great anxeity about Master I write at is Wish to Beg
     you Sir if you could be so good as Step over. Master Has add a
     Nastey Shock and keeps His Bedd. I never Have known Him like this
     but No wonder and Nothing will serve but you Sir. Master says would
     I mintion the Short Way Here is Drive to Cobblince and take a Trap.
     Hopeing I Have maid all Plain, but am much Confused in Myself what
     with Anxiatey and Weakfulness at Night. If I might be so Bold Sir
     it will be a Pleasure to see a Honnest Brish Face among all These
     Forig ones.

     I am Sir

     Your obed^{t} Serv^{t}

     WILLIAM BROWN.'

     P.S.--The Villiage for Town I will not Turm It is name Steenfeld.'

The reader must be left to picture to himself in detail the surprise,
confusion, and hurry of preparation into which the receipt of such a
letter would be likely to plunge a quiet Berkshire parsonage in the year
of grace 1859. It is enough for me to say that a train to town was
caught in the course of the day, and that Mr. Gregory was able to secure
a cabin in the Antwerp boat and a place in the Coblentz train. Nor was
it difficult to manage the transit from that centre to Steinfeld.

I labour under a grave disadvantage as narrator of this story in that I
have never visited Steinfeld myself, and that neither of the principal
actors in the episode (from whom I derive my information) was able to
give me anything but a vague and rather dismal idea of its appearance. I
gather that it is a small place, with a large church despoiled of its
ancient fittings; a number of rather ruinous great buildings, mostly of
the seventeenth century, surround this church; for the abbey, in common
with most of those on the Continent, was rebuilt in a luxurious fashion
by its inhabitants at that period. It has not seemed to me worth while
to lavish money on a visit to the place, for though it is probably far
more attractive than either Mr. Somerton or Mr. Gregory thought it,
there is evidently little, if anything, of first-rate interest to be
seen--except, perhaps, one thing, which I should not care to see.

The inn where the English gentleman and his servant were lodged is, or
was, the only "possible" one in the village. Mr. Gregory was taken to it
at once by his driver, and found Mr. Brown waiting at the door. Mr.
Brown, a model when in his Berkshire home of the impassive whiskered
race who are known as confidential valets, was now egregiously out of
his element, in a light tweed suit, anxious, almost irritable, and
plainly anything but master of the situation. His relief at the sight of
the "honest British face" of his Rector was unmeasured, but words to
describe it were denied him. He could only say:

"Well, I ham pleased, I'm sure, sir, to see you. And so I'm sure, sir,
will master."

"How _is_ your master, Brown?" Mr. Gregory eagerly put in.

"I think he's better, sir, thank you; but he's had a dreadful time of
it. I 'ope he's gettin' some sleep now, but----"

"What has been the matter--I couldn't make out from your letter? Was it
an accident of any kind?"

"Well, sir, I 'ardly know whether I'd better speak about it. Master was
very partickler he should be the one to tell you. But there's no bones
broke--that's one thing I'm sure we ought to be thankful----"

"What does the doctor say?" asked Mr. Gregory.

They were by this time outside Mr. Somerton's bedroom door, and speaking
in low tones. Mr. Gregory, who happened to be in front, was feeling for
the handle, and chanced to run his fingers over the panels. Before Brown
could answer, there was a terrible cry from within the room.

"In God's name, who is that?" were the first words they heard. "Brown,
is it?"

"Yes, sir--me, sir, and Mr. Gregory," Brown hastened to answer, and
there was an audible groan of relief in reply.

They entered the room, which was darkened against the afternoon sun, and
Mr. Gregory saw, with a shock of pity, how drawn, how damp with drops of
fear, was the usually calm face of his friend, who, sitting up in the
curtained bed, stretched out a shaking hand to welcome him.

"Better for seeing you, my dear Gregory," was the reply to the Rector's
first question, and it was palpably true.

After five minutes of conversation Mr. Somerton was more his own man,
Brown afterwards reported, than he had been for days. He was able to eat
a more than respectable dinner, and talked confidently of being fit to
stand a journey to Coblentz within twenty-four hours.

"But there's one thing," he said, with a return of agitation which Mr.
Gregory did not like to see, "which I must beg you to do for me, my dear
Gregory. Don't," he went on, laying his hand on Gregory's to forestall
any interruption--"don't ask me what it is, or why I want it done. I'm
not up to explaining it yet; it would throw me back--undo all the good
you have done me by coming. The only word I will say about it is
that you run no risk whatever by doing it, and that Brown can and
will show you to-morrow what it is. It's merely to put back--to
keep--something----No; I can't speak of it yet. Do you mind calling
Brown?"

"Well, Somerton," said Mr. Gregory, as he crossed the room to the door,
"I won't ask for any explanations till you see fit to give them. And if
this bit of business is as easy as you represent it to be, I will very
gladly undertake it for you the first thing in the morning."

"Ah, I was sure you would, my dear Gregory; I was certain I could rely
on you. I shall owe you more thanks than I can tell. Now, here is Brown.
Brown, one word with you."

"Shall I go?" interjected Mr. Gregory.

"Not at all. Dear me, no. Brown, the first thing to-morrow
morning--(you don't mind early hours, I know, Gregory)--you must take
the Rector to--_there_, you know" (a nod from Brown, who looked grave
and anxious), "and he and you will put that back. You needn't be in the
least alarmed; it's _perfectly_ safe in the daytime. You know what I
mean. It lies on the step, you know, where--where we put it." (Brown
swallowed dryly once or twice, and, failing to speak, bowed.) "And--yes,
that's all. Only this one other word, my dear Gregory. If you _can_
manage to keep from questioning Brown about this matter, I shall be
still more bound to you. To-morrow evening, at latest, if all goes well,
I shall be able, I believe, to tell you the whole story from start to
finish. And now I'll wish you good night. Brown will be with me--he
sleeps here--and if I were you, I should lock my door. Yes, be
particular to do that. They--they like it, the people here, and it's
better. Good night, good night."

They parted upon this, and if Mr. Gregory woke once or twice in the
small hours and fancied he heard a fumbling about the lower part of his
locked door, it was, perhaps, no more than what a quiet man, suddenly
plunged into a strange bed and the heart of a mystery, might reasonably
expect. Certainly he thought, to the end of his days, that he had heard
such a sound twice or three times between midnight and dawn.

He was up with the sun, and out in company with Brown soon after.
Perplexing as was the service he had been asked to perform for Mr.
Somerton, it was not a difficult or an alarming one, and within half an
hour from his leaving the inn it was over. What it was I shall not as
yet divulge.

Later in the morning Mr. Somerton, now almost himself again, was able to
make a start from Steinfeld; and that same evening, whether at Coblentz
or at some intermediate stage on the journey I am not certain, he
settled down to the promised explanation. Brown was present, but how
much of the matter was ever really made plain to his comprehension he
would never say, and I am unable to conjecture.


III

This was Mr. Somerton's story:

"You know roughly, both of you, that this expedition of mine was
undertaken with the object of tracing something in connection with some
old painted glass in Lord D----'s private chapel. Well, the
starting-point of the whole matter lies in this passage from an old
printed book, to which I will ask your attention."

And at this point Mr. Somerton went carefully over some ground with
which we are already familiar.

"On my second visit to the chapel," he went on, "my purpose was to take
every note I could of figures, lettering, diamond-scratchings on the
glass, and even apparently accidental markings. The first point which I
tackled was that of the inscribed scrolls. I could not doubt that the
first of these, that of Job--'There is a place for the gold where it is
hidden'--with its intentional alteration, must refer to the treasure; so
I applied myself with some confidence to the next, that of St.
John--'They have on their vestures a writing which no man knoweth.' The
natural question will have occurred to you: Was there an inscription on
the robes of the figures? I could see none; each of the three had a
broad black border to his mantle, which made a conspicuous and rather
ugly feature in the window. I was nonplussed, I will own, and but for a
curious bit of luck I think I should have left the search where the
Canons of Steinfeld had left it before me. But it so happened that there
was a good deal of dust on the surface of the glass, and Lord D----,
happening to come in, noticed my blackened hands, and kindly insisted on
sending for a Turk's head broom to clean down the window. There must, I
suppose, have been a rough piece in the broom; anyhow, as it passed over
the border of one of the mantles, I noticed that it left a long scratch,
and that some yellow stain instantly showed up. I asked the man to stop
his work for a moment, and ran up the ladder to examine the place. The
yellow stain was there, sure enough, and what had come away was a thick
black pigment, which had evidently been laid on with the brush after the
glass had been burnt, and could therefore be easily scraped off without
doing any harm. I scraped, accordingly, and you will hardly believe--no,
I do you an injustice; you will have guessed already--that I found
under this black pigment two or three clearly-formed capital letters in
yellow stain on a clear ground. Of course, I could hardly contain my
delight.

"I told Lord D---- that I had detected an inscription which I thought
might be very interesting, and begged to be allowed to uncover the whole
of it. He made no difficulty about it whatever, told me to do exactly as
I pleased, and then, having an engagement, was obliged--rather to my
relief, I must say--to leave me. I set to work at once, and found the
task a fairly easy one. The pigment, disintegrated, of course, by time,
came off almost at a touch, and I don't think that it took me a couple
of hours, all told, to clean the whole of the black borders in all three
lights. Each of the figures had, as the inscription said, 'a writing on
their vestures which nobody knew.'

"This discovery, of course, made it absolutely certain to my mind that I
was on the right track. And, now, what was the inscription? While I was
cleaning the glass I almost took pains not to read the lettering, saving
up the treat until I had got the whole thing clear. And when that _was_
done, my dear Gregory, I assure you I could almost have cried from sheer
disappointment. What I read was only the most hopeless jumble of letters
that was ever shaken up in a hat. Here it is:

     _Job._ DREVICIOPEDMOOMSMVIVLISLCAVIBASBATAOVT

     _St. John._ RDIIEAMRLESIPVSPODSEEIRSETTAAESGIAVNNR

     _Zechariah._ FTEEAILNQDPVAIVMTLEEATTOHIOONVMCAAT.H.Q.E.

"Blank as I felt and must have looked for the first few minutes, my
disappointment didn't last long. I realized almost at once that I was
dealing with a cipher or cryptogram; and I reflected that it was likely
to be of a pretty simple kind, considering its early date. So I copied
the letters with the most anxious care. Another little point, I may tell
you, turned up in the process which confirmed my belief in the cipher.
After copying the letters on Job's robe I counted them, to make sure
that I had them right. There were thirty-eight; and, just as I finished
going through them, my eye fell on a scratching made with a sharp point
on the edge of the border. It was simply the number xxxviii in Roman
numerals. To cut the matter short, there was a similar note, as I may
call it, in each of the other lights; and that made it plain to me that
the glass-painter had had very strict orders from Abbot Thomas about the
inscription, and had taken pains to get it correct.

"Well, after that discovery you may imagine how minutely I went over the
whole surface of the glass in search of further light. Of course, I did
not neglect the inscription on the scroll of Zechariah--'Upon one stone
are seven eyes,' but I very quickly concluded that this must refer to
some mark on a stone which could only be found _in situ_, where the
treasure was concealed. To be short, I made all possible notes and
sketches and tracings, and then came back to Parsbury to work out the
cipher at leisure. Oh, the agonies I went through! I thought myself very
clever at first, for I made sure that the key would be found in some of
the old books on secret writing. The '_Steganographia_' of Joachim
Trithemius, who was an earlier contemporary of Abbot Thomas, seemed
particularly promising; so I got that, and Selenius's '_Cryptographia_'
and Bacon '_de Augmentis Scientiarum_,' and some more. But I could hit
upon nothing. Then I tried the principle of the 'most frequent letter,'
taking first Latin and then German as a basis. That didn't help, either;
whether it ought to have done so, I am not clear. And then I came back
to the window itself, and read over my notes, hoping almost against hope
that the Abbot might himself have somewhere supplied the key I wanted. I
could make nothing out of the colour or pattern of the robes. There were
no landscape backgrounds with subsidiary objects; there was nothing in
the canopies. The only resource possible seemed to be in the attitudes
of the figures. 'Job,' I read: 'scroll in left hand, forefinger of right
hand extended upwards. John: holds inscribed book in left hand; with
right hand blesses, with two fingers. Zechariah: scroll in left hand;
right hand extended upwards, as Job, but with three fingers pointing
up.' In other words, I reflected, Job has one finger extended, John has
_two_, Zechariah has _three_. May not there be a numeral key concealed
in that? My dear Gregory," said Mr. Somerton, laying his hand on his
friend's knee, "that _was_ the key. I didn't get it to fit at first, but
after two or three trials I saw what was meant. After the first letter
of the inscription you skip _one_ letter, after the next you skip _two_,
and after that skip _three_. Now look at the result I got. I've
underlined the letters which form words:

     DREVICIOPEDMOOMSMVIVLISLCAVIBASBATAOVT
     - -  -   - -  -   - -  -   - -  -   -

     RDIIEAMRLESIPVSPODSEEIRSETTAAESGIAVNNR
     -  -   - -  -   - -  -   - -  -   - -

     FTEEAILNQDPVAIVMTLEEATTOHIOONVMCAAT.H.Q E.
      -   - -  -   - -  -   - -  -   - -

"Do you see it? '_Decem millia auri reposita sunt in puteo in at ..._'
(Ten thousand [pieces] of gold are laid up in a well in ...), followed
by an incomplete word beginning _at_. So far so good. I tried the same
plan with the remaining letters; but it wouldn't work, and I fancied
that perhaps the placing of dots after the three last letters might
indicate some difference of procedure. Then I thought to myself, 'Wasn't
there some allusion to a well in the account of Abbot Thomas in that
book the "_Sertum_"?' Yes, there was: he built a _puteus in atrio_ (a
well in the court). There, of course, was my word _atrio_. The next step
was to copy out the remaining letter of the inscription, omitting those
I had already used. That gave what you will see on this slip:

     RVIIOPDOOSMVVISCAVBSBTAOTDIEAMLSIVSPDEERSETAEGIANRFEEALQDVAIMLEATTH
     OOVMCA.H.Q.E.

"Now, I knew what the three first letters I wanted were,--namely,
_rio_--to complete the word _atrio_; and, as you will see, these are all
to be found in the first five letters. I was a little confused at first
by the occurrence of two _i's_, but very soon I saw that every alternate
letter must be taken in the remainder of the inscription. You can work
it out for yourself; the result, continuing where the first 'round' left
off, is this:

     'rio domus abbatialis de Steinfeld a me, Thoma, qui posui custodem
     super ea. Gare  qui la touche.'

"So the whole secret was out:

     'Ten thousand pieces of gold are laid up in the well in the court
     of the Abbot's house of Steinfeld by me, Thomas, who have set a
     guardian over them. _Gare  qui la touche._'

"The last words, I ought to say, are a device which Abbot Thomas had
adopted. I found it with his arms in another piece of glass at Lord
D----'s, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't
quite fit in point of grammar.

"Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear
Gregory, in my place? Could he have helped setting off, as I did, to
Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? I
don't believe he could. Anyhow, I couldn't, and, as I needn't tell you,
I found myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization
could put me there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must tell
you that I was not altogether free from forebodings--on one hand of
disappointment, on the other of danger. There was always the possibility
that Abbot Thomas's well might have been wholly obliterated, or else
that someone, ignorant of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might
have stumbled on the treasure before me. And then"--there was a very
perceptible shaking of the voice here--"I was not entirely easy, I need
not mind confessing, as to the meaning of the words about the guardian
of the treasure. But, if you don't mind, I'll say no more about that
until--until it becomes necessary.

"At the first possible opportunity Brown and I began exploring the
place. I had naturally represented myself as being interested in the
remains of the abbey, and we could not avoid paying a visit to the
church, impatient as I was to be elsewhere. Still, it did interest me to
see the windows where the glass had been, and especially that at the
east end of the south aisle. In the tracery lights of that I was
startled to see some fragments and coats-of-arms remaining--Abbot
Thomas's shield was there, and a small figure with a scroll inscribed
'Oculos habent, et non videbunt' (They have eyes, and shall not see),
which, I take it, was a hit of the Abbot at his Canons.

"But, of course, the principal object was to find the Abbot's house.
There is no prescribed place for this, so far as I know, in the plan of
a monastery; you can't predict of it, as you can of the chapter-house,
that it will be on the eastern side of the cloister, or, as of the
dormitory, that it will communicate with a transept of the church. I
felt that if I asked many questions I might awaken lingering memories of
the treasure, and I thought it best to try first to discover it for
myself. It was not a very long or difficult search. That three-sided
court south-east of the church, with deserted piles of building round
it, and grass-grown pavement, which you saw this morning, was the place.
And glad enough I was to see that it was put to no use, and was neither
very far from our inn nor overlooked by any inhabited building; there
were only orchards and paddocks on the slopes east of the church. I can
tell you that fine stone glowed wonderfully in the rather watery yellow
sunset that we had on the Tuesday afternoon.

"Next, what about the well? There was not much doubt about that, as you
can testify. It is really a very remarkable thing. That curb is, I
think, of Italian marble, and the carving I thought must be Italian
also. There were reliefs, you will perhaps remember, of Eliezer and
Rebekah, and of Jacob opening the well for Rachel, and similar subjects;
but, by way of disarming suspicion, I suppose, the Abbot had carefully
abstained from any of his cynical and allusive inscriptions.

"I examined the whole structure with the keenest interest, of course--a
square well-head with an opening in one side; an arch over it, with a
wheel for the rope to pass over, evidently in very good condition still,
for it had been used within sixty years, or perhaps even later, though
not quite recently. Then there was the question of depth and access to
the interior. I suppose the depth was about sixty to seventy feet; and
as to the other point, it really seemed as if the Abbot had wished to
lead searchers up to the very door of his treasure-house, for, as you
tested for yourself, there were big blocks of stone bonded into the
masonry, and leading down in a regular staircase round and round the
inside of the well.

"It seemed almost too good to be true. I wondered if there was a
trap--if the stones were so contrived as to tip over when a weight was
placed on them; but I tried a good many with my own weight and with my
stick, and all seemed, and actually were, perfectly firm. Of course, I
resolved that Brown and I would make an experiment that very night.

"I was well prepared. Knowing the sort of place I should have to
explore, I had brought a sufficiency of good rope and bands of webbing
to surround my body, and crossbars to hold to, as well as lanterns and
candles and crowbars, all of which would go into a single carpet-bag and
excite no suspicion. I satisfied myself that my rope would be long
enough, and that the wheel for the bucket was in good working order,
and then we went home to dinner.

"I had a little cautious conversation with the landlord, and made out
that he would not be overmuch surprised if I went out for a stroll with
my man about nine o'clock, to make (Heaven forgive me!) a sketch of the
abbey by moonlight. I asked no questions about the well, and am not
likely to do so now. I fancy I know as much about it as anyone in
Steinfeld: at least"--with a strong shudder--"I don't want to know any
more.

"Now we come to the crisis, and, though I hate to think of it, I feel
sure, Gregory, that it will be better for me in all ways to recall it
just as it happened. We started, Brown and I, at about nine with our
bag, and attracted no attention; for we managed to slip out at the
hinder end of the inn-yard into an alley which brought us quite to the
edge of the village. In five minutes we were at the well, and for some
little time we sat on the edge of the well-head to make sure that no one
was stirring or spying on us. All we heard was some horses cropping
grass out of sight farther down the eastern slope. We were perfectly
unobserved, and had plenty of light from the gorgeous full moon to allow
us to get the rope properly fitted over the wheel. Then I secured the
band round my body beneath the arms. We attached the end of the rope
very securely to a ring in the stonework. Brown took the lighted lantern
and followed me; I had a crowbar. And so we began to descend
cautiously, feeling every step before we set foot on it, and scanning
the walls in search of any marked stone.

"Half aloud I counted the steps as we went down, and we got as far as
the thirty-eighth before I noted anything at all irregular in the
surface of the masonry. Even here there was no mark, and I began to feel
very blank, and to wonder if the Abbot's cryptogram could possibly be an
elaborate hoax. At the forty-ninth step the staircase ceased. It was
with a very sinking heart that I began retracing my steps, and when I
was back on the thirty-eighth--Brown, with the lantern, being a step or
two above me--I scrutinized the little bit of irregularity in the
stonework with all my might; but there was no vestige of a mark.

"Then it struck me that the texture of the surface looked just a little
smoother than the rest, or, at least, in some way different. It might
possibly be cement and not stone. I gave it a good blow with my iron
bar. There was a decidedly hollow sound, though that might be the result
of our being in a well. But there was more. A great flake of cement
dropped on to my feet, and I saw marks on the stone underneath. I had
tracked the Abbot down, my dear Gregory; even now I think of it with a
certain pride. It took but a very few more taps to clear the whole of
the cement away, and I saw a slab of stone about two feet square, upon
which was engraven a cross. Disappointment again, but only for a
moment. It was you, Brown, who reassured me by a casual remark. You
said, if I remember right:

"'It's a funny cross; looks like a lot of eyes.'"

"I snatched the lantern out of your hand, and saw with inexpressible
pleasure that the cross _was_ composed of seven eyes, four in a vertical
line, three horizontal. The last of the scrolls in the window was
explained in the way I had anticipated. Here was my 'stone with the
seven eyes.' So far the Abbot's data had been exact, and, as I thought
of this, the anxiety about the 'guardian' returned upon me with
increased force. Still, I wasn't going to retreat now.

"Without giving myself time to think, I knocked away the cement all
round the marked stone, and then gave it a prise on the right side with
my crowbar. It moved at once, and I saw that it was but a thin light
slab, such as I could easily lift out myself, and that it stopped the
entrance to a cavity. I did lift it out unbroken, and set it on the
step, for it might be very important to us to be able to replace it.
Then I waited for several minutes on the step just above. I don't know
why, but I think to see if any dreadful thing would rush out. Nothing
happened. Next I lit a candle, and very cautiously I placed it inside
the cavity, with some idea of seeing whether there were foul air, and of
getting a glimpse of what was inside. There _was_ some foulness of air
which nearly extinguished the flame, but in no long time it burned
quite steadily. The hole went some little way back, and also on the
right and left of the entrance, and I could see some rounded
light-coloured objects within which might be bags. There was no use in
waiting. I faced the cavity, and looked in. There was nothing
immediately in the front of the hole. I put my arm in and felt to the
right, very gingerly....

"Just give me a glass of cognac, Brown. I'll go on in a moment,
Gregory....

"Well, I felt to the right, and my fingers touched something curved,
that felt--yes--more or less like leather; dampish it was, and evidently
part of a heavy, full thing. There was nothing, I must say, to alarm
one. I grew bolder, and putting both hands in as well as I could, I
pulled it to me, and it came. It was heavy, but moved more easily than I
had expected. As I pulled it towards the entrance, my left elbow knocked
over and extinguished the candle. I got the thing fairly in front of the
mouth and began drawing it out. Just then Brown gave a sharp ejaculation
and ran quickly up the steps with the lantern. He will tell you why in a
moment. Startled as I was, I looked round after him, and saw him stand
for a minute at the top and then walk away a few yards. Then I heard him
call softly, 'All right, sir,' and went on pulling out the great bag, in
complete darkness. It hung for an instant on the edge of the hole, then
slipped forward on to my chest, and _put its arms round my neck_.

"My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now
acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can
endure without losing his mind. I can only just manage to tell you now
the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible
smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and
moving slowly over it, and of several--I don't know how many--legs or
arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body. I screamed out,
Brown says, like a beast, and fell away backward from the step on which
I stood, and the creature slipped downwards, I suppose, on to that same
step. Providentially the band round me held firm. Brown did not lose his
head, and was strong enough to pull me up to the top and get me over the
edge quite promptly. How he managed it exactly I don't know, and I think
he would find it hard to tell you. I believe he contrived to hide our
implements in the deserted building near by, and with very great
difficulty he got me back to the inn. I was in no state to make
explanations, and Brown knows no German; but next morning I told the
people some tale of having had a bad fall in the abbey ruins, which, I
suppose, they believed. And now, before I go further, I should just like
you to hear what Brown's experiences during those few minutes were. Tell
the Rector, Brown, what you told me."

"Well, sir," said Brown, speaking low and nervously, "it was just this
way. Master was busy down in front of the 'ole, and I was 'olding the
lantern and looking on, when I 'eard somethink drop in the water from
the top, as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone's 'ead lookin'
over at us. I s'pose I must ha' said somethink, and I 'eld the light up
and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a
bad un, sir, if ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much
fell in, and larfin, as I thought. And I got up the steps as quick
pretty nigh as I'm tellin' you, and when I was out on the ground there
warn't a sign of any person. There 'adn't been the time for anyone to
get away, let alone a hold chap, and I made sure he warn't crouching
down by the well, nor nothink. Next thing I hear master cry out
somethink 'orrible, and hall I see was him hanging out by the rope, and,
as master says, 'owever I got him up I couldn't tell you."

"You hear that, Gregory?" said Mr. Somerton. "Now, does any explanation
of that incident strike you?"

"The whole thing is so ghastly and abnormal that I must own it puts me
quite off my balance; but the thought did occur to me that possibly
the--well, the person who set the trap might have come to see the
success of his plan."

"Just so, Gregory, just so. I can think of nothing else so--_likely_, I
should say, if such a word had a place anywhere in my story. I think it
must have been the Abbot.... Well, I haven't much more to tell you.
I spent a miserable night, Brown sitting up with me. Next day I was no
better; unable to get up; no doctor to be had; and, if one had been
available, I doubt if he could have done much for me. I made Brown write
off to you, and spent a second terrible night. And, Gregory, of this I
am sure, and I think it affected me more than the first shock, for it
lasted longer: there was someone or something on the watch outside my
door the whole night. I almost fancy there were two. It wasn't only the
faint noises I heard from time to time all through the dark hours, but
there was the smell--the hideous smell of mould. Every rag I had had on
me on that first evening I had stripped off and made Brown take it away.
I believe he stuffed the things into the stove in his room; and yet the
smell was there, as intense as it had been in the well; and, what is
more, it came from outside the door. But with the first glimmer of dawn
it faded out, and the sounds ceased, too; and that convinced me that the
thing or things were creatures of darkness, and could not stand the
daylight; and so I was sure that if anyone could put back the stone, it
or they would be powerless until someone else took it away again. I had
to wait until you came to get that done. Of course, I couldn't send
Brown to do it by himself, and still less could I tell anyone who
belonged to the place.

"Well, there is my story; and if you don't believe it, I can't help it.
But I think you do."

"Indeed," said Mr. Gregory, "I can find no alternative. I _must_
believe it! I saw the well and the stone myself, and had a glimpse, I
thought, of the bags or something else in the hole. And, to be plain
with you, Somerton, I believe my door was watched last night, too."

"I dare say it was, Gregory; but, thank goodness, that is over. Have
you, by the way, anything to tell about your visit to that dreadful
place?"

"Very little," was the answer. "Brown and I managed easily enough to get
the slab into its place, and he fixed it very firmly with the irons and
wedges you had desired him to get, and we contrived to smear the surface
with mud so that it looks just like the rest of the wall. One thing I
did notice in the carving on the well-head, which I think must have
escaped you. It was a horrid, grotesque shape--perhaps more like a toad
than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two
words, 'Depositum custodi.'"[5]

[Footnote 5: "Keep that which is committed to thee."]




[End of The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, by M. R. James]
