Black Bartlemys Treasure

My next memory was of sun and a dance of leafy shadows on the wall of the cave, the which shadows held my attention so that I had no will to look otherwhere; for these were merry shadows that leapt in sportive gambols, that danced and swayed, pleasing me mightily. And as I watched these antic shadows I could hear the pleasant murmur of the little rill without the cave, that bubbled with sweet, soft noises like small, babbling voices and brake ever and anon into elfin laughter. And presently, mingled with this pretty babblement, I seemed to hear a whisper: "Martin! Dear Martin!"

And now I saw my lady plunge to death from the rock, and started up, filling the place with my lamentations, until for very weakness I lay hushed and heard again the soft rippling of the brook and therewith her voice very sweet and faint and far away: "Martin! Dear Martin!"

I remember a season of blackness in which dim-seen, evil things menaced me, and a horror of dreams wherein I, fettered and fast bound, must watch my sweet lady struggle, weeping, in the arms of vile rogues whiles I strove desperately to break my bonds, and finding this vain, fell to raging madness and dashed myself hither and thither to slay myself and end my torment. Or, axe in hand, amid smoke and flame, I fell upon her murderers; then would I smite down the man Humphrey only for him to rise to be smitten again and yet again, nodding shattered head and flapping nerveless arms in derision of me until, knowing I might never slay him--he being already dead--I turned to flee, but with him ever behind me and in my ears his sobbing cry of "Death for all of us--death!" And feeling his hands on me I would fall to desperate struggle until the blackness closed over me again thick and stifling like a sea.

And behind all these horrors was a haunting knowledge that I was going mad, that this man Humphrey was waiting for me out beyond the surf beckoning to me with flapping arms, and had cast on me a spell whereby, as my brain shrivelled to madness, my body was shrivelling and changing into that of Black Bartlemy. Always I knew that Humphrey waited me beyond the reef, watchful for my coming and growing ever more querulous and eager as the spell wrought on me so that he began to call to me in strange, sobbing voice, hailing me by my new name: "Bartlemy, ahoy! Black Bartlemy--Bartlemy ho! Come your ways to Humphrey, that being dead can die no more and, knowing all, doth know you for Bartlemy crept back from hell. So come, Bartlemy, come and be as I am. And there's others here, proper lads as wants ye too, dead men all--by the rope, by the knife, by the bullet--oho!