“The next moment, I lay benumbed, as it were, in my seat, while the maniac advanced from a dark corner of the room, bearing in her right hand a human skull replete with some poisonous sort of drink. This horrible potion was lifted to my lips, which seemed to shut in vain against it, the long, bony fingers of the phantom being thrust into my mouth, so as to force a passage for her accursed mixture. It trickled down to my very heart in slow, cold drops, and when lodged there seemed, by a sudden transition, to burn and glow like flames of Etna; spellbound as I was, such extreme agony passed my powers of endurance. I uttered a frantic cry and sprang up from the chair, darting towards the hag by whom my torment was inflicted. The glare of her red eyes grew stronger as I advanced, and a lean, sallow arm was put out to repel me. Fearing the detested touch, I hastily drew back; some article of furniture intercepted me; I fell, and was plunged from the fall into a chasm, which opened through the floor. The shock of this awoke me, and the first proof I obtained of my actual perception was the sound of that _hoarse scream_ which a few hours before had been uttered in the forest. This scream was repeated--it seemed to issue from the windows. I heard the casement flap, as if a strong wind were shaking it; and though my sinews shrank and withered at the noise, yet I staggered to this window as fast as my feet would carry me. A ray of light flashed in as I reached it, and there, pressed close against the glass, I saw the same pale, bloodless visage that has been already figured to you. “Maddened by the sight, I clenched my hand and drove it fiercely at the apparition. “Its lips quivered--the _scream_ rang again through the apartment. I was found next day without sense or motion, my hand dreadfully cut, and the window shivered to pieces.” PARK HOUSE, WESTMINSTER THE CAVALIER’S GHOST Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of the dead Source of authenticity: Miscellaneous collection of Ghost Stories by Baxter, Wesley and Simpson Cause of haunting: Murder (The following story is told _ad verbum_ in the language of the eye-witness, the quaintness of his style being accounted for by the period in which he lived.) “I was always a very strong-minded man, and, until the time about which I am going to speak, always ridiculed the idea of ghosts. “You must know that about two years ago[7] I went to lodge at an ancient house in Westminster, where nothing remarkable happened to me for about three months; and then, on a night in November (too well do I remember it), I saw such an appalling sight as I never before beheld. [7] (Probably 1780.--ED.) “Even were I starving to-morrow, I would not again enter that room--no, not for a thousand pounds! I had been to the theatre, and on my way home had drunk a single pint of porter, so that no doubt of my sobriety can exist for a moment.