Then it was that the frightened servants who met me at the gate babbled that which sent me racing off, torch in hand, into the depths of the dream-wood looming so loathesomely in the unholy luminance of the autumn moon. Shrieking and cursing I went on, gibbering threats to the skies; but more dreadful still was my silence when at last I reached the end of my quest. Do not ask me how or where I found her. She was not dead, but she would have been better so after what It had done. She never spoke after I found her, and I do not think that she knew me. I pray that she did not. I carried her back to the manor and delivered her to the care of the servants. Then, with a score of retainers I returned again to the forest to do that which must be done, and to eradicate certain discoveries whose very existence was an insult to sanity. There were bloated trees to cut down, and creepers to be torn from the depths of nameless graves. There were curious holes to be blocked with massive stones and certain tracks and monstrous footprints over which the good curé must pronounce exorcism. There was another shrub-hidden cavern in the swamps containing grisly but unmistakable evidences of tenancy. One such place I entered alone and performed a deed with the long sword my grand-sire had wielded in the Orient. Then I collapsed, and was carried home upon a hastily-improvised litter of birchen branches, to toss for many weeks thereafter in the delirious agony of mocking, cacodemoniacal memory. After that I spent many days poring unceasingly over disquieting bits of ancient legendry concerning the forest and its ghastly presences, whilst awaiting the birth of my wife's child--for she, in a condition of unsensibility precluding her removal from the manor, was about to become a mother. And so slowly passed the dreary months of waiting and expectancy, whilst over all hung the shadow of an impinging dread. At last the day arrived when, as I brooded in my study, poring over the chronicle of a woodsman who had heard the pipes of Pan, the mid-wife came and gently touched me on the shoulder. In faltering accents she whispered that my wife was dead. I sat there dully for five endless minutes; then in a voice sepulchrally muted, I asked after my child. She led me silently into the room where dead mother and living infant lay. Yes, the child was alive, still is alive, but I will say no more. May the Ultimate Powers consign it--and the Fate that produced it--to everlasting torment! For it was when I entered that room where the dead mother and the living infant lay that I heard for the first time The LAUGHTER OF A GHOUL! The End * * * * * LOST EXCERPTS by Robert Nelson _II. The Feast of the Centaurs_