“What our agony would have been had the accursed things ventured to move toward us, I dare not even imagine, but they still and ever kept in the one track, moving with orderly march around that saucer on the floor. We felt and knew that they were living, actual realities, a genuine and horrid trinity of _facts_, and not a mere optical illusion, or the result of a play upon our fancies, mesmeric or otherwise. This opinion was confirmed by the most positive and blasting testimony, for, as they solemnly, demoniacally marched about the centre of that symbolic chart, they left a trailing streak of greenish--_dead_, _hard_, _greenish_ ichor or pus, behind them at each revolution, and a few drops of this fell upon the Baron’s carpet. Some months afterward he and I exchanged letters on the events of that night, and he assured me that not a single chemical amongst the hundreds applied for the purpose had been of the least effect toward removing the stain. ‘The carpet has been discharged of its colors and re-dyed, yet no dye will cover those spots!’ This was not all, for on one of their rounds they nearly quitted the chart, and the Baron struck at them with his foot, whereupon one of them spirted forth a fetid liquid, which fell upon his boot, and made a mark there as if the leather had been seared with hot iron! “‘Talk not to me of legerdemain after this! Speak not to me of optical illusion, or deceptive appearances, in the face of such facts as these, for here are marks,’ wrote the Baron to me, ‘here are palpable evidences that defy contradiction. They were made on that night, and there they yet remain, and, albeit I cry, “Out, damned spots!” they will not, but persist in remaining absolute confirmations of vivid, strange, incontrovertible _facts_!’ “‘But why did you not get up, under such circumstances, all of you, and escape from the room?’ is a very natural and perhaps not unreasonable question, that may without impropriety be asked just here, and I reply: For several reasons; among which a few shall be named. First, the doors were all securely locked, and although we had seen Mai mount a chair, and hang the keys to one of the glass pendants, yet upon looking there, we found that they, as well as the two rolls of paper, had disappeared. Secondly, the windows were fastened down, besides being many feet from the ground--at least fifteen--and to leap that distance was altogether out of the question, even had we thought of it, which we did not. Thirdly, the earnest and solemn warning given by Vatterale before anything took place; his assurance that if we obeyed his injunctions not to stir--that, although we might be frightened, yet no harm could or would befall us--acted, amidst all our terror, as a sort of stopper upon any precipitate movement, after the first shock was over.