THE WEST SHORE.
247
no one. When he looked up his eyes had a vacant,
glassy expression that gave us much alarnff On the
morning of the tenth day after the first stopping of the
clock we discovered him dead, with an expression of
intense agony on his features and strange blue marks
about his throat We found also that the old clock had
again stopped at ten minutes past five, and when it was
started the pipes sounded the solemn notes of the
requiem.
"After this it continued with its customary regularity,
but my brain was haunted by its extraordinary perform
ances. I tried to shake it off, but I could noi I behold
looming up before me everywhere I went a bill spectral
clock, the hands of which were fixed on what I now began
to regard as a fatal hour, ten minutes past five. Besides
this the slow notes of the requiem rang constantly in my
ears, and my every motion seemed in cadence with it
At length I thought I saw a connection between the stop
ping of the clock at the time of my mother's deatli and
the later one. There suddenly appeared to 1ms moaning
in it I recalled the fact that my father had died pro.
cisoly five years after my mother, and I believed the
stopping of the clock was somo kind of a premonition.
The matter worried me for weeks, and then, unable to
form a solution of it, I gradually forgot it amidst the
distractions of other affairs. About a year aftor my
father's death the clock stopped a third time in the same
mysterious way, at ten minutes past five, and perHmtod,
as before, in stopping at that hour as often as it was
started. Out of respect for my father's fondness for the
clock, a servant was instructed to keep it going. I
believed the stopping to be a harbingor of misfortune,
and my thoughts on the subject after the death of my
father now returned to me with double forcn. When 1
divulged my ideas, however, I was ridiculed, and, being
the minority, I was obliged to refrain from further ex
pressing my views on the subject The clock continued
to stop exactly for ten days at the same hour. On the
morning of the tenth we were shocked by the discovery
of our eldest brother dead, his throat markod with bluo,
and a dreadful expression of fear on his countenance.
The clock hands minted to ten minutes past five. I was
now certain that the stopping was full of horrible signifi
cance. I hated and dreaded the diabolical machine. I
wanted to crush it out af existence. I longed to destroy
it to the very last wheel and pinion, but my romaining
brothers regardod mo as one demented when I suggest!
it They apiored to inherit from my father the singular
reverence for the hateful clock, as well as the desire to
have its motion uninterrupted I said nothing more, but
began a close analysis f its peculiarities. I discovered
that my brother had died ono year after my father,
almost, if not exactly, to the minute, and my naturally
superstitious nature was thoroughly imbued with the
idea that there was some mysterious and fatal connection
between this curious clock and our family life. I felt
sure the ten minutes past five so persistently adhered to
on the different occasions was a symbol of doati action for
us. I reviewed the whole matter. My mother liatfbmn
foully murdored by some jKirson or persons unknown.
The clock had been found stopped, with horoorpso within
its huge cobo. No doubt, I thought, the clock had stoped
at the very moment hor spirit flod and her poor body whs
crushed into the. caHO. lily father had died precisely five
years after my mother, and the clock had stopped in its
singular fashion, apparently giving him ten days' warning
of the approach of the fatal hour. The five years, 1
decided, after much consideration, muHt oorrosiond to
the number of hours recorded on the dial at the moment
of the murder. So I concluded that this meant that live
years after the murder thero was to bo another death,
with as many days' warning as thero had Iteon minutes
on the dial, t. e., Urn. Who was to die? was the next
question I put to myHelf. Thero could lie but ono answer,
it Boomed to lo the murderer. Gould it lo possible,
then, that my father was actually the murderer? In one
of his fits of delirium ho was irroHoiiHihlo and capable
of anything. It was a horrible thought, yet it was the
natural sequence of my investigation,
" I resolved not to quail, and accepted it as philosoph
ically as possible. He hod doubtless done the deed in a
delirious moment The gosh in his hood I explained by
supposing that ho fell agaiiwt somo hard object when the
frenzy was spent It was highly probable that ho after
wards had no recollection whatever of the matter. I
romomberod the pricking sensation I had oxerioiicod on
attempting to enter tho case when a loy, and it occurred
tome that the clock might bo ho constructed that when
an object was placed inside it, and tho door completely
closed, that object would be subjected to a violent gal
vanio shock that in most cases would produce death,
Then I thought my father had only imprisoned my
mother in the clock without knowing its dreadful jsiwcr,
though, even had ho known, ho would not have hesitated
in his madness. The constructor of the machino had
roHjxmileil to tho demands of tho duko by giving him a
clock by which a mysterious death might ho pro
duced, but it was evident that lie had also invested it
with properties that would avenge tho murder by making
the life of tho jerjotrator miserable just at tho time
when he' considered tho crime a thing of the forgotten
(Hist The old duko, so the tradition ran, hod died in a
sudden and mysterious way, and considering all these
circumstances, I believed that if I could only secure the
cluo to the secret machinery, I might know not only nil
about my mother's death, but everything that hod occurred
in tho same room with the clock since the day of its com.
pletion. I was confident that it was foiling the time in
its singular way when our blood-stained family should be
extinct
"I racked my brain for tho meaning of the 5:10 sym
bol, and I finally found it In order that you may better
understand it, I must recall the fiurt that my eldest
brother died exactly one year after my father, and that
I had four brothers. Counting myself, we were there
fore five; and suppming that ono of us should die with
each succeeding year, five years after the death of my
father, and Uiu after the morning of Uiat dreadful occur.