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On the evening of March 23, I had been for the first time to see the Lyceum ‘Faust.’ If I am a lover of books to unsociability, I also carry love of the drama to extravagance: at least, so I used constantly to be told in the family circle a year ago, for I go to the play less frequently now. I was, in fact, an inveterate ‘pitite,’ and seldom a week went by, especially during the season, without my visiting one of the West-end theatres.

As early as six o’clock on the afternoon of the 23rd, I had taken up my position outside the pit entrance at the Lyceum, with the result of a seat in the front row.

The performance enthralled me. Being no linguist I had read no more than a translation of the work of Goethe, and I was therefore untroubled by doubts as to the textual rendering of the original. For three hours I lived in the land of Romance. I sympathised with the actors in the tragedy. With senses and nerves strung to the highest pitch of sympathy I concentrated my whole attention on what passed before me. And yet I very soon felt that sympathy becoming absorbed in the evil genius of the play! Gradually the influence grew upon me, until Mephistopheles exercised over me a greater, an immeasurably greater charm than any other personage in the play.

My heart warmed to this scarlet prince of darkness! His plausibility played upon my fancy in the beginning, his ingenuity fanned my fancy into admiration, his unfathomable cunning turned admiration to unholy reverence! The supreme badness of the fiend won me over to the wrong side in spite of myself. The influence of the fiend intoxicated me. Each poisoned arrow of subtle sarcasm struck acute enjoyment into my soul. All through the play, when the fiend was on the stage, my eyes saw no other form, my ears heard no other voice. But on the Brocken, I absolutely revelled in the majesty of the fiend!

No thought of the actor influenced me. For the time I thought only of this demon as the demon. The power of imagination was very strong within me.

As I walked from the theatre to the station I could not repress a momentary feeling of shame and wonder that my sympathies had been so completely given to the wrong side. Who but myself had ever witnessed ‘Faust,’ and enjoyed the play from this standpoint? Who but myself had gazed at the picture from the reverse side, and delighted in it?

The thought was fleeting, and the unanswered questions did not vex me. My mind quickly returned to its demon-worship.

As we reached Flower Bank, my suburb, the hands of the station clock pointed to a quarter to one. I walked down the platform, through the little gate at the level crossing, and on the accustomed way home. I had noticed no other passenger quit the train at Flower Bank.

In walking from the station to my father’s house I usually followed a narrow foot-path that runs between the boundary fence of the railway and the boardings at the backs of the gardens of a road of Queen-Anne houses parallel to the line. After a quarter of a mile these houses end, though the path continues, and my way lay diagonally across a field, which brought me opposite to the turning into our own road.

I had proceeded about a hundred yards from the station along this path. My mind still dwelt among the weird scenes of the evening. I was crossing a wooden bridge spanning a ditch that interrupts the footway. All at once I became sensible of a gliding footstep behind me.

The right fore-arm of a stranger was thrust beneath my left arm, and a strong hand grasped the muscle of my arm.

I started terribly, and looked sharply round. The night was very dark, but I could make out that the man was tall and thin, and somewhat inclined to a stoop. A long close-fitting cloak enveloped him from neck to heel. He wore on his head a large sombrero that effectually concealed his features.

The stranger continued to move onward, and in spite of my intense surprise I could not choose but move onward too. For half a minute neither of us uttered a syllable. Then my companion bent his head until it was near mine, and in a deep, solemn, not unmusical voice, spoke.

‘You must allow me to accompany you,’ he said. I stammered, faltering, that his company would afford me pleasure, if our ways were identical. I was filled with fear which I tried hard to suppress, and it was with difficulty I succeeded in keeping my limbs from trembling violently.

He took no notice of my words, but glided forward with silent steps, his hand still grasping my arm. How like was this tall, lithe, bending figure; this deep, penetrating voice, to the form and voice of the weird image present in my mind! My imagination, already stimulated and overwrought, was ripe to surmise the supernatural. Was I dreaming, or had the prince of fiends come himself to seek me out because of my ungodly fascination?

My companion spoke again:

‘You have been present at—“Faust.” ’ The tone had in it no note of interrogative inflection. It seemed to state with authority known, undeniable fact.

‘Yes,’ I managed to murmur, after a short pause of speechless surprise. How could he know where I had been?

‘And did you admire—Mephistopheles?’

I started painfully. Whence came this strange dark being to probe the inmost thoughts of my brain? What was he—man or devil?

The tone was one of grim banter, and reminded me of the caustic utterances of the Evil One, that I had gloried in during the evening.

‘He was grand—magnificent!’ I said with enthusiasm, in spite of my fears—in spite of my wonder.

‘Ha! ha! A clever performance—a fair imitation; but not counterfeit—no, no: not counterfeit! Wait until you see the real Satan! Ha! ha! ha!’ He hissed the last words into my ear, and the laugh that followed them was hoarse and bloodcurdling.

I fairly shook with terror. My knees knocked together as I walked. I felt the perspiration gather on my brow.

Thank God! here was the field. At the other side of this field was the first lamp-post of my own road—the first light I had seen since leaving the station! How the jet flickered its invitation to safety, its welcome that awaited me! Now I would bid good-night to my dark companion, and go home: run home, as fast as my legs could carry me—run! run! run!

I gathered courage from the distant friendly light, and said:

‘My way lies across this field. If you still continue by the path, I am afraid I mnst leave you.’

For the first time my companion arrested his gliding walk, and stood still in the pathway. He regarded me for a moment; then said slowly:

‘Leave me? Leave me! Boy, you little know to whom you speak! No. You cannot leave me. You shall not leave me. Shall not—neither now nor evermore!’ The words were hissed rather than spoken, with hoarse, vibrating distinctness. The strong hand closed round the puny muscle of my arm. Madman? yes, or devil! I felt it worse than useless to resist, and yet—

‘Help!’ It was a short sharp cry that burst involuntarily from my lips; not resolute enough to summon aid.

My companion's left hand was thrust with lightning rapidity into his bosom, and with the same movement the gleaming blade of a knife protruded through the right breast of his cloak, and pressed against my side.

‘One other sound like that, and I leave you with this in your heart! Now let us go on.’

On again together. My heart was as if turned to lead in my body; but the very intensity of my fear gave me coolness and resolution. I would humour him, I would agree with him, I would stay with him;—for this there was no choice, but I would stay with simulated willingness. An attempt to escape, or the faintest cry, would now, I knew, mean death. We skirted the field in silence, and were once more between boarding on our left and the Railway Company’s fence and quickset hedge on our right. This path, as I knew, ended in a frequented road a quarter of a mile ahead.

The knife had disappeared, but the left hand of my companion was still buried in his bosom. There was a silence of some three or four minutes, broken only by the sound of my companion’s measured gliding footsteps and my short nervous tread.

At last he broke the silence with once more solemn, low, precise articulation.

‘You came by the last train?’

‘I did.’

‘At what time does the first morning train pass here?’

‘Five o’clock, I think.’

‘You think! Come, boy, be sure.’

‘Five o’clock.’

‘Good. In that case we shall spend exactly four hours together, for it is now one o’clock.’

Now one o’clock! Only one! That meant that only a quarter of an hour had passed since I left my train. Impossible! It could not be. An hour—two hours—must have gone by since then. And must I spend four hours more with him? Sixteen times as long as I had been in his company already, if this man spoke truth regarding the time? Absurd! But this man did not speak truth; this man—

A distant church-clock chimed the hour, and then struck—one!

Something must be wrong with that church-clock. Three was the hour it meant to strike, not one. But what did this man mean when he said ‘We shall spend exactly four hours together?’ Could he mean that he would leave me then, and escape from the district by the early workmen’s train? If he did, I would have the police on his track before the sun was fairly above the horizon! He should be locked up this very morning—locked up for a dangerous—that was if he were not a— Oh, how the cold bony hand clutched my arm!

We were drawing near the road. Through the darkness of the night I could just distinguish the shadowy forms of houses sparsely built: but no lights in the windows. No lights to encourage me—and warn my companion. I fancied I could hear the measured tread of the policeman on duty.

The railway on our right now ran through a deep cutting. The path we followed led inwards from the edge of the embankment. A hundred paces on, an old disused bridge arched over the line, which from the station to this point was singularly straight. Beyond the disused bridge a curve commenced, and a furlong from the first bridge a second bridge, newly built, spanned the line, the curve still continuing. Where the path turned inwards from the railway a tall untrimmed hedge rose a few paces from the railway fence. The hedge took the place of the fence as right-hand enclosure of the path, and between hedge and fence there was entrance to a wedge-shaped grassy slope, which stretched to the foot of the masonry of the bridge. I had strolled down this slope in daylight, and knew that near the bridge, where the earth had once been dug away, the slope changed into a steep descent to the level of the lines; though immediately next the fence the descent remained gradual.

As we approached the entrance to the slope between hedge and fence, I bore somewhat to the left of the path, hoping my companion would notice no break to the right. In my over-anxiety to keep to the path I must have palpably pushed against my companion, for his right hand clasping still more tightly my arm, and his left diving once more beneath his cloak,—

‘Fool!’ he hoarsely muttered. ‘So you still desire to tread again the paths of man? We shall see to that ere long. Meanwhile come my way.’

Resistance was madness; but, as I yielded, the last ray of hope of deliverance went out in my heart. Abandoning myself to I knew not what, I suffered myself to be led from the path of comparative safety and probable succour. In the power of this monster, bent on Heaven knew what, I might as well be in the heart of an African jungle as in the lonely hollow at the base of this old bridge. A terrible calm came over me, like that which I had read of experienced by men in the clutches of some wild beast. Surely here was no distant analogy!

As we descended the grassy slope, and my companion chose as if by instinct the easy downward path into the hollow, the deep sepulchral voice that had uttered few words during the latter part of our walk spoke in a louder tone than before, but still with the same clear, penetrating emphasis.

‘The pit before us is opportune. Come, get you down, young man. Here we shall have no interruption, and I have much to say to you—before five o’clock!’

We stood in what indeed was little short of a pit. Behind us, and to the right, a grassy wall of earth twenty feet high; to the left the moss-covered masonry of the old bridge; in front the railing that divided us from the line, on the level of which we now stood.

‘Yes, we are safe from interruption here,’ continued my tormentor. ‘Now do as I bid you, and, remember, at the smallest deviation from my command your life is forfeited—before its time! You see that star overhead?’ pointing upwards, ‘it is the North Star. Fix your eyes on the North Star, and do not remove them until I tell you.’

I bowed assent, for fear clogged my tongue; and, raising my head, I made a desperate effort to look steadily at the star.

He continued speaking.

‘You visited the theatre known as the Lyceum last evening. You sat at the left-hand end of the first row in the pit. I sat within a few yards of you, in the last box on the lowest tier.’

I kept my eyes fixed steadily on the star. Some effort was necessary, to enable me to sustain the terrible tension of my nerves; and this effort of gazing fixedly at the North Star, and knowing that on this action of gazing my life for the time depended, was a relief to my whirling senses. But I started as I gazed upwards. I dimly remembered having seen once or twice between the acts a solitary, dark, gloomy face in the box nearest to me; which, whenever I had noticed it, seemed to be regarding me earnestly. So wrapt up had I been in the play, that, though I now remembered the searching scrutiny of my face by the dark eyes to the left, at the time I had been practically unconscious of it.

‘Yes. I watched you from the box farthest from the stage, in the lowest tier of boxes on the left side of the house. I have occupied that box many nights, very many nights,’ he sighed wearily; ‘but,’ he added with deep, tremulous, terrible emphasis, ‘I have sat there, night after night, in disguise: yes, in human, earthly disguise!’

His voice rose, and gathered more awful, vibrating intensity with every word. I gazed upwards still, but the star danced before my vision like phosphorus in a vessel’s wake.

‘In the guise of a man have I sat there! In the garb of a mortal!’ he almost shrieked. Then, his voice lowering to deep, quivering, unearthly tones, ‘Cast down your eyes, O child of man, and know me for what I am!’

I threw up my arms and staggered backward. What was this I saw before me?

A dark haggard face, shining with a pale green light. Arched eyebrows, hooked nose, gleaming teeth. The tall bending body clothed in a black flowing robe. A dark skull-cap on the head. Two long arms stretched towards me, the bony hands and fingers shining with the same green light that illuminated the face. Thin green smoke ascending from face and hands!

What was this—vision or reality? Where was I—in dreamland or in—Hell?

The grinning lips moved:

‘I am—the Devil!’

I neither breathed nor stirred. The grinning lips moved again.

‘Know now with whom you are dealing: with the King of Darkness—the Evil One—Satan—the Devil—call me what you will!’

My breath came in stertorous respirations. I placed my hand on my brow: my brow was cold and clammy. I moved my foot: the damp grass was beneath it. I looked upward: the pale cold stars smiled mockingly upon me.

No.—I was not dreaming.

All at once I heard a hurried footstep on the narrow path above. It must be some belated wayfarer, some mortal who would help me. I opened my mouth, but the tongue clave to the palate. Before I could articulate, a flaming hand and gleaming blade were upon my breast, and a flaming face a foot from mine!

I fainted. . . .

When I recovered my senses, the Satanic form was bending over me.

‘Come, come! I give you no further grace to conquer this folly. If you cannot be calm now, you die without further fuss. If you choose to live a little longer, stand up, attend, and be sensible. Now, which is it to be?’

With a stupendous effort I managed to rise to my feet and stagger to the wall of the bridge, one strong bony hand grasping my limp arm. I leaned against the masonry, and obtained relief from contact with the dank moss-covered stones.

‘You elect to live—a little longer?’

I nodded feebly.

‘I thought so. I studied your face and head pretty closely with eye and glass during the evening. Your face is commonplace enough, but it is a wonderfully clear mirror of your mind. Your mental homage to—my imitator was, for instance, plainly written on your face. Then I studied your head, for, you see, you wear your hair closely cut. You are tenacious of life, and concentrativeness is very strongly developed. Is it not so?’

Damp shining fingers passed carefully over the central surface of the back of my head.

‘Just as I thought. Now in combativeness,’ feeling behind the ear, ‘you are deficient. That, too, I found out through my glass. Ha! ha! an immortal has to keep abreast of the sciences of man, my friend; I studied phrenology once, in the guise of a student.’

If there was comparison in my feelings just then, I was glad when the cold fingers were removed from my head.

‘So you appreciated Mephistopheles—the sham Mephistopheles, eh? Well, I grant you it is a fine performance, a wonderful mimicry—for a man! I have sat, in my guise of mortal, and watched this mimicry of myself many nights, very many nights. It has pleased my fancy, it has flattered me—with the sincerest flattery. I have over and over again watched carefully the players; and over and over again, still more carefully, the spectators. And until this night, young man, no mortal has witnessed those scenes and, in his heart, thrown in his lot with Mephistopheles. You never took your eyes off this mock Satan; and as you gazed, I read in your face admiration, awe, and even reverence; anon exultation and gloating, then again only admiration.’

A reader of thoughts! but could I wonder at that in—

‘And since you fell so deeply in love with the sham demon, I, the real demon, determined—ha, ha!—to reveal myself to you!’

Sorely the night most be waning now! The pale blue stars had changed their positions since my enforced contemplation of the only stationary body amongst them. And if the night was waning, daylight must ensue. And surely daylight would dissipate this fiend—or phantom! Or I should awake—no! I was awake already. Oh God, that I could think all this a dream! But if not a dream, what was it? what—?

‘Mortal, it is time to tell you why I followed you, and sought you out alone. Can you guess?’

I shook my head.

‘I brought you alone to a lonely place for the forming of a contract the like of which you saw made in the early part of that play. You are to sell your will to me!’

His voice, calm and dispassionate for some time past, returned to that hissing horrible emphasis which had characterised his earlier utterances.

‘You are to sell your will to me! But do not think of reward, like the reward of youth that the spurious spirit held out to his victim. I offer no reward—but eternity with me! Give me your hands, and look in my eyes!’

I placed my limp numbed hands within the cold bony hands held out to me. The dark face, less lurid now, but shining still, came close to my face. Dark fiery eyes transfixed my eyes.

We stood thus, motionless, for I know not how many minutes. Then, without movement or flicker of the steady gaze, the hands were withdrawn from mine, and gently waved to and fro before my face. Then back to their grasp of my hands.

‘Do you surrender your will to my will?’

I no more than heard the words. Some mental cord seemed to have snapped. I heard and saw distinctly, but I did not connect what I heard and saw with thought. Instinctively I repeated:

‘I surrender my will to your will!’

A long pause. Then with subdued triumph my companion spoke:

‘You are in my power—mind and soul and body—in the power of him you call the Evil One!’

The deep voice sounded metallic and far away. I felt no longer an actor in this grim scene by the old railway bridge, but a beholder—even as I had been a beholder of the Brocken’s hideous orgy. I could now converse dispassionately and mechanically, for I felt that the power of speech had returned. But the power of intelligent thought had gone, and with it all sensation of fear.

My companion’s eyes never relinquished their steady gaze into mine. He spoke again:

‘How far advanced is the night?’

‘It is almost four o’clock,’ I said, peering closely at my watch.

‘Four. In another hour the first streak of dawn will show in the east. And in another hour—at five, I think you said—the first morning train passes this place.’

‘The train is due at Flower Bank three minutes past five.’

‘Come then; let us move from here, and stand upon the metals.’

No wonder at this proposition, no curiosity concerning motive disturbed the calm of the stupor into which my senses had merged. My hands still in the grasp of the hands of my companion, his eyes still on mine, I was pushed gently to the fence. The fence was low here, and the hedge broken. I stepped over with little difficulty, and he followed.

Once more I leant against cold stone. It was the inner wall of the arch. Our hands and eyes were still joined; the former in firm, clammy grasp; the latter in mutual unflinching stare of horrible intensity on the one side, and apathetic stupor on the other.

We stood in silence. The distant church-clock, the sound of whose chimes had reached us from time to time, chimed the quarter after the hour.

‘What was that?’ The questioning voice sounded far away as the chimes.

‘A quarter-past four.’

‘Then we have three-quarters of an hour more of this.’

‘Is that all?’ I asked languidly.

‘At five this ends.’

‘Do we part then?’

‘For a time.’

‘And where do I go then?’

‘To Hell.’

The words, the hoarse tone, did not disturb me. I felt only dimly puzzled.

‘How do you mean?’

‘At five you die.’

‘At five I die! ’ I repeated dreamily. ‘How?’

‘By suicide.’

Suicide! What was that? I used, to know—but now—no: I could not think.

‘Tell me,’ I said wearily, ‘how? I do not understand.’

‘By laying your body across these metals. The early train will do the rest.’

‘Ah!’

Ding—dong—dell—ding—dong. Half-past four from the distant church spire.

A pause. Eyes and hands unaltered. At last:

‘What of you?’ I asked.

‘I look on.’

‘But you will be seen!’

‘No.’

‘No! How is that?’

‘Because I am invisible.’

A pause of minutes.

‘I am invisible to all mortals on this earth—save you. To you I have revealed myself—before taking you to my realm for ever.’

Ding—dong—dell—ding—dong: ding—dong—dell.

A quarter to five. The figure opposite seemed more distinct in form and outline. Yet sunrise would not be for more than an hour.

‘Yes. Sunrise is not until six o’clock. And you will never see the sunrise.’

That my thought was read occasioned me no surprise. I merely repeated, dreamily:

‘And I shall never see the sunrise!’

‘Never! Ha, ha, ha!’ A fiendish laugh. ‘This morning you breakfast with Pluto! With Pluto? No, no. With me! With Satan in his own realm!’

The deep sepulchral tones once more:

‘Now lay yourself across this line of rails, your shoulders resting on that far band of steel, your feet pointing to me—so. And fold your arms across your breast—so. And keep your eyes steadily fixed upon my eyes. That is well. Now, if you move limb or muscle, this steel blade of mine must do the work instead of the steel wheel of the engine. But the engine will be better and quicker. Hark! I hear it! The train has left the next station.’

Langford Station is one mile and a quarter from Flower Bank Station; therefore three-quarters of a mile from where I lay.

He—in the long cloak and skull-cap, stood by the side of the line, a yard from my feet. His expression was one of fiendish exultation, but the pale green light on hands and face seemed to have vanished in the grey light of earliest dawn. He went on speaking:

‘Hark! the sound grows more distinct. You must not move your eyes from mine, for if you break—hark! the hour is striking! how punctual they are here! ’

Ding—dong—dell—ding—dong:—ding—dong—dell:—ding—ding—ding—dong.— Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

As the last stroke of the distant clock died on the air, and the noise of rushing wheels grew louder and louder, I closed my eyes to shut out the horrible form in front of me. I turned my face to the right, and reopened my eyes. Within thirty yards of me was the hissing, snorting locomotive. I saw the engine, I heard the shriek of the whistle, and—I came to my senses!

I came to my senses, but awoke from no dream. The same second I saw the engine the mesmeric spell that had bound me was broken; that same second I knew my position; and that same second I doubled my legs and body over my head, and executed the one gymnastic feat of my life!

As my body rolled into the six-foot-way a demon yell burst from the other side of the rails. I saw between earth and air a figure in a flowing robe, with outstretched arms and naked knife, in the act of springing upon me! . . .

When I recovered consciousness this time, I found myself in the porters’ room at Flower Bank Station. My head, pillowed upon rough corduroy, was supported between the knees of a porter. Before opening my eyes, my ear caught some of the conversation going on around me.

‘E’s bin and well nigh done for this poor young gen’leman,’ said one voice.

‘But was done for himself, poor lunatic! They’re bringing him this way on a hand-truck,’ said another.

‘Hollo, Bill, what did you find about the pore man? Anything as’ll tell us who he is?’

‘A brass-ticketed hotel-room key, a purse full of sovereigns, a packet of phosphorus, and six programmes of the theaytre! No clue to his name or where he come from.’ . . .

It was some days before I knew that my companion of that terrible night was a gentleman who had been out of his mind for years, his mania being that he was the Devil! He had escaped a week before from the custody of his friends, taken rooms, without causing suspicion, at the Grosvenor Hotel, and spent every evening in witnessing Mr. Irving’s ‘wonderful mimicry’ of himself! On every other point he had been not only sane but intelligent.