“Dec. 19.  Have been all day trying to read the cipher in vain.  Have lost the key, have forgotten the chief link.  Until I can recall it the metal is useless.  What if it should never come to me?  This night went down to the Point.  Threw into the sea the evidences of what I have brought to pass.  The tide will soon wash them away.

“Dec. 20.  Surely it is not meant this thing should be known.  To-day a body came on shore, bruised and shattered, but said to be identified by those who should have known best.  Now, no one will ever search this house.  Twice to-day I have been to look at the place:  nothing can be seen.  Providence means I should live to finish my work—­to complete that which I alone of mortal men have rightly understood.  Why is it this link is broken off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before?  Would the creature but have given it up quietly!  It was in self-defence I struck at last.  What was it to repent of?  Some have held that such as he are not human—­only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.

“Dec. 22.  Useless, useless!  My memory fails me entirely.  I have tried to go on in vain.  What is this that is with me now these last two days?

“Dec. 25.  Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this.  I had no guest but one I dare not name—­

  ‘Tumulum circumvolat umbra.’

“Dec. 27.  To day it put out its hand:  the soft wet fingers touched me.  I will go out into the world, I will go out into the world.  I will help those who are sick and in misery.  Will it not be at peace then?”

Then the journal paused:  there was no further entry till April 29, 1786: 

“The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day.  Her eyes were opened to see what I see all the hours in the day.  I must go.  I have not dared to leave, lest the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place.  They begin to press me for money.  The house will go on the mortgage.  Heard Phelps say if it was his he would drain the place in the cellar.  To-day received fifty dollars from the sale of apparatus.  Could not part with it before, thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it.  Perhaps it will come back to me if I go away:  it may be This will not follow me.  I will drop the gold into the same place:  if it is that it wants, it will rest.  I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious.  I only, of all men, have seen unveiled the mystery.  I will leave This behind.  When I am safe it may be found, and they will lay it to rest in the earth, if that is what it seeks.  Then it will cease to persecute me with its step close at my back, its loathsome clinging touch.”

Miss Sophonisba (my friend went on) looked up from her reading with such a strange expression that her sister was startled.  “Put on your bonnet, Faithful,” said she:  “I’m going down to see the minister.”

“What do you mean?” said Miss Faithful:  “it’s nearly nine o’clock.”