sucking the young blood of the eight wretched keepers.
Her stupor lasted only a second. With a bound she was on me, and her claws sank into my neck.
I had clung to my revolver. I fired, and with one great belching hiccup, which spattered the walls with black blood, the vampire sank to the floor. . . .
*****
And that, Your Honor, is why you will find beside the bodies of Velitcho and Ossip the body of the Duchess Opoltchenska, officially deceased eight years ago and buried at that time in the cemetery of Saint-Guittou.
Solitude
I often think when I am sole alone
That solitude is never possible,
That ghosts of dead departed ever haunt
The quiet places where I lie alone;
I think that every nook and cranny hides
The spirit personality of Jones,
Or Smith, or Wood, or Harry Robinson,
Who always wore his hat that funny way
And used to dive in somersaults and screws,
The finest swimmer in the Middle West—
He died of cancer, killed by strain of war;
Yes, he, and Charlie, too, surround me now,
And Tommy Perkins with his squinting grin;
If I stay here or move to over there,
They still do follow: never can I tear
Myself away from those who once did live
But now are dead. Perhaps I, too, will die;
Yes, that’s the ticket! I will join my friends;
And Jones and Smith and Wood and Robinson
And Charlie, too, and Tommy Perkins with
His squinting grin, will haunt together now.
