The Jekyll Revelation

by Robert Masello

House, Samoa To: W. E. Henley, 18 Maybury Road, Old Woking, Surrey, England Dear Henley— What I must tell you now, I tell you with dread. It has happened

Whitechapel has, I fear, awakened from its awful slumber. It has struck again, right here, in what I had foolishly thought might be Paradise.

agent of its malevolence. To you alone, my oldest friend—you who know so much of the story and played such a brave and crucial part in it—can I entrust this final account. I will send it to you by way of the next packet boat to leave the island. Who else, I must ask, would believe it? Last night, as I sat on my verandah, lighting a pipe and contemplating the face of

flicker of light emerging from the jungle and making straight for the house. For a moment, I thought it might finally be one of the aitus—evil spirits—that the natives believe haunt the tangled slopes of Mount Vaea, but then it resolved itself

land, torch held high, and I could hear, above the soughing of the wind in the banyan trees, a voice shouting, ‘Tusitala! Come quick!’ Tusitala—teller