The Pale Horse

Discovering Mark’s intention to visit the Pale Horse, his cousin Rhoda is surprised to find he is interested in their entertainments. Walking in town they run into Thyrza, who tells Mark not to eat heavily and to appear at precisely seven o’clock. Before he visits the inn, Mark stops in at the vicarage to speak with Mrs. Calthrop and tell her the plan, including his upcoming visit to a séance at the Pale Horse. Giving him her blessing and a promise of her prayers, she sends Mark down the road to the inn and his fate.

Received without pomp or circumstance, Mark begins to let his guard down and suspects that he has been overthinking: “What is there to fear here?” (183). Allowing himself to be led to the old barn, Mark discovers a table in the center of the floor, covered in a purple, velvet cloth. Thyrza appears wholly changed, even frightening Mark with her tone of voice and demeanor. He finds her “slightly sinister” (185). Thyrza examines the glove that Mark was supposed to take from his wife and places it on the top of a radio cabinet at the far end of the room. Sybil appears and lies on top of the table in the center of the room.

Immediately Bella arrives also, and Sybil begins to chant in a strange voice as she falls into a trance, appearing to channel the spirit of someone named Macandal. Opening the radio cabinet, Thyrza unveils a great electric machine that begins to whir and hum and spark as Bella screams “Blood…the blood… BLOOD!” and sacrifices a live chicken (191-92). As Thyrza explains at the conclusion of the ritual, “The old magic and the new. The old knowledge of belief, the new knowledge of science. Together, they will prevail” (192).

The next morning Mark visits Rhoda, with whom he had been staying, and gives only the faintest of details of the events that occurred the previous night at the Pale Horse. Calling Ginger to check on her, Mark is relieved to find her alive and well, finding himself even more relieved than he had imagined possible. Narrating the events of her day, Ginger reveals that nothing out of the ordinary occurred. She encountered only a handful of innocuous visitors—the milkman, someone to check the gas meter, a traveling surveyor—and Mark’s friend Jim Corrigan.

The next day, bored by waiting, Mark decides to visit Venables. Joining him for tea, Mark discovers that Venables is not only fabulously wealthy but has retired to live a life of leisure and pleasure and to enjoy his wealth when he can. Revealing himself curious about Thyrza’s claim to a remote-control power over others, Mark finds this interest to be suspicious.

As Mark is leaving, he runs into Osborne, who has come to the house to spy on Venables and attempt to catch him in the act of hiding his true existence as healthy and unconfined to a wheelchair. Convinced that Venables is the man he saw, Osborne cannot believe that Venables is in a wheelchair. He develops a theory that Venables is living an elaborate ruse to orchestrate the murders associated with the Pale Horse. Mark is unsure of how to take Osborne’s claims but keeps an open mind.

The next morning Mark discovers that Ginger is sick. Overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety at the possibility that the ritual at the Pale Horse could have been real and effective, Ginger admits that she is afraid: “I’m glad you’re coming, Mark. I daresay—I’m not so brave as I thought” (224). Calling Lejeune and informing him of the situation, Mark begins to despair.