PART II
OF POLYHISTOR'S NARRATIVE
CONTINUED AND FINISHED AFTER A LAPSE OF FORTY YEARS
With my unexpected appointment as doctor to D---- gaol, I seemed tohave put on the seven-league boots of success. No doubt it was anextraordinary degree of good fortune, even to one who had looked forwardwith a broad view of confidence; yet, I think, perhaps on account of thevery casual nature of my promotion, I never took the post entirelyseriously.
At the same time I was fully bent on justifying my little cockneypatron's choice by a resolute subscription to his theories of prisonmanagement.
Major James Shrike inspired me with a curious conceit of impertinentrespect. In person the very embodiment of that insignificant vulgarity,without extenuating circumstances, which is the type in caricature of theultimate cockney, he possessed a force of mind and an earnestness ofpurpose that absolutely redeemed him on close acquaintanceship. I foundhim all he had stated himself to be, and something more.
He had a noble object always in view--the employment of sane andhumanitarian methods in the treatment of redeemable criminals, and hestrove towards it with completely untiring devotion. He was of those whonever insist beyond the limits of their own understanding, clear-sightedin discipline, frank in relaxation, an altruist in the larger sense.
His undaunted persistence, as I learned, received ample illustration somefew years prior to my acquaintance with him, when--his system beingexperimental rather than mature--a devastating endemic of typhoid in theprison had for the time stultified his efforts. He stuck to his post; butso virulent was the outbreak that the prison commissioners judged acomplete evacuation of the building and overhauling of the drainage tobe necessary. As a consequence, for some eighteen months--during thirteenof which the Governor and his household remained sole inmates of thesolitary pile (so sluggishly do we redeem our condemned socialbog-lands)--the "system" stood still for lack of material to mould. Atthe end of over a year of stagnation, a contract was accepted andworkmen put in, and another five months saw the prison reordered forpractical purposes.
The interval of forced inactivity must have sorely tried the patience ofthe Governor. Practical theorists condemned to rust too often eat outtheir own hearts. Major Shrike never referred to this period, and,indeed, laboriously snubbed any allusion to it.
He was, I have a shrewd notion, something of an officially pettedreformer. Anyhow, to his abolition of the insensate barbarism of crankand treadmill in favour of civilizing methods no opposition was offered.Solitary confinement--a punishment outside all nature to a gregariousrace--found no advocate in him. "A man's own suffering mind," he argued,"must be, of all moral food, the most poisonous for him to feed on.Surround a scorpion with fire and he stings himself to death, they say.Throw a diseased soul entirely upon its own resources and moral suicideresults."
To sum up: his nature embodied humanity without sentimentalism, firmnesswithout obstinacy, individuality without selfishness; his activity wasboundless, his devotion to his system so real as to admit no utilitariansophistries into his scheme of personal benevolence. Before I had beenwith him a week, I respected him as I had never respected man before.
* * * * *
One evening (it was during the second month of my appointment) we weresitting in his private study--a dark, comfortable room lined with books.It was an occasion on which a new characteristic of the man was offeredto my inspection.
A prisoner of a somewhat unusual type had come in that day--aspiritualistic medium, convicted of imposture. To this person I casuallyreferred.
"May I ask how you propose dealing with the new-comer?"
"On the familiar lines."
"But, surely--here we have a man of superior education, of imaginationeven?"
"No, no, no! A hawker's opportuneness; that describes it. These fellowswould make death itself a vulgarity."
"You've no faith in their--"
"Not a tittle. Heaven forfend! A sheet and a turnip are poetry to theirmanifestations. It's as crude and sour soil for us to work on as any Iknow. We'll cart it wholesale."
"I take you--excuse my saying so--for a supremely sceptical man."
"As to what?"
"The supernatural."
There was no answer during a considerable interval. Presently it came,with deliberate insistence:--
"It is a principle with me to oppose bullying. We are here for a definitepurpose--his duty plain to any man who wills to read it. There may bedisembodied spirits who seek to distress or annoy where they can nolonger control. If there are, mine, which is not yet divorced from itsmeans to material action, declines to be influenced by any irresponsiblewhimsey, emanating from a place whose denizens appear to be actuated by amere frivolous antagonism to all human order and progress."
"But supposing you, a murderer, to be haunted by the presentment of yourvictim?"
"I will imagine that to be my case. Well, it makes no difference. Myinterest is with the great human system, in one of whose veins I am acirculating drop. It is my business to help to keep the system sound,to do my duty without fear or favour. If disease--say a fouledconscience--contaminates me, it is for me to throw off the incubus,not accept it, and transmit the poison. Whatever my lapses of nature, Iowe it to the entire system to work for purity in my allotted sphere, andnot to allow any microbe bugbear to ride me roughshod, to the detrimentof my fellow drops."
I laughed.
"It should be for you," I said, "to learn to shiver, like the boy in thefairy tale."
"I cannot", he answered, with a peculiar quiet smile; "and yet prisons,above all places, should be haunted."
* * * * *
Very shortly after his arrival I was called to the cell of the medium,F----. He suffered, by his own statement, from severe pains in the head.
I found the man to be nervous, anemic; his manner characterized by a sortof hysterical effrontery.
"Send me to the infirmary", he begged. "This isn't punishment, buttorture."
"What are your symptoms?"
"I see things; my case has no comparison with others. To a man of mysuper-sensitiveness close confinement is mere cruelty."
I made a short examination. He was restless under my hands.
"You'll stay where you are", I said.
He broke out into violent abuse, and I left him.
Later in the day I visited him again. He was then white and sullen; butunder his mood I could read real excitement of some sort.
"Now, confess to me, my man", I said, "what do you see?"
He eyed me narrowly, with his lips a little shaky.
"Will you have me moved if I tell you?"
"I can give no promise till I know."
He made up his mind after an interval of silence.
"There's something uncanny in my neighbourhood. Who's confined in thenext cell--there, to the left?"
"To my knowledge it's empty."
He shook his head incredulously.
"Very well," I said, "I don't mean to bandy words with you"; and I turnedto go.
At that he came after me with a frightened choke.
"Doctor, your mission's a merciful one. I'm not trying to sauce you. ForGod's sake have me moved! I can see further than most, I tell you!"
The fellow's manner gave me pause. He was patently and beyond the prideof concealment terrified.
"What do you see?" I repeated stubbornly.
"It isn't that I see, but I know. The cell's not empty!"
I stared at him in considerable wonderment.
"I will make inquiries," I said. "You may take that for a promise. If thecell proves empty, you stop where you are."
I noticed that he dropped his hands with a lost gesture as I left him. Iwas sufficiently moved to accost the warder who awaited me on the spot.
"Johnson," I said, "is that cell--"
"Empty, sir," answered the man sharply and at once.
Before I could respond, F---- c
ame suddenly to the door, which I stillheld open.
"You lying cur!" he shouted. "You damned lying cur!"
The warder thrust the man back with violence.
"Now you, 49," he said, "dry up, and none of your sauce!" and he bangedto the door with a sounding slap, and turned to me with a lowering face.The prisoner inside yelped and stormed at the studded panels.
"That cell's empty, sir," repeated Johnson.
"Will you, as a matter of conscience, let me convince myself? I promisedthe man."
"No, I can't."
"You can't?"
"No, sir."
"This is a piece of stupid discourtesy. You can have no reason, ofcourse?"
"I can't open it--that's all."
"Oh, Johnson! Then I must go to the fountain-head."
"Very well, sir."
Quite baffled by the man's obstinacy, I said no more, but walked off. Ifmy anger was roused, my curiosity was piqued in proportion.
* * * * *
I had no opportunity of interviewing the Governor all day, but at night Ivisited him by invitation to play a game of piquet.
He was a man without "incumbrances"--as a severe conservatism designatesthe _lares_ of the cottage--and, at home, lived at his ease and indulgedhis amusements without comment.
I found him "tasting" his books, with which the room was well lined, anddrawing with relish at an excellent cigar in the intervals of thecourses.
He nodded to me, and held out an open volume in his left hand.
"Listen to this fellow," he said, tapping the page with his fingers:--
"'The most tolerable sort of Revenge, is for those wrongs which there isno Law to remedy: But then, let a man take heed, the Revenge be such, asthere is no law to punish: Else, a man's Enemy, is still before hand, andit is two for one. Some, when they take Revenge, are Desirous the partyshould know, whence it cometh. This is the more Generous. For the Delightseemeth to be, not so much in doing the Hurt, as in making the Partyrepent: But Base and Crafty _Cowards are like the Arrow that flyeth inthe Dark. Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a Desperate Saying againstPerfidious or Neglecting Friends, as if these wrongs were unpardonable.You shall reade (saith he) that we are commanded to forgive our Enemies:But you never read, that we are commanded, to forgive our Friends_.'
"Is he not a rare fellow?"
"Who?" said I.
"Francis Bacon, who screwed his wit to his philosophy, like a hammer-headto its handle, and knocked a nail in at every blow. How many of ourfriends round about here would be picking oakum now if they had made agospel of that quotation?"
"You mean they take no heed that the Law may punish for that for which itgives no remedy?"
"Precisely; and specifically as to revenge. The criminal, from themurderer to the petty pilferer, is actuated solely by the spirit ofvengeance--vengeance blind and speechless--towards a system that forceshim into a position quite outside his natural instincts."
"As to that, we have left Nature in the thicket. It is hopeless huntingfor her now."
"We hear her breathing sometimes, my friend. Otherwise Her Majesty'sprison locks would rust. But, I grant you, we have grown so unfamiliarwith her that we call her simplest manifestations _super_naturalnowadays."
"That reminds me. I visited F---- this afternoon. The man was in a queerway--not foxing, in my opinion. Hysteria, probably."
"Oh! What was the matter with him?"
"The form it took was some absurd prejudice about the next cell--number47, He swore it was not empty--was quite upset about it--said therewas some infernal influence at work in his neighbourhood. Nerves, hefinds, I suppose, may revenge themselves on one who has made a habit ofplaying tricks with them. To satisfy him, I asked Johnson to open thedoor of the next cell--"
"Well?"
"He refused."
"It is closed by my orders."
"That settles it, of course. The manner of Johnson's refusal was a bituncivil, but--"
He had been looking at me intently all this time--so intently that I wasconscious of a little embarrassment and confusion. His mouth was set likea dash between brackets, and his eyes glistened. Now his featuresrelaxed, and he gave a short high neigh of a laugh.
"My dear fellow, you must make allowances for the rough old lurcher. Hewas a soldier. He is all cut and measured out to the regimental pattern.With him Major Shrike, like the king, can do no wrong. Did I ever tellyou he served under me in India? He did; and, moreover, I saved his lifethere."
"In an engagement?"
"Worse--from the bite of a snake. It was a mere question of will. I toldhim to wake and walk, and he did. They had thought him already in rigormortis; and, as for him--well, his devotion to me since has been singleto the last degree."
"That's as it should be."
"To be sure. And he's quite in my confidence. You must pass over the oldbeggar's churlishness."
I laughed an assent. And then an odd thing happened. As I spoke, I hadwalked over to a bookcase on the opposite side of the room to that onwhich my host stood. Near this bookcase hung a mirror--an oblong affair,set in brass _repousse_ work--on the wall; and, happening to glance intoit as I approached, I caught sight of the Major's reflection as he turnedhis face to follow my movement.
I say "turned his face"--a formal description only. What met my startledgaze was an image of some nameless horror--of features grooved, andbattered, and shapeless, as if they had been torn by a wild beast.
I gave a little indrawn gasp and turned about. There stood the Major,plainly himself, with a pleasant smile on his face.
"What's up?" said he.
He spoke abstractedly, pulling at his cigar; and I answered rudely,"That's a damned bad looking-glass of yours!"
"I didn't know there was anything wrong with it," he said, stillabstracted and apart. And, indeed, when by sheer mental effort I forcedmyself to look again, there stood my companion as he stood in the room.
I gave a tremulous laugh, muttered something or nothing, and fell toexamining the books in the case. But my fingers shook a trifle as Iaimlessly pulled out one volume after another.
"Am I getting fanciful?" I thought--"I whose business it is to givepractical account of every bugbear of the nerves. Bah! My liver must beout of order. A speck of bile in one's eye may look a flying dragon."
I dismissed the folly from my mind, and set myself resolutely toinspecting the books marshalled before me. Roving amongst them, I pulledout, entirely at random, a thin, worn duodecimo, that was thrust wellback at a shelf end, as if it shrank from comparison with its prosperousand portly neighbours. Nothing but chance impelled me to the choice; andI don't know to this day what the ragged volume was about. It openednaturally at a marker that lay in it--a folded slip of paper, yellow withage; and glancing at this, a printed name caught my eye.
With some stir of curiosity, I spread the slip out. It was a title-pageto a volume, of poems, presumably; and the author was James Shrike.
I uttered an exclamation, and turned, book in hand.
"An author!" I said. "You an author, Major Shrike!"
To my surprise, he snapped round upon me with something like a glare offury on his face. This the more startled me as I believed I had reason toregard him as a man whose principles of conduct had long disciplined atemper that was naturally hasty enough.
Before I could speak to explain, he had come hurriedly across the roomand had rudely snatched the paper out of my hand.
"How did this get--" he began; then in a moment came to himself, andapologized for his ill manners.
"I thought every scrap of the stuff had been destroyed", he said, andtore the page into fragments. "It is an ancient effusion, doctor--perhapsthe greatest folly of my life; but it's something of a sore subject withme, and I shall be obliged if you'll not refer to it again."
He courted my forgiveness so frankly that the matter passed withoutembarrassment; and we had our game and spent a genial evening together.But memory of the queer little scene
stuck in my mind, and I could notforbear pondering it fitfully.
Surely here was a new side-light that played upon my friend and superiora little fantastically.
* * * * *
Conscious of a certain vague wonder in my mind, I was traversing theprison, lost in thought, after my sociable evening with the Governor,when the fact that dim light was issuing from the open door of cellnumber 49 brought me to myself and to a pause in the corridor outside.
Then I saw that something was wrong with the cell's inmate, and that myservices were required.
The medium was struggling on the floor, in what looked like an epilepticfit, and Johnson and another warder were holding him from doing an injuryto himself.
The younger man welcomed my appearance with relief.
"Heerd him guggling," he said, "and thought as something were up. Youcome timely, sir."
More assistance was procured, and I ordered the prisoner's removal to theinfirmary. For a minute, before following him, I was left alone withJohnson.
"It came to a climax, then?" I said, looking the man steadily in theface.
"He may be subject to 'em, sir", he replied, evasively.
I walked deliberately up to the closed door of the adjoining cell, whichwas the last on that side of the corridor. Huddled against the massiveend wall, and half imbedded in it, as it seemed, it lay in a certainshadow, and bore every sign of dust and disuse. Looking closely, I sawthat the trap in the door was not only firmly bolted, but _screwed intoits socket_.
I turned and said to the warder quietly,--
"Is it long since this cell was in use?"
"You're very fond of asking questions", he answered doggedly.
It was evident he would baffle me by impertinence rather than yield aconfidence. A queer insistence had seized me--a strange desire to knowmore about this mysterious chamber. But, for all my curiosity, I flushedat the man's tone.
"You have your orders", I said sternly, "and do well to hold by them. Idoubt, nevertheless, if they include impertinence to your superiors."
"I look straight on my duty, sir," he said, a little abashed. "I don'twish to give offence."
He did not, I feel sure. He followed his instinct to throw me off thescent, that was all.
I strode off in a fume, and after attending F---- in the infirmary, wentpromptly to my own quarters.
I was in an odd frame of mind, and for long tramped my sitting-room toand fro, too restless to go to bed, or, as an alternative, to settle downto a book. There was a welling up in my heart of some emotion that Icould neither trace nor define. It seemed neighbour to terror, neighbourto an intense fainting pity, yet was not distinctly either of these.Indeed, where was cause for one, or the subject of the other? F---- mighthave endured mental sufferings which it was only human to help to end,yet F---- was a swindling rogue, who, once relieved, merited no furtherconsideration.
It was not on him my sentiments were wasted. Who, then, was responsiblefor them?
There is a very plain line of demarcation between the legitimate spiritof inquiry and mere apish curiosity. I could recognise it, I have nodoubt, as a rule, yet in my then mood, under the influence of a kind ofmorbid seizure, inquisitiveness took me by the throat. I could notwhistle my mind from the chase of a certain graveyard will-o'-the-wisp;and on it went stumbling and floundering through bog and mire, until itfell into a state of collapse, and was useful for nothing else.
I went to bed and to sleep without difficulty, but I was conscious ofmyself all the time, and of a shadowless horror that seemed to comestealthily out of corners and to bend over and look at me, and to benothing but a curtain or a hanging coat when I started and stared.
Over and over again this happened, and my temperature rose by leaps, andsuddenly I saw that if I failed to assert myself, and promptly, feverwould lap me in a consuming fire. Then in a moment I broke into a profuseperspiration, and sank exhausted into delicious unconsciousness.
Morning found me restored to vigour, but still with the maggot ofcuriosity boring in my brain. It worked there all day, and for manysubsequent days, and at last it seemed as if my every faculty werehoneycombed with its ramifications. Then "this will not do", I thought,but still the tunnelling process went on.
At first I would not acknowledge to myself what all this mental to-do wasabout. I was ashamed of my new development, in fact, and nervous, too,in a degree of what it might reveal in the matter of moral degeneration;but gradually, as the curious devil mastered me, I grew into such harmonywith it that I could shut my eyes no longer to the true purpose of itsinsistence. It was the _closed cell_ about which my thoughts hovered likecrows circling round carrion.
* * * * *
"In the dead waste and middle" of a certain night I awoke with a strange,quick recovery of consciousness. There was the passing of a singleexpiration, and I had been asleep and was awake. I had gone to bed withno sense of premonition or of resolve in a particular direction; I sat upa monomaniac. It was as if, swelling in the silent hours, the tumour ofcuriosity had come to a head, and in a moment it was necessary to operateupon it.
I make no excuse for my then condition. I am convinced I was the victimof some undistinguishable force, that I was an agent under the control ofthe supernatural, if you like. Some thought had been in my mind of latethat in my position it was my duty to unriddle the mystery of the closedcell. This was a sop timidly held out to and rejected by my betterreason. I sought--and I knew it in my heart--solution of the puzzle,because it was a puzzle with an atmosphere that vitiated my moral fibre.Now, suddenly, I knew I must act, or, by forcing self-control, imperilmy mind's stability.
All strung to a sort of exaltation, I rose noiselessly and dressed myselfwith rapid, nervous hands. My every faculty was focussed upon asolitary point. Without and around there was nothing but shadow anduncertainty. I seemed conscious only of a shaft of light, as it were,traversing the darkness and globing itself in a steady disc of radianceon a lonely door.
Slipping out into the great echoing vault of the prison in stockingedfeet, I sped with no hesitation of purpose in the direction of thecorridor that was my goal. Surely some resolute Providence guided andencompassed me, for no meeting with the night patrol occurred at anypoint to embarrass or deter me. Like a ghost myself, I flitted alongthe stone flags of the passages, hardly waking a murmur from them in myprogress.
Without, I knew, a wild and stormy wind thundered on the walls of theprison. Within, where the very atmosphere was self-contained, a cold andsolemn peace held like an irrevocable judgment.
I found myself as if in a dream before the sealed door that had for daysharassed my waking thoughts. Dim light from a distant gas jet made apatch of yellow upon one of its panels; the rest was buttressed withshadow.
A sense of fear and constriction was upon me as I drew softly from mypocket a screwdriver I had brought with me. It never occurred to me, Iswear, that the quest was no business of mine, and that even now I couldwithdraw from it, and no one be the wiser. But I was afraid--I wasafraid. And there was not even the negative comfort of knowing that theneighbouring cell was tenanted. It gaped like a ghostly garret nextdoor to a deserted house.
What reason had I to be there at all, or, being there, to fear? I can nomore explain than tell how it was that I, an impartial follower of myvocation, had allowed myself to be tricked by that in the nerves I hadmade it my interest to study and combat in others.
My hand that held the tool was cold and wet. The stiff little shriek ofthe first screw, as it turned at first uneasily in its socket, sent ajarring thrill through me. But I persevered, and it came out readilyby-and-by, as did the four or five others that held the trap secure.
Then I paused a moment; and, I confess, the quick pant of fear seemed tocome grey from my lips. There were sounds about me--the deep breathing ofimprisoned men; and I envied the sleepers their hard-wrung repose.
At last, in one access of determination, I put out my hand,
and slidingback the bolt, hurriedly flung open the trap. An acrid whiff of dustassailed my nostrils as I stepped back a pace and stood expectant ofanything--or nothing. What did I wish, or dread, or foresee? The completeabsurdity of my behaviour was revealed to me in a moment. I could shakeoff the incubus here and now, and be a sane man again.
I giggled, with an actual ring of self-contempt in my voice, as I made aforward movement to close the aperture. I advanced my face to it, andinhaled the sluggish air that stole forth, and--God in heaven!
I had staggered back with that cry in my throat, when I felt fingers likeiron clamps close on my arm and hold it. The grip, more than the faceI turned to look upon in my surging terror, was forcibly human.
It was the warder Johnson who had seized me, and my heart bounded as Imet the cold fury of his eyes.
"Prying!" he said, in a hoarse, savage whisper. "So you will, will you?And now let the devil help you!"
It was not this fellow I feared, though his white face was set like ademon's; and in the thick of my terror I made a feeble attempt to assertmy authority.
"Let me go!" I muttered. "What! you dare?"
In his frenzy he shook my arm as a terrier shakes a rat, and, like a dog,he held on, daring me to release myself.
For the moment an instinct half-murderous leapt in me. It sank and wasoverwhelmed in a slough of some more secret emotion.
"Oh!" I whispered, collapsing, as it were, to the man's fury,even pitifully deprecating it. "What is it? What's there? It drewme--something unnameable".
He gave a snapping laugh like a cough. His rage waxed second by second.There was a maniacal suggestiveness in it; and not much longer, it wasevident, could he have it under control. I saw it run and congest in hiseyes; and, on the instant of its accumulation, he tore at me with asudden wild strength, and drove me up against the very door of the secretcell.
The action, the necessity of self-defence, restored me to some measure ofdignity and sanity.
"Let me go, you ruffian!" I cried, struggling to free myself from hisgrasp.
It was useless. He held me madly. There was no beating him off: and, soholding me, he managed to produce a single key from one of his pockets,and to slip it with a rusty clang into the lock of the door.
"You dirty, prying civilian!" he panted at me, as he swayed this way andthat with the pull of my body. "You shall have your wish, by G--! Youwant to see inside, do you? Look, then!"
He dashed open the door as he spoke, and pulled me violently intothe opening. A great waft of the cold, dank air came at us, and withit--what?
The warder had jerked his dark lantern from his belt, and now--an arm ofhis still clasped about one of mine--snapped the slide open.
"Where is it?" he muttered, directing the disc of light round and aboutthe floor of the cell. I ceased struggling. Some counter influence wasraising an odd curiosity in me.
"Ah!" he cried, in a stifled voice, "there you are, my friend!"
He was setting the light slowly travelling along the stone flags close bythe wall over against us, and now, so guiding it, looked askance at mewith a small, greedy smile.
"Follow the light, sir," he whispered jeeringly.
I looked, and saw twirling on the floor, in the patch of radiance cast bythe lamp, _a little eddy of dust_, it seemed. This eddy was never still,but went circling in that stagnant place without apparent cause orinfluence; and, as it circled, it moved slowly on by wall and corner, sothat presently in its progress it must reach us where we stood.
Now, draughts will play queer freaks in quiet places, and of thistrifling phenomenon I should have taken little note ordinarily. But, Imust say at once, that as I gazed upon the odd moving thing my heartseemed to fall in upon itself like a drained artery.
"Johnson!" I cried, "I must get out of this. I don't know what's thematter, or--Why do you hold me? D--n it! man, let me go; let me go, Isay!"
As I grappled with him he dropped the lantern with a crash and flung hisarms violently about me.
"You don't!" he panted, the muscles of his bent and rigid neck seemingactually to cut into my shoulder-blade. "You don't, by G--! You cameof your own accord, and now you shall take your bellyful!"
It was a struggle for life or death, or, worse, for life and reason. ButI was young and wiry, and held my own, if I could do little more. Yetthere was something to combat beyond the mere brute strength of the man Istruggled with, for I fought in an atmosphere of horror unexplainable,and I knew that inch by inch the _thing_ on the floor was circling roundin our direction.
Suddenly in the breathing darkness I felt it close upon us, gave onemortal yell of fear, and, with a last despairing fury, tore myself fromthe encircling arms, and sprang into the corridor without. As I plungedand leapt, the warder clutched at me, missed, caught a foot on the edgeof the door, and, as the latter whirled to with a clap, fell heavily atmy feet in a fit. Then, as I stood staring down upon him, steps soundedalong the corridor and the voices of scared men hurrying up.
* * * * *
Ill and shaken, and, for the time, little in love with life, yet fearingdeath as I had never dreaded it before, I spent the rest of that horriblenight huddled between my crumpled sheets, fearing to look forth, fearingto think, wild only to be far away, to be housed in some green andinnocent hamlet, where I might forget the madness and the terror inlearning to walk the unvext paths of placid souls. I had not fairlyknocked under until alone with my new dread familiar. That unction Icould lay to my heart, at least. I had done the manly part by thestricken warder, whom I had attended to his own home, in a row of littletenements that stood south of the prison walls. I had replied to allinquiries with some dignity and spirit, attributing my ruffled conditionto an assault on the part of Johnson, when he was already under theshadow of his seizure. I had directed his removal, and grudged him noprofessional attention that it was in my power to bestow. But afterwards,locked into my room, my whole nervous system broke up like a troddenant-hill, leaving me conscious of nothing but an aimless scurrying terrorand the black swarm of thoughts, so that I verily fancied my reason wouldgive under the strain.
Yet I had more to endure and to triumph over.
Near morning I fell into a troubled sleep, throughout which the drawntwitch of muscle seemed an accent on every word of ill-omen I had everspelt out of the alphabet of fear. If my body rested, my brain was anopen chamber for any toad of ugliness that listed to "sit at squat" in.
Suddenly I woke to the fact that there was a knocking at my door--thatthere had been for some little time.
I cried, "Come in!" finding a weak restorative in the mere sound of myown human voice; then, remembering the key was turned, bade the visitorwait until I could come to him.
Scrambling, feeling dazed and white-livered, out of bed, I opened thedoor, and met one of the warders on the threshold. The man looked scared,and his lips, I noticed, were set in a somewhat boding fashion.
"Can you come at once, sir?" he said. "There's summat wrong with theGovernor."
"Wrong? What's the matter with him?"
"Why,"--he looked down, rubbed an imaginary protuberance smooth with hisfoot, and glanced up at me again with a quick, furtive expression,--"he'sgot his face set in the grating of 47, and danged if a man Jack of us canget him to move or speak."
I turned away, feeling sick. I hurriedly pulled on coat and trousers, andhurriedly went off with my summoner. Reason was all absorbed in a wildestphantasy of apprehension.
"Who found him?" I muttered, as we sped on.
"Vokins see him go down the corridor about half after eight, sir, and seehim give a start like when he noticed the trap open. It's never been sobefore in my time. Johnson must ha' done it last night, before he weretook."
"Yes, yes."
"The man said the Governor went to shut it, it seemed, and to draw hisface to'ards the bars in so doin'. Then he see him a-lookin' through, ashe thought; but nat'rally it weren't no business of his'n, and he wentoff about his work. But w
hen he come anigh agen, fifteen minutes later,there were the Governor in the same position; and he got scared over it,and called out to one or two of us."
"Why didn't one of you ask the Major if anything was wrong?"
"Bless you! we did; and no answer. And we pulled him, compatible withdiscipline, but--"
"But what?"
"He's stuck."
"Stuck!"
"See for yourself, sir. That's all I ask."
I did, a moment later. A little group was collected about the door ofcell 47, and the members of it spoke together in whispers, as if theywere frightened men. One young fellow, with a face white in patches, asif it had been floured, slid from them as I approached, and accosted metremulously.
"Don't go anigh, sir. There's something wrong about the place."
I pulled myself together, forcibly beating down the excitement reawakenedby the associations of the spot. In the discomfiture of others' nerves Ifound my own restoration.
"Don't be an ass!" I said, in a determined voice, "There's nothing herethat can't be explained. Make way for me, please!"
They parted and let me through, and I saw him. He stood, spruce,frock-coated, dapper, as he always was, with his face pressed againstand _into_ the grill, and either hand raised and clenched tightly round abar of the trap. His posture was as of one caught and strivingfrantically to release himself; yet the narrowness of the intervalbetween the rails precluded so extravagant an idea. He stood quitemotionless--taut and on the strain, as it were--and nothing of his facewas visible but the back ridges of his jaw-bones, showing white through abush of red whiskers.
"Major Shrike!" I rapped out, and, allowing myself no hesitation, reachedforth my hand and grasped his shoulder. The body vibrated under my touch,but he neither answered nor made sign of hearing me. Then I pulled at himforcibly, and ever with increasing strength. His fingers held like steelbraces. He seemed glued to the trap, like Theseus to the rock.
Hastily I peered round, to see if I could get glimpse of his face. Inoticed enough to send me back with a little stagger.
"Has none of you got a key to this door?" I asked, reviewing the scaredfaces about me, than which my own was no less troubled, I feel sure.
"Only the Governor, sir," said the warder who had fetched me. "There'snot a man but him amongst us that ever seen this opened."
He was wrong there, I could have told him; but held my tongue, forobvious reasons.
"I want it opened. Will one of you feel in his pockets?"
Not a soul stirred. Even had not sense of discipline precluded, that of acertain inhuman atmosphere made fearful creatures of them all.
"Then," said I, "I must do it myself."
I turned once more to the stiff-strung figure, had actually put hand onit, when an exclamation from Vokins arrested me.
"There's a key--there, sir!" he said--"stickin' out yonder between itsfeet."
Sure enough there was--Johnson's, no doubt, that had been shot from itssocket by the clapping to of the door, and afterwards kicked aside by thewarder in his convulsive struggles.
I stooped, only too thankful for the respite, and drew it forth. I hadseen it but once before, yet I recognised it at a glance.
Now, I confess, my heart felt ill as I slipped the key into the wards,and a sickness of resentment at the tyranny of Fate in making me itshelpless minister surged up in my veins. Once, with my fingers on theiron loop, I paused, and ventured a fearful side glance at the figurewhose crookt elbow almost touched my face; then, strung to the highpitch of inevitability, I shot the lock, pushed at the door, and in theact, made a back leap into the corridor.
Scarcely, in doing so, did I look for the totter and collapse outwards ofthe rigid form. I had expected to see it fall away, face down, into thecell, as its support swung from it. Yet it was, I swear, as if somethingfrom within had relaxed its grasp and given the fearful dead man aswingeing push outwards as the door opened.
It went on its back, with a dusty slap on the stone flags, and from allits spectators--me included--came a sudden drawn sound, like wind in akeyhole.
What can I say, or how describe it? A dead thing it was--but the face!
Barred with livid scars where the grating rails had crossed it, the restseemed to have been worked and kneaded into a mere featureless plate ofyellow and expressionless flesh.
And it was this I had seen in the glass!
* * * * *
There was an interval following the experience above narrated, duringwhich a certain personality that had once been mine was effaced orsuspended, and I seemed a passive creature, innocent of the least desireof independence. It was not that I was actually ill or actually insane. Amerciful Providence set my finer wits slumbering, that was all, leavingme a sufficiency of the grosser faculties that were necessary to theright ordering of my behaviour.
I kept to my room, it is true, and even lay a good deal in bed; but thiswas more to satisfy the busy scruples of a _locum tenens_--a practitionerof the neighbourhood, who came daily to the prison to officiate in myabsence--than to cosset a complaint that in its inactivity was purelynegative. I could review what had happened with a calmness as profoundas if I had read of it in a book. I could have wished to continue myduties, indeed, had the power of insistence remained to me. But the sanermedicus was acute where I had gone blunt, and bade me to the restfulcourse. He was right. I was mentally stunned, and had I not slept off mylethargy, I should have gone mad in an hour--leapt at a bound, probably,from inertia to flaming lunacy.
I remembered everything, but through a fluffy atmosphere, so to speak. Itwas as if I looked on bygone pictures through ground glass that softenedthe ugly outlines.
Sometimes I referred to these to my substitute, who was wise to answer meaccording to my mood; for the truth left me unruffled, whereas an obviousevasion of it would have distressed me.
"Hammond," I said one day, "I have never yet asked you. How did I give myevidence at the inquest?"
"Like a doctor and a sane man."
"That's good. But it was a difficult course to steer. You conducted thepost-mortem. Did any peculiarity in the dead man's face strike you?"
"Nothing but this: that the excessive contraction of the bicipitalmuscles had brought the features into such forcible contact with the barsas to cause bruising and actual abrasion. He must have been dead somelittle time when you found him."
"And nothing else? You noticed nothing else in his face--a sort ofobliteration of what makes one human, I mean?"
"Oh, dear, no! nothing but the painful constriction that marks anyordinary fatal attack of _angina pectoris_.--There's a rum breach ofpromise case in the paper to-day. You should read it; it'll make youlaugh."
I had no more inclination to laugh than to sigh; but I accepted thechange of subject with an equanimity now habitual to me.
* * * * *
One morning I sat up in bed, and knew that consciousness was wide awakein me once more. It had slept, and now rose refreshed, but trembling.Looking back, all in a flutter of new responsibility, along the mistypath by way of which I had recently loitered, I shook with an awfulthankfulness at sight of the pitfalls I had skirted and escaped--ofthe demons my witlessness had baffled.
The joy of life was in my heart again, but chastened and made pitiful byexperience.
Hammond noticed the change in me directly he entered, and congratulatedme upon it.
"Go slow at first, old man," he said. "You've fairly sloughed the oldskin; but give the sun time to toughen the new one. Walk in it atpresent, and be content."
I was, in great measure, and I followed his advice. I got leave ofabsence, and ran down for a month in the country to a certain house wewot of, where kindly ministration to my convalescence was only one of themany blisses to be put to an account of rosy days.
"_Then did my love awake, Most like a lily-flower,And as the lovely queene of heaven, So shone shee in her bower._"
Ah, me! ah, me! when
was it? A year ago, or two-thirds of a lifetime?Alas! "Age with stealing steps hath clawde me with his crowch." And willthe yews root in _my_ heart, I wonder?
I was well, sane, recovered, when one morning, towards the end of myvisit, I received a letter from Hammond, enclosing a packet addressed tome, and jealously sealed and fastened. My friend's communication ran asfollows:--
"There died here yesterday afternoon a warder, Johnson--he who had thatapoplectic seizure, you will remember, the night before poor Shrike'sexit. I attended him to the end, and, being alone with him an hour beforethe finish, he took the enclosed from under his pillow, and a solemn oathfrom me that I would forward it direct to you, sealed as you will findit, and permit no other soul to examine or even touch it. I acquit myselfof the charge, but, my dear fellow, with an uneasy sense of theresponsibility I incur in thus possibly suggesting to you a retrospect ofevents which you had much best consign to the limbo of the--notunexplainable, but not worth trying to explain. It was patent from whatI have gathered that you were in an overstrung and excitable condition atthat time, and that your temporary collapse was purely nervous in itscharacter. It seems there was some nonsense abroad in the prison about acertain cell, and that there were fools who thought fit to associateJohnson's attack and the other's death with the opening of that cell'sdoor. I have given the new Governor a tip, and he has stopped all that.We have examined the cell in company, and found it, as one might suppose,a very ordinary chamber. The two men died perfectly natural deaths, andthere is the last to be said on the subject. I mention it only from thefear that enclosed may contain some allusion to the rubbish, a perusal ofwhich might check the wholesome convalescence of your thoughts. If youtake my advice, you will throw the packet into the fire unread. At least,if you do examine it, postpone the duty till you feel yourself absolutelyimpervious to any mental trickery, and--bear in mind that you are aworthy member of a particularly matter-of-fact and unemotionalprofession."
* * * * *
I smiled at the last clause, for I was now in a condition to feel arather warm shame over my erst weak-knee'd collapse before a sheet and anilluminated turnip. I took the packet to my bedroom, shut the door, andsat myself down by the open window. The garden lay below me, and the dewymeadows beyond. In the one, bees were busy ruffling the ruddygillyflowers and April stocks; in the other, the hedge twigs were allfrosted with Mary buds, as if Spring had brushed them with the fleece ofher wings in passing.
I fetched a sigh of content as I broke the seal of the packet and broughtout the enclosure. Somewhere in the garden a little sardonic laugh wasclipt to silence. It came from groom or maid, no doubt; yet it thrilledme with an odd feeling of uncanniness, and I shivered slightly.
"Bah!" I said to myself determinedly. "There is a shrewd nip in the wind,for all the show of sunlight;" and I rose, pulled down the window, andresumed my seat.
Then in the closed room, that had become deathly quiet by contrast, Iopened and read the dead man's letter.
* * * * *
"Sir,--I hope you will read what I here put down. I lay it on you as asolemn injunction, for I am a dying man, and I know it. And to who ismy death due, and the Governor's death, if not to you, for your pryin'and curiosity, as surely as if you had drove a nife through our harts?Therefore, I say, Read this, and take my burden from me, for it has beena burden; and now it is right that you that interfered should have it onyour own mortal shoulders. The Major is dead and I am dying, and in thefirst of my fit it went on in my head like cimbells that the trap wasleft open, and that if he passed he would look in and _it_ would get him.For he knew not fear, neither would he submit to bullying by God ordevil.
"Now I will tell you the truth, and Heaven quit you of yourresponsibility in our destruction.
"There wasn't another man to me like the Governor in all the countries ofthe world. Once he brought me to life after doctors had given me up fordead; but he willed it, and I lived; and ever afterwards I loved him as adog loves its master. That was in the Punjab; and I came home to Englandwith him, and was his servant when he got his appointment to the jailhere. I tell you he was a proud and fierce man, but under control andtender to those he favoured; and I will tell you also a strange thingabout him. Though he was a soldier and an officer, and strict indiscipline as made men fear and admire him, his heart at bottom was allfor books, and literature, and such-like gentle crafts. I had hisconfidence, as a man gives his confidence to his dog, and before mesometimes he unbent as he never would before others. In this way I learntthe bitter sorrow of his life. He had once hoped to be a poet,acknowledged as such before the world. He was by natur' an idelist, asthey call it, and God knows what it meant to him to come out of thewoods, so to speak, and sweat in the dust of cities; but he did it, forhis will was of tempered steel. He buried his dreams in the clouds andcame down to earth greatly resolved, but with one undying hate. It is notgood to hate as he could, and worse to be hated by such as him; and Iwill tell you the story, and what it led to.
"It was when he was a subaltern that he made up his mind to the plunge.For years he had placed all his hopes and confidents in a book of verseshe had wrote, and added to, and improved during that time. A littleencouragement, a little word of praise, was all he looked for, and thenhe was ready to buckle to again, profitin' by advice, and do better. Heput all the love and beauty of his heart into that book, and at last,after doubt, and anguish, and much diffidents, he published it and giveit to the world. Sir, it fell what they call still-born from the press.It was like a green leaf flutterin' down in a dead wood. To a proudand hopeful man, bubblin' with music, the pain of neglect, when he cometo realize it, was terrible. But nothing was said, and there was nothingto say. In silence he had to endure and suffer.
"But one day, during maneuvers, there came to the camp a grey-faced man,a newspaper correspondent, and young Shrike knocked up a friendshipwith him. Now how it come about I cannot tell, but so it did that thisskip-kennel wormed the lad's sorrow out of him, and his confidents,swore he'd been damnabilly used, and that when he got back he'd crack upthe book himself in his own paper. He was a fool for his pains, and aserpent in his cruelty. The notice come out as promised, and, my God! theauthor was laughed and mocked at from beginning to end. Even confidentseshe had given to the creature was twisted to his ridicule, and his veryappearance joked over. And the mess got wind of it, and made a rare storyfor the dog days.
"He bore it like a soldier, and that he became heart and liver from themoment. But he put something to the account of the grey-faced man andlocked it up in his breast.
"He come across him again years afterwards in India, and told him verypolitely that he hadn't forgotten him, and didn't intend to. But he wasanigh losin' sight of him there for ever and a day, for the creature tookcholera, or what looked like it, and rubbed shoulders with death and thedevil before he pulled through. And he come across him again over here,and that was the last of him, as you shall see presently.
"Once, after I knew the Major (he were Captain then), I was a-brushin'his coat, and he stood a long while before the glass. Then he twistedupon me, with a smile on his mouth, and says he,--
"'The dog was right, Johnson: this isn't the face of a poet. I was apresumtious ass, and born to cast up figgers with a pen behind my ear.'
"'Captain,' I says, 'if you was skinned, you'd look like any other manwithout his. The quality of a soul isn't expressed by a coat.'
"'Well,' he answers, 'my soul's pretty clean-swept, I think, save for oneBluebeard chamber in it that's been kep' locked ever so many years.It's nice and dirty by this time, I expect,' he says. Then the grin comeson his mouth again. 'I'll open it some day,' he says, 'and look. There'ssomething in it about comparing me to a dancing dervish, with the wind inmy petticuts. Perhaps I'll get the chance to set somebody else dancingby-and-by.'
"He did, and took it, and the Bluebeard chamber come to be opened in thisvery jail.
"It was when the system was lying
fallow, so to speak, and the prison wasdeserted. Nobody was there but him and me and the echoes from the emptycourts. The contract for restoration hadn't been signed, and for months,and more than a year, we lay idle, nothing bein' done.
"Near the beginnin' of this period, one day comes, for the third time ofthe Major's seein' him, the grey-faced man. 'Let bygones be bygones,'he says. 'I was a good friend to you, though you didn't know it; and now,I expect, you're in the way to thank me.'
"'I am,' says the Major.
"'Of course,' he answers. 'Where would be your fame and reputation as oneof the leadin' prison reformers of the day if you had kep' on in thatriming nonsense?'
"'Have you come for my thanks?' says the Governor.
"'I've come,' says the grey-faced man, 'to examine and report upon yoursystem.'
"'For your paper?'
"'Possibly; but to satisfy myself of its efficacy, in the firstinstance.'
"'You aren't commissioned, then?'
"'No; I come on my own responsibility.'
"'Without consultation with any one?'
"'Absolutely without. I haven't even a wife to advise me,' he says, witha yellow grin. What once passed for cholera had set the bile on his skinlike paint, and he had caught a manner of coughing behind his hand like atoast-master.
"'I know,' says the Major, looking him steady in the face, 'that what yousay about me and my affairs is sure to be actuated by conscientiousmotives.'
"'Ah,' he answers. 'You're sore about that review still, I see.'
"'Not at all,' says the Major; 'and, in proof, I invite you to be myguest for the night, and to-morrow I'll show you over the prison andexplain my system.'
"The creature cried, 'Done!' and they set to and discussed jail mattersin great earnestness. I couldn't guess the Governor's intentions, but,somehow, his manner troubled me. And yet I can remember only one point ofhis talk. He were always dead against making public show of hisbirds. 'They're there for reformation, not ignimony,' he'd say. Prisonsin the old days were often, with the asylum and the work'us, made theholiday show-places of towns. I've heard of one Justice of the Peace, upNorth, who, to save himself trouble, used to sign a lot of blank ordersfor leave to view, so that applicants needn't bother him when they wantedto go over. They've changed all that, and the Governor were instrumentalin the change.
"'It's against my rule,' he said that night, 'to exhibit to a strangerwithout a Government permit; but, seein' the place is empty, and for oldremembrance' sake, I'll make an exception in your favour, and you shalllearn all I can show you of the inside of a prison.'
"Now this was natural enough; but I was uneasy.
"He treated his guest royally; so much that when we assembled the nextmornin' for the inspection, the grey-faced man were shaky as a wet dog.But the Major were all set prim and dry, like the soldier he was.
"We went straight away down corridor B, and at cell 47 we stopped.
"'We will begin our inspection here,' said the Governor. 'Johnson, openthe door.'
"I had the keys of the row; fitted in the right one, and pushed open thedoor.
"'After you, sir,' said the Major; and the creature walked in, and heshut the door on him.
"I think he smelt a rat at once, for he began beating on the wood andcalling out to us. But the Major only turned round to me with his facelike a stone.
"'Take that key from the bunch,' he said, 'and give it to me.'
"I obeyed, all in a tremble, and he took and put it in his pocket.
"'My God, Major!' I whispered, 'what are you going to do with him?'
"'Silence, sir!' he said. 'How dare you question your superior officer!'
"And the noise inside grew louder.
"The Governor, he listened to it a moment like music; then he unboltedand flung open the trap, and the creature's face came at it like a wildbeast's.
"'Sir,' said the Major to it, 'you can't better understand my system thanby experiencing it. What an article for your paper you could writealready--almost as pungint a one as that in which you ruined the hopesand prospects of a young cockney poet.'
"The man mouthed at the bars. He was half-mad, I think, in that oneminute.
"'Let me out!' he screamed. 'This is a hideous joke! Let me out!'
"'When you are quite quiet--deathly quiet,' said the Major, 'you shallcome out. Not before;' and he shut the trap in its face very softly.
"'Come, Johnson, march!' he said, and took the lead, and we walked out ofthe prison.
"I was like to faint, but I dared not disobey, and the man's screechingfollowed us all down the empty corridors and halls, until we shut thefirst great door on it.
"It may have gone on for hours, alone in that awful emptiness. Thecreature was a reptile, but the thought sickened my heart.
"And from that hour till his death, five months later, he rotted andmaddened in his dreadful tomb."
* * * * *
There was more, but I pushed the ghastly confession from me at this pointin uncontrollable loathing and terror. Was it possible--possible, thatinjured vanity could so falsify its victim's every tradition of decency?
"Oh!" I muttered, "what a disease is ambition! Who takes one step towardsit puts his foot on Alsirat!"
It was minutes before my shocked nerves were equal to a resumption of thetask; but at last I took it up again, with a groan.
* * * * *
"I don't think at first I realized the full mischief the Governorintended to do. At least, I hoped he only meant to give the man a goodfright and then let him go. I might have known better. How could he everrelease him without ruining himself?
"The next morning he summoned me to attend him. There was a strangenew look of triumph in his face, and in his hand he held a heavyhunting-crop. I pray to God he acted in madness, but my duty andobedience was to him.
"'There is sport toward, Johnson,' he said. 'My dervish has got todance.'
"I followed him quiet. We listened when I opened the jail door, but theplace was silent as the grave. But from the cell, when we reached it,came a low, whispering sound.
"The Governor slipped the trap and looked through.
"'All right,' he said, and put the key in the door and flung it open.
"He were sittin' crouched on the ground, and he looked up at usvacant-like. His face were all fallen down, as it were, and his mouthnever ceased to shake and whisper.
"The Major shut the door and posted me in a corner. Then he moved to thecreature with his whip.
"'Up!' he cried. 'Up, you dervish, and dance to us!' and he brought thethong with a smack across his shoulders.
"The creature leapt under the blow, and then to his feet with a cry, andthe Major whipped him till he danced. All round the cell he drove him,lashing and cutting--and again, and many times again, until the poorthing rolled on the floor whimpering and sobbing. I shall have to give anaccount of this some day. I shall have to whip my master with a red-hotserpent round the blazing furnace of the pit, and I shall do it withagony, because here my love and my obedience was to him.
"When it was finished, he bade me put down food and drink that I hadbrought with me, and come away with him; and we went, leaving himrolling on the floor of the cell, and shut him alone in the empty prisonuntil we should come again at the same time to-morrow.
"So day by day this went on, and the dancing three or four times a week,until at last the whip could be left behind, for the man would scream andbegin to dance at the mere turning of the key in the lock. And he dancedfor four months, but not the fifth.
"Nobody official came near us all this time. The prison stood lonely as adeserted ruin where dark things have been done.
"Once, with fear and trembling, I asked my master how he would accountfor the inmate of 47 if he was suddenly called upon by authority toopen the cell; and he answered, smiling,--
"I should say it was my mad brother. By his own account, he showed me abrother's love, you know. It would be t
hought a liberty; but theauthorities, I think, would stretch a point for me. But if I gotsufficient notice, I should clear out the cell.'
"I asked him how, with my eyes rather than my lips, and he answered meonly with a look.
"And all this time he was, outside the prison, living the life of a goodman--helping the needy, ministering to the poor. He even entertainedoccasionally, and had more than one noisy party in his house.
"But the fifth month the creature danced no more. He was a dumb, silentanimal then, with matted hair and beard; and when one entered he wouldonly look up at one pitifully, as if he said, 'My long punishment isnearly ended'. How it came that no inquiry was ever made about him Iknow not, but none ever was. Perhaps he was one of the wandering gentrythat nobody ever knows where they are next. He was unmarried, and hadapparently not told of his intended journey to a soul.
"And at the last he died in the night. We found him lying stiff andstark in the morning, and scratched with a piece of black crust on astone of the wall these strange words: 'An Eddy on the Floor'. Justthat--nothing else.
"Then the Governor came and looked down, and was silent. Suddenly hecaught me by the shoulder.
"'Johnson', he cried, 'if it was to do again, I would do it! I repent ofnothing. But he has paid the penalty, and we call quits. May he restin peace!'
"'Amen!' I answered low. Yet I knew our turn must come for this.
"We buried him in quicklime under the wall where the murderers lie, and Imade the cell trim and rubbed out the writing, and the Governor lockedall up and took away the key. But he locked in more than he bargainedfor.
"For months the place was left to itself, and neither of us went anigh47. Then one day the workmen was to be put in, and the Major he tookme round with him for a last examination of the place before they come.
"He hesitated a bit outside a particular cell; but at last he drove inthe key and kicked open the door.
"'My God!' he says, 'he's dancing still!'
"My heart was thumpin', I tell you, as I looked over his shoulder. Whatdid we see? What you well understand, sir; but, for all it was no morethan that, we knew as well as if it was shouted in our ears that it washim, dancin'. It went round by the walls and drew towards us, and as itstole near I screamed out, 'An Eddy on the Floor!' and seized and draggedthe Major out and clapped to the door behind us.
"'Oh!' I said, 'in another moment it would have had us'.
"He looked at me gloomily.
"'Johnson', he said, 'I'm not to be frighted or coerced. He may dance,but he shall dance alone. Get a screwdriver and some screws and fasten upthis trap. No one from this time looks into this cell.'
"I did as he bid me, sweatin'; and I swear all the time I wrought Idreaded a hand would come through the trap and clutch mine.
"On one pretex' or another, from that day till the night you meddled withit, he kep' that cell as close shut as a tomb. And he went his ways,discardin' the past from that time forth. Now and again a over-sensitiveprisoner in the next cell would complain of feelin' uncomfortable. Ifpossible, he would be removed to another; if not, he was damd for hisfancies. And so it might be goin' on to now, if you hadn't pried andinterfered. I don't blame you at this moment, sir. Likely you were aninstrument in the hands of Providence; only, as the instrument, you mustnow take the burden of the truth on your own shoulders. I am a dying man,but I cannot die till I have confessed. Per'aps you may find it in yourhart some day to give up a prayer for me--but it must be for the Major aswell.
"Your obedient servant,
"J. JOHNSON."
* * * * *
What comment of my own can I append to this wild narrative?Professionally, and apart from personal experiences, I should rule it thecomposition of an epileptic. That a noted journalist, nameless as he wasand is to me, however nomadic in habit, could disappear from human ken,and his fellows rest content to leave him unaccounted for, seems a taxupon credulity so stupendous that I cannot seriously endorse thestatement.
Yet, also--there _is_ that little matter of my personal experience.
At a Winter's Fire Page 12
