onsiderable violence. "Get out with you!" he cried.
Sorely confused, I trumped up some absurd story on the spur of the
moment, to give another turn to the conversation, and taking him by the
right hand--

"Why not be off," said I, "and enjoy the freshness of the morning on our
journey?"

So I took my bundle, and having paid the innkeeper for our night's
lodging, we started on our road.

We had gone some little distance, and now, everything being illumined by
the beams of the rising sun, I keenly and attentively examined that part
of my companion's neck into which I had seen the sword plunged.

"Foolish man," said I to myself, "buried in your cups, you certainly
have had a most absurd dream. Why, look: here's Socrates, safe, sound,
and hearty. Where is the wound? Where is the sponge? Where is the scar
of a gash so deep and so recent?"

Addressing myself to him, I remarked, "No wonder the doctors say that
hideous and ominous dreams come only to people stuffed with food and
liquor. My own case is a good instance. I went beyond moderation in my
drinking last evening, and have passed a wretched night full of shocking
and dreadful visions, so that I still fancy myself spattered and defiled
with human gore."

"It is not gore," he replied with a smile, "that you are sprinkled with.
And yet in my sleep I thought my own throat was being cut, and felt some
pain in my neck, and fancied that my very heart was being plucked out.
Even now I am quite faint; my knees tremble; I stagger as I go, and feel
in want of some food to hearten me up."

"Look," cried I, "here is breakfast all ready for you." So saying, I
lifted my wallet from my shoulders, handed him some bread and cheese,
and said, "Let us sit down near that plane-tree." We did so, and I
helped myself to some refreshment. While looking at him more closely, as
he was eating with a voracious appetite, I saw that he was faint, and of
a hue like boxwood. His natural color, in fact, had so forsaken him,
that as I recalled those nocturnal furies to my frightened imagination,
the very first piece of bread I put in my mouth, though exceedingly
small, stuck in the middle of my throat and would pass neither downward
nor upward. Besides, the number of people passing along increased my
fears; for who would believe that one of two companions could meet his
death except at the hands of the other?

Presently, after having gorged himself with food, he began to be
impatient for some dr