omy starlight, I could hardly
imagine. The cap also was far too small; still, with an ample kerchief
in my hand, my whiskers might, I thought, be concealed. I was still
fidgeting with these arrangements when Jackson knocked at his door. The
servant admitted him without remark, and he presently entered the room,
carefully locked the door, and jolted down, so to speak, in the fellow
easy-chair to mine.

He was silent for a few moments, and then he bawled out: "She'll swing
for it, they say--swing for it, d'ye hear, dame? But no, of course she
don't--deafer and deafer, deafer and deafer every day. It'll be a
precious good job when the parson says his last prayers over her, as
well as others."

He then got up, and went to a cupboard. I could hear--for I dared not
look up--by the jingling of glasses and the outpouring of liquids that
he was helping himself to his spirituous sleeping-draughts. He reseated
himself, and drank in moody silence, except now and then mumbling
drowsily to himself, but in so low a tone that I could make nothing out
of it save an occasional curse or blasphemy. It was nearly eleven
o'clock before the muttered self-communing ceased, and his heavy head
sank upon the back of the easy-chair. He was very restless, and it was
evident that even his sleeping brain labored with affrighting and
oppressive images; but the mutterings, as before he slept, were confused
and indistinct. At length--half an hour had perhaps thus passed--the
troubled meanings became for a few moments clearly audible.
"Ha--ha--ha!" he burst out, "how are you off for soap? Ho--ho! done
there, my boy; ha--ha! But no--no. Wall plaster! Who could have thought
it? But for that I--I--What do you stare at me so for, you infernal
blue-bottle? You--you--" Again the dream-utterance sank into
indistinctness, and I comprehended nothing more.

About half-past twelve o'clock he awoke, rose, stretched himself, and
said: "Come, dame, let's to bed; it's getting chilly here."

"Dame" did not answer, and he again went towards the cupboard. "Here's a
candle-end will do for us," he muttered. A lucifer-match was drawn
across the wall, he lit the candle, and stumbled towards me, for he was
scarcely yet awake. "Come, dame, come! Why, thee beest sleeping like a
dead un! Wake up, will thee--Ah! murder! thieves! mur"--

My grasp was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use
force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor
i