ent is
nearly ended'. How it came that no inquiry was ever made about him I
know not, but none ever was. Perhaps he was one of the wandering gentry
that nobody ever knows where they are next. He was unmarried, and had
apparently not told of his intended journey to a soul.

"And at the last he died in the night. We found him lying stiff and
stark in the morning, and scratched with a piece of black crust on a
stone of the wall these strange words: 'An Eddy on the Floor'. Just
that--nothing else.

"Then the Governor came and looked down, and was silent. Suddenly he
caught me by the shoulder.

"'Johnson', he cried, 'if it was to do again, I would do it! I repent of
nothing. But he has paid the penalty, and we call quits. May he rest
in 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 I
made the cell trim and rubbed out the writing, and the Governor locked
all up and took away the key. But he locked in more than he bargained
for.

"For months the place was left to itself, and neither of us went anigh
47. Then one day the workmen was to be put in, and the Major he took
me 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 in
the 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. What
did we see? What you well understand, sir; but, for all it was no more
than that, we knew as well as if it was shouted in our ears that it was
him, dancin'. It went round by the walls and drew towards us, and as it
stole near I screamed out, 'An Eddy on the Floor!' and seized and dragged
the 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 up
this 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 I
dreaded a hand would come through the trap and clutch mine.

"On one pretex' or another, from that day till the night you meddled with
it, 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-sensitive
p