you laugh? Funny, funny,
funny, funny. Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha--"

He fell back in the chair. The shrill and dreadful laugh died away into
a low sob. Then there was one long, deep, wearily drawn breath. Then
nothing but a mute, vacant face turned up to the ceiling, with eyes
that looked blindly, with lips parted in a senseless, changeless grin.
Nemesis at last! The foretold doom had fallen on him. The night had
come.

But one feeling animated me when the first shock was over. Even the
horror of that fearful sight seemed only to increase the pity that I
felt for the stricken wretch. I started impulsively to my feet. Seeing
nothing, thinking of nothing but the helpless figure in the chair, I
sprang forward to raise him, to revive him, to recall him (if such a
thing might still be possible) to himself. At the first step that I
took, I felt hands on me--I was violently drawn back. "Are you blind?"
cried Benjamin, dragging me nearer and nearer to the door. "Look there!"

He pointed; and I looked.

Ariel had been beforehand with me. She had raised her master in the
chair; she had got one arm around him. In her free hand she brandished
an Indian club, torn from a "trophy" of Oriental weapons that ornamented
the wall over the fire-place. The creature was transfigured! Her dull
eyes glared like the eyes of a wild animal. She gnashed her teeth in
the frenzy that possessed her. "You have done this!" she shouted to me,
waving the club furiously around and around over her head. "Come near
him, and I'll dash your brains out! I'll mash you till there's not a
whole bone left in your skin!" Benjamin, still holding me with one hand
opened the door with the other. I let him do with me as he would; Ariel
fascinated me; I could look at nothing but Ariel. Her frenzy vanished as
she saw us retreating. She dropped the club; she threw both arms around
him, and nestled her head on his bosom, and sobbed and wept over him.
"Master! master! They shan't vex you any more. Look up again. Laugh
at me as you used to do. Say, 'Ariel, you're a fool.' Be like yourself
again!" I was forced into the next room. I heard a long, low, wailing
cry of misery from the poor creature who loved him with a dog's fidelity
and a woman's devotion. The heavy door was closed between us. I was in
the quiet antechamber, crying over that piteous sight; clinging to my
kind old friend as helpless and as useless as a child.

Benjamin turned the key in the lock.

"There's no use i