Jezebel's Daughter Page 30

produce.

  Acting under the same vague terror of that possible revival, to which

  Jack looked forward with such certain hope, she had followed him to the

  Deadhouse, and had waited, hidden in the cells, to hear what dangerous

  confidences he might repose in the doctor or in Mr. Keller, and to combat

  on the spot the suspicion which he might ignorantly rouse in their minds.

  Still in the same agony of doubt, she now stood, with her eyes on the

  cell, trying to summon the resolution to judge for herself. One look at

  the dead woman, while the solitude in the room gave her the chance--one

  look might assure her of the livid pallor of death, or warn her of the

  terrible possibilities of awakening life. She hurried headlong over the

  intervening space, and looked in.

  There, grand and still, lay her murderous work! There, ghostly white on

  the ground of the black robe, were the rigid hands, topped by the hideous

  machinery which was to betray them, if they trembled under the mysterious

  return of life!

  In the instant when she saw it, the sight overwhelmed her with horror.

  She turned distractedly, and fled through the open door. She crossed the

  courtyard, like a deeper shadow creeping swiftly through the darkness of

  the winter night. On the threshold of the solitary waiting-room,

  exhausted nature claimed its rest. She wavered--groped with her hands at

  the empty air--and sank insensible on the floor.

  In the meantime, Schwartz revealed the purpose of his visit to the

  bath-room.

  The glass doors which protected the upper division of the cabinet were

  locked; the key being in the possession of the overseer. The cupboard in

  the lower division, containing towels and flannel wrappers, was left

  unsecured. Opening the door, the watchman drew out a bottle and an old

  traveling flask, concealed behind the bath-linen. "I call this my

  cellar," he explained. "Cheer up, Jacky; we'll have a jolly night of it

  yet."

  "I don't want to see your cellar!" said Jack impatiently. "I want to be

  of use to Mistress--show me the place where we call for help."

  "Call?" repeated Schwartz, with a roar of laughter. "Do you think they

  can hear us at the overseer's, through a courtyard, and a waiting-room,

  and a grand hall, and another courtyard, and another waiting-room beyond?

  Not if we were twenty men all bawling together till we were hoarse! I'll

  show you how we can make the master hear us--if that miraculous revival

  of yours happens," he added facetiously in a whisper to himself.

  He led the way back into the passage, and held up his lantern so as to

  show the cornice. A row of fire-buckets was suspended there by books.

  Midway between them, a stout rope hung through a metal-lined hole in the

  roof.

  "Do you see that?" said Schwartz. "You have only to pull, and there's an

  iron tongue in the belfry above that will speak loud enough to be heard

  at the city gate. The overseer will come tumbling in, with his bunch of

  keys, as if the devil was at his heels, and the two women-servants after

  him--old and ugly, Jack!--they attend to the bath, you know, when a woman

  wants it. Wait a bit! Take the light into the bedroom, and get a chair

  for yourself--we haven't much accommodation for evening visitors. Got it?

  that's right. Would you like to see where the mad watchman hung himself?

  On the last hook at the end of the row there. We've got a song he made

  about the Deadhouse. I think it's in the drawer of the table. A gentleman

  had it printed and sold, for the benefit of the widow and children. Wait

  till we are well warmed with our liquor, and I'll tell you what I'll

  do--I'll sing you the mad watchman's song; and Jacky, my man, you shall

  sing the chorus! Tow-row-rub-a-dub-boom--that's the tune. Pretty, isn't

  it? Come along back to our snuggery." He led the way to the Watchman's

  Chamber.

  CHAPTER XIX

  Jack looked eagerly into the cell again. There was no change--not a sign

  of that happy waking in which he so firmly believed.

  Schwartz opened the drawer of the table. Tobacco and pipes; two or three

  small drinking-glasses; a dirty pack of playing-cards; the mad watchman's

  song, with a woodcut illustration of the suicide--all lay huddled

  together. He took from the drawer the song, and two of the

  drinking-glasses, and called to his little guest to come out of the cell.

  "There;" he said, filling the glasses, "you never tasted such wine as

  that in all your life. Off with it!"

  Jack turned away with a look of disgust. "What did you say of wine, when

  I drank with you the other night?" he asked reproachfully. "You said it

  would warm my heart, and make a man of me. And what did it do? I couldn't

  stand on my legs. I couldn't hold up my head--I was so sleepy and stupid

  that Joseph had to take me upstairs to bed. I hate your wine! Your wine's

  a liar, who promises and doesn't perform! I'm weary enough, and wretched

  enough in my mind, as it is. No more wine for me!"

  "Wrong!" remarked Schwartz, emptying his glass, and smacking his lips

  after it.

  "You made a serious mistake the other night--you didn't drink half

  enough. Give the good liquor a fair chance, my son. No, you won't? Must I

  try a little gentle persuasion before you will come back to your chair?"

  Suiting the action to the word, he put his arm round Jack. "What's this I

  feel under my hand?" he asked. "A bottle?" He took it out of Jack's

  breast-pocket. "Lord help us!" he exclaimed; "it looks like physic!"

  Jack snatched it away from him, with a cry of delight. "The very thing

  for me--and I never thought of it!"

  It was the phial which Madame Fontaine had repentantly kept to herself,

  after having expressly filled it for him with the fatal dose of

  "Alexander's Wine"--the phial which he had found, when he first opened

  the "Pink-Room Cupboard." In the astonishment and delight of finding the

  blue-glass bottle immediately afterwards, he had entirely forgotten it.

  Nothing had since happened to remind him that it was in his pocket, until

  Schwartz had stumbled on the discovery.

  "It cures you when you are tired or troubled in your mind," Jack

  announced in his grandest manner, repeating Madame Fontaine's own words.

  "Is there any water here?"

  "Not a drop, thank Heaven!" said Schwartz, devoutly.

  "Give me my glass, then. I once tried the remedy by itself, and it stung

  me as it went down. The wine won't hurt me, with this splendid stuff in

  it. I'll take it in the wine."

  "Who told you to take it?" Schwartz asked, holding back the glass.

  "Mrs. Housekeeper told me."

  "A woman!" growled Schwartz, in a tone of sovereign contempt. "How dare

  you let a woman physic you, when you've got me for a doctor? Jack! I'm

  ashamed of you."

  Jack defended his manhood. "Oh, I don't care what she says! I despise

  her--she's mad. You don't suppose she made this? I wouldn't touch it, if

  she had. No, no; her husband made it--a wonderful man! the greatest man

  in Germany!"

  He reached across the table and secured his glass of wine. Before it was

  possible to interfe
re, he had emptied the contents of the phial into it,

  and had raised it to his lips. At that moment, Schwartz's restraining

  hand found its way to his wrist. The deputy watchman had far too sincere

  a regard for good wine to permit it to be drunk, in combination with

  physic, at his own table.

  "Put it down!" he said gruffly. "You're my visitor, ain't you? Do you

  think I'm going to let housekeeper's cat-lap be drunk at my table? Look

  here!"

  He held up his traveling-flask, with the metal drinking-cup taken off, so

  as to show the liquor through the glass. The rich amber color of it

  fascinated Jack. He put his wine-glass back on the table. "What is it?"

  he asked eagerly.

  "Drinkable gold, Jack! _My_ physic. Brandy!"

  He poured out a dram into the metal cup. "Try that," he said, "and don't

  let me hear any more about the housekeeper's physic."

  Jack tasted it. The water came into his eyes--he put his hands on his

  throat. "Fire!" he gasped faintly.

  "Wait!" said Schwartz.

  Jack waited. The fiery grip of the brandy relaxed; the genial warmth of

  it was wafted through him persuasively from head to foot. He took another

  sip. His eyes began to glitter. "What divine being made this?" he asked.

  Without waiting to be answered, he tried it again, and emptied the cup.

  "More!" he cried. "I never felt so big, I never felt so strong, I never

  felt so clever, as I feel now!"

  Schwartz, drinking freely from his own bottle, recovered, and more than

  recovered, his Bacchanalian good humor. He clapped Jack on the shoulder.

  "Who's the right doctor now?" he asked cheerfully. "A drab of a

  housekeeper? or Father Schwartz? Your health, my jolly boy! When the

  bottle's empty, I'll help you to finish the flask. Drink away! and the

  devil take all heel-taps!"

  The next dose of brandy fired Jack's excitable brain with a new idea. He

  fell on his knees at the table, and clasped his hands in a sudden fervor

  of devotion. "Silence!" he commanded sternly. Your wine's only a poor

  devil. Your drinkable gold is a god. Take your cap off, Schwartz--I'm

  worshipping drinkable gold!"

  Schwartz, highly diverted, threw his cap up to the ceiling. "Drinkable

  gold, ora pro nobis!" he shouted, profanely adapting himself to Jack's

  humor. "You shall be Pope, my boy--and I'll be the Pope's butler. Allow

  me to help your sacred majesty back to your chair."

  Jack's answer betrayed another change in him. His tones were lofty; his

  manner was distant. "I prefer the floor," he said; "hand me down my mug."

  As he reached up to take it, the alarm-bell over the door caught his eye.

  Debased as he was by the fiery strength of the drink, his ineradicable

  love for his mistress made its noble influence felt through the coarse

  fumes that were mounting to his brain. "Stop!" he cried. "I must be where

  I can see the bell--I must be ready for her, the instant it rings."

  He crawled across the floor, and seated himself with his back against the

  wall of one of the empty cells, on the left-hand side of the room.

  Schwartz, shaking his fat sides with laughter, handed down the cup to his

  guest. Jack took no notice of it. His eyes, reddened already by the

  brandy, were fixed on the bell opposite to him. "I want to know about

  it," he said. "What's that steel thing there, under the brass cover?"

  "What's the use of asking?" Schwartz replied, returning to his bottle.

  "I want to know!"

  "Patience, Jack--patience. Follow my fore-finger. My hand seems to shake

  a little; but it's as honest a hand as ever was. That steel thing there,

  is the bell hammer, you know. And, bless your heart, the hammer's

  everything. Cost, Lord knows how much. Another toast, my son, Good luck

  to the bell!"

  Jack changed again; he began to cry. "She's sleeping too long on that

  sofa, in there," he said sadly. "I want her to speak to me; I want to

  hear her scold me for drinking in this horrid place. My heart's all cold

  again. Where's the mug?" He found it, as he spoke; the fire of the brandy

  went down his throat once more, and lashed him into frantic high spirits.

  "I'm up in the clouds!" he shouted; "I'm riding on a whirlwind. Sing,

  Schwartz! Ha! there are the stars twinkling through the skylight! Sing

  the stars down from heaven!"

  Schwartz emptied his bottle, without the ceremony of using the glass.

  "Now we are primed!" he said--"now for the mad watchman's song!" He

  snatched up the paper from the table, and roared out hoarsely the first

  verse:

  The moon was shining, cold and bright, In the Frankfort Deadhouse, on New

  Year's night And I was the watchman, left alone, While the rest to feast

  and dance were gone; I envied their lot, and cursed my own-- Poor me!

  "Chorus, Jack! 'I envied their lot and cursed my own'----"

  The last words of the verse were lost in a yell of drunken terror.

  Schwartz started out of his chair, and pointed, panic-stricken, to the

  lower end of the room. "A ghost!" he screamed. "A ghost in black, at the

  door!"

  Jack looked round, and burst out laughing. "Sit down again, you old

  fool," he said. "It's only Mrs. Housekeeper. We are singing, Mrs.

  Housekeeper! You haven't heard my voice yet--I'm the finest singer in

  Germany."

  Madame Fontaine approached him humbly. "You have a kind heart, Jack--I am

  sure you will help me," she said. "Show me how to get out of this

  frightful place."

  "The devil take you!" growled Schwartz, recovering himself. How did you

  get in?"

  "She's a witch!" shouted Jack. "She rode in on a broomstick--she crept in

  through the keyhole. Where's the fire? Let's take her downstairs, and

  burn her!"

  Schwartz applied himself to the brandy-flask, and began to laugh again.

  "There never was such good company as Jack," he said, in his oiliest

  tones. "You can't get out to-night, Mrs. Witch. The gates are locked--and

  they don't trust me with the key. Walk in, ma'am. Plenty of accommodation

  for you, on that side of the room where Jack sits. We are slack of guests

  for the grave, to-night. Walk in."

  She renewed her entreaties. "I'll give you all the money I have about me!

  Who can I go to for the key? Jack! Jack! speak for me!"

  "Go on with the song!" cried Jack.

  She appealed again in her despair to Schwartz. "Oh, sir, have mercy on

  me! I fainted, out there--and, when I came to myself, I tried to open the

  gates--and I called, and called, and nobody heard me."

  Schwartz's sense of humor was tickled by this. "If you could bellow like

  a bull," he said, "nobody would hear you. Take a seat, ma'am."

  "Go on with the song!" Jack reiterated. "I'm tired of waiting."

  Madame Fontaine looked wildly from one to the other of them. "Oh, God,

  I'm locked in with an idiot and a drunkard!" The thought of it maddened

  her as it crossed her mind. Once more, she fled from the room. Again, and

  again, in the outer darkness, she shrieked for help.

  Schwartz advanced staggering towards the door, with Jack's empty chair in

  his hand. "Perhaps you'll be able to pipe a little higher, ma'am, if you

  com
e back, and sit down? Now for the song, Jack!"

  He burst out with the second verse:

  Backwards and forwards, with silent tread, I walked on my watch by the

  doors of the dead. And I said, It's hard, on this New Year, While the

  rest are dancing to leave me here, Alone with death and cold and fear--

  Poor me!

  "Chorus, Jack! Chorus, Mrs. Housekeeper! Ho! ho! look at her! She can't

  resist the music--she has come back to us already. What can we do for

  you, ma'am? The flask's not quite drained yet. Come and have a drink."

  She had returned, recoiling from the outer darkness and silence, giddy

  with the sickening sense of faintness which was creeping over her again.

  When Schwartz spoke she advanced with tottering steps. "Water!" she

  exclaimed, gasping for breath. "I'm faint--water! water!"

  "Not a drop in the place, ma'am! Brandy, if you like?"

  "I forbid it!" cried Jack, with a peremptory sign of the hand. Drinkable

  gold is for us--not for her!"

  The glass of wine which Schwartz had prevented him from drinking caught

  his notice. To give Madame Fontaine her own "remedy," stolen from her own

  room, was just the sort of trick to please Jack in his present humor. He

  pointed to the glass, and winked at the watchman. After a momentary

  hesitation, Schwartz's muddled brain absorbed the new idea. "Here's a

  drop of wine left, ma'am," he said. "Suppose you try it?"

  She leaned one hand on the table to support herself. Her heart sank lower

  and lower; a cold perspiration bedewed her face. "Quick! quick!" she

  murmured faintly. She seized the glass, and emptied it eagerly to the

  last drop.

  Schwartz and Jack eyed her with malicious curiosity. The idea of getting

  away was still in her mind. "I think I can walk now," she said. "For

  God's sake, let me out!"

  "Haven't I told you already? I can't get out myself."

  At that brutal answer, she shrank back. Slowly and feebly she made her

  way to the chair, and dropped on it.

  "Cheer up, ma'am!" said Schwartz. "You shall have more music to help

  you--you shall hear how the mad watchman lost his wits. Another drop of

  the drinkable gold, Jack. A dram for you and a dram for me--and here

  goes!" He roared out the last verses of the song:--

  Any company's better than none, I said: If I can't have the living, I'd

  like the dead. In one terrific moment more, The corpse-bell rang at each

  cell door, The moonlight shivered on the floor-- Poor me!

  The curtains gaped; there stood a ghost, On every threshold, as white as

  frost, You called us, they shrieked, and we gathered soon; Dance with

  your guests by the New Year's moon! I danced till I dropped in a deadly

  swoon-- Poor me!

  And since that night I've lost my wits, And I shake with ceaseless

  ague-fits: For the ghosts they turned me cold as stone, On that New

  Year's night when the white moon shone, And I walked on my watch, all,

  all alone-- Poor me!

  And, oh, when I lie in my coffin-bed, Heap thick the earth above my head!

  Or I shall come back, and dance once more, With frantic feet on the

  Deadhouse floor, And a ghost for a partner at every door-- Poor me!

  The night had cleared. While Schwartz was singing, the moon shone in at

  the skylight. At the last verse of the song, a ray of the cold yellow

  light streamed across Jack's face. The fire of the brandy leapt into

  flame--the madness broke out in him, with a burst of its by-gone fury. He

  sprang, screaming, to his feet.

  "The moon!" he shouted--"the mad watchman's moon! The mad watchman

  himself is coming back. There he is, sliding down on the slanting light!

  Do you see the brown earth of the grave dropping from him, and the rope

  round his neck? Ha! how he skips, and twists, and twirls! He's dancing