"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 come 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 again with the dead ones. Make way there! I mean to dance with them too. Come on, mad watchman--come on! I'm as mad as you are!"
He whirled round and round with the fancied ghost for a partner in the dance. The coarse laughter of Schwartz burst out again at the terrible sight. He called, with drunken triumph, to Madame Fontaine. "Look at Jacky, ma'am. There's a dancer for you! There's good company for a dull winter night!" She neither looked nor moved--she sat crouched on the chair, spellbound with terror. Jack threw up his arms, turned giddily once or twice, and sank exhausted on the floor. "The cold of him creeps up my hands," he said, still possessed by the vision of the watchman. "He cools my eyes, he calms my heart, he stuns my head. I'm dying, dying, dying--going back with him to the grave. Poor me! poor me!"
He lay hushed in a strange repose; his eyes wide open, staring up at the moon. Schwartz drained the last drop of brandy out of the flask. "Jack's name ought to be Solomon," he pronounced with drowsy solemnity; "Solomon was wise; and Jack's wise. Jack goes to sleep, when the liquor's done. Take away the bottle, before the overseer comes in. If any man says I am not sober, that man lies. The Rhine wine has a way of humming in one's head. That's all, Mr. Overseer--that's all.