There's a late footstep. It is coming this way.
Hark, how near it is! One can count the footfalls - one - two - three.
There - it is just outside. Now is the time! Shout, man, shout! - it is
the one sole chance between you and eternity! Ah, you see you have
delayed too long - it is gone by. There - it is dying out. It is gone!
Think of it - reflect upon it - you have heard a human footstep for the
last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common a sound as
that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to it again.'
Oh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I
thought of a new torture, and applied it - assisting myself with a trifle
of lying invention -
'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a
grateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to rob
you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in
safety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the
anguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said -
'What, then - didn't he escape?'
A negative shake of the head.
'No? What happened, then?'
The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried
to mumble out some words - could not succeed; tried to express something
with his obstructed hands - failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted
his head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.
'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape? - caught in the act and shot?'
Negative shake of the head.
'How, then?'
Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,
but could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more
intently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his
breast with it. 'Ah - stabbed, do you mean?'
Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar
devilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,
and I cried -
'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you? - for that stroke was meant for
none but you.'
The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failing
strength was able to put into its expression.
'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood a
friend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved them
if he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'
I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a, mocking laugh. I took my face
out of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his inclined board.
He was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful vitality, an
astonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I got
a chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally I
took a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But
I did it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reached
for the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:
mainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold
and restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm
bath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it - three hours and six
minutes, from the time he rang his bell.
It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed since
the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the
Bavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless
belief. Let it stand at that.
The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived and
fastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, up
to that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my
wife and my child; and in three days hence he will have added me to his
list. No matter - God! how delicious the memory of it! - I caught him
escaping from his grave, and thrust him back into it.
After that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon as I
could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number of
the house which Adler had died in. A wretched lodging-house, it was. It
was my idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's
effects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I
could. But while I was sick, Adler's things had been sold and
scattered, all except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no
value. However, through those letters, I traced out a son of Kruger's,
the only relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade,
and living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim - widower, with several small
children. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of
his support, ever since.
Now, as to that watch - see how strangely things happen! I traced it
around and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost in
money and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakably
glad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known that
that bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of course
I gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out
of my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son.
Last night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to make
ready.
