第33章

'WE were there.She and I were there.I, in the chair upon the hearth; she, a white wreck again, trailing itself towards me on the floor.But, I was the speaker no more, and the one word that she said to me from midnight until dawn was, 'Live!'

'The youth was there, likewise.In the tree outside the window.Coming and going in the moonlight, as the tree bent and gave. He has,ever since, been there, peeping in at me in my torment; revealing to me by snatches, in the pale lights and slatey shadows where he comes and goes, bare-headed - a bill-hook, standing edgewise in his hair.

'In the Bride's Chamber, every night from midnight until dawn - one month in the year excepted, as I am going to tell you - he hides in the tree, and she comes towards me on the floor; always approaching; never coming nearer; always visible as if by moon- light, whether the moon shines or no; always saying, from mid-night until dawn, her one word, "Live!"'But, in the month wherein I was forced out of this life - this present month of thirty days - the Bride's Chamber is empty and quiet.Not so my old dungeon.Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid, ten years.Both are fitfully haunted then.At One in the morning.I am what you saw me when the clock struck that hour - One old man.At Two in the morning, I am Two old men.At Three, I am Three.By Twelve at noon, I am Twelve old men, One for every hundred per cent.of old gain.Every one of the Twelve, with Twelve times my old power of suffering and agony.From that hour until Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men in anguish and fearful foreboding, wait for the coming of the executioner.At Twelve at night, I, Twelve old men turned off, swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with Twelve faces to the wall!

'When the Bride's Chamber was first haunted, it was known to me that this punishment would never cease, until I could make its nature, and my story, known to two living men together.I waited for the coming of two living men together into the Bride's Chamber, years upon years.It was infused into my knowledge (of the means I am ignorant) that if two living men, with their eyes open, could be in the Bride's Chamber at One in the morning, they would see me sitting in my chair.

'At length, the whispers that the room was spiritually troubled, brought two men to try the adventure.I was scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight (I come there as if the Lightning blasted me into being), when I heard them ascending the stairs.Next, I saw them enter.One of them was a bold, gay, active man, in the prime of life, some five and forty years of age; the other, a dozen years younger.They brought provisions withthem in a basket, and bottles.A young woman accompanied them, with wood and coals for the lighting of the fire.When she had lighted it, the bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the room, to see her safely down the staircase, and came back laughing.

'He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the contents of the basket on the table before the fire - little recking of me, in my appointed station on the hearth, close to him - and filled the glasses, and ate and drank.His companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as he: though he was the leader.When they had supped, they laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke their pipes of foreign make.

'They had travelled together, and had been much together, and had an abundance of subjects in common.In the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a reference to the leader's being always ready for any adventure; that one, or any other.He replied in these words:

'"Not quite so, Dick; if I am afraid of nothing else, I am afraid of myself."'His companion seeming to grow a little dull, asked him, in what sense? How?