 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
VII.
At night the squat-framed, asthmatic turnkey tramped the
dim-lit iron gallery before one of the long honey-combed rows
of cells.
“Mighty still there, in that hole, them two mice I let in;—
humph!”
Suddenly, at the further end of the gallery, he discerned a
shadowy figure emerging from the archway there, and running
on before an officer, and impetuously approaching where
the turnkey stood.
“More relations coming. These wind-broken chaps are
always in before the second death, seeing they always miss the
first.—Humph! What a froth the fellow's in?—Wheezes
worse than me!”
“Where is she?” cried Fred Tartan, fiercely, to him; “she's
not at the murderer's rooms! I sought the sweet girl there,
instant upon the blow; but the lone dumb thing I found there
only wrung her speechless hands and pointed to the door;—
both birds were flown! Where is she, turnkey? I've searched
all lengths and breadths but this. Hath any angel swept
adown and lighted in your granite hell?”
“Broken his wind, and broken loose, too, aint he?” wheezed
the turnkey to the officer who now came up.
“This gentleman seeks a young lady, his sister, someway
innocently connected with the prisoner last brought in. Have
any females been here to see him?”
“Oh, ay,—two of 'em in there now;” jerking his stumped
thumb behind him.
Fred darted toward the designated cell.
“Oh, easy, easy, young gentleman”—jingling at his huge
bunch of keys—“easy, easy, till I get the picks—I'm housewife
here.—Hallo, here comes another.”
Hurrying through the same archway toward them, there
now rapidly advanced a second impetuous figure, running on
in advance of a second officer.
“Where is the cell?” demanded Millthorpe.
“He seeks an interview with the last prisoner,” explained
the second officer.
“Kill 'em both with one stone, then,” wheezed the turnkey,
gratingly throwing open the door of the cell. “There's his
pretty parlor, gentlemen; step in. Reg'lar mouse-hole, arn't
it?—Might hear a rabbit burrow on the world's t'other side;—
are they all 'sleep?”
“I stumble!” cried Fred, from within; “Lucy! A light!
a light!—Lucy!” And he wildly groped about the cell, and
blindly caught Millthorpe, who was also wildly groping.
“Blister me not! take off thy bloody touch!—Ho, ho, the
light!—Lucy! Lucy!—she's fainted!”
Then both stumbled again, and fell from each other in the
cell: and for a moment all seemed still, as though all breaths
were held.
As the light was now thrust in, Fred was seen on the floor
holding his sister in his arms; and Millthorpe kneeling by the
side of Pierre, the unresponsive hand in his; while Isabel,
feebly moving, reclined between, against the wall.
“Yes! Yes!—Dead! Dead! Dead!—without one visible
wound—her sweet plumage hides it.—Thou hellish carrion,
this is thy hellish work! Thy juggler's rifle brought down this
heavenly bird! Oh, my God, my God! Thou scalpest me
with this sight!”
“The dark vein's burst, and here's the deluge-wreck—all
stranded here! Ah, Pierre! my old companion, Pierre;—
school-mate—play-mate—friend!—Our sweet boy's walks within
the woods!—Oh, I would have rallied thee, and banteringly
warned thee from thy too moody ways, but thou wouldst never
heed! What scornful innocence rests on thy lips, my friend!
heaven, these fingers move!—one speechless clasp!
—all's o'er!”
“All's o'er, and ye know him not!” came gasping from the
wall; and from the fingers of Isabel dropped an empty vial—
as it had been a run-out sand-glass—and shivered upon the
floor; and her whole form sloped sideways, and she fell upon
Pierre's heart, and her long hair ran over him, and arbored him
in ebon vines.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |