By the time I lit a candle, I saw that Blade-o'-Grass had crept to the bed and was bending over her dear. She raised the child tenderly in her arms. I mixed a little brandy-and-water in a broken cup and approached them.
''Ad we better wake 'er? asked Blade-o'-Grass. I nodded. 'Baby! baby!' she cried.
She looked at me for a moment with a struggling fear in her eyes.
'Baby, my dear! 'Ere's somethin' nice for you! We're goin' to send the tiger to sleep; it sha'n't 'urt you any more. Baby! She don't answer me! For gracious God's sake, sir, come 'ere! Quick! Baby! my love, my 'eart! Mother's a-callin' to you. Open your eyes! Speak to me! Look at mother, my life!'
The fear in her eyes grew stronger, spread over her face and turned it deathly white. With a wild shudder she tore the child from the bed, and pressing her to her breast, turned to me with a look so agonising and despairing as blanched my face to the whiteness of hers.
'What's this!' she muttered piteously. 'For the good Lord's sake, tell me what is this?' She passed her hand over her child with swift and fierce tenderness, and with a scream that must have made terrible the dreams of the sleepers, cried, 'The tiger! the tiger! The tiger's killed my child! O, my 'eart, my life!' and fell to the ground, clasping her dear closer to her heart, and rocked to and fro in an agony of passionate ungovernable grief.
Alas! alas! The child, on whose face I had never seen a smile, had died during the mother's absence, and the tiger that had been the curse of her life would never more disturb her. Never more! Never more!
X.
[NO, NO! BORN IN LOVE! IN LOVE!]
I was busy writing on the following morning when Mr. Merrywhistle called upon me.