Again the struggle; again the collapse; and by and by, the monotonous murmur gathering volume as it proceeded.
“Sing, says you—and the devil drums i’ the pit if I so much as whisper. Look’ee ther—at the white square o’ the sky. Thart’s what keeps me going. If you was to blot thart out, he’d have me by the hip wi’ a pinch like a bloodhound’s jaw. There’s summut darkens! Who’s thart a-looking down? Why, you bloody murderer, I knows you! I found you out, I did, you ugly cutthroat devil. Already dead, says you? Who kills dead men? There bain’t a thing i’ the warld I’d hold my tongue for but drink—you gie it me, then. What’s this? The bottle’s swarming wi’ maggots—arnts, black arnts. You’re a rare villain! Not a doctor, I say. A doctor don’t cut the weasands o’ dead men and let out the worms—millions of them—and there’s some wi’ faces and shining rings and gewgaws. The ungodly shall go down into the pit—help me out o’ it—they’re burying me alive!”
He leaped to his feet, with drawn, ashy face. The watchful attendant was at his side in a moment and had put a restraining hand on him.
“You’ll get nought out of him, sir,” he said. “It’s my belief he’ll never utter sane word again.”
As he spoke the sexton’s eyes lighted on me in their wild roving, steadied, flickered and took a little glint of reason. Still gazing at me, he sunk into his chair again.
“Leave us alone for a minute,” I said to the man. “He seems to recognize me, I think.”
“As long as his eyes don’t wander, maybe,” he answered. “Keep ’em fixed on you”—and he withdrew to his former standpoint.
“George,” I said, in a low, distinct voice, “do you know me?”
I held him with an intense gaze. He seemed struggling in an inward agony to escape it.
“George,” I said again, “do you know who I am?”