“Smash it, I tell ye! I’ll bear the blame, if there is any!”
Luke tried an ineffective blow, and Mrs. Perkins grew more excited. “Luke Tewksbury! Smash it! That there smell’s chloroform! I know it; I kin almost taste it! I hain’t handled the stuff as many times as I have, a-rubbin’ Melville’s poor body, ’ithout lamin’ the smell. Sunthin’s happened to the bottle on it, an’ one, mebbe both, o’ them boys is shet up behind thet door! Now—will ye smash it?”
A terrific blow of his mighty fist was Luke’s effective answer, and the panel gave way.
With a swiftness and coolness one would scarcely have looked for in Rosetta Perkins’s case, since Ruth had called her a “good woman without any head-piece,” the housekeeper thrust her hand through the break in the wood, and unfastened the bolt. Every movement she made told in effect, as she almost flew across the apartment, dashed open the windows, drew the bolt and opened the bedroom door, and caught up a pitcher of water to throw it upon Melville’s face.
The air was nauseous with fumes of the drug, but it was less that which had overcome the invalid than horror at his own deed, and its awful result. With the thought that little Fritz had been the victim of his would-be scientific experiment, his weak nerves had given way; but his last conscious thought had been: “Cripple or not, I must save him!”
It seemed that the power of this determination was already bringing him out of his swoon, for the water had scarcely reached his face before he opened his eyes. Instantly they filled with terror. “The closet! The closet! Open the closet!”
“What—which closet?” asked Rosetta, trembling.
“Open it—open it, quick! Maybe he isn’t dead!”
Mrs. Perkins’s sight swam. The reality seemed worse than she had feared. But Christina had heard and understood the appeal, and flew to the inner door.
“The other—the other!” directed Melville’s agonized voice.