“Nay, doctor; I’m going to keep watch to-night.”
“Keep watch, man?” said North, who seemed staggered at this determination.
“Yes, doctor, I’m going to keep watch. I can’t afford to have aught go wrong, if you can. You get on with your work, and I’ll be on the look-out.”
“Here?”
“Nay, nay. I’ll hang about outside.”
“Yes, do,” said North, who seemed relieved; and he turned down the lamp to let Moredock out.
“I shall give three taps on the door, doctor, when I come back,” whispered the old man. “You go on just as if I was here; but when I tap, you turn down the light again, and let me in. Don’t s’pose I shall see anybody, but I must take care.”
“Yes, do,” said North hurriedly; and, as the old man passed out, he closed the door after him and made it fast.
“It would have been like checking my experiment now I am so near success,” he said to himself, as, now quite alone, he once more turned up the shaded lamp, when the warm yellow glow shone out full upon the recumbent figure, carefully draped with the great white sheet.
Horace North stood bending over the subject of his ghastly experiment, the remains of Luke Candlish lying apparently unchanged, and as if decay had been completely arrested.