The Fool, chuckling to himself behind the sheet, thrust his hand upon his heart, and apparently plucking something from the folds of cloth, he tossed back toward the bed a bullet.
The Man Who Knew Not Fear reached for the heavy little object that he had felt strike the bed-clothes, and his hand touching the bit of lead, he picked it up curiously, then realizing what it was that he held, he sat up stiffly in bed, and tried to raise his arm again. But his muscles refused to obey. The thought that his revolver had been tampered with never entered his head. For the first time in his life a fear, sickening and unmanning as it was new, came over him. He recognized in that little piece of lead a bullet from the gun which had never before failed him. What was that moaning Thing upon which powder and lead had no effect? Three times he tried to raise his arm, and each time it fell back upon the bed.
Meanwhile the rattling of chains began once more, and with eyes starting from his head because of his fear, Waters saw the fearsome shape advancing upon him. By a supreme effort he raised his arm, and emptied the remaining five chambers of his revolver at the approaching figure.
The Fool, who had never ceased moaning while the shots were being fired, executed a rapid movement with his hands as if catching the bullets, and then slowly tossed them back, one after the other.
The man in bed reached for the little balls of lead mechanically, then straightened back against the pillow, and remained perfectly motionless, staring at the Thing, which had now stopped again and was groaning dismally.
For five minutes neither man moved, then The Fool, thinking that the joke was once more on him, for Waters still refused to speak, gathered his glittering robe about him, and slunk out.
Back once more in his own room he undressed hurriedly, and slipped into bed. He was disappointed. He had expected that Waters would be terribly frightened, and that he could joke him unmercifully at the table for the next week. Then, too, the obstinate silence of the man puzzled him.
About five o’clock in the morning he woke up vaguely alarmed. He did not know what the matter was, but he could not sleep. He could not get out of his mind that strange silence of the man down-stairs. Then, suddenly, a terrible suspicion came over him.
“Not that, my God, not that!” he cried. Jumping from the bed he threw on a few clothes, and crept fearfully down to the scene of his midnight joke.
He opened the door cautiously, and, feeling for the button, turned on the electric light. Then he gave a hysterical cry, half laugh, half moan, and, rushing from the room, he fled down the hall out into the street.