"I will sometime," said David, absently. She went over to his bed and beat up the bolster and made everything ready for him.
"You ought to have clean sheets and pillow-cases," she remarked confidently; "the negroes are worthless. Good night," she said, with her hand on the door, looking back at him timidly.
He sprang up and went over to her. "Oh, mother! mother! mother!" he cried, and then he checked the useless words that came rushing in a flood.
"Good night! and thank you for coming. Good night! Be careful, I'll bring the candle, the stairway is dark. Good night!"
"Oh, Gabriella! Gabriella!" he murmured as he went back to his table. He buried his head on his arms a moment, then, starting up, threw off his clothes, drank the mixture, and got into bed.
XX
At dead of night out in a lonely country, what sound freezes the blood like the quick cry of an animal seized and being killed? The fright, the pain, the despair: whosoever has heard these notes has listened to the wild death-music of Nature, ages old.
On the still frozen air near two or three o'clock of next morning, such a cry rang out from inside the barn. There were the short rushes to and fro, round and round; then violent leapings against the door, the troughs, and sides of the stable; then mad plunging, struggling, panting; then a long, terrified, weakened wail, which told everything beyond the clearness of words.
Up in his room, perfectly dark, for the coals in the grate were now sparkless, David was lying on his back, sleeping heavily and bathed in perspiration. Overheated, he had pushed the bed covers off from his throat; he had hollowed the pillow away from his face. So deep was the stillness of the house and of the night air outside, that almost the first sounds had reached his ear and sunk down into his brain: he stirred slightly. As the tumult grew louder, he tossed his head from side to side uneasily, and muttered a question in his broken dreams. And now the barn was in an uproar; and the dog, chained at his kennel behind the house, was howling, roaring to get loose. Would he never waken? Would the tragedy which he himself had unwittingly planned and staged be played to its end without his hearing a word? (So often it is that way in life.) At last, as one who has long tugged at his own sleep, striving to rend it as a smothering blanket and burst through into free air, he sat up in bed, confused, listening.