Again he drank the maddening liquid, which in a fearful way buoyed up the sinking man; but the alcohol and loss of blood combined worked on his brain and fired it into a kind of frenzy. He sprang up as if convulsed, and crouching amid the wolfskins that covered him, like a wild beast in his lair, struck at an imaginary foe which seemed to haunt him.
"Don't you see him, Bill? the fiend; have at him, drive him away."
"I see nought," replied the old man, still watching him with imperturbable countenance; "who is it you see?"
"Who?" yelled the wretched man. "D'you ask who? See him at the foot of my bed; 'tis the Devil himself."
"Come to overhaul his son," answered Bill, with a brutal laugh. "What like is he, Jack?"
"Bill, you are the archfiend's self, to mock me in my last distress. He is gone, thank God! No, no, there he comes again—will no one scare the demon hence? Ho! there are more—I see them—they crowd around me—they gibber—they laugh a hellish laugh! All my victims come to daunt me! There is Hesketh, Graham, ye gods! Musgrave too; he points to the red hole in his forehead. Avaunt, fiends, away! you frighten me not, I dare you one and all. There's Strogonoff—ha! more, by Jove—crowds—the hung, the tortured, the strangled, the drowned—crowds of them, the infernal niggers! the air is full of their horrid faces! they will tear me. Save me, Bill. Oh, powers of darkness; she too, she is there."
"Who is there?" said Bill; "you seem to have a good company—a devil's dance, and women to dance too!"
"Yes, it is she; then I did murder her. God above! I dreamed I had failed, but no, she is there too."
"She, who is she?"
"Antonia, Juana, who you like. I may as well make a clean breast of it—I poisoned her. I feel remorse for her—for none of the rest. Ah! how pale she is! how dull her once glorious eye!"