He sank back into his chair, and tore at his damask waistcoat and then at his ruffled shirt--yellow with dirt and spilt drink, and dabbled with thick bloodstains--and so, opening of his bosom, there I did see a great gash just over the heart, in his left pap.
And I wondered not now that he was mad with the drink and the fever of his wound; the wonder was more that he was not quite dead.
He sat a-gazing at this, with his eyes turned down upon it, and muttered,
"One gave it me as from that accursed galliot, as they boarded. It seemed I had gotten my death. Ah! how it burns, how it throbs! Barbara! Black Bess! hast thou no styptic for stopping of this flux, no balm for this pain? Ha! No? Then give me drink, drink; 'tis the best consoler of all, the best slayer of pain." And here he seized his ladle, filled a glass from the tub, and drained it at a gulp. Then he wandered on again: "Barbara, get you up to the chirugeon at Kingston; tell him I am sore wounded."
"Jamaica is far away from here," I said to him. "Barbara will scarce bring you aught from the pharmacie there to-night." Then, bending forward to him across the table, I said, "Alderly, you are wounded to the death; that stab and your drinkings have brought you to the end, or nearly so. Tell me truly, did this," and I kicked the box at my feet, "and these bags of coin come from the plate-ship? Tell me!"
He peered at me through the deepening gloom made by the expiring lamp, as though his senses were returning and he knew me, and muttered:
"More--more--than the plate-ship--this is a treasure house--" and then, suddenly, he stopped and, pointing a shaking finger over my head, stared as one who saw a sight to blast him, and whispered in a voice of horror:
"Look! look! behind you. God! I stabbed him thrice. Yet now he is come back. See him, look to him at the open door. 'Tis Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool. Ah! take those eyes away from me--away--away! 'Twas your hand did it, not mine," and with a shriek the wretch buried his head in his own hands.
That the murdered diver was not there I did know very well, yet the ravings of the man, the melancholy of the hut in the wood, the dimness of the lamp, all made my very flesh to creep, and instinctively I did cast my eye over my shoulder, seeing, as was certain, nought but the moon's flood pouring in at the door. Yet I shivered as with a palsy, for though no ghost was there all around me was ghostly, horrible!
With a yell Alderly sprang to his feet a moment after he had sunk his head in his hands; his looks were worse now than before, his madness stronger upon him; great flecks of foam upon his lips, and from his wound the blood trickling anew.