A strange jarring sound filled the air; it seemed to come from every side, and screamed harshly into the listeners’ ears. If a fiend had burst into a long fit of malignant laughter close at hand the effect could not have been more hateful and discordant.
“The laugh again!” David muttered between his teeth. “It would be just our luck if it scared our best customer away. Devil take me if I don’t begin to believe it is the soul of that cursed husband of yours, that you treated so affectionately. I’ll swear there’s not a spot of rust on the machinery as big as a pin’s head.”
“Oh, son, don’t look that way at me,” said the woman, in a shaken voice. “I would prevent it if I could; what can I do?”
“You might jump in and follow your husband; that’s what he wants, I suppose,” returned the son, angrily. “It’s you that wronged him, not I; and as long as you’re here we’ll have no luck. That’s the long and short of it!”
The laugh had died away, and Jael, pressing her hand above her heart, turned aside and passed out. She loved her son, and would have shed her blood for him; but this was not the first time he had spoken thus.
After she was gone, David stood at the window, biting his lips and muttering to himself. Suddenly he heard Gloam’s step behind him, and looked round in surprise.
“What was that noise?” Gloam asked.
“Why, nothing new, sir. The same old story. Something wrong with the wheel again, I suppose.”
“I remember no such sound before,” said Gloam, excitedly. “It is hideous, like the shriek of an evil spirit. Let it never come again; it frightens Swanhilda, and comes between us like a prophecy of woe. Let it never come again!”