Rapidly his hold upon life relaxed. A week before November 11, 1890, he went to bed and stayed there. People began to speculate as to whether his unique prediction—or I should say, his decree—would be fulfilled to the very day.
Upon the fifth day of his illness Death threatened to come before the time that had been set for receiving him.
“Isn't this the tenth?” the old man mumbled.
“No,” said his housekeeper, who with one of his nieces, the doctor, and Billy Skidmore, attended the ill man, “it's only the 9th.”
“Then I must fight for two days more; the tombstone must not lie.”
And he rallied so well that it seemed as if the tombstone would lie, nevertheless, for Tommy was still alive at eleven-thirty on the night of November 11. Moreover he had been in his senses when last awake, and there was every likelihood that he would look at the clock whenever his eyes should next open.
“He can't live till morning, that's sure,” said the doctor.
“But, good Lord! you don't mean to say that he'll hold out till after twelve o'clock,” said Billy Skidmore, whose anxiety only had sustained him in his grief at the approaching dissolution of his friend.
“Quite probably,” replied the doctor.
“Good heavens! Tommy won't rest easy in his grave if he don't die on the 11th. The monument will be wrong.”