If any one at this moment had watched the face of the Major as he lay asleep, he would have seen a happy smile pass over the lips of this thin tall man—so happy that the old Turk who lay not far from him could not have supported the sight of it.
The latter was, all the night long, tormented by painful thoughts; he turned uneasily on his couch, and now and then a scalding tear rolled down his face. The night herself seemed struck by the contrast. She sent him a mysterious vision, and as soon as the sleeper perceived it, his expression changed immediately. His contracted muscles relaxed, his mouth, almost invisible before under the great nose, showed a smile. The tears on his cheeks dried; the prisoner was evidently dreaming of something happy. The night hung over him, her visage veiled in black; she murmured beloved names in his ear, and sent him only dreams of happiness; then, softly and gently, she glided towards the Major.
What is the matter with him? He seems to be having a trembling-fit. Night hangs over him and covers him with her black veil. Any one who watched him just now would be struck with the sudden change in his expression. His features betray astonishment and terror. He tries to rise, to shake off the heavy chains of sleep, but night holds him in her grasp. She has placed her hand on his chest. He sees a thing so strange and extravagant that his blood turns to ice in his veins. The quiet rooms of his home seem to be filled with a strange murmur. The children rise in their beds and fix their eyes, dilated with terror, on a black menacing cloud which hovers slowly above their heads. The father looks at it. What is there in the cloud which so alarms his children? His heart beats violently.
The cloud continues to descend. The children jump down from their beds. The little boy who was sleeping in the next room runs hither. They call their nurse—she has disappeared; there is nothing but a heap of old rags in the place where she was lying. The children call to their mother, but the black cloud hides her from their eyes. There they are alone, face to face with it. It sinks slowly on the ground as though it were descending into the waves of the ocean. Its vague fluctuating outlines assume distinctness. The Major and his children at last perceive what it contained. What they see is a body of enormous length stretched out; round it are standing four little children with great black eyes full of anguish and distress. The children weep bitterly, and their tears fall on the corpse which they surround. The Major's children approach them and begin to examine the body whose grey head, with its large nose, the scar on the forehead, and the grey bristling moustaches, leave no doubt in the Major's mind as to its identity. The body is that of Mahmoud Bey. Everything is there—the fresh wound on the shoulder, the clotted blood on the ragged cloak, the stiffened feet wrapped in rags.
"But who ... who has done that?" asks the Major's little girl, a moment before flushed with sleep, becoming suddenly pale.
"Who has killed him?" asks the little boy of six with the black eye. The youngest of the children is holding him by the shirt-sleeve.
The Turk's children, the black-eyed brats of a tawny tint, turn towards the Major and point at him.
"It is he who has killed our father. Yes, it is he. He has cast us on the street and reduced us to poverty and helplessness."
The Major tries to speak or cry. His heart is nearly bursting with agony; his tongue feels paralysed; his voice is choked in his throat. This father sees his children turn from him with horror. The youngest even lifts her little hand as though to shield herself. He tries to approach her, but she runs away, her features convulsed with terror. She points to his hands and cries, "Blood! Blood!"
The Major looks at his hands; the little girl is right; they are covered with blood. Then he tries to speak, but he cannot articulate a word; he feels as though some one had seized him by the throat, and were trying to choke him. He struggles desperately, makes a final effort and ... awakes.