"The moon!" he shouted—"the mad watchman's moon! The mad watchman himself is coming back. There he is, sliding down on the slanting light! Do you see the brown earth of the grave dropping from him, and the rope round his neck? Ha! how he skips, and twists, and twirls! He's dancing again with the dead ones. Make way there! I mean to dance with them too. Come on, mad watchman—come on! I'm as mad as you are!"
He whirled round and round with the fancied ghost for a partner in the dance. The coarse laughter of Schwartz burst out again at the terrible sight. He called, with drunken triumph, to Madame Fontaine. "Look at Jacky, ma'am. There's a dancer for you! There's good company for a dull winter night!" She neither looked nor moved—she sat crouched on the chair, spellbound with terror. Jack threw up his arms, turned giddily once or twice, and sank exhausted on the floor. "The cold of him creeps up my hands," he said, still possessed by the vision of the watchman. "He cools my eyes, he calms my heart, he stuns my head. I'm dying, dying, dying—going back with him to the grave. Poor me! poor me!"
He lay hushed in a strange repose; his eyes wide open, staring up at the moon. Schwartz drained the last drop of brandy out of the flask. "Jack's name ought to be Solomon," he pronounced with drowsy solemnity; "Solomon was wise; and Jack's wise. Jack goes to sleep, when the liquor's done. Take away the bottle, before the overseer comes in. If any man says I am not sober, that man lies. The Rhine wine has a way of humming in one's head. That's all, Mr. Overseer—that's all. Do I see the sun rising, up there in the skylight? I wish you good-night; I wish—you—good—night."
He laid his heavy arms on the table; his head dropped on them—he slept.
The time passed. No sound broke the silence but the lumpish snoring of Schwartz. No change appeared in Jack; there he lay, staring up at the moon.
Somewhere in the building (unheard thus far in the uproar) a clock struck the first hour of the morning.
Madame Fontaine started. The sound shook her with a new fear—a fear that expressed itself in a furtive look at the cell in which the dead woman lay. If the corpse-bell rang, would the stroke of it be like the single stroke of the clock?
"Jack!" she whispered. "Do you hear the clock? Oh, Jack, the stillness is dreadful—speak to me."
He slowly raised himself. Perhaps the striking of the clock—perhaps some inner prompting—had roused him. He neither answered Madame Fontaine, nor looked at her. With his arms clasped round his knees, he sat on the floor in the attitude of a savage. His eyes, which had stared at the moon, now stared with the same rigid, glassy look at the alarm-bell over the cell-door.
The time went on. Again the oppression of silence became more than Madame Fontaine could endure. Again she tried to make Jack speak to her.