dream, but there
was no one; the light seemed to fail, and a horror slowly overcame him,
especially as he thought he saw the figure under the coverlet stealthily
beginning to move. Backing towards the door, for he could not take his
eyes off it, he saw something like a huge black ape creep out at the
foot of the bed; and springing at him, it griped him by the throat, so
that he could not breathe; and a thousand voices were instantly round
him, holloaing, cursing, laughing in his ears; and in this direful
plight he waked.

Was it the ring of those voices still in his ears, or a real shriek, and
another, and a long peal, shriek after shriek, swelling madly through
the distant passages, that held him still, freezing in the horror of his
dream?

I will tell you what this noise was.

CHAPTER XII

Marcella Bligh and Judith Wale Keep Watch

After his bottle of port with Sir Bale, the Doctor had gone down again
to the room where poor Philip Feltram lay.

Mrs. Julaper had dried her eyes, and was busy by this time; and two old
women were making all their arrangements for a night-watch by the body,
which they had washed, and, as their phrase goes, 'laid out' in the
humble bed where it had lain while there was still a hope that a spark
sufficient to rekindle the fire of life might remain. These old women
had points of resemblance: they were lean, sallow, and wonderfully
wrinkled, and looked each malign and ugly enough for a witch.

Marcella Bligh's thin hooked nose was now like the beak of a bird of
prey over the face of the drowned man, upon whose eyelids she was
placing penny-pieces, to keep them from opening; and her one eye was
fixed on her work, its sightless companion showing white in its socket,
with an ugly leer.

Judith Wale was lifting the pail of hot water with which they had just
washed the body. She had long lean arms, a hunched back, a great sharp
chin sunk on her hollow breast, and small eyes restless as a ferret's;
and she clattered about in great bowls of shoes, old and clouted, that
were made for a foot as big as two of hers.

The Doctor knew these two old women, who were often employed in such
dismal offices.

"How does Mrs. Bligh? See me with half an eye? Hey--that's rhyme, isn't
it?--And, Judy lass--why, I thought you lived nearer the town--here
making poor Mr. Feltram's last toilet. You have helped to dress many a
poor fellow for his last journey. Not a bad notion of drill either--they
s