"The blessed candle, where's the blessed candle?" shrieked he.
"'T is out," said the hag; and as she spoke, the wick fell into the saucer, and all was dark.
A wild and fearful cry broke from the sick man and re-echoed through the silent house; and ere it died away I had crept stealthily back to my place beside my companions.
"'Did ye hear anything, or was I dreamin'?" said Joe to me; "I thought I heard the most dreadful scream,--like a man drownin'."
"It was a dream, perhaps," said I, shuddering at the thought of what I had just witnessed, while I listened with terrible anxiety for auy sound overhead; but none came; and so passed the long hours till day-dawn.
Without revealing to my companion the terrible scene I had been witness to, I told him that we were in the same house with a fearful malady,--an announcement I well knew had greater terror for none than an Irish peasant. He at once decided on departing; and, although day was barely breaking, he awoke the others, and a low whispering conversation ensued, in which I felt, or imagined, at least, that I was an interested party. At last Joe, turning towards me, said, "And you, sir, what do you mean to do!"
"The very question," said I, "that I cannot answer. If I were to follow my inclination, I 'd turn homeward; if I must yield to necessity, I 'll call upon the Governor-General, and remain with him till I hear from my friends."
There was a pause; a moment of deliberation seemed to fall upon the bystanders, which at length was broken by the old man saying, "Well, good luck be with you; any way, 't is the best thing you could do!"
I saw that I had overshot my bolt, and with difficulty concealed my annoyance at my own failure. My irritation was, I conclude, sufficiently apparent, for Joe quickly said, "We 're very sorry to part with you; but if we could be of any use before we go--"
"Which way do you travel?" said I, carelessly.
"That's the puzzle, for we don't know the country. 'T is New Orleans we'd like to go to first."
"Nothing easier," said I. "Take the steamer to Montreal, cross over into the States, down Lake Champlain to Whitehall, over to Albany, and then twenty hours down the Hudson brings you to New York."
"You know the way well!" said Joe, with an undisguised admiration for my geography, which, I need not tell the reader, was all acquired from books and maps.