He was silent for a few moments, and then he bawled out: "She'll swing for it, they say--swing for it, d'ye hear, dame? But no, of course she don't--deafer and deafer, deafer and deafer every day. It'll be a precious good job when the parson says his last prayers over her, as well as others."
He then got up, and went to a cupboard. I could hear--for I dared not look up--by the jingling of glasses and the outpouring of liquids that he was helping himself to his spirituous sleeping-draughts. He reseated himself, and drank in moody silence, except now and then mumbling drowsily to himself, but in so low a tone that I could make nothing out of it save an occasional curse or blasphemy. It was nearly eleven o'clock before the muttered self-communing ceased, and his heavy head sank upon the back of the easy-chair. He was very restless, and it was evident that even his sleeping brain labored with affrighting and oppressive images; but the mutterings, as before he slept, were confused and indistinct. At length--half an hour had perhaps thus passed--the troubled meanings became for a few moments clearly audible. "Ha--ha--ha!" he burst out, "how are you off for soap? Ho--ho! done there, my boy; ha--ha! But no--no. Wall plaster! Who could have thought it? But for that I--I--What do you stare at me so for, you infernal blue-bottle? You--you--" Again the dream-utterance sank into indistinctness, and I comprehended nothing more.
About half-past twelve o'clock he awoke, rose, stretched himself, and said: "Come, dame, let's to bed; it's getting chilly here."
"Dame" did not answer, and he again went towards the cupboard. "Here's a candle-end will do for us," he muttered. A lucifer-match was drawn across the wall, he lit the candle, and stumbled towards me, for he was scarcely yet awake. "Come, dame, come! Why, thee beest sleeping like a dead un! Wake up, will thee--Ah! murder! thieves! mur"--
My grasp was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor incapable of motion much less of resistance, and could only gaze in my face in dumb affright and horror.
"Give me the key of the recess up stairs, which you carry in your breast pocket. In your sleep, unhappy man, you have revealed every thing."