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“Nobody official came near us all this time. The prison stood lonely as a deserted ruin where dark things have been done.

“Once, with fear and trembling, I asked my master how he would account for the inmate of 47 if he was suddenly called upon by authority to open the cell; and he answered, smiling,–

“I should say it was my mad brother. By his own account, he showed me a brother’s love, you know. It would be thought a liberty; but the authorities, I think, would stretch a point for me. But if I got sufficient notice, I should clear out the cell.’

“I asked him how, with my eyes rather than my lips, and he answered me only with a look.

“And all this time he was, outside the prison, living the life of a good man–helping the needy, ministering to the poor. He even entertained occasionally, and had more than one noisy party in his house.

“But the fifth month the creature danced no more. He was a dumb, silent animal then, with matted hair and beard; and when one entered he would only look up at one pitifully, as if he said, ‘My long punishment is nearly ended’. How it came that no inquiry was ever made about him I know not, but none ever was. Perhaps he was one of the wandering gentry that nobody ever knows where they are next. He was unmarried, and had apparently not told of his intended journey to a soul.

“And at the last he died in the night. We found him lying stiff and stark in the morning, and scratched with a piece of black crust on a stone of the wall these strange words: ‘An Eddy on the Floor’. Just that–nothing else.

“Then the Governor came and looked down, and was silent. Suddenly he caught me by the shoulder.

“‘Johnson’, he cried, ‘if it was to do again, I would do it! I repent of nothing. But he has paid the penalty, and we call quits. May he rest in peace!’

“‘Amen!’ I answered low. Yet I knew our turn must come for this.

“We buried him in quicklime under the wall where the murderers lie, and I made the cell trim and rubbed out the writing, and the Governor locked all up and took away the key. But he locked in more than he bargained for.

“For months the place was left to itself, and neither of us went anigh 47. Then one day the workmen was to be put in, and the Major he took me round with him for a last examination of the place before they come.

“He hesitated a bit outside a particular cell; but at last he drove in the key and kicked open the door.

“‘My God!’ he says, ‘he’s dancing still!’

“My heart was thumpin’, I tell you, as I looked over his shoulder. What did we see? What you well understand, sir; but, for all it was no more than that, we knew as well as if it was shouted in our ears that it was him, dancin’. It went round by the walls and drew towards us, and as it stole near I screamed out, ‘An Eddy on the Floor!’ and seized and dragged the Major out and clapped to the door behind us.

“‘Oh!’ I said, ‘in another moment it would have had us’.

“He looked at me gloomily.

“‘Johnson’, he said, ‘I’m not to be frighted or coerced. He may dance, but he shall dance alone. Get a screwdriver and some screws and fasten up this trap. No one from this time looks into this cell.’

“I did as he bid me, sweatin’; and I swear all the time I wrought I dreaded a hand would come through the trap and clutch mine.

“On one pretex’ or another, from that day till the night you meddled with it, he kep’ that cell as close shut as a tomb. And he went his ways, discardin’ the past from that time forth. Now and again a over-sensitive prisoner in the next cell would complain of feelin’ uncomfortable. If possible, he would be removed to another; if not, he was damd for his fancies. And so it might be goin’ on to now, if you hadn’t pried and interfered. I don’t blame you at this moment, sir. Likely you were an instrument in the hands of Providence; only, as the instrument, you must now take the burden of the truth on your own shoulders. I am a dying man, but I cannot die till I have confessed. Per’aps you may find it in your hart some day to give up a prayer for me–but it must be for the Major as well.

“Your obedient servant,

“J. JOHNSON.”
* * * * *

What comment of my own can I append to this wild narrative? Professionally, and apart from personal experiences, I should rule it the composition of an epileptic. That a noted journalist, nameless as he was and is to me, however nomadic in habit, could disappear from human ken, and his fellows rest content to leave him unaccounted for, seems a tax upon credulity so stupendous that I cannot seriously endorse the statement.

Yet, also–there is that little matter of my personal experience.