Keeley,
having pushed the bystanders on one side, in the act of performing a kind
of Punchean dance upon the floor, accompanying himself with the vigorous
chuckling and crowing peculiar to the hero whose habiliments he wore. I
was horror-stricken--conceiving that grief had suddenly turned his brain.
All at once, he made a spring towards me, and, seizing my arm, thrust me
into a corner of the room, where he held me fast, exclaiming--
"Wretch! villain! restore me my wife--that talented woman your infernal
arts have destroyed! You did for her!"
"Mr. Keeley," said I, struggling to release myself from his grasp--"my
dear sir, pray compose yourself."
"Unhappy traitor!" he shouted, giving me an unmerciful tweak by the nose;
"Look at her silver skin laced with her golden blood!--see, see! Oh, see!"
This was rather too much, even from a man whose wits were astray. I began
to lose patience, and was preparing to rid myself somewhat roughly of the
madman's grasp, when a new phenomenon occurred.
The patient on the sofa, whom I had judged well nigh moribund, and
consequently incapable of any effort whatever, all at once sat up with a
sudden jerk, and gave vent to a series of the most ear-piercing shrieks
that ever assailed human tympanum.
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