"Indeed," cried Jonathan, finding a voice at last, but one so hoarse that he could hardly recognize it for his own, "I know not what to make of the affair! But, indeed, I do assure thee, friend, that I am entirely innocent of what thou seest."The stranger still kept his piercing gaze fixed upon our hero's countenance, and Jonathan, feeling that something further was demanded of him, continued: "I am, indeed, a victim of a most extravagant and extraordinary adventure.This evening, coming an entire stranger to this country, I was introduced into the house of a beautiful female, who bestowed upon me a charge that appeared to me to be at once insignificant and absurd.Behold this little ivory ball," said he, drawing the globe from his pocket, and displaying it between his thumb and finger."It is this that appears to have brought all this disaster upon me; for, coming from the house of the young woman, the man whom thou now beholdest lying dead upon the floor induced me to come to this place.Having inveigled me hither, he demanded of me to give him at once this insignificant trifle.Upon my refusing to do so, he assaulted me with every appearance of a mad and furious inclination to deprive me of my life!"At the sight of the ivory ball the stranger quickly arose from his kneeling posture and fixed upon our hero a gaze the most extraordinary that he had ever encountered.His eyes dilated like those of a cat, the breath expelled itself from his bosom in so deep and profound an expiration that it appeared as though it might never return again.Nor was it until Jonathan had replaced the ball in his pocket that he appeared to awaken from the trance that the sight of the object had sent him into.But no sooner had the cause of this strange demeanor disappeared into our hero's breeches-pocket than he arose as with an electric shock.In an instant he became transformed as by the touch of magic.A sudden and baleful light flamed into his eyes, his face grew as red as blood, and he clapped his hand to his pocket with a sudden and violent motion."Ze ball!" he cried, in a hoarse and strident voice."Ze ball! Give me ze ball!" And upon the next instant our hero beheld the round and shining nozzle of a pistol pointed directly against his forehead.
For a moment he stood as though transfixed; then in the mortal peril that faced him, he uttered a roar that sounded in his own ears like the outcry of a wild beast, and thereupon flung himself bodily upon the other with the violence and the fury of a madman.
The stranger drew the trigger, and the powder flashed in the pan.
He dropped the weapon, clattering, and in an instant tried to draw another from his other pocket.Before he could direct his aim, however, our hero had caught him by both wrists, and, bending his hand backward, prevented the chance of any shot from taking immediate effect upon his person.Then followed a struggle of extraordinary ferocity and frenzy--the stranger endeavoring to free his hand, and Jonathan striving with all the energy of despair to prevent him from effecting his murderous purpose.
In the struggle our hero became thrust against the edge of the table.He felt as though his back were breaking, and became conscious that in such a situation he could hope to defend himself only a few moments longer.The stranger's face was pressed close to his own.His hot breath, strong with the odor of garlic, fanned our hero's cheek, while his lips, distended into a ferocious and ferine grin, displayed his sharp teeth shining in the candlelight.
"Give me ze ball!" he said, in a harsh and furious whisper.
At the moment there rang in Jonathan's ears the sudden and astounding detonation of a pistol-shot, and for a moment he wondered whether he had received a mortal wound without being aware of it.Then suddenly he beheld an extraordinary and dreadful transformation take place in the countenance thrust so close to his own; the eyes winked several times with incredible rapidity, and then rolled upward and inward; the jaws gaped into a dreadful and cavernous yawn; the pistol fell with a clatter to the floor, and the next moment the muscles, so rigid but an instant before, relaxed into a limp and listless flaccidity.The joints collapsed, and the entire man fell into an indistinguishable heap upon and across the dead figure stretched out upon the floor, while at the same time a pungent and blinding cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the apartment.For a few moments the hands twitched convulsively; the neck stretched itself to an abominable length; the long, lean legs slowly and gradually relaxed, and every fibre of the body gradually collapsed into the lassitude of death.A spot of blood appeared and grew upon the collar at the throat, and in the same degree the color ebbed from the face leaving it of a dull and leaden pallor.
All these terrible and formidable changes of aspect our hero stood watching with a motionless and riveted attention, and as though they were to him matters of the utmost consequence and importance; and only when the last flicker of life had departed from his second victim did he lift his gaze from this terrible scene of dissolution to stare about him, this way and that, his eyes blinded, and his breath stifled by the thick cloud of sulphurous smoke that obscured the objects about him in a pungent cloud.
