For the second time she drew the knife out, concealed it in the wide sleeve of her gown, then stopped by the bedside, watching him.For an instant he saw her standing in that position, then the wick of the spent candle fell over into the socket; the flame diminished to a little blue point, and the room grew dark.
A moment, or less, if possible, passed so, and then the wick flamed up, smokingly, for the last time.His eyes were still looking eagerly over the right-hand side of the bed when the final flash of light came, but they discovered nothing.The fair woman with the knife was gone.
The conviction that he was alone again weakened the hold of the terror that had struck him dumb up to this time.The preternatural sharpness which the very intensity of his panic had mysteriously imparted to his faculties left them suddenly.His brain grew confused--his heart beat wildly--his ears opened for the first time since the appearance of the woman to a sense of the woeful ceaseless moaning of the wind among the trees.With the dreadful conviction of the reality of what he had seen still strong within him, he leaped out of bed, and screaming "Murder!
Wake up, there! wake up!" dashed headlong through the darkness to the door.
It was fast locked, exactly as he had left it on going to bed.
His cries on starting up had alarmed the house.He heard the terrified, confused exclamations of women; he saw the master of the house approaching along the passage with his burning rush-candle in one hand and his gun in the other.
"What is it?" asked the landlord, breathlessly.Isaac could only answer in a whisper."A woman, with a knife in her hand," he gasped out."In my room--a fair, yellow-haired woman; she jobbed at me with the knife twice over."The landlord's pale cheeks grew paler.He looked at Isaac eagerly by the flickering light of his candle, and his face began to get red again; his voice altered, too, as well as his complexion.
"She seems to have missed you twice," he said.
"I dodged the knife as it came down," Isaac went on, in the same scared whisper."It struck the bed each time."The landlord took his candle into the bedroom immediately.In less than a minute he came out again into the passage in a violent passion.
"The devil fly away with you and your woman with the knife! There isn't a mark in the bedclothes anywhere.What do you mean by coming into a man's place and frightening his family out of their wits about a dream?""I'll leave your house," said Isaac, faintly."Better out on the road, in rain and dark, on my road home, than back again in that room, after what I've seen in it.Lend me a light to get my clothes by, and tell me what I'm to pay.""Pay!" cried the landlord, leading the way with his light sulkily into the bedroom."You'll find your score on the slate when you go downstairs.I wouldn't have taken you in for all the money you've got about you if I'd known your dreaming, screeching ways beforehand.Look at the bed.Where's the cut of a knife in it?
Look at the window--is the lock bursted? Look at the door (which I heard you fasten yourself)--is it broke in? A murdering woman with a knife in my house! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"Isaac answered not a word.He huddled on his clothes, and then they went downstairs together.
"Nigh on twenty minutes past two!" said the landlord, as they passed the clock."A nice time in the morning to frighten honest people out of their wits!"Isaac paid his bill, and the landlord let him out at the front door, asking, with a grin of contempt, as he undid the strong fastenings, whether "the murdering woman got in that way."They parted without a word on either side.The rain had ceased, but the night was dark, and the wind bleaker than ever.Little did the darkness, or the cold, or the uncertainty about the way home matter to Isaac.If he had been turned out into a wilderness in a thunder-storm it would have been a relief after what he had suffered in the bedroom of the inn.
What was the fair woman with the knife? The creature of a dream, or that other creature from the unknown world called among men by the name of ghost? He could make nothing of the mystery--had made nothing of it, even when it was midday on Wednesday, and when he stood, at last, after many times missing his road, once more on the doorstep of home.
