It had been a dream, a bad, bad, dream; a nightmare dream. Only that, and nothing more. In that case, why this dreadful pain upon his heart? And why the blood upon the—
“A nosebleed,” he heard himself say. And heard Turt say, “No, sir. No. Not.”
“Why not?”
Turt began making many gestures, the burden of them being that, for one thing, there was no blood upon his master’s nose and none upon his master’s sheets. That, furthermore, blood dropping from the side of the bed to the floor would have left a stain of a certain size, only. And that this stain was of a larger and a wider size. Which meant that it had fallen from a greater height. And as Turt’s hand went up and pointed to the ceiling, the hand and all the rest of Turt’s body trembled; the Romanou are of all the races of the Empire of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania the most superstitious by far, and their legends teem and pullulate with accounts of uampyri and werewolves and werebears and werebats and werecats; and of ghoulies and ghosties and things which do far worse in the night than merely go boomp.
—then why this fearsome pain? Eszterhazy started to sit up, cried out, gestured towards the cabinet, gasped, “The small blue bottle—” The elixir of foxglove made him feel better, then (Turt supplying this next bottle unbid) the spirits of wine made him feel better yet. Then he gestured to the still red stain, directed, “Clean it up.”
Turt, so often metaphorical and metaphysical, chose now to be literal. And simply sopped a corner of the napkin in the still-steaming coffee, stooped, wipe, wipe: ’twas done. He made the dirtied cloth vanish. Straightened up. Smoothed his sallow face. “My Dominů’s coffee,” he said. Soon afterward he brought the shaving-water and the scented soap. Eszterhazy had for a while little to do and much to think about (there was not, considering his beard, much to shave, either: the neck and the cheekbones; but Turt trimmed also).
Eszterhazy, while his servant scraped and clipped, considered his own peril. Presumably, Mudge was anyway somewhat in fear of him, whereas he had been in no way afraid of poor Morits. Presumably, he himself was therefore . . . safe? Well . . . safer. . . .
But for how long?
He recalled that face, high up, hateful. To prove the cheat of the servers of the Idol of Bel at Babylon, Daniel had scattered ashes on the floor; would it now be necessary to scatter them on the ceiling?
Eszterhazy was in bed. Bed. Boat. Boat. As he drifted by in the darkness he heard the sound of the district watchman rapping the butt of his staff on the flagstone pave at the corner. Presently he would hear it rapping on the other corner. He did not. He was not there. He was somewhere else. He knew and did not know where. It was in a great yard somewhere, an open waste of rubble and huts. The South Ward, somewhere. Behind a mouldering tenement. Between it and a riven old wall. Up there in that room, that room there, with the broken shutter banging aslant, lived an old man and an old woman, there, there in the night. Here, down here, concealed in a half-sunken pit, someone was hiding and biding time. Someone tall and sleek and grim. Someone muffled in a cloak. Was waiting. The cracked old bell began to toll in the tower of the Madhouse of Saint Vitus. Someone chuckled. It was not a nice sound. At once Eszterhazy knew who it was. I am the brother of the shadow of the slain, the vanguard of the shadow of the living. I am the medium, Mr. Mudge. As well.
Mr. Mudge moved up out of the half-dug pit, and who knew for what gross usage the pit was to have been digged; moved forward, ahead, face intent. Nearer to the tottery old tenement, nearer to the window behind the broken slant shutter, Eszterhazy desperate to stop him, but paralyzed, unable to call out, to move. To breathe. Shutter suddenly springing open. Clap. Bang. Cough. Someone springing out and down. Someone? Something? Dark, dark, very dark. Fluid movement, there in the dark. Warn Mr. Mudge? Why? No. Mr. Mudge not there. Where? His cloak flying, floating, in the blackness night; Mr. Mudge fleeing before it as though, paws on its shoulders, it coursed him through the night. No: Something else coursed him through the blackness night. Scorn and contempt on his face giving way to concentration, concentration to effort, effort to—Run, Mudge, run!—to concern, to care, to alarm, faster, faster, faster, leap and run and climb and clamber and jump and clamber and climb and run and leap; close behind him something followed faster yet and something else for a second flashed and glinted, something else gleamed at or about the neck of . . . something . . . as sometimes one sees a glint or gleam where the fond master of an animal has fastened a metal sigil advising of its name and owner; or like some ring on a hand moving suddenly in the dim and flaring lamps—
—screamed, Mr. Mudge; Quaere: What did Mr. Mudge scream? Responsum: Mr. Mudge screamed for help. Q.: How did Mr. Mudge scream for help and to what or whom? R.: To “Belphegor, Belzebub, Baphomet, Sathanas, à mon aide O mes princes, aidez-moi, à moi, à moi, à—” The prayer, if prayer it was, decayed into a continuous repetition of the broad a-sound as Mr. Mudge fled, leaping; as . . . something . . . leaping, coughing, followed after him; a great, sudden, abrupt coughing sound, a great forelimb chopping down Mr. Mudge: and all his imprecations sank powerlessly beneath even the level of derision . . .
Eszterhazy, body spent with having followed the hazards of the chase, awoke bathed in sweat and in bed. One thing alone remained still quick within his ears, and though it seemed not to be for this night before, yet perhaps it somehow was. That she-cat has claws, an odd voice said.
That she-cat has claws.
Dawn.
Mrash.
“Your Lordship, that tiger come a-wandering again-time!”
Eszterhazy lifted dulled, fatigued eyes. “The—? Ah . . . the leopard? You saw it running along and up the roofs?” What was it he felt, now? It was unbalanced that he felt now. He had with infinite difficulties maintained a stance against attack, assault, terror, pain, and worse. He felt this was gone now. But he was infinitely tired now. Infinitely tired. He dared be infinitely careful, lest he fall, now. What had and what was happening?
Mrash said, “No, lordship. I seen it running down the roofs. And as I looked, so I seen. ‘Seen what’? Why, seen summat as was not the tiger nor the leopard. Look out the window there, me lordship. Look out, look up. Look up.”
Where was bluff old Colonel Brennshnekkl, who had hunted leopard in Africa, thinking them more dangerous than lion or tiger which course the level ground along? Back in Africa, out of which, always something new. So Plautus says. Pliny?