He landed with one leap in the middle of the floor, gasped once, then looked all round the room.  The window was shuttered and barred with an iron bar.  Again he ran his eyes slowly all round the bare walls, and even looked up at the ceiling, which was rather high.  Afterwards he went to the door to examine the fastenings.  They consisted of two enormous iron bolts sliding into holes made in the wall; and as the corridor outside was too narrow to admit of any battering arrangement or even to permit an axe to be swung, nothing could burst the door open—­unless gunpowder.  But while he was still making sure that the lower bolt was pushed well home, he received the impression of somebody’s presence in the room.  It was so strong that he spun round quicker than lightning.  There was no one.  Who could there be?  And yet . . .

It was then that he lost the decorum and restraint a man keeps up for his own sake.  He got down on his hands and knees, with the lamp on the floor, to look under the bed, like a silly girl.  He saw a lot of dust and nothing else.  He got up, his cheeks burning, and walked about discontented with his own behaviour and unreasonably angry with Tom for not leaving him alone.  The words:  “Mr. Byrne!  Look out, sir,” kept on repeating themselves in his head in a tone of warning.

“Hadn’t I better just throw myself on the bed and try to go to sleep,” he asked himself.  But his eyes fell on the tall wardrobe, and he went towards it feeling irritated with himself and yet unable to desist.  How he could explain to-morrow the burglarious misdeed to the two odious witches he had no idea.  Nevertheless he inserted the point of his hanger between the two halves of the door and tried to prize them open.  They resisted.  He swore, sticking now hotly to his purpose.  His mutter:  “I hope you will be satisfied, confound you,” was addressed to the absent Tom.  Just then the doors gave way and flew open.

He was there.

He—­the trusty, sagacious, and courageous Tom was there, drawn up shadowy and stiff, in a prudent silence, which his wide-open eyes by their fixed gleam seemed to command Byrne to respect.  But Byrne was too startled to make a sound.  Amazed, he stepped back a little—­and on the instant the seaman flung himself forward headlong as if to clasp his officer round the neck.  Instinctively Byrne put out his faltering arms; he felt the horrible rigidity of the body and then the coldness of death as their heads knocked together and their faces came into contact.  They reeled, Byrne hugging Tom close to his breast in order not to let him fall with a crash.  He had just strength enough to lower the awful burden gently to the floor—­then his head swam, his legs gave way, and he sank on his knees, leaning over the body with his hands resting on the breast of that man once full of generous life, and now as insensible as a stone.

“Dead! my poor Tom, dead,” he repeated mentally.  The light of the lamp standing near the edge of the table fell from above straight on the stony empty stare of these eyes which naturally had a mobile and merry expression.