Without pausing to think, Dorcas made a rush towards him, and so soon as the door was opened she dashed within the house, and fled up the staircase—­fled she knew not whither—­uttering breathless, frightened cries, whilst all the time she knew that her pursuer was close behind, and heard his voice mingled with angry cries of remonstrance from the man they had left below.

Suddenly a door close to Dorcas opened, and a new terror was revealed to her horror-stricken gaze.  A gaunt, tall figure, wrapped in a long white garment that looked like grave clothes, sprang out into the stairway with a shriek that was like nothing human.  Dorcas sank, almost fainting with terror, to the ground; but the spectre—­for such it seemed to her—­paid no heed to her, but sprang upon her pursuer, who had at that moment come up, and the next moment had his arms wound about him in a bearlike embrace, whilst all the time he was laughing an awful laugh.  Then lifting the unfortunate young man off his feet with a strength that was almost superhuman, he bore him rapidly down the stairs and rushed out with him into the street.

All this happened in so brief a moment of time that Dorcas had not even time to regain her feet, or to utter the scream of terror which came to her lips.  But as she found breath to utter her cry, another door opened and a scared face looked out, whilst a woman’s voice asked in lamentable accents: 

“What do you here, maiden?  What has happened to bring any person into this shut-up house?  Child, child, how didst thou obtain entrance here?  The plague is in this house, and we are straitly shut up!”

Before Dorcas could answer for fright and the confusion of her faculties, a pale-faced watchman came hurrying up the stairs.

“Where is the maid?” he asked, and then seeing Dorcas he grasped her by the wrist and cried, “Unless you wish to be shut up for a month, come away instantly.  This is a stricken house.  What possessed you to seek shelter here?  Better anything than that.

“As for your son, mistress, he is fled forth into the street; I could not hinder him.  We are undone if the constable comes.  But if we can get him back again ere that, all may be well.  I will let you forth to lead him hither if he will listen to your voice.”

From the room whence the sick man had appeared a frightened face looked forth, and a half-tipsy old crone whimpered out: 

“The fault was none of mine.  I had but just dropped asleep for a moment.  But when a man has the strength of ten what can one poor old woman do?”

Without paying any heed to this creature, the watchman and the mother of the plague-stricken man, together with Dorcas, who hurriedly told her tale as they moved, ran down the dark staircase and out into the street.  There, a little way off, was the tall spectre-like figure, still hugging in bearlike embrace the hapless Frederick, and dancing the while a most weird and fantastic dance, chanting some awful words which none could rightly catch, but the burden of which was, “The dance of death! the dance of death!  None who dances here with me will dance with any other!”