It had a long cumbrous iron latch.  He saw the latch slowly and softly rise.  The door opened a very little, and came to again, as though only the air had moved it.  But he saw that the latch was out of the hasp.

The door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough to admit some one.  It afterwards remained still for a while, as though cautiously held open on the other side.  The figure of a man then entered, with its face turned towards the bed, and stood quiet just within the door.  Until it said, in a low half-whisper, at the same time taking one stop forward:  “Vendale!”

“What now?” he answered, springing from his seat; “who is it?”

It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as Vendale came upon him from that unexpected direction.  “Not in bed?” he said, catching him by both shoulders with an instinctive tendency to a struggle.  “Then something is wrong!”

“What do you mean?” said Vendale, releasing himself.

“First tell me; you are not ill?”

“Ill?  No.”

“I have had a bad dream about you.  How is it that I see you up and dressed?”

“My good fellow, I may as well ask you how it is that I see you up and undressed?”

“I have told you why.  I have had a bad dream about you.  I tried to rest after it, but it was impossible.  I could not make up my mind to stay where I was without knowing you were safe; and yet I could not make up my mind to come in here.  I have been minutes hesitating at the door.  It is so easy to laugh at a dream that you have not dreamed.  Where is your candle?”

“Burnt out.”

“I have a whole one in my room.  Shall I fetch it?”

“Do so.”

His room was very near, and he was absent for but a few seconds.  Coming back with the candle in his hand, he kneeled down on the hearth and lighted it.  As he blew with his breath a charred billet into flame for the purpose, Vendale, looking down at him, saw that his lips were white and not easy of control.

“Yes!” said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, “it was a bad dream.  Only look at me!”

His feet were bare; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows; his only other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to the ankles, fitted him close and tight.  A certain lithe and savage appearance was on his figure, and his eyes were very bright.

“If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed,” said Obenreizer, “you see, I was stripped for it.”

“And armed too,” said Vendale, glancing at his girdle.

“A traveller’s dagger, that I always carry on the road,” he answered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left hand, and putting it back again.  “Do you carry no such thing?”

“Nothing of the kind.”

“No pistols?” said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it to the untouched pillow.