And as he spoke, Toole was dropping something from a phial into a wine-glass—­sal volatile—­ether—­I can’t say; but when Dr. Sturk swallowed it there was a ‘potter-carrier’s’ aroma about the room.

Then there was a pause for a while, and Toole kept his fingers on his pulse; and Sturk looked, for some time, as if he were on the point of fainting, which, in his case, might have proved very like dying.

‘Have you the claret bottle in the room?’ demanded Toole, a little flurried; for Sturk’s pulses were playing odd pranks, and bounding and sinking in a dance of death.

‘The what, Sir?’ asked the maid.

‘The wine, woman—­this instant,’ said the doctor, with a little stamp.

So, the moment he had the bottle, he poured out half a large glass, and began spooning it into Sturk’s white parted lips.

Lowe looked on very uneasily; for he expected, as Toole did also, prodigious revelations; though each had a suspicion that he divined their nature tolerably clearly.

‘Give him some more,’ said Toole, with his fingers on the sick man’s wrist, and watching his countenance.  ’D——­ it, don’t be afraid—­more, some more—­more!’

And so the Artillery doctor’s spirit revived within him; though with flickerings and tremblings; and he heaved some great sighs, and moved his lips.  Then he lay still for a while; and after that he spoke.

‘The pen, Sir,—­write,’ he said.  ’He met me in the Butcher’s Wood; he said he was going to sleep in town,’ and Sturk groaned dismally; ’and he began talking on business—­and turned and walked a bit with me.  I did not expect to see him there—­he was frank—­and spoke me fair.  We were walking slowly.  He looked up in the sky with his hands in his coat pockets and was a step, or so, in advance of me; and he turned short—­I didn’t know—­I had no more fear than you—­and struck me a blow with something he had in his hand.  He rose to the blow on his toes—­’twas so swift, I had no time—­I could not see what he struck with, ’twas like a short bit of rope.’

‘Charles Archer?  Do you know him, Dr. Toole?’ asked Lowe.  Toole shook his head.

‘Charles Archer!’ he repeated, looking at Sturk; ‘where does he live?’ and he winked to Toole, who was about speaking, to hold his peace.

’Here—­in this town—­Chapelizod, up the river, a bit, with—­with a—­changed name,’ answered Sturk.  And at the name he mentioned, Lowe and Toole, in silence and steadfastly, exchanged a pale, grim glance that was awful to see.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

IN WHICH A CERTAIN SONGSTER TREATS THE COMPANY TO A DOLOROUS BALLAD WHEREBY MR. IRONS IS SOMEWHAT MOVED.

It seemed that Mr. Dangerfield had taken Zekiel Irons’s measure pretty exactly.  The clerk had quite made up his mind to take the bold step urged upon him by that gentleman.  He was a slow man.  When one idea had fairly got into his head there was no room there for another.  Cowardly and plotting; but when his cowardice was wrought upon to a certain pitch, he would wax daring and fierce from desperation.