.png)
(See p. 297.)
belfrys, whose drowsy voices were borne far away upon the sweeping storm.
A step on the stairs: enter Balfour more serious and dour in aspect than usual. Wrapped in a rough-coat and muffler, he did not speak until he had removed and shaken his drenched garments.
“Balfour, this is a capital night for us; we shall have no witness to our proceedings in this howling storm.”
“Do you think so?” he replied. “For all that, there are busy fiends who love the darkness and the storm. Come, get to work, we have no time to lose; already eleven o’clock has struck, and I see,” turning reproachfully towards me, “the dissection for to-morrow’s lecture is not yet even begun. Come, to work!”
So saying he uncovered the body, and proceeded to flex the arm across the chest the more readily to dissect the upper and back part of the extremity, at the same time that he secured it with a chain hook to the other side of the table. The limb was thus put forcibly upon the stretch, and the subject drawn over on its side. Balfour, seating himself opposite the arm, commenced the work. I was on the other side engaged in reading aloud the anatomical description of the parts we were preparing, when, during a pause, the hook which had secured the arm in the direction before mentioned, slipped its hold, and the hand, suddenly freed from its bondage, swung with an increased momentum given by the turning body, and struck Balfour a violent blow upon the face. With a fearful shriek—the more startling from his habitual composure—Balfour sprung to his feet, like Richard in the tent-scene; with hair erect, blanched face, and large drops of perspiration gathering on his brow, he staggered back, shouting:
“Oh, God! the man’s alive!”
I dashed at him, horror-struck myself, not at what had occurred—for I saw how it had happened—but at the abject terror of my companion, appalling to the last degree. Clasped together we hustled each other into a corner of the room, giving, in our passing struggles, a sharp gyration to the suspended skeletons. I shook him violently, exclaiming:
“He is not alive; he is dead—dead!”
But Balfour, half death-struck himself, still gasped: “Alive!—alive!”
“No, no, no,” I repeated; “he is dead!”
At length he drew a deep breath, and sunk down in the corner whimpering:
“And yet it is impossible, that half-dissected body cannot be alive.”
“My good fellow,” said I, “this is mere childish delusion—what is the matter with you? are you well? Here, take some brandy.”
He seized the flask and drank deeply; then, with a strong effort, he rose, walked to the fire, sat down with his back to the dissecting-table, and said nothing.
The whole scene was very ghastly. Balfour’s firmness in all times of trial, heretofore, made his present abject fear the more unnatural and shocking; no doubt, to a man of his serious mind and ordinary gloomy disposition, with a temperament