merary man—before his trial commenced.
The company was now divided into two great classes—those who had a marriage garment, and the unfortunate giant who had none. So much was clear: but, to make further discoveries, the host now stepped up to him hastily—and said, “Your name, if you please.”
The masque stood as mute, as tall, and as immoveable as the gable end of a house. “Your name,” repeated Mr. Goodchild: “I’ll trouble you for your name.” No answer coming, a cold shivering seized upon Mr. Goodchild. In fact, at this moment a story came across him from his childish years—that, when Dr. Faustus was played, it had sometimes happened that amongst the stage devils there was suddenly observed to be one too many; and the supernumerary one was found to be no spurious devil, but a true—sound—and legitimate devil.
For the third time, while his teeth chattered, he said—“Your name, if you please.”
“I have none,” said Mr. Tempest, in so hollow a voice, that the heart of the worthy merchant sunk down in a moment to his knee-buckles, and an ice-wind of panic began to blow pretty freshly through the whole company.
“Your face then, if you please, sir,” stammered out Mr. Goodchild.
Very slowly and unwillingly the masque, being thus importunately besieged, proceeded to comply: but scarcely had he unmasqued and exposed the death’s head, when every soul ran out of the room with an outcry of horror.
The masque sprang after them, bounding like a grey-hound, and his grinning skull nodding as he moved: this he did under pretence of pursuing them, but in fact to take advantage of the general panic for making his exit.
CHAPTER XIX.
The parting Kiss. Miss Goodchild in the Arms of Death.
In an ante-room, now totally deserted, Death was met by Ida, who said to him,—“Ah! for God’s sake, make your escape. Oh! if you did but know what anxiety I have suffered on account of your strange conceit.” Here she paused; and spite of her anxiety she could not forbear smiling at the thought of the sudden coup-de-théâtre by which Mr. Tempest had turned the tables upon every soul that had previously been enjoying his panic: in the twinkling of an eye he had inflicted a far deeper panic upon them; and she had herself been passed by the whole herd of fugitives—tall and short, corpulent and lanky, halt and lame, young and old—all spinning away with equal energy before the face of the supernumerary guest.
Death in return told Ida how he had been an eye-witness to the game of questions and commands, and to the letting down of the curtains. This spectacle (he acknowledged) had so tortured him, that he could stand it no longer; and he had sworn within himself that he would have a kiss as well as other persons, and further that he would go and fetch it himself from the midst of the masquerade, though not expecting to have been detected as the extra passenger or nip.[1] And surely, when a whole company had tasted the ambrosia of her lips, Miss Goodchild would not be so unkind as to dismiss him alone without that happiness.
No: Miss Goodchild was not so unkind: and Death was just in the act of applying his lips to the rosy mouth of Ida, when old Goodchild came peeping in at the door to see if the coast were clear of the dreadful masque; and behind him was a train of guests—all stepping gently and on tip-toe from an adjoining corridor.
Every soul was petrified with astonishment, on seeing the young warm-breathing Ida on such close and apparently friendly terms with the black gigantic Death, whose skull was grinning just right above the youthful pair and surmounting them like a crest. At this sight, all became
- ↑ In England, passengers who are taken up on stage coaches by the collusion of the guard and coachman, without the knowledge of the proprietors, are called nips.
