Herman Melville: Pierre, Or the Ambiguities

At night the squat-framed, asthmatic turnkey tramped the dim-lit iron gallery before one of the long honey-combed rows of cells.

"Mighty still there, in that hole, them two mice I let in;- humph!"

Suddenly, at the further end of the gallery, he discerned a shadowy figure emerging from the archway there, and running on before an officer, and impetuously approaching where the turnkey stood.

"More relations coming. These wind-broken chaps are always in before the second death, seeing they always miss the first.-Humph! What a froth the fellow's in? — Wheezes worse than me!"

"Where is she?" cried Fred Tartan, fiercely, to him; "she's not at the murderer's room! I sought the sweet girl there, instant upon the blow; but the lone dumb thing I found there only wrung her speechless hands and pointed to the door;- both birds were flown! Where is she, turnkey? I've searched all lengths and breadths but this. Hath any angel swept adown and lighted in your granite hell?"

"Broken his wind, and broken loose, too, ain't he?" wheezed the turnkey to the officer who now came up.

"This gentleman seeks a young lady, his sister, some way innocently connected with the prisoner last brought in. Have any females been here to see him?"

"Oh, ay, — two of 'em in there now"; jerking his stumped thumb behind him.

Fred darted toward the designated cell.

"Oh, easy, easy, young gentleman"-jingling at his huge bunch of keys-"easy, easy, till I get the picks-I'm housewife here.-Hallo, here comes another."

Hurrying through the same archway toward them, there now rapidly advanced a second impetuous figure, running on in advance of a second officer.

"Where is the cell?" demanded Millthorpe.

"He seeks an interview with the last prisoner," explained the second officer.

"Kill 'em both with one stone, then," wheezed the turnkey, gratingly throwing open the door of the cell. "There's his pretty parlor, gentlemen; step in. Reg'lar mouse-hole, aren't it? — Might hear a rabbit burrow on the world's t'other side;- are they all 'sleep?"

"I stumble!" cried Fred, from within; "Lucy! A light! a light! — Lucy!" And he wildly groped about the cell, and blindly caught Millthorpe, who was also wildly groping.

"Blister me not! take off thy bloody touch! — Ho, ho, the light! — Lucy! Lucy! — she's fainted!"

Then both stumbled again, and fell from each other in the cell: and for a moment all seemed still, as though all breaths were held.

As the light was now thrust in, Fred was seen on the floor holding his sister in his arms; and Millthorpe kneeling by the side of Pierre, the unresponsive hand in his; while Isabel, feebly moving, reclined between, against the wall.

"Yes! Yes! — Dead! Dead! Dead! — without one visible wound-her sweet plumage hides it.-Thou hellish carrion, this is thy hellish work! Thy juggler's rifle brought down this heavenly bird! Oh, my God, my God! Thou scalpest me with this sight!"

"The dark vein's burst, and here's the deluge-wreck-all stranded here! Ah, Pierre! my old companion, Pierre;- schoolmate-play-mate-friend! — Our sweet boys' walks within the woods! — Oh, I would have rallied thee, and banteringly warned thee from thy too moody ways, but thou wouldst never heed! What scornful innocence rests on thy lips, my friend! — Hand scorched with murderer's powder, yet how woman-soft! — By heaven, these fingers move! — one speechless clasp! — all's o'er!"

"All's o'er, and ye know him not!" came gasping from the wall; and from the fingers of Isabel dropped an empty vial- as it had been a run-out sand-glass-and shivered upon the floor; and her whole form sloped sideways, and she fell upon Pierre's heart, and her long hair ran over him, and arbored him in ebon vines.