This time he bore a huge bulk of patched and soiled canvas,
part of an old sail, which he hung from the ceiling across the middle
of the room, thus shutting off Twinetoes, Mick and myself from that
part where was the door on to the stairs. He was not noisy, but he made
no attempt to keep the previous death stillness of the house.
As the Boss descended the stairs, a surprising thing happened--and Mick
awoke. Girlish laughter rippled up the stairs! "God Almighty," said
Mick, "what's that?"
Again it came, and with it the gurgling of the old woman. It was
impossible and incredible, that mingling in the fetid air of those two
sounds, as if the babble of clear spring water had suddenly broken into
and merged with the turgid roll of a city sewer. Mick sat up. "But this
is bloody!" he said.
"Wait," was all I replied.
We waited. Mick slipped out of bed, carefully opened his knife and made
a few judicious slits in the veiling canvas. My senses had become
abnormally acute. I seemed to hear every shade of sound within and
without the house. I could sense, I imagined, the very positions in
which sat the persons in the kitchen below.
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