"Hennessey!" repeated the voice.

Then there was a faint rustling, the door was opened more widely, and Mrs. Merillia appeared in the aperture, clad in a most charming night bonnet, and robed in a dressing-gown of white watered silk.

"The ratcatcher!" she cried. "The ratcatcher!"

Malkiel turned and darted down the stairs, while Mrs. Merillia, in the extreme of terror, shut her door, locked it as many times as she could, and then hastened trembling to the bell which communicated with the faithful Mrs. Fancy, rang it, and dropped half fainting into a chair.

Mrs. Fancy woke from her second dream just as Malkiel, closely followed by the now shattered Gustavus, reached the hall.

"Hide me! Hide me!" whispered Malkiel. "In here!"

And he darted into the servants' quarters, leaving Gustavus on the mat. Mrs. Merillia's other bell now pealed shrilly downstairs. Gustavus paused and pulled himself together. He was by nature a fairly intrepid youth, and moreover, he had recently made a close study of Carlyle's _Heroes and Hero-worship_, which greatly impressed him. He therefore resolved in this moment of peril to acquit himself in similar circ.u.mstances, and he remounted the stairs and reached Mrs. Merillia's door just as Mrs. Fancy, wrapped in a woollen shawl and wearing a pair of knitted night-socks, descended to the landing, candle in hand.

"Oh, Mr. Gustavus!" said Mrs. Fancy. "Is it the robbers again? Is it murder, Mr. Gustavus? Is it fire?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Fancy, I'll ask the mistress."

He tapped upon the door.

"You can't come in!" cried poor Mrs. Merillia, who was losing her head perhaps for the first time in her life. "You can't come in, and if you do I shall give you in charge to the police."

And she rang both her bells again.

"Ma'am!" said Gustavus, knocking once more. "Ma'am!"

"It's no use your knocking," returned Mrs. Merillia. "The door is bolted. Go away, go away!"

And again she rang her two bells.

"Madam!" piped Mrs. Fancy. "Madam! It's me!"

"I know," said Mrs. Merillia. "I know it's you! I saw you! Leave the house unless you wish to be at once put in prison."

Her bells pealed. Mrs. Fancy began to sob.

"Me to leave the house!" she wailed. "Me to go to prison!"

"Bear up, Mrs. Fancy, she doesn't know who it is!" said Gustavus.

"Ma'am! Ma'am! Missis! Missis!"

"I am ringing," said Mrs. Merillia, in a m.u.f.fled manner through the door. "I am summoning a.s.sistance! You will be captured if you don't go away."

And again she pealed her bells. This time, as she did so, the tingling of a third bell became audible in the silent house.

"Lord!" cried Gustavus, "if there isn't the hall door. It must be master. He left his key to-night. Here's a nice go!"

The three bells raised their piercing chorus. Mrs. Fancy sobbed, and Gustavus, after a terrible moment of hesitation, bounded down the hall.

His instinct had not played him false. The person who had rung the bell was indeed the Prophet, who had basely slunk away from Zoological House, leaving Madame surrounded by her new and adoring friends.

"Thank you, Gustavus," he said, entering. "Take my coat, please. What's that?"

For Mrs. Merillia's bells struck shrilly upon his astonished ears.

"I think it's Mrs. Merillia, sir. She keeps on ringing."

"Mrs. Merillia. At this hour! Heavens! Is she ill?"

"I don't know, sir. She keeps ringing; but when I answer it she says, 'Go away!' she says. 'Go--' she says, sir."

"How very strange!"

And the Prophet bounded upstairs and arrived at his grandmother's door just in time to hear her cry out, in reply to poor Mrs. Fancy's distracted knocking,--

"If you try to break in you will be put in prison at once. I hear a.s.sistance coming. I hear the police. Go away, you wicked, wicked man!"

"Grannie!" cried the Prophet through the keyhole. "Grannie, let me in!

Grannie! Grannie! Don't ring! Grannie! Grannie!"

But Mrs. Merillia was now completely out of herself, and her only response to her grandson's appeal was to place her trembling fingers upon the two bells, and to reply, through their uproar,--

"It is useless for you to say that. I know who you are. I saw you. I shall go on ringing as long as I can stand. I shall die ringing, but I shall never let you in. Go away! Go away!"

"What does she mean?" cried the Prophet, turning to Gustavus.

"I don't know indeed, sir," replied the footman, thinking of Mr.

Carter's library. "I couldn't say indeed, sir."

"Oh, my poor missis!" wailed Mrs. Fancy, trembling in her night-socks.

"Oh, my poor dear missis! I can't speak different nor mean other. Oh, missis, missis!"

"Hush, Fancy!" said the Prophet, in the greatest distraction. "Grannie!

Grannie!"

And seizing the handle of the door he shook it violently. Mrs. Merillia was now very naturally under the impression that the ratcatcher was determined to break in and murder her without more ado. Extreme danger often seems to exercise a strangely calming influence upon the human soul. So it was now. Upon hearing her bedroom door quivering under the a.s.sault of the Prophet, Mrs. Merillia was abruptly invaded by a sort of desperate courage. She left the bells, tottered to the grate in which a good fire was blazing, seized the poker and thrust it between the bars and into the heart of the flames, at the same time crying out in a quavering but determined voice,--

"I am heating the poker! If you come in you will repent it. I am heating the poker!"

On hearing this remark, the Prophet desisted from his a.s.sault upon the door, overcome by the absolute conviction that his beloved grandmother was suffering from a p.r.o.nounced form of homicidal mania. His affection prompted him to keep such a catastrophe secret as long as possible, and he therefore turned to Mrs. Fancy and Gustavus, and said hurriedly,--

"This is a matter for me alone. Mrs. Fancy, please go away at once.

Gustavus, you will accompany Mrs. Fancy."

His manner was so firm, his face so iron in its determination, that Mrs. Fancy and Gustavus dared not proffer a word. They turned away and disappeared softly down the stairs, to wait the _denouement_ of this tragedy in the hall below. Meantime the poker was growing red hot in the coals, and Mrs. Merillia announced to the supposed ratcatcher,--

"I can hear you--I hear you breathing--" (the Prophet endeavoured not to breathe). "I hear you rustling, but you can't touch me. The poker is red hot."

And she drew it smoking from the grate and approached the door, holding it in her delicate hand like a weapon.

"Grannie!" said the Prophet, making his voice as much like it generally was as he possibly could. "Dearest grannie!"