The steely eyes of the hunchback watched the contest anxiously. Suddenly a change came over the wildly working face--it fell back chill and rigid on the pillow, the eyes closed. The room seemed to fill with an impalpable, brooding Vapour, as if a thick fog were falling outside. The watcher caught madly at his friend's wrist and sought to detect a pulsation. His eyes glowed with horrible exultant relief. "Not yet, not yet, Brother Azrael," he said mockingly, as if addressing the impalpable Vapour; "Thou who art wholly woven of Eyes, canst Thou not see that it is not yet time to throw the fatal pellet into his throat? Back, back!" The Vapour thickened. The minutes passed. The hunchback peered expectant at the corpse-like face on the dingy pillow. At last the eyes opened, but in them shone a strange, rapt expression. "Thank God, Rivkoly!" the dying lips muttered. "I knew thou wouldst come." As he spoke there was a frantic beating at the door. The hunchback's face was convulsed. "Hasten, hasten, Brother Azrael!" he cried. The Vapour lightened a little. Moshé Grinwitz seemed to rally. His face glowed with eagerness. "Open the door! open the door!" he cried. "It's Rivkoly--my Rivkoly!" The vain battering at the door grew fiercer, but none noted it in the house. Since the shadow of the hunchback had first fallen within that thickly crowded human nest, the doves had become hawks, the hawks vultures. All was discord and bickering. "Lie still," said the hunchback; "'tis but your fevered imagination. Drink." He put the jug to the dying man's lips, but it was dashed violently from his hand and shattered into a hundred pieces. "Give me nothing bought with Christian money!" gasped Moshé hoarsely, his breath rattling painfully in his throat. "Never will I knowingly gain by the denial of the Unity of God." "Then die like a dog!" roared the hunchback. "Hasten, Brother Azrael!" The Vapour folded itself thickly about the room. The rickety door was shaken frantically, as by a great gale. "Moshé! Moshé!" shrieked a voice. "Let me in--me--thy Rivkoly! In God's name, let me in! I bring thee a precious gift. Or art thou dead, dead, dead? My God, why didst Thou not cause me to know he was ill before!" "Your husband is dying," said the hunchback. "When he is dead, you shall look upon his face. But he may not look upon your face again. You have sworn it." "Devil!" cried the fierce voice of the woman. "I swore it on _Kol Nidré_ night, when I had just asked the Almighty to absolve me from all rash oaths. Let me in, I tell you." "I will not have a sacred oath treated thus lightly," said the hunchback savagely. "I will keep your soul from sin." "Cursed be thou to eternity of eternities!" replied the woman. "Pray, Moshé, pray for thy soul. Pray, for thou art dying." "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one," rose the sonorous Hebrew.