Something was there, in the dully lighted room--down on the rug before the fire. Something had rolled and raved and tore at the material beneath it--an animal’s skin, judged by the whisps of ragged hair that stuck in the creature’s claws and between his teeth that had rent them out--something--Duke, who foamed and raged as he lay sprawled on his hands and knees and snarled like a wild beast in his frenzy of insanity. “He’s mad--mad!” I whispered to myself in an awful voice; and yet he heard me and paused in the height of his fury, and looked round and up at me standing white-lipped by the door. Then suddenly, while I was striving, amid the wild heat of my brain, to identify some hooded memory that raised its head in darkness, the maniac sprung to his feet, gripped me by the wrist and pointed down at the huddled heap beneath him. “Look!” he shrieked, the firelight dancing in his glittering eyes. “Look! we’ve met at last! The dog that scared and tortured the wretched sick boy--the dog, the devil! Into the fire with him to blaze and writhe and scream as a devil should!” He plunged again, snarling; and, before I could gather sense to stop him, had seized and flung the whole mass upon the burning coals. Flames shot out and around, and the room in a moment was sick with the stench of flaring pelt. I rushed to tear the heap away; but he met and struggled with me like a fiend inspired, and helpless I saw the flames lick higher. Straining against me, he laughed and yelled: “He wants water! He shrieks to Abraham--but not a drop--not one! Look at his red tongue, shooting out in agony! They fall before me--at last, at last! My time has come!” His voice rose to a scream--there was a responsive shout from the door. I slewed my head round and saw the white face of the servant girl peering through the opening behind the figure of Dr. Crackenthorpe standing there in black, blank amazement. “Help!” I cried; “he’s mad!” With a deep oath the doctor strode forward, and Duke saw him. In an instant, with a cry of different tone--a shriek of terror--he spun me from him, sprung past the other, drove the girl screaming into the passage, and was gone. “Stop! By all----” The doctor’s exclamation was for me. I had staggered back, but an immediate fear drove me, with no time for explanation, to hurried pursuit. “Out of the way!” I cried, violently; “he mustn’t escape!” He would have barred my passage. I came against him with a shock that sent him reeling. As his hands clutched vainly in the air I rushed from the room and from the house. With my first plunge into the street a weltering stream of fire ran across the sky, and in a moment an explosive crash shook the city like the bursting open of the gates of torment. Amid flood and storm and the numbing slam of thunder the tragedy of the night was drawing to its close. CHAPTER LIX. INTO THE DEPTHS.