The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-07-20

distance half a kertse away. 1t is
doubtless the lamp of the dying, or,
p~erchance, dead man, and yonder must
be the cracknel makers house. There
can be no mistake, the old bag pointed
ii out. And so saying, with the noise
Of the storm in his ears, DR..
Trifuldas hurries on toward the
house, which, standing alone in the
midst of a wide heath, is more distinct
~ perceptlble as the wayfarer ap-
proaches.
1t is a singular and noteworthy fact
to observe how mnCh the house OF the
cracknel-maker locks like the doctors
SiI-Four, at Luktrop; there is the same
arrangement Il the front windows, and
the little vaulted door AZ the side.
Doctor Trifulgas strides on as fast as
the driving gusts of wind and rain will
permit. He reaches the door, which is
ajar, pushes it open, enters, and the
blast closes it behind him with a bang.
The dog outside howls or is silent, by
turns, like choristers chanting the vers-
es of a Forty Hours psalm.
How very strange! One might al
most be led to suppose that Doctor
Trifulgas had come back to his own
house. But this can not be-. He took
no wrong turning on the road, nor
did he lose his way. No, he is GER
tsinlv at Val karniOu, and, not at
Luktrop. Yet how comes it his eve
dwells on the same, low, vaulted cor
ridOr, the same winding staircase, and
the same massive wooden railing,
hand-worn like his own? He ascends.
and stops on the landing. A faint
light comes from under the door, as at
the Siz-Four.
Is it a snare or a d~elusion? By the
weak glimmer of the lamp. he vaguely
recognizes his own room-there the vel
low sofa; there, on the right, the old
oaken chest and there, on the left, the
iron-girt safe, in which he had thought
of placing his one hundred and twenty
fretzers. Yonder is his armchair with
its leather ~tassels, his table with its
convoluted legs, and upon it, by the
Pickering lamp, his own Codex, open at
page 1877.
"What ails me? " murmurs the doctor.
What ails thee? Why thou art palsied
with fright. Thy eyeballs start from
their sockets. The body contracts and
dwindles in size. An icy sweat chills
thy skin, on which nameless horrors
seem to creep,
Quick. or the lamp, for want of oil,
will go out, and the sick man die. Ay,
the bed is there-his own, with its pill
lows and ~baldaquln-a bed as long as it
is broad, and the closed curtains with
their large ~inwrought flowers. Can this
indeed be the bed of a poor cracknel-
maker? Trembling. the doctor draws
near, pulls the curtains aside, and peers
within.
There, outstretched on his dying bed,
lies the sick man, with his head outside
the counterpart and m~otionless, like
one about to breathe his last. The doc
tor bends forward
ALL what CHASTITY scream is that
which rends the air, and is taken mp by
the dog outside with his sinister howl
ing? 1t is not Wort Kartif, the crack
nel-maker, who is the dying man, but
he, the doctor, Doctor Trifulgas him
self!-hS who is smitten down with
brain feYer-he and no other. Full
well he knows the symptoms. 1t is
cerebral apoplexy, with sudden accu-
mutation of serosity in the cavities of
tho brain, and partial paralysis of the
body on the side opposite that where
the lesion exists. Ay, it was for him
that assistance was besought, that one
hundred and twenty fretzers were paidl
He who, in the hardness Of his heart,
had refused to attend the poor crack
nel-makerl 1t is he now that is dying
Doctor Trifulgas raved like a maniac.
The symptoms increased every minute.
Not only were all the functions ofrelation
dead in him, butthe beatings Of his heart
were nearly gone, like the breath Of his.
lungs. Yet he had not lost all c~oncious-
ness Of his desperate strait.
What shall he do? Diminish the mass
of the blood by bleeding? There must
be no hesitation, or Doctor Trifulgas is
a dead man. Phlebotomy was still
praeticed in Volsinia, and there, as here,
the doctors rescued from apoplexy eli
those who were not TO die from its
effects.
Doctor TrifulgGs sized his case Of
instruments, took his lancet, and
punctured the vein on his duplicate self.
NO oloou, however, bpuTLeu IIOM Tic
wounds. He rubbed with oil his might
the chest OF the dying one, but he found
that the pulsations of his own heart dim
inished; he burnt the others feet with
hot bricks, but felt his own feet growing
cold.
Suddenly his duplicate starts I'D in
his bed, struggles wildly In. the last
throes Of suspended breathing, a rattle
is heard in his throat, and Doctor Trif-
ulgas, with all his science, falls back
dead in his " arms.
The following morning q corpse was
found in the house known as the Six
Four-that of Doctor Trifulgas. He
was placed IN a coffin, and conveyed, ia
great pomp, to the cemetery Of Luktrop.i
after the manner Of the many he had
already sent there.
Is foT 0iu hurz0f, 4 am told the
faithful beast may still BE- seen, with
his lantern relightel, securing the
heath and bowling for his lost master.
II this be true or nat, / can not say
Yet SO many strange things DO occur ia
this Yolsinian country, especially round
about Luktrop, that ! seeno reason to