In an instant he was animated, and as quickly did he seem to collapse into himself. His eyes shut, his fists clenched, and his brow formed deep furrows that channeled rivulets of his sweat, as if he required the greatest of effort to keep from turning inside out. It seemed an eternity that he remained there, attempting regain control of his faculties.
His fever not fully passed, he turned his dark attentions toward the great chain upon his leg, clawing at it with broken nails and smashing his gnarled hands against the clasp. So awful and desperate was his flailing that I could scarcely move and stood there frozen even as he came closer to my tombstone. Once more losing himself, he took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.
"Now lookee here," he shouted in a hideous double voice, "the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a dirk-saw is?"
"Yes, sir. A toothed knife for slicing Howl Beast flesh."
His eyes bulged and appeared to yellow. "And you know what wittles is?"
"Yes, sir.”
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
"You get me a dirk-saw." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles." He tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more."
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:
"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that dirk-saw and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a monster hid about, in comparison with that devil I am a Angel. You know of what monster I speak. You might think them Howlers only come out with the moon, but this one has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver at whats’ever time he wishes. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from this one. A boy may surround himself with silver pikes, may walk about in the brightest day, may think himself comfortable and safe, but this Howler will claw his way to him and tear him to parts. I am a-keeping him from harming you at the present moment with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that devil off of your inside. Now, what do you say?"
I said that I would get him the dirk-saw, and I would get him what broken bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in the morning.
"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man.
I said so, and he took me down.
"Now," he pursued more calmly, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember that Howler, and you get home!"
"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered.
"Much of that!" said he almost to himself, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I’d a’rather been a frog. Or a eel!"
At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his arms - clasping himself as before, as if to hold himself together - and limped towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked in my young eyes as if he were eluding the claws of the dead people, stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his ankle and pull him in.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered - like an unhooped cask upon a pole - an ugly thing when you were near it; the other a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a dead Howl Beast as a warning to the rest. The man was limping on towards this latter, as if he were the Beast come to life, and come down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all round for the hidden Howl Beast, and could see no signs of it. But, now the moon was rising and I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.
