Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/174

162 were three in number, and each of them had a black back, as black as a piece of ebony. The faces were coloured in intense colours, one of gold, which seemed to burn, one of crimson, which glowed, one of black, which seemed angry like the smoke of hell. The colours of them seemed to be the tokens of a beauty, a fierceness and a horror, beyond any words that he could fashion.

The black woman grinned at him as she thrust the cards together. She crouched down upon the hearth, purring like a cat, cackling, whining. Her eyes gleamed as she began to shuffle the cards, tossing them in the air, passing, re-passing, whirling them about, till they seemed like three arrows of red and gold and black fire. At last she flung them all into the air, caught them in one hand as they fell, bowed very low, her lips grinning, her eyes intensely bright, and held them out, face downwards, for him to make his choice. All that he could see were three black cards, spread out before him like the sticks of a fan. Yet he knew that upon his choice of a card depended his life, his life hereafter, the life of his soul between the lives.