Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/354

334 Then I must have shut my eyes, for I knew what was coming. The next moment that brutal mallet of a fist in the sulphur-colored glove struck me full in the face. It did not hurt, for the world went suddenly black about me and I seemed to be wafting gently downward at the same time that about a thousand feather-ticks seemed to be emptied all about me to ease that fall. I felt nothing, after that. But through that sudden descent into dreaminess I once more heard, or seemed to hear, the tremulous scream of a woman, a scream of incredulity and repugnance, a scream of loathing and enlightenment. And then I sank down into a gray and feathery nothingness where there was neither sound nor light nor sulphur-colored gloves.