Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/129

Rh She looked about her with an agony of appeal which it was terrible to witness. My heart sank within my breast. At that moment I could not have gone to her even had I tried.

"Let me see—how did it happen? He stood here, and—the other laughed; and then there came the knife—the long, gleaming knife—and struck him in the back; and he looked round, and—I saw his face. His face! What a face! It was as if he were looking into hell. Don't look at me—not like that. I can't help you! It's too late! Turn your face away; don't let me see it; it isn't fair. It was the devil did it—the devil! It wasn't I. And then it took him by the throat with a dozen hands, and with a hundred knives cut at his face, until, before my eyes, I saw him losing his likeness to a man. And then it loosed him, and the great knife struck him from the back, and he fell on his face—what was his face, and then the hack, hack, hacking! And all the time that horrid noise."

She held up her arms in an anguish of supplication.

"Oh Lord, in what have I offended that this thing should come upon me? If I have sinned, surely my punishment is greater than my sin. That you should lay this burden on me, to bear for ever, and for ever, and for ever! Take it from me, let me wake to find it is a dream—the