Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/19

Rh The creature, stooping, rained on to his motionless body a hail of blows, making all the time that horrid, gasping noise, and then was still.

I had been conscious all the time that there was something about the creature which was terribly human. It appeared to be covered with a flowing robe of some shining, silken stuff, whose voluminous skirts whirled hither and thither as it writhed and twisted. Now that it became motionless there broke on my ears the sound of a woman's laughter.

I am not a nervous subject. Nor am I, I believe, a physical coward. But I am compelled to own that, instead of attempting to interfere, or offering the assistance which I had only too good reason to suppose was urgently needed, at the sound of the laughter, like some frightened cur, I turned and fled. And not the least strange part of the whole business was that, as it seemed, immediately after, I woke up. Woke to find that, however it might appear to the contrary, I certainly had been asleep, for I was sitting up in bed covered with sweat and trembling in every limb.

I looked about me. The blind was up before the long French window. I remember drawing it up, as was my usual habit, before I got into bed. The moon was shining through. All at once a sound caught my anxious ear. I started forward to learn from whence it came. From the window!