Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/303

Rh Goddess is not so easily to be brushed aside. As he rushed at her she leaped at him—like this."

Suddenly throwing out his arms he cried, in a loud voice, "Take me, for I am yours, O thou Goddess of the Scarlet Hands."

How exactly it all happened, even now I find it hard to say. As Lawrence sprang forward, the figure rose to its feet, and in an instant was alive. It opened its arms; from its finger-tips came knives. Stepping forward it gripped Lawrence with its steel-clad hands, with a grip from which there was no escaping. From every part of its frame gleaming blades had sprung; against this cheval-de-frise it pressed him again and again, twirling him round and round, moving him up and down, so that the weapons pierced and hacked back and front. Even from its eyes, mouth, and nostrils had sprung knives. It kept jerking its head backwards and forwards, so that it could stab with them at his face and head. And, all the while, from somewhere came the sound of a woman's laughter—that dreadful sound which I had heard in my dream.