Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/106

94 there was a curious squeakiness about them, as if their natural tone was a falsetto. What they said was gibberish to us; it was uttered in an unknown tongue. The voices ceased. After an interval, during which, one suspected, their owners had withdrawn a step or two to consider the situation, one was raised alone. It had in it a threatening quality, as if it warned us of the pains and penalties we were incurring. The fact that we were being addressed in a language which was, to us, completely strange, seemed at that moment to have about it something dreadful. Audibly, we paid no heed. Only I felt Pollie’s grip growing tighter and tighter. I wondered if she knew that she would crush my fingers if she did not take care.

The single speaker ceased to hurl at us his imprecations. I felt sure it was bad language he was using. All was still.

“What are they doing?”

So close were Pollie’s lips her whispered words tickled my ear. We had not long to wait before the answer came—in the shape of a smashing blow directed against the door.

“They’re trying to break it down; they’ll soon wake up the neighbourhood if they make that noise. Let’s get farther into the house. Why—whatever’s that?”

She had turned. In doing so she had pulled me half round with her. Her words caused me to glance about in the darkness, searching for some new terror. Nor was I long in learning what had caused her exclamation. There, glaring at us through the inky blackness in flaming letters, a foot in length, were the words “TOO LATE!” Beneath them was some hideous creature’s head.

For a second or two, in the first shock of surprise, I imagined it to be the head of some actual man, or, rather, monster. As it gleamed there, with its wide open jaws, huge teeth and flashing eyes, it was like the