Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/120

108 She was laughing. We might have been enjoying a romp. As if that were the place or season for anything of the sort!

“I trod upon a rat. Did you hear it squeal? I think it was its tail. I believe the little beast turned and flew at me, it felt as if it did. I hope I scrunched its silly little tail. What is one rat’s tail among so many? Now for Bluebeard’s Chamber No. 2. This time we’ll beware of iron.”

She made a preliminary sounding, luckily for her. Even a slight tap with the poker produced the ring of metal.

“Iron again, so that’s all right. Now what shall we do? Shall we confess ourselves baffled after all, and leave a formal attack until the morning, or shall we try the effect of a little more poker smashing? What ho, within! Is anyone inside there, living or dead? If so, would you be so very obliging as to just step forth, and let us see what kind of gentleman you are.” There was no response, thank goodness. I took her by the arm.

“Pollie, do let’s leave it to the morning, and do let’s go to bed!”

“We’ll go to bed!”

We went; at least we went into the bedroom. I did not feel much happier when we were there. To begin with, after the way in which she had been talking, my first thought was to do as much as possible to keep anyone out who might try to enter. But there was no key in the lock, the handle was loose, the hasp a bad one, so that the door would not even keep closed without our propping something up against it. I wanted Pollie to help me pile up a sort of barricade, consisting of chairs, the washhandstand, chest of drawers, and everything, as I had read of people doing in books. She only laughed at me.

“What good will it do? Who do you suppose it will