Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/182

170 gentleman, after a rapid glance at it, held it up with both hands high above his head. At once his two associates threw themselves down flat on their faces, grovelling before the penny doll as if it had been an object too sacred for ordinary eyes to look upon. The man of length without breadth began to say something in a high pitched monotone, which was in a language quite unknown to me, but which sounded as if it were a prayer or invocation. He spoke rapidly, as if he were repeating a form of words which he knew by heart.

I was getting interested. It seemed that I was surreptitiously assisting at some sort of religious service in which the doll played a conspicuous part. As I was momentarily expecting something to happen, something in the Arabian Nights way, as it were, that stupid hockey stick, slipping somehow from my grasp, fell with a bang upon the floor. That concluded the service on the spot. It must needs strike against the door in falling, driving it further open, so that I stood revealed to the trio in plain sight.

My impression is that they took me for something of horror; a demoniacal visitation, for all I know. My costume was weird enough to astonish even the Occidental mind. Anyhow, no sooner did they get a glimpse at me than they stood not on the order of their going, but went at once. Out went the light, and, also, out went they, through the window by which they had entered, and that with a show of agility which did them credit. I caught up that wretched stick, rushed after them in the darkness, and had the satisfaction of giving someone a pretty smart crack upon the head as he dropped from the sill on to the pavement below. I am not sure, but I fancy it was the lengthy one.

Striking a light I looked to see what damage had been done. So far as I could discover the only thing which was missing was the God of Fortune, to which