Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/223

Rh ease them I dragged at the cord which was about my throat. One thing seemed plain, if the worst came to the worst I should experience no difficulty in committing suicide. Apparently I had only to let my head forward to be strangled.

By way of making the condition of affairs entirely satisfactory something sharp had been forced into my mouth, which not only acted as a gag, effectually preventing my uttering a sound, but which made it difficult for me to breathe. That it was cutting me was made plain by the blood which I was compelled to swallow.

As I have said, it was not at first that I had a clear perception of the personal plight that I was in. When it dawned on me at last I had a morbid satisfaction in learning that I was not alone in it. Someone so close on the left as to be almost touching me was in a similar plight. It was St. Luke. I had mistily imagined that that seafaring associate of the more and more mysterious Benjamin Batters had been in some way responsible for my misadventure. Not a bit of it. I had wronged the honest man. So far as I could perceive, his plight was an exact reproduction of my own. The same attention had been paid to his physical comfort; only apparently the gag had been so placed in his mouth as to leave him more freedom to gasp, and to grunt, and to groan.

Who, then, was responsible for this pretty performance? What man, or men, had I so wronged as to be deserving this return? The problem was a nice one. I looked for the solution.

I found it, and, in doing so, found also something else, which filled me with such a tumult of passion that I actually momentarily forgot the egregious position I was in.

Miss Purvis had been served as I had been.

She had either, wondering at my delay, or startled by the noise, peeped into the office, and so disturbed