Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/224

212 the ruffians at their work; or the miscreants, penetrating into the inner room, had found her there and dragged her out. However it had been, there she was, trussed and gagged against the wall upon my right. They had shown no respect for a woman, but had handled her precisely as they had done St. Luke and me. My brain felt as if it would have burst as I thought of the indignity with which they must have used her, and of the agony, mental and bodily, she must have endured, and be enduring still. Her face—her pretty face!—was white as the sheet of paper on which I write. Her eyes—her lovely eyes!—were closed. I hoped that she had fainted, and so was oblivious of suffering and shame. Yet, as I watched her utter stillness, I half feared she might be dead.

The gentlemen who were responsible for this pleasant piece of work were three. They were there before me in plain sight. It was with an odd sense that it was just what I had expected that I recognised the trio who had already paid me a visit in the silent watches of the night. There was the imposing, elderly, bald-headed gentleman, who represented length without breadth; there, also, were his two attendant satellites. How to account for their assiduous interest in my unpretending office was beyond my power. Nor did I understand why it should have been necessary to use quite such drastic measures against the lady, St. Luke, and myself. Still less—I admit it frankly—when I observed their conspicuous lack of avoirdupois, did I gather how they had managed to make of us so easy a prey. Under ordinary conditions I should have been quite willing to take the three on single-handed. The truth probably was that St. Luke and I had unwittingly played into their dexterous hands. Had we not been engaged in matching ourselves against each other we should have been more than a match for them. But when they came in, and found the sailor man upon the floor