Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/231

Rh already to have advanced to perfect clarity of utterance. He repeated his inquiry.

“Where is the Great Joss? I am in haste. Tell me quick.”

“Untie my hands and throat.”

That was my reply. The words, as they came from my lips, assumed a guise in which they could hardly have been recognisable for what they were meant to be, so inarticulately were they spoken. Whether he understood them I could not say, he ignored their meaning if he did. One of his satellites—the one who had struck me—hazarded an observation, with a deep inclination of his head, but his superior paid no heed to him whatever. He persisted in his previous inquiry.

“Tell me, where is the Great Joss?”

With an effort I mumbled an answer.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Evidently the reply did not fall in with his view at all; he disbelieved it utterly.

“Tell me where is the Great Joss, or the woman shall die.”

His meaning was unmistakable. He stretched out his finger towards Miss Purvis with a gesture. That he was capable of murder I had not the slightest doubt. That he would make nothing of having an innocent, unoffending girl tortured to death before my eyes I believed. Fleet Street might be within a hop, skip, and a jump; but, for the present, this spot in its immediate neighbourhood was delivered over to the methods of the East. If I could not afford this monster, who had sprung from some unknown oriental haunt of merciless fiends, the satisfaction he demanded, I might expect the worst to happen before help could come. With him I felt assured that in such matters one could rely upon the word being followed by the blow.

I made an effort to appease him.