Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/234

222 If, as is possible, you are suffering from a genuine grievance, I shall be glad to be of any assistance I can. But you must first give me clearly to understand what it is you’re after. At present I am completely in the dark.”

“The woman must die.”

The fellow was impervious to reason. He repeated the words with a passionless calm which added to their significance. Again I screamed at him:

“You had better be careful!”

He ignored me utterly. Turning to his collaborators he issued an order which was promptly obeyed. Loosing Miss Purvis’ bonds they stretched her out upon the table, and tied her on it with a dexterous rapidity which denoted considerable practice in similar operations. I observed the proceedings with sensations which are not to be described. I had hoped that at the last extremity rage would supply me with strength with which to burst the cords which prevented me from going to her assistance. I had hoped in vain. The only result of my frenzied struggles was to increase the tension, and to make my helplessness, if possible, still clearer.

“Help! help!” I yelled. “Help!”

I was aware that I was the only person who lived in the house, and that the hour was yet too early for the occupants of offices to have arrived. But I was actuated by a forlorn hope that my voice might reach someone who was in a position to render aid. None came. What I had endured, and was enduring, had robbed my voice of more than half its power. And though I shouted with what, at the moment, was the full force of my lungs, I was only too conscious that my utterance was too inarticulate, too feeble, to allow my words to travel far.

As for that attenuated fiend, who, it was clear, was not by any means so long as he was wicked, he regarded my maniacal contortions with a degree of