Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/237

Rh now to shut my eyes in terror of what he might be doing next.

By way of a commencement he took from some receptacle in his clothing what turned out to be a curiously shaped lamp. This he placed on the table at Miss Purvis’ feet. Having lit it by the commonplace means of a match from a box of mine which was on the mantelpiece, he threw on it, at short intervals, what was probably some variation of what firework vendors describe as “coloured fire.” The result was that surrounding objects assumed unusual hues, and the room was filled with a vapour, which was not only obscuring, but malodorous. From his bosom he produced an evil-looking knife. Laying a defiling hand upon his victim’s throat, partly by sheer force, partly by the aid of his knife, he tore her garments open nearly to the waist. Bending over her, he seemed to be marking out some sort of design with the point of his blade on the bare skin, in the region of the heart. Drawing himself upright he suffered his voluminous sleeves to fall back, and bared his arms, as a surgeon might do prior to commencing an operation.

Then he leaned over her again; his knife held out.