Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/260

248 notice was taken of Luke’s inquiry. Instead, the whole place was filled all at once with a variety of discordant sounds. They seemed to proceed from the monsters which were ranged about the central figure. At the same time their arms began to move, their heads to waggle, their mouths to open and shut, their eyes to roll. Possibly, to the untaught savage, such an exhibition might have appeared impressive. It reminded me too much of the penny-in-the-slot figures whose limbs are set in motion by the insertion of a coin. The slight awe which I had felt for the figures vanished for good and all.

“That’s enough of it,” I observed. “I like them better when they’re still. Would whoever’s pulling the strings mind taking a rest?”

I had a sort of a kind of an idea that by someone or other my remark was not relished so much as it deserved. A suspicion that in some quarter there was a feeling of resentment that what had been intended to confound me should have ended in a fizzle. The noises stopped; the figures ceased to move; it was as if the coin-in-the-slot had given us our pennyworth. Instead, something which, from my point of view, was very much more objectionable began to happen.

From the immediate neighbourhood of the figure on the throne snakes’ heads began to peep. There was no mistake that they were all alive-oh! The evil-looking brutes began to slither over the sides. I never