Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/97

Rh But Pollie was not to be so easily persuaded. She stood stock still, evincing every disposition to shake herself free from his grasp.

“Let me go! let me go!”

The taller of the two newcomers uttered some words in a language which I had never heard before. Giving Pollie no time to guess what he was about to do he produced a cloth and threw it over her head. The other man sprang at her like a wild animal. Between them they began to bear her to the ground. I was not going to stand quietly by and see that kind of thing go on. I may not be big, and I do not pretend to be brave, but I am not an absolute coward all the same.

The smaller of the newcomers had taken me by the arm. I did my best to make him wish that he had not. I flew at him.

“You villain! Let me go, or I’ll scratch your eyes out!”

The little wretch—he was little; I do not believe he was any bigger than I was, or perhaps I should not be alive to tell this tale—actually tried to throw a cloth over my head. When I put up my arms, and stopped his doing that, he began to dab it against my mouth, as if to prevent my screaming. There was a nasty smell about that cloth. It was damp. All of a sudden it struck me that he was trying to take away my senses with chloroform, or some awful stuff of that kind. And then didn’t I start shrieking; I should think they might have heard me on the other side of the bridge.

In less than no time—or so it seemed to me—a policeman came round the corner. Apparently he was the only one who had heard; but he was quite enough.

“What’s the matter here?” How I could have kissed him for his dear official voice. “What’s the meaning of all this?”