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 mercy! not the needle again! You are killing me!…not the needle!”…

Soames staggered on to his own room and literally fell within—as across the cave of the golden dragon, behind him, someone—one whom he did not see but only heard, one whom with all his soul he hoped had not seen him—passed rapidly.

Another shriek, more frightful than any which had preceded it, struck the trembling man as an arrow might have struck him. He dropped upon his knees at the side of the bed and thrust his fingers firmly into his ears. He had never swooned in his life, and was unfamiliar with the symptoms, but now he experienced a sensation of overpowering nausea; a blood-red mist floated before his eyes, and the floor seemed to rock beneath him like the deck of a ship.…

That soul-appalling outcry died away, merged into a sobbing, moaning sound which defied Soames’ efforts to exclude it.…He rose to his feet, feeling physically ill, and turned to close his door.…

They were dragging someone—someone who sighed, shudderingly, and whose sighs sank to moans, and sometimes rose to sobs,—across the apartment of the dragon. In a faint, dying voice, the woman spoke again:—

“Not Mr. King!…not Mr. King!…Is there no God in Heaven!…Ah! spare me…spare”…

Soames closed the door and stood propped up