The vile words stung me for a moment, but when he wrenched my hand from his wrist, scratching at it savagely with his nails, I cried with redoubled fury: "Don't you dare to whip him, don't you dare."
"Whip him? Whip him?" he purred with bland enquiry, "Who can be meant by 'him'? Not Master Robert surely? One would not dream of punishing one whose only sin is to be led into evil paths by another. One must tie him up, to be sure, lest he should be led into the evil path of interfering with a certain little duty one owes to one's Lord, one's little son, and one's own poor self. Quick, off with your blouse and skirt!"
He gnashed his teeth. Even at that moment it fascinated me to watch how curiously the muscles under his cheek twitched when he was on cruelty bent. There must be a cruelty muscle.
I stood before him in vest and petticoat, pale and limp with fright, a pitiable, cowering object: the sort of rabbit the serpent loves. I had felt and seen hard blows that same day; now too Aunt Jael's masterpieces flitted in dour procession through my mind: the rope end, the day I sucked the acid drops, the three blows of the thorned stick after Robinson Crewjoe, the great flogging with the butt end of her stick when I said that Proverbs was the nastiest book in the Bible. These were as nothing to what was coming now. I lifted my eyes and for one second looked into his. I shall never again, please God, see a look so cruel, so craven, so cad-like. There was spite in it, and hate, and fear. Yet his fear was as nothing to mine.
Whip in hand he came towards me to catch hold. There could be no hope. Aunt Martha was not to be seen; in any case what could she have done? Albert was kneeling hopefully on the bed, Robbie's bed, to get a better view of the sport. Robbie was bound hand and foot, looking hate at Uncle Simeon; wretchedness, sympathy and encouragement at me. His lips were tight together so that he should not cry. Here was Simeon Greeber approaching me. He looked like the devil; the idea seized me, he was the devil, the Personal Devil himself; now I knew. But here lay hope: through the devil's enemy, the Lord God Almighty. Moved by an insane impulse, I went down on my knees on the bare floor.
"Oh, God," I cried, "save me from him, now, somehow! Save me, and if it be Thy will, strike him dead!"
I was cut rudely short. He clutched my shoulder, his claw striking cold and damp through my vest, and pulled me roughly to my feet.
"My Lord, my Lord, how she blasphemes! One will avenge it, Lord, one will avenge." He dragged me into the middle of the room.
In that moment a strange thing happened. The sudden sweetness of an old Christmas hymn smote our ears. It was the carollers again: they must have moved up the Quay, for now they were singing just outside the house: