About the procedure of the principal villain there was no such room for doubt. There was a frankness in his proceedings which caused me now to shriek at him in half imbecile, because wholly impotent, rage; and 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.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE GOD OUT OF THE MACHINE.
How it all happened I have but a misty notion.
My eyelids were twitching; my eyes were neither shut nor open. I could not look, nor hide from myself the knowledge of what was being done. I saw the silent woman, the whiteness of her flesh, the gleam of steel, the tall figure stooping over her. There were the attendant demons, one on either side. All was still. My voice had perished, I could no longer utter a sound. And all that was done by the man with the knife was done in silence.
So acute was the stillness I listened for the entry of the steel into the flesh—as if that were audible!
Then, on a sudden, all was pandemonium. Of the exact sequence in which events occurred, I have, as I have said, but a shadowy impression.
Something struck the fellow with the knife full in the face. What it was at the moment I could not tell. I learnt afterwards that it was a soft, peaked sailor’s cap, thrown by a strong wrist, with unerring aim. The impact was not a slight one. Taken unawares the tall man staggered; he had been hit clean between the eyes. He put his hand up to his face, as if bewildered. Before he had it down again he had been seized by the shoulders, flung to the ground, and the knife wrenched from him.
His assailant was Captain Lander.