“For God’s sake—!”
“I am the best shot in the Midlands with one of these.” He raised the weapon with a marksman’s care and confidence.
The animal, surprised by our voices, had reared its head in our direction, and now, instead of making off, scrambled down from the window arch and came loping toward us, growling, as if it actually contemplated an attack. Its fur on end swelled it to twice its size. Maryvale shifted his aim quickly, and the clustering hills resounded with the echo of his shot.
But the cat, unhurt, sprang toward us spitting and snarling, with eyes that flashed. I realized when I saw those intensely flaming eyes that green, not red, must be the colour of hell-fire.
Again the revolver blazed, with no effect save to cause the beast to give a high leap toward Maryvale, full length upright, all fours spread wide and clawing, mouth hissing. Maryvale shot point-blank in the face of the animal, and the beast was enveloped in a fiery cloud, but it dropped to earth on all fours, fled unscathed past us, and disappeared beneath a bush.
Maryvale lifted his hands to the dark and empty sky. “Too strong—too strong—the infernal magic of this place.”
I took a step toward the man, grasped the weapon, tugged to get it from him, cried, “What did you expect? You’ve loaded this pistol with blank cartridges.”
“Blanks?” he shouted. “Never a bit.”
Twenty feet away a straggling thin branch of a rowan tree came over the western wall and was ebony against the sky, having at the end some finger-clumps of leaves. Maryvale took quick aim, eyes protruding grotesquely, and fired; the branch trembled and one of the leaf stems fell away. Twice again the pistol rang out; the branch itself suddenly hung down, all but severed by the final bullet.
Maryvale laughed wildly with tempestuous eyes. “I should have known it was impossible. You cannot kill the soul of Parson Lolly with lead.”