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 against it, striving to
fight down the deathly sickness which assailed him. His clothes were
sticking to his clammy body, and a cold perspiration was trickling down
his forehead and into his eyes. The sensation at his heart was unlike
anything that he had ever known; he thought that he must be dying.
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