Her behaviour did not betray any
symptoms of embarrassment when she encountered the Captain lying on
the floor, but, planting one icy-cold high-heeled shoe on his chest
and the other on his cheek, she stepped on him as if he had been an
orthodox cushion or footstool, purposely placed there for her
convenience. A hollow exclamation, which died away in a gasp, issued
from the bath, as the woman, with a swift movement of her arms, threw
something over it. What followed, the Captain could only surmise, but
from the muttered imprecations and splashes in the water, it seemed to
him that nothing short of murder was taking place. After a while the
noises in the bath grew feebler and feebler, and when they finally
ceased, the woman, with a sigh of relief, shook the water from her
arms, and, stepping off the Captain, moved towards the fireplace. The
spell which had, up to the present, enthralled the unfortunate
Captain, was now broken, and, thinking that his ghostly visitor had
betaken herself right away, he sat up. He had hardly done so before
the darkness was rudely dissipated, and, to his horror, he saw
looking at him, from a distance of only a few feet, a white, luminous
face, presumably that of a woman. But what a woman! What a
devil!--what a match for the most lurid of any of Satan's male
retainers. Yet she was not without beauty--beauty of the richest
sensual order; beauty that, had it been flesh and blood, would have
sent men mad. Her hair, jet black, wavy, and parted in the centre, was
looped over her shell-like ears, which were set unusually low and far
back on her head; her nose was of that rare and matchless shape termed
Grecian; and her mouth--in form, a triumph of all things heavenly, in
expression, a triumph of all things hellish.
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